The urgency for federalism in Africa: as a panacea for ethnic conflicts and development In Kenya

Abstract

From the time of independence era to this century, serious conflicts have dominated the political scenes in Africa with no proper solutions. Whereas it has been theoricized and it seemed true that the interplay of ideologies of communism and capitalism engineered most of these conflicts, and by extension the nature of colonial rule; For Kenya and many African multinational states, on the other hand, it is becoming clear that though ethnicity has often been tagged negatively by politicians and many scholars, there seems to exist much evidence that ethnicity is the likely panacea for most problems leading to conflicts in African states. Conflicts, however, will always continue,as they are part of society dynamics, their escalations again is a question of methods among which governance systems such as federalism falls. Which solutions would work for such multi ethnic based states? Is it; institutional based solutions or structural based solutions or rather system based solutions? This paper attempts to make this clear by use of case studies across the world,examining critically the drives to federalism in Asia, Europe, America, and Africa. The study will try to find out the early agitations for federalism in Kenya, and finally make conclusions as to which between Linguistic/Community based federal states or Regional based federal states can change political dynamics in Africa. In overall, it is our thoughtful conclusion and conviction to emphasize that African countries need political system based solution. Thus, the need for federal republics urgently on Linguistic basis will be the paradigm shift in her peace and development agenda.