The Sub-Saharan African Postcolonial Politics: A Daunting Present

Abstract

This volume entitled, Sub-Saharan Political Cultures of Deceit in Language, Literature, and the Media, Volume 11: Across National Contexts, is the second in a two-part series. The key thrust of the two volumes, which complement each other, is to offer reflective insights on the political cultures of deceit which define the present-day postcolonial Sub-Saharan African nations. The twofold series underline the significance of debating the circumstances in which political cultures of deceit arise and the ultimate problems emanating from such practices. Most essentially, the two-volume series foreground the idea that politics has a strong bearing on the socio-economic environment which shapes the existential realities of the postcolonial Sub-Saharan people. Ostensibly, the postcolonial tribulations such as disillusionment, conflicts, corruption, lack of development, poverty, grotesque elements of power, greed, egocentrism, political arrogance, unemployment, economic challenges, among other relentless forms of humanitarian crises are traceable to the issues regarding the (mis)governance and autocracy, prevalent in the postcolonial Sub-Saharan African countries. It is this background and the realisation of the fundamental influence of postcolonial politics which makes it a critical subject of academic scrutiny. The research in this direction is essentially required especially now, at a time when African scholars make critical conversations and frantic efforts towards attaining decolonial environments for the previously colonised people. The central and troubling questions these two volumes pose include, what is the nature of African politics in the hands of former liberators who inherited power from the white-settlers at independence? How does the postcolonial politics shape the quality of lived socio-economic realities and political experiences of the ordinary Sub-Saharan Africans today? Volume two precisely reflects on four related thematic areas which together speak about the prevalent cultures of deceit. The analyses and recommendations submitted in this volume will widen the scope of further research aiming at rethinking the postcolonial African futures from a wide-ranging but related perspectives.