Title: Clapping With One Hand

          June 12 And The Crisis Of A State Nation

Author: Olawale Oshun

Publisher: Joel Publishers, London (1999)

Pages: 301

Price: £15.00

Clapping With One Hand is an insider’s account of what is known in Nigeria as the June 12 Struggle, the epic political battle fought over the annulment of Nigeria’s presidential election of June 12, 19993. It is a story of betrayal, hatred and calculated self-interest that is bound to jar the mind of the reader. But it is also a book of the failure of the Nigerian project and how that failure continues to manifest itself in every sphere of the country’s life.

The reader will do well to stretch the events recorded in the book to other things that have happened in the management of the political economy of the Nigerian state, hence allowing him or her to form a larger picture of the underlying issues at the heart of the Nigerian crisis. The author shows clearly in the book that those who have called for a sovereign national conference to resolve the problems of Nigeria have valid points and that while some crucial participants in the June 12 struggle have now died, no one can still predict what the eventual outcome of the drama will be for Nigeria.

About the Author

Wale Oshun was born in Ibadan in 1950 and is a graduate of Nigeria’s premier university: The University of Ibadan, where he read Agricultural Economics. He was a pioneer member of the National Youth Service Corps, and was in the Federal civil service from 1974 to 1984. He was an elected member of the 1988 Constituent Assembly and later of the Federal House of Representatives, where he was he Chief Whip until the House was abrogated by the military in 1993.

A founding member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), Wale Oshun was arrested and detained without trial for seven months while acting as NADECO secretary in Nigeria. On his release, new threats to his life forced him into exile in the United Kingdom, where he also became Secretary of the external arm of the NADECO-Abroad.