Political Economy of Resource, Human Security and Environmental Conflicts in Africa: A Concluding Remark

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the book. It argues that in many countries within Africa, the state has failed woefully in the quest to provide the social needs of the masses, thereby placing the masses on the desperate quest for economic resources. Unfortunately, in many African states, mineral resources are owned, explored and marketed by the machinery of the state. The problem often arises when the masses begin to challenge state access and ownership of resources that are domiciled within their ancestral land, communities and constituencies. Often the challenge and resistance to state ownership are generated by communal or group sense of exploitation, negligence and widespread poverty in the face of high resource endowment. The chapter maintains that the state in many parts of Africa has unleashed unlimited might upon social groups and natural resource agitators, thereby leading to the increased act of taking arms by such groups which have hitherto led to violent conflicts and the militarization of many African societies. It concludes with a summary of all the preceding chapters.