I was in secondary school when Britain granted Nigeria its independence. I have spent the 65 years since watching the same structural betrayal repeat.

Adeniyi A. Adebisi is an 87-year-old Nigerian author, former civil servant, business leader, management consultant, and public affairs commentator. He was still in secondary school when Nigeria gained political independence from Britain on 1 October 1960, and he has spent the decades since observing the country’s political, economic, and institutional development from the inside.

He served in Nigeria’s Federal Civil Service in the early years of the republic and later held senior finance and management roles with British Caledonian Airways and British Petroleum during the oil boom era. Over the course of more than four decades, he built and ran his own business and management consultancy. He also served on the statutory audit committees of publicly listed companies and was elected National Co-ordinator of the Shareholders’ Association of Nigeria, the largest shareholders’ association in Africa.

His interest in public affairs began early. As a primary school pupil, he bought the Daily Times newspaper for less than two pence. In his final year at Ife Grammar School, Ile-Ife, he served as Chief Librarian and Library Prefect. He remains, in his own words, “an addict of current affairs right from my childhood.”

In writing Africa's Underdevelopment: The Nigerian Predicament, he drew on history books, official commissions of inquiry, archival records, scholarly works, and classified official materials “which are not made public by their nature.” The result is a book that combines personal memory, institutional experience, and direct testimony.

Africa's Underdevelopment: The Nigerian Predicament — An Exposé

A Compendium of Problems, Solutions and Way Forward
Published by Harmony Publishing, 2024
ISBN 979-8340319906

Africa's Underdevelopment: The Nigerian Predicament is a forceful examination of the historical, political, and structural reasons Nigeria has remained underdeveloped since independence. The book argues that Nigeria’s condition is not accidental. It is the product of deliberate arrangements shaped by colonial interests, internal power structures, and a long-running pact between British and Fulani political interests.

Drawing on decades of professional experience and classified official material, Adebisi traces the evolution of Nigeria from pre-colonial societies through the British conquest and the independence era to the present day. He examines the role of jihad, the Fulani trajectory in Nigerian politics, British colonial policy, post-independence constitutional breakdown, and the structural entrenchment of underdevelopment across Nigeria and Africa.

The book is both diagnostic and prescriptive. It identifies the forces behind the crisis and sets out possible ways forward, including constitutional restructuring, federal realignment, and a rethinking of the Nigerian national project.