An Analysis of State Fragility: A Perspective on the State-Citizen Relations in Southeast Nigeria

Abstract

This paper advances the postcolonial debate on Nigeria, with thematic analysis of state-citizen relations in Southeast Nigeria. The intellectual need to historicize the antagonism between the state and the citizens of the Southeast precipitated the investigation into those facile assumptions that the Nigerian state is not autochthonous, that it is congenitally conflicted, divisive, repressive and ultimately, antithetical to the Southeast. The study was underpinned on John Locke's liberal perspective on social contract, and it interrogated the legitimacy of the postcolonial Nigerian state, underscored its colonially inherited character. The Lockean perspective argues that if the state fails in its political imperative, a rebellion against the state will be considered necessary. The study drew from textual instruments and thematic contents on political legitimacy and conflict paradigms, while establishing; that the Independence Constitution was an egotist design for imperial perpetuity; that the postcolonial state is a political design to perpetuate a North-political-dominance for consolidation of imperial clutch on Nigeria; and finally, it established the nexus between the capricious character of the colonial state and the repressive character of the postcolonial Nigeria towards the people of the Southeast. It further justifies the logic of anti-citizen and antinational biases that have led to civil disobedience and civil sabotage, and consequently, state fragility in the Southeast of Nigeria. The study recommended among others, allocation of benign attention to the Southeast region, regional inclusion, or terminally, consider a regional plebiscite to enable the people of the Southeast decide the propriety of their continuous stay in Nigeria.