Special Issue on Emerging Africa - Need for a Paradigm Shift

The African continent is facing a number of ethical, administrative, humanitarian, socio-economic and political crises that reflect the status of its challenges as an emerging global development giant. The recent decline in governance, rising corruption and conflicts, especially the new trends of military coups in Mali and Egypt that overthrew existing democracies and threatened to reverse the advances made in social science researches calls into question the sustainability and stability of existing paradigms in managing the African state in the 21^st century. In the context of the post 2015 debate, the existing crisis has tended to question why the traditional social science theories of development are not working to enhance the ability and capacity of state institutions to deliver on people’s needs. On top of this state failure, the academia in the Faculty of Arts, humanities, General studies, social sciences is not serving the purpose of research-into-use to contribute to the sustainable development of the continent and its residents in a manner that will stabilize democratic institutions and bring about sustainable development paradigms that will drive the march towards the realization of Millennium development Goals, in less than two years from now. There is a need for the academia to grapple with the challenges of theoretical, philosophical, administrative, political and socio-economic development facing the continent as a research-into-use question.

The progression from the enduring efforts of African countries to stabilize and achieve the sustainable   management of its human and natural resources has created the dilemma of corruption and underdevelopment. In the midst of huge resources and the large promise after independence that the elites hold for the people of Africa, post independence crisis of development and underdevelopment continues to sabotage the hopes of a better tomorrow in the context of the MDGS. The fear expressed is that if the present un-working and un-workable paradigm is not changed, the continent and its people may not move as fast as they should despite the promise that the continent holds as the new ‘Africa Emerging from the ashes of the past’. The philosophical and intellectual enquiry framework that defines these challenges to the emergence could be elaborated into three critical fields of socio-political and humanistic discourse:

How the African endemic crisis is "government-centered."

The present crisis in Africa revolves around the inability of the state to deliver governance and development benefits to the people in Africa. Government serves only the selfish interests of the state elites and not the people’s. This has resulted in extreme poverty, conflicts and wars. The introduction of democracy in Africa has failed to take root and stabilize because of cronyism, patronage, corruption and abuse of   state resources by the elites, fostered by a philosophy of government monopoly of development planning and non-involvement of the people.

In this special issue, we intend to invite front-line researchers and authors to submit original researches and review articles on exploring Emerging Africa - Need for a Paradigm Shift. Potential topics include, but not limited to:

• Exploring Africa’s development challenges through the prisms of the social sciences
• Exposure of the political theory of the paradigm and human development in Africa
• Good governance and the challenges of social work and public service delivery in Africa
• The religious dimension to conflict management in Africa
• The philosophical exploration of the ethics of governance, corruption and leadership
• Arts, languages and communication in the African development context
• Building partnerships between Africa and China-as enduring development options

All manuscript for this special issue should be submitted electronically to the OJPS Paper Submission System. Authors should indicate that their manuscript are being submitted for the special by adding “-special issue” after the paper title when filing the paper title in the paper submission system. A copy of the manuscript should be emailed in PDF format to Dr.Ani Casimir Kingston Chukwunonyelum (Email:cepperngo@yahoo.com).

Important Dates:

Submission of Manuscripts Deadline: August 12th, 2014

Tentative Publication Date: October, 2014

Editors:

①Dr. Ani Casimir Kingston Chukwunonyelum, Editor in Chief of ‘‘Emerging Africa - Need for a paradigm shift’. Department of Philosophy/Institute of African studies, University of Nigeria/Member, Editorial Board OJPP and OJPS, SCIRP.

Email:  cepperngo@yahoo.com

② Professor Maduabuchi Dukor, Department of Philosophy Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.

Email:madudukor@yahoo.com

③ Prof. Ignatius Ani Madu, Department of Geography/Dean elect, Faculty of the social sciences. University of Nigeria Nsukka. EnuguState,NigeriaEmail: ignatius.madu@unn.edu.ng, ignatiusmadu@yahoo.com   

④ Dr. Olatunji Alabi Oyeshile, Snr. Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan.

Email: alabi14@yahoo.com  

⑤ Professor. Bonaventure   Umeogu, Senior Lecturer/Head of the Department of Philosophy, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.

Email: christusbona@yahoo.co.uk