GLOBALIZATION AND THE AFRICAN DILEMMA

Abstract

This paper states that while globalization had a hopeful ring for the developing countries in general and African countries in particular, it also promised new challenges and new risks. There was the hope that close integration with the world economy, through rapid liberalization of trade investment and finance, would be the recipe for rapid growth and prosperity for the common people, it was also considered that national economies of African countries and developing countries at large would be strengthened which will find their rightful place alongside those of the more advanced countries. However, given the dynamics of globalization, Africa will continue to miss the ample opportunities that the new international economic power and order have presented. The crushing external debt burden on African countries compounded the problem. It is quintessential to stress that the post-colonial state in Africa is too central to the development process to be ignored in the discourse on how Africa can gain from the emerging world capitalist system. The Nigerian state in particular and the African states generally, have to be restructured. That way, Nigeria (and other African countries) may be put in good stead to reposition itself in the emerging world economic order. (Humanities Review: 2001 1(1): 74-80)