ABSTRACT
For many post-colonial states, the question of state identity remains a crucial issue. Governments of newly independent states were often confronted with the reality that their territorial identity was inherited from colonial imposition. They also realised that in such circumstance a sense of shared identity needs to be invented in order to bind and hold together different sets of people, often with distinct ethnic and religious identities, within a united entity called a nation-state. Such an identity is also required in order to give a distinct meaning to their new status as an independent and sovereign political entity, different but equal to that of their former colonial masters. The construction of a national identity even becomes more imperative as governments of these new states are obliged to project the image of an indigenous government that represents the interests of local people rather than alien groups. In that context, the construction of a national identity and common consciousness, upon which the new political community will be based and organised, serves not only as a raison d’être for the creation of the state itself but also as an important basis for the legitimacy of new indigenous rulers.
