Dreams and nightmares of nationhood: the Obi Igwara special memorial event to mark 50 years of decolonization in Africa, 1960-2010

This section is dedicated to the special event that was organised at the London School of Economics (LSE) by the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN) on Wednesday 2 November 2011 in the context of the fourth bi-annual Obi Igwara Memorial Lecture. The previous year, 2010, before the next Igwara Lecture came round, had been marked by celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of what has come to be called, ‘The Year of Africa’. This was the year 1960, when the processes of independence were accelerated. It was the year that saw seventeen new states being born in Africa, freed from European rule, as the ‘wind of change’ (in the memorable phrase of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan) blew through Europe and its overseas colonies.