In 1960, Wellesley College invited eminent scholars (Africanists!) and diplomats to discuss the question: “Does Africa Exist?” The symposium was organized to resolve “Whether or not Africa really exists as any sort of political, economic, cultural, or other concept.“ The challenge facing the experts was to determine whether Africa constitutes an entity, whether it has a real ethnic, geographical, economic, cultural, or political identity. Fortunately, most of the speakers agreed with the late Ralph Bunche that “There is an Africa seen as a continent, as a physical entity which takes concrete political and economic shape.“ That Africa, Bunche argued, is exploding onto the international political scene with an increasingly militant and demonstrable renaissance in terms of heightened and unified aspirations for true selfdetermination, human rights, rapid economic transformation, and the assertion of a collective dignity and unity for all peoples of African descent.

It is the passion for equality which is at the root of sedition.… When one begins with an initial error it is inevitable that one should end badly. —Aristotle Leadership succession and regime change lie at the center of two perennial problems of governance: (1) how to ensure the political continuity of any regime without endangering the political stability of the political community; (2) how to protect both the regime and the political community against the natural disposition of those in power to manipulate their office so that they could extend their terms of office or succeed themselves against the provisions of written or unwritten rules of managing political power and succession rights. There can be little doubt, then, that the political acts that surround leadership succession and regime change constitute a most serious aspect of political life in any society. In all political systems in general, and in African politics in particular, such acts constitute an important index of the development or deterioration of politics. The renewed focus on Africa since the middle 1950s as a subject of political inquiry and theorizing has contributed greatly to the existing body of literature on political development, modernization and related subfields of Comparative Politics. Unfortunately, this rather extensive body of literature has not provided us with a definitive knowledge of the dynamics of social and political change. In this regard, major events in African politics have continued to cast doubts on the validity of many an earlier theoretical formulation and expectation.

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A social scientist once described Nigerian political behavior and culture in terms of a continual ability to move dangerously closest to the edge of disaster before pulling back just in time to avoid falling into the deep. Nigerians in high and low places have a passion for insisting on the absolute rightness of their positions and claims sometimes with little regard to the consequences for others as well as for themselves. Sometimes groups in the nation act as if they will rather be dead right than heed the political necessity of mutual accommodation and prudent compromise. The Daily Times Opinion of April 29, recalls Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher (1588-1679) when it declared that “Nigerians are brutish and nasty. They are contentious and cantankerous. They are irreverent. And they are ungovernable. . . . [They] are an intensely political people, the more so today, when the promise of a return to civilian government has understandably led to the flexing of muscles by all manner of interest groups.” This is national high-wire politics at its best! But it is also dangerous politics at its worst. It reflects an ingrained political attitude about which more should be learned.

In 1960, Wellesley College invited eminent scholars (Africanists!) and diplomats to discuss the question: “Does Africa Exist?” The symposium was organized to resolve “Whether or not Africa really exists as any sort of political, economic, cultural, or other concept.“ The challenge facing the experts was to determine whether Africa constitutes an entity, whether it has a real ethnic, geographical, economic, cultural, or political identity. Fortunately, most of the speakers agreed with the late Ralph Bunche that “There is an Africa seen as a continent, as a physical entity which takes concrete political and economic shape.“ That Africa, Bunche argued, is exploding onto the international political scene with an increasingly militant and demonstrable renaissance in terms of heightened and unified aspirations for true selfdetermination, human rights, rapid economic transformation, and the assertion of a collective dignity and unity for all peoples of African descent.