ABSTRACT
A famous phrase that heralded the spurt of independence for African countries during the 1960s was that a "wind of change was sweeping the continent." Sub-Saharan Africa is "suffering an economic crisis of a magnitude unprecedented in its recent history". In this chapter, the author aims to examine the relationship of ethnic diversity, and to some extent population, to the crisis of statehood. He describes certain propositions, which less grandly should probably be called "assumptions" that inform the basis for his study. The author offers two pairings of concrete situations; one at the macro level of the state, comparing Nigeria and Somalia; and one at the micro level of small communities in Nigeria and Cameroon. The dominance in Nigeria of societies that interpret modern day politics through the historical structures of prebendal domains provide a formidable barrier to a historical conception of politics based on democratic relations.
