As a legal-constitutional system of government of fairly rigid rules and practices, federalism in Africa might not have a positive image. But the overall relevance and utility of federalism for state-building on the continent has been grossly underestimated, according to Eghosa E. Osaghae, Professor of Comparative Politics at University of Ibadan.

"State failure is a harvest of the anomalies of colonial acts of creation. It is is a consequence of the fact that the contemporary African state is neither African nor state", Professor Osaghae argues in a new paper co-published by NAI and Uppsala University Department of Peace and Conflict Research.

In the paper, entitled Federal Solutions to State Failure in Africa External link, opens in new window., he shows that federal solutions offer the relevant framework and principles for rebuilding the state as a decolonial construct of collective ownership, shared rule and self-rule. The central argument is that the unravelling of the received state, whose failure is manifest in the contestations, conflicts and wars, and overall inability to function, provides the opportunity for renegotiating and re-bargaining the state.

"Federalism is a system of continuous bargaining", Osaghae states and examplifies with cases that have offered opportunities for state-rebuilding bargaining. Such as the separatist agitation by Anglophones in the southern regions of Cameroon, and the aftermath of the overthrow of President al-Bashir in Sudan.