In the very journal dry academic atmosphere in Nigeria today, The Constitution can be rated to be on top of intellectual discourse in Nigeria. The Editor, Sylvester Odion Akhaine, a Professor of Political Science at the Lagos State University, says it will soon be available in soft copy form via the organisation’s website but with a paywall.
The journal has published articles by eminent scholars such as Nzongola Ntalaja, Rita Abrahamsen, Sarah Bracking, Adebayo Williams, David Simon and Babatunde Zack-Williams among others. It is, therefore, not another rural journal circulating just around the local space.
Its March/June, Vol. 21, issues 1&2, 2021 edition buttresses this claim with its central theme of the national question. Although the contents favour the orthodox Marxist-Leninist framing of the national question, it is opening a nuance to the debate which scholars are obliged to explore in an era which Ernesto Laclau calls ‘militant particularism’ as opposed to the class analysis that preceded it. ‘Militant particularism’ has successfully enveloped the world with the crash of a binding narrative such as class analysis. With that has come a culture of questioning the state all over the world, including Nigeria. Managing that outcome has been a problem for most classical Marxists and radical platforms. Publishing essays on the national question as seen from classical Marxist analysis might, therefore, help its protagonists on handling the challenge.