ABSTRACT

What has become clear in the last three decades is that the state remains central to the overall process of reconstruction and accumulation. In the struggle to rebuild the nation-state, construct identities, and build new platforms of inclusion, participation, and politics, the state remains a critical factor and actor. This is not unusual or peculiar to Africa (Ake, 1978, p. 65). Historically, the state has been central to the processes of class formation, growth, accumulation, and development. Thus, the project of unmediated destatization sponsored by the multilateral in the 1970s through the 1980s was not only misguided but also dangerous to the enormous task of growth and development in Africa. Yet, the debate on the nature of the state in Africa seemed to have ended rather abruptly.1 It is interesting to note that no clear political positions were adopted in terms of understanding the specifics of state power and their implications for growth, development, stability and progress in the continent. There is no doubting the fact that as a precipitate of the continent's historical experiences and the realities of dependence and underdevelopment, the state has come to play a major role in the political economy of African social formations. It should have been expected therefore, that in the struggle to reverse underdevelopment, mobilize the masses, lay a viable foundation for self-reliance and self-

sustainment and provide for the basic human needs of the vast majority, the state would play a positive role.2