A Tale of Two Africas: Nigeria and South Africa as Contrasting Visions

Nigeria and South Africa provide the socioeconomic and political contrasts in the African condition. Some of these contrasts can be demonstrated in the following dialectics: Nigeria is the Africa of human resources, South Africa is a land of mineral resources; Nigeria is repellant to European settlement; South Africa is a magnet for such settlement; Nigeria is a mono-racial society, South Africa is a multiracial society; Nigeria is grappling with the politics of religion, South Africa's is pre-occupied with the politics of secularism; Nigeria is Africa's largest exporter of oil, South Africa is Africa's largest consumer of oil; Nigeria is a paradigm of indigenization, South Africa is a paragon of Westernization. Building on these contrasts, Professor Ali Mazrui, master of the dialectical approach to socio-political analysis, demonstrates how the two most influential countries between the Niger and the Cape of Good Hope are alternative faces of Africa. _______________________ Professor