The central concern of this study is power and influence, a twin concept: How African countries can obtain power and use it properly for the common good of the people. Thus the transfer of the concepts of power and influence from the plane of theory to that of social practice should render a service to those in search of greater social relevance in social change as well as to those seeking an improved, more precise, and intellectually more manageable and intelligible frame of reference for power and its usage. This publication is different, and the hope is that it will open new vistas to students as well as the reading public who are beginning to learn about state-building, democracy and development (government and politics) in countries other than their own.