Every
real nation state is an historical product. It is, in Marx's celebrated phrase,
"the official resume of the antagonism in civil society", but under
historically determinate circumstances. As such, it is the product of the
historically specific constellation of class relations and social conflicts in
which it is implicated.
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| *President Buhari |
It may, therefore, indeed, it must, if it is not to rest on its
monopoly of the means of coercion alone, incorporate within its own structure,
the interests not only of the dominant but of the subordinate classes. In this
quite specific sense, then, every real nation state has an inherently relative
independence, including, as well, the independence to understand the dynamics
of its self-made domestic crises. In consequence, therefore, the general
characteristics of the Nigerian nation state today may be seen in terms of the
enormity of its domestic crises and social contradictions.
