POOR EXPLORATION OF CRITICAL JUNCTURE AS THE BANE OF INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA

Vincent Chinedu Okeke, Gerry Ifeanyi Oginyi

Abstract


Critical juncture is a confluence of factors that disrupts the existing political and economic balance in a state. It is a double edged-sword that can cause a sharp turn in the trajectory of a nation. That is, it can cause a radical break from extractive institution that causes underdevelopment and poverty to inclusive institutions that favours growth and development in a state and vice versa. Africa is a continent least able to explore world’s major critical junctures, and her independence cum elections for over 6 (six) decades, and remain a poverty striking continent owing to the re-creation of extractive institutions by her leaders. It is against this backdrop, that this work adopts a hermeneutic method and thus, identified lack of political centralization and elitism as the bane of institutional development in Africa. It is our conclusion that political centralization and an overthrow of the elite by the common people would be the springboard for institutional development in Africa.

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