1 | Introduction
‘We needed a war because we needed our identity cards. Without
an identity card you are nothing in this country.’ A fighter for
the rebel ‘new forces’ in Côte d’Ivoire condensed the argument
of this book into two short sentences: that the denial of a right
to citizenship has been at the heart of many of the conflicts
of post-colonial Africa, and that it is time to change the rules.
Côte d’Ivoire may be an extreme case, but political crises since
independence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe,
Mauritania, Uganda and elsewhere show the same pattern: poli
tical leaders seek to buttress their support among one part of
their country’s population by excluding another from the right
to belong to the country at all.
Hundreds of thousands of people living in Africa find themselves non-persons in the only state they have ever known. They
cannot get their children registered at birth or entered in school
or university; they cannot access state health services; they cannot obtain travel documents, or employment without a work
permit; and if they leave the country they may not be able to
return. Most of all, they cannot vote, stand for office or work
for state institutions.
Ultimately such policies can lead to economic and political
disaster, or even war. Even where they do not, they have been
used to subvert the democratic process and reinforce or prolong
the hold on power of one group at the expense of another. At the
expense, too, of national stability and economic progress. The
result has been the mass suffering of people whose only fault
may be to have the wrong last name.
Alternatively, questions of citizenship have been used to prevent specific individuals from challenging for political position
or to silence those who criticize the government. At one time it
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