Nigeria in the Fourth Republic: Confronting the Contemporary Political, Economic, and Social Dilemma,which was initiated and edited by distinguished Professor E. Ike Udogu to honor one of the best activists, engaged social scientists, and a nationally committed politician in Nigeria, a dedicated representative from Edo State, Honorable Professor Julius O. Ihonvbere, is a truly powerful book. This is an encyclopedic, a multidisciplinary, a philosophically profound, a nationally sound policy-framed book with distinguished and seasoned contributing scholars to address critical issues about the national question, the nature of the state formation, policy and permanency of the Nigerian crisis, faulty leadership, corruption, ethnic and religious conflicts and deteriorating health, social and economic conditions. All these combined negative factors have been paralyzing the stability and the progress of Nigeria, despite its oil-based capital and an important demographic portion of its able intellectuals.

This enriched analytical volume, which focuses on the Nigerian 4th Republic politics, embodies its claimed paradigmatic positive shifts and nationally examined policy within framework of good governance, pragmatism of liberal democracy, the Nigerian model, is a brilliantly well-articulated, well-thought, and a factually and historically based publication with strongly imagined solutions. It is a highly and urgently recommended reading for those who govern, Nigerian people, and the African and Nigerian intellectuals and entrepreneurs who are interested in deeply understanding what went wrong in the formation of the Nigerian federal state with its authoritarianism, and what is to be done.

The possible and potential salvation by creating a transformative leadership in Nigeria is a dialectically and structurally constructed argument, persuasively relevant and ideologically progressive, which every enlightened mind with intellectual curiosity and policymakers should possess, read, and adopt in their works, courses, and policy platforms. There is a lot to learn from the deep side of the Nigerian leadership, intellectuals, politics, history, and its ‘corky’ federalism. Intellectually, researchers will find this immense contribution from critical social scientists a gratifying reading.

Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo, Wells College

Nigeria in The Fourth Republic will be [an] asset for undergraduate and graduate students as well researchers and, indeed, the avid readers, who are very much interested in Nigeria’s economic, political, and social history. [R]eaders are rewarded with [an] excellent book on Nigeria, Africa’s most populous and oil rich nation. Therefore, the Editor as well as the contributors to the edited volume...deserve unlimited praise for their hard work, which will go a long way to contribute to the vast number of existing books and impressive scholarly research on the country, which attained its independence from British colonial rule in 1960.

African and Asian Studies (AAS)