ABSTRACT
This chapter describes, in a modest way, the process of producing ever more accurate scholarly and policy understanding with regard to this very complicated socio-legal subject. It develops systematically an analytical case for the establishment of an African Union (AU) Special Commission on National Minorities as a way of beginning a viable process of resolving the national minority problem that underlies the structural legitimacy crisis. The chapter describes the nature of the national minority problem within the postcolonial African state. It discusses the normative imperative of rejuvenating the postcolonial African state through its righting and restructuring. The chapter also develops – in as full a fashion as space allows – a case for the establishment of a particular kind of inter-African institution, i.e. the Special Commission on National Minorities, to facilitate and bolster the normatively imperative process of righting, restructuring – and therefore rejuvenating, the postcolonial African state.
