My Nigeria Five Decades of Independence [Hardcover]

His nineteenth-century cousin, paddled ashore by slaves, twisted the arms of tribal chiefs to sign away their territorial rights in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Sixty years later, his grandfather helped craft Nigeria's constitution and negotiate its independence, the first of its kind in Africa. Four decades later, Peter Cunliffe-Jones arrived as a journalist in the capital, Lagos, just as military rule ended, to face the country his family had a hand in shaping.

Part family memoir, part history,My Nigeriais a piercing look at the colonial legacy of an emerging power in Africa. Marshalling his deep knowledge of the nation's economic, political, and historic forces, Cunliffe-Jones surveys its colonial past and explains why British rule led to collapse at independence. He also takes an unflinching look at the complicated country today, from email hoaxes and political corruption to the vast natural resources that make it one of the most powerful African nations; from life in Lagos's virtually unknown and exclusive neighborhoods to the violent conflicts between the numerous tribes that make up this populous African nation. As Nigeria celebrates five decades of independence, this is a timely and personal look at a captivating country that has yet to achieve its great potential.

Mr. Cunliffe -Jones has produced a sweeping yet intimate portrait of his and his distinguished family's sojourn in Africa's most populous and complicated nation  Nigeria. It is a work that deserves widespread critical attention. A triumph! Chinua Achebe

Peter Cunliffe-Jones paints a vivid portrait of Nigeria's hydra-headed travails in this passionate, intensely personal book&a vivid portrait [and the author has] a delightful knack for illustrating his points with anecdotes and stories that are at once wrenching and comic. The Washington Post

Offers some challenging thinking about the nature of a country for which Cunliffe-Jones clearly feels grlƒ°