The internal challenges of the African continent and their repercussions on sustainable development: Nigeria’s development experience as a model

African countries have worked for decades to advance their own development, in order to break out of the cycle of political, economic, and even social backwardness. However, this development approach has been met with several internal challenges, most notably the historical legacy of the colonial legacy, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in addition to the deteriorating economic reality. Unemployment crises, widespread political corruption in state institutions, the absence of development plans and confusion in political and economic decisions, in addition to problems related to the nature of the global economic system based on the exploitation of natural resources on the African continent. In addition, some African countries have implemented development experiences imported from abroad that do not It is compatible with the African reality, especially Nigeria, as these and other challenges from the colonial era and beyond made the latter suffer from repeated economic and political crises as a result of the application of these policies, which negatively affected sustainable development in the country.