Qualitative Education Volume 5 No.3

Concepts like words mean different things to different people. Since most concepts generally lack universal theories (and because of such limitations), they are used and interpreted in different ways by different analyst and scholars. Therefore, there is need to have penetrating analysis so as to grasp their innate meanings and relationship with the theme of the conference. The concept to be examined in this paper include: Nation Building, Education, Patriotism, Self-Reliance, and Productivity. Nation-Building Technically, nation-building is a process of creating an integrated society inhabited by a contented people. In this paper, we shall adopt a working definition of nation as given by Mostafa Rejai and Cynthia Enloe. According to them, a nation is taken to be a relative large group of people who feel that they belong together by virtue of sharing one or more traits as common language, religion or race, common history or tradition, common set of customs, and common destiny. But most of these traits do not actually exist. Therefore, in reality, a people who do not have to believe that they exist, they would also have to work towards its existence. With regards to size, there is no hard and fast rule about it, but it is necessary that a nation should be larger than a village, clan or city state. At the end of the 20th Century, most countries in Europe had build virile nations whereas in Third World Countries, only states were able to evolve within the same period. Nations and state refer to an independent and autonomous political structure over a specific territory with a comprehensive legal system and
a sufficient concentration of power to maintain law and order. Put in another way, a state is primarily a political legal concept whereas a nation is primarily psycho-cultural. A nation and a state may exist without a state, a state may equally exist without a nation. When the two merge and the boundaries of the state are approximately coterminous with those of a nation, the result is a nation state. According to Mostafa Rejai and Cynthia Enloe, a nation state is a nation that possesses political sovereignty. It is socially cohesive as well as politically organized and independent. Nation building therefore lays emphasis on the creation of a harmonious nation through selfless sacrifice out of the sentiments of states.