Occasional Paper Series COD #3. Africa´s Political Justice Problem and the Politics of Justice in the Development Architecture

Whereas the fundamental problem of development in Africa had been construed in terms of strategies and principles locally designed or internationally imposed, yet the seeming failures of these concepts cannot be separated from their abilities to answer the critical question of justice in their formulation and practice. Hence the problem of the endemic susceptibility of African social and political life to injustices and perversions has affected the development architecture of Nigeria in particular, and many Africa nations generally. Evidently, certain technological, economic and political strategies of development that have worked elsewhere simply fail to positively impact on the lives of peoples, institutions and structures for social change in most of Africa in the light of ethnicity, corruption, bad leadership and insecurity. This paper examines the critical impacts of the justice shortfall on the developmental processes in Africa, insisting that the challenge necessitates a re-interrogation of the role of the human person in the singular task of development. (...)