ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses some of the key themes in Africa’s development two decades after the start of the decolonisation process. It considers the response to the United Nations’ economic plans for the continent, and discusses how certain countries adjusted to the freedoms they had earned at the start of another transformative decade, the 1960s. The majority of African states at the start of the 1980s had authoritarian governments. Some were military-backed and some were civilian. Senegal stood as one of Africa’s successes where stability and democracy were concerned. Paul Nugent suggests that it ‘has been a haven of political stability since independence’ despite the ‘low intensity guerilla insurgency in the Casamance region. Politically speaking, the 1980s started comparatively well for Nigeria. In October 1979, the Second Republic began after the summer’s elections had been contested by various political parties.
