The Open Sore of a Continent is Wole Soyinka's personal narrative of Nigeria's on-going crisis. It is a courageous critique of the growing abuse of power by authoritarian regimes in one of Africa's largest and most powerful countries. It also celebrates the indefatigable spirit of the Nigerian people, and their long struggle for democracy.

The book leads the reader through the perverse world of Nigerian power politics, dominated by a daunting array of military cliques, regional politicians, communal powerbrokers, civil servants and contractors. These issues are analysed in their appropriate historical context, marked by the politicisation and fragmentation of the military, its domination of the extractive agencies of the state, and the marginalisation of the mass of Nigerians. The product of a flawed colonial legacy, deep structural imbalances intensified by the decolonisation process, and corrupt postcolonial regimes, Nigeria's military only further undermined the corporate interests of Nigeria's diverse communities.

There is, however, resistance. One of its most spirited manifestations has been the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People's (MOSOP) struggle against environmental degradation, political repression and economic exploitation. Although their struggle against the military regimes of General Babangida and General Abacha ended tragically, with the execution of MOSOP leader, writer Ken Saro Wiwa and his eight compatriots in 1995, their martyrdom is now a rallying point for the ongoing struggles against the excessive concentration of power and resources. This courageous popular resistance, Soyinka contends, was also epitomised by the alliance of Nigerians of diverse cultural backgrounds—dashing the myth of an irreversible North-South divide—to expose and subvert General Babangida's cynical transition programme to democracy. The people's mandate was subsequently annulled by a regime bent on imposing the wishes of a small minority at all costs. For Soyinka this brazen act effectively annulled the Nigerian ‘nation’ as we know it.

Soyinka wants the reader to understand just how Nigeria got to this impasse. This is achieved through detailed narratives of the last two decades. Five particularly important themes or episodes stand out. First, it is symptomatic of the crisis of governance that the leaders of failed regimes (Gowon, Buhari, Idiagbon, Ojukwu, Shagari, Dikko, etc.) are quickly rehabilitated by their successors—successors distinguished only by their ever-greater capacity for violence, corruption and the plunder of national resources. A second point emerges from the tenure of Sunday Adewusi as Second Republic police boss in Oyo state. This case is not only a sad reminder of the general crisis in Nigerian law enforcement, but more importantly, an illustration of the cynicism of the holders of state power.

Soyinka's third narrative centres on the Buhari regime. Going beyond the junta's well-known human rights abuses, he provides compelling evidence of its efforts to further entrench the domination of the upper North by marginalising Southern leaders, while promoting the political class of the emirate states. Fourth, Soyinka provides a succinct account of the crisis of legitimacy in Nigeria's Second Republic. This is analysed through the rampant ‘kleptomania’ of the Shagari years, as well as the violent popular reaction to the massive rigging of the 1983 elections. Finally, in his narrative of the Babangida years, Soyinka dissects the regime's raison d'être, its cynical transition programme to democracy. This was a colossal failure, where cynical manipulation, massive corruption, and state terror derailed an expensive attempt to impose ‘democracy’ from above.

Soyinka's detractors may suggest that this book is limited by an excessively instrumentalist perspective, unduly blaming the delegitimisation of the Nigerian state on the Northern political class. Soyinka attempts to address this point by arguing that the balance of power among dominant ethno-regional political classes is an integral factor in the struggle for popular democracy. This is the crux of what Soyinka refers to as the ‘national question’. The pre-existing structural framework has sustained the power of the major ethno-regional political classes—including Soyinka's own Yoruba elite—since decolonisation. He insists, however, that any enduring political system, capable of confronting the pressures of ethnicity, religion, region and class, must recognise the right of all Nigerians to full citizenship.

Thus, as a true Nigerian patriot, Soyinka cautions against a retreat to ethnic enclaves. While he recognises the appeal of reconstructed communal pasts, Soyinka suggests that history is not on the side of those who advance such projects. Constructing political consciousness on the basis of essentialised cultures and ideologies, though integral to the Nigerian political process, can only further fractionalise an already divided democratic opposition. The important lesson of the annulled presidential election of 12 June 1993 thus lies in the struggle to forge progressive alliances across ethno-regional lines.

The Open Sore of a Continent is both a courageous leap of faith and a sobering account of all that has gone wrong with Nigeria's troubled nation-state project. Above all, it pays tribute to the ever-renewed struggle of the Nigerian masses for effective citizenship—the construction of civil society, the expansion of the political space and the defence of human dignity. These are the critical demands that Nigerian progressive must seek to fulfill.