The challenges of sustainable development in post-colonial African states: a review of Adamu Usman’s Sieged

Abstract

This paper discusses and contributes to debates on the critical governance challenges faced by post-colonial African states such as bribery and corruption, lack of democratic and participatory governance, insecurity, lack of justice and equality before the law, and illiteracy as some of the impediments to sustainable development in Africa. These issues have been variously discussed by literary scholars with an attempt to portray and expose them. One such excellent attempt is Adamu Usman’s Sieged. This paper analyses some of the fundamental threads in Usman’s submissions on how lack of good governance and purposeful leadership remain the bane of African states. It then takes the analyses further by showing that no meaningful social, economic, political or environmental development can take place in Africa until African masses demand for good governance and engage in ideology-based social revolution in ending the reins of corrupt leadership.

Keywords: post-colonialism, politics, corruption, sustainable development, independence.