Encountering the Nigerian State

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction: Excess and Abjection in the Study of the African State

   • Ebenezer Obadare, Wale Adebanwi

   Pages 1-28

3. Deconstructing “Oluwole”: Political Economy at the Margins of the State

   • Olawale Ismail

   Pages 29-53

4. The Spatial Economy of Abjection: The Evacuation of Maroko Slum in Nigeria

   • Sheriff Folarin

   Pages 55-78

5. “Rotten English”: Excremental Politics and Literary Witnessing

   • Sarah L. Lincoln

   Pages 79-98

6. The Perils of Protest: State Repression and Student Mobilization in Nigeria

   • Bukola Akintola

   Pages 99-121

7. Vocalizing Rage: Deconstructing the Language of Antistate Forces

   • Azeez Olusola Olaniyan

   Pages 123-138

8. The Subaltern Encounters the State: OPC-State Relations 1999–2003

   • Omobolaji Olarinmoye

   Pages 139-154

9. The State as Undertaker: Power and Insurgent Media in Nigeria

   • Ayo Olukotun

   Pages 155-175

10. From Corporatist Power to Abjection: Labor and State Control in Nigeria

    • Emmanuel Remi Aiyede

    Pages 177-197

11. When the State Kills: Political Assassinations in Abacha’s Nigeria

    • Isaac Olawale Albert

    Pages 199-215

12. The Sharia Challenge: Revisiting the Travails of the Secular State

    • Rotimi Suberu

    Pages 217-241

13. Koma: A Glimpse of Life at the Edges of the State

    • Muhammad Kabir Isa

    Pages 243-253

14. Back Matter

    Pages 255-269

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Thisvolume advances extant reflections on the state constituted as the Ur-Power in society, particularly in Africa.It analyzes how various agents within the Nigerian society'encounter' the state - ranging from the most routine form of contact to thespectacular. While many recent collections have reheated the old paradigms - of the perils of federalism; corruption; ethnicity etc, our focus here is on encounter , that is, the nuance and complexity of how the state shapes society and vice-versa.Through this, wedepart from the standard state versus society approach that proves so limiting in explaining the African political landscape.

• Africa
• economy
• migration
• Nation
• politics
• Protest
• society

"Those looking for standard versions of nascent democratization, the weak or failing state, familiar models of state-society relations, or the liberating and liberalizing effects of civil society should look away! Imaginative, erudite, and thought-provoking, this is the sort of sustained engagement with the space between state and citizens that the study of Nigeria has been crying out for." - David Pratten, Director, African Studies Centre, Oxford University

"How do those who inhabit the often conflicted, turbulent, and chaotic worlds of postcolonial Africa apprehend those, inside and outside of the state, who exercise power to the point of excess or violence? Why has the Nigerian state in particular, occupying such a crucial space in the lives of all Nigerians, seemingly lost its restorative and redemptive powers for the Nigerian masses and middle classes? In their magisterial collection of essays, Adebanwi and Obadare offer some provocative, exciting and often counter-intuitive answers to these and other questions. Here is a book to savor, one which takes the notion of Nigerian lifeworlds very seriously whether in the slumworld of Maroko or on city streets with student protestors. At a moment (once again) when the future of Nigeria seems in question, here is a pathbreaking and foundational collection of essays by a posse of first rate intellectuals and scholars who have much to say about what that future might hold. A tour de force." - Michael Watts, Class of 63 Professor, University of California, Berkeley

• University of California, Davis, USA

  Wale Adebanwi

• University of Kansas, USA

  Ebenezer Obadare

WADE ADEBANWI is Assistant Professor of African Studies at the University of California, USA.
 
EBENEZER OBADARE is Assistant Professor of African Studies at the University of Kansas, USA. He is the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation award and considered a rising star in African studies.

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