ABSTRACT
For decades, Somalia has been one of the poorest, most war-torn nations in the world, a classic case of a failed state. The stateless Somalia has been facing bloody civil wars, growing domestic turmoil, inter-clan fighting, factional rule, religious fundamentalism, famine and a socio-economic crisis. There is general consensus that the post-colonial state in Africa has largely failed to cater to the needs and aspirations of its people. Collapsed states are typified by an absence of authority, institutions, values, law and order, among others. State failure can flow from many sources, political circumstances, such as conflicts, wars, colonial and Cold War legacies and policy failures. Like all African states, except Ethiopia and Liberia, the modern Somali state is the creation of the European conquest and colonization of Africa in the nineteenth century. Modern Somalia was born out of a union between the British Protectorate of Somaliland, and the Protectorate of Italian Somaliland.
