Trade unions, burial societies, students, religious and gender movements, riots and mafias. Not to mention class. The kaleidoscope of African social movements is complex and broad. But their histories have strong common threads - the experience of past oppression and the constant struggle for an identity that will encompass survival. How have they contributed to the nature of African civil society and the formation of democracy? The chapters are a living dialogue on the interpretation of these movements, and a critical and analytical appraisal of the African intellectual heritage itself. The...

'Today we are taking a decisive step on the path of democracy,' the newly sworn-in President Olusegun Obasanjo told Nigerians on 27 May 1999. 'We will leave no stone unturned to ensure sustenance of democracy, because it is good for us, it is good for Africa, and it is good for the world.' Nigeria's Fourth Republic has survived longer than any of the previous three Republics, the most durable Republic in Nigeria's more than six decades of independence. At the same time, however, the country has witnessed sustained periods of violence, including violent clashes over the imposition of Sharia'h...