Samuel Ramani. University of Oxford. On April 3, 2016, the Panama Papers release revealed that Nigeria’s Senate President Bukola Saraki, ex-Senate President David Mark and other notable former cabinet members, had funneled assets to offshore tax havens. This revelation was the latest in a string of embarrassing setbacks for the anti-corruption campaign launched by Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari after his election victory last March. On April 9, Nigerian anti-corruption NGO CACOL (Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders), condemned Buhari’s silence on the Panama Papers. These criticisms once again fuelled speculation that Buhari’s strident anti-corruption rhetoric is merely a cynical ploy to weaken…
Author: CASADE
Oluwakemi Okenyodo. As in much of Africa, the vast majority of security threats facing Nigeria are internal, often involving irregular forces such as insurgents, criminal gangs, and violent religious extremists. Effectively combating such threats requires cooperation from local communities limited by low levels of trust in security forces who often have reputations for corruption, heavy-handedness, and politicization. Tackling modern security threats, then, is directly tied with improving the governance and oversight of the security sector, especially the police. Key paths forward include clarifying the structure of command and oversight, strengthening merit-based hiring and promotion processes, and better regulation of private…
Jared Mathews, who did two tours of duty with the US Army in Afghanistan provides a retrospective and forward-looking narrative on President Buhari and Nigeria. Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in as the newest Nigerian president on May 29 2015, ousting incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan by more than 2.5 million votes. Buhari, a moderate Muslim with a reputation for being a stern disciplinarian, made the eradication of Boko Haram a pillar of his presidential campaign. Now is the time for the president to make due on his campaign promises and work to unify a culturally fractured Nigeria plagued with one of…
A book authored by Deborah Brautigam. Reviewed by Bobert Wekesa. It is safe to say that Professor Deborah Brautigam is a “leading” China-Africa scholar and in some respects “the leading” China-Africa scholar. “A leading” and “the leading” labels are not without controversy, and so is “China-Africa” versus “Africa-China” – but these are issues for another day. Suffice it to mention that, when the Johns Hopkins professor produces a book on the topic, it is bound to attract attention. My sense is that Will Africa Feed China? has attracted the kind of attention that a Brautigam book would, though less so…
Sunday Olayinka Oyedepo. Abstract. Access to clean modern energy services is an enormous challenge facing the African continent because energy is fundamental for socioeconomic development and poverty eradication. Today, 60% to 70% of the Nigerian population does not have access to electricity. There is no doubt that the present power crisis afflicting Nigeria will persist unless the government diversifies the energy sources in domestic, commercial, and industrial sectors and adopts new available technologies to reduce energy wastages and to save cost. This review examines a set of energy policy interventions, which can make a major contribution to the sustainable economic,…
Steven Stoft. The first systematic presentation of electricity market design-from the basics to the cutting edge. Unique in its breadth and depth. Using examples and focusing on fundamentals, it clarifies long misunderstood issues-such as why today’s markets are inherently unstable. The book reveals for the first time how uncoordinated regulatory and engineering policies cause boom-bust investment swings and provides guidance and tools for fixing broken markets. It also takes a provocative look at the operation of pools and power exchanges. • Part 1 introduces key economic, engineering and market design concepts. • Part 2 links short-run reliability policies with long-run…
SARAH BRACKING. The financial crash of 2008 led people all over the world to ask how far financiers are in control of our lives. To what extent does what they do with our money affect our everyday lives? This book asks whether the crisis, and subsequent use of public subsidies to help the international economy recover, was a unique event, or a symptom of a wider malaise where financiers have effectively usurped the power of governments and are running the political economy themselves. The Financialisation of Power in Africa argues that growth is not always a good thing. The development…
Abraham Adonduwa. The Civilian Joint Task Force (JTF), a militia officially authorized by the Borno State government in 2013 to help tackle Boko Haram, is apprehensive about its future in the event Boko Haram is no longer a threat. For years the extremist sect, Boko Haram, has wreaked havoc in the North East and the Lake Chad region, displacing 2.7million people and killing over 20,000; but while their potency is gradually being diluted by the Nigerian military, serious questions now arise about the employment future of the young men and women who now constitute the Civilian Joint Task Force. Recently,…
Paul Polak. Reviewed by Mathew Bransworth. For the past twenty-five years, two questions have kept my curiosity aroused: What makes poor people poor? And what can they do about their poverty? Because of these infernal questions, I’ve dozed off during hundreds of long jeep rides with good companions over dusty, potholed roads. I’ve had thousands of conversations with one-acre farmers with dirt on their hands. We’ve walked along their patches of ten-foot-high black pepper vines in the central hills of Vietnam beside jungle permanently scarred by Agent Orange. We’ve strolled together through their scattered quarter-acre plots in the drab brown…
The science that informs the generation of electricity is an old one; but so is the technology of delivering it to consumers for personal and commercial uses. These facts, however, seem to elude policy makers in Nigeria, thus making the country one of the darkest in the world. For the few lucky enough to be connected to the electric grid, electricity arrives sporadically and less than 40% of the time. For the vast majority, diesel and petrol powered generators make the needless hardship a bit tolerable. This should not be the case. Our series on this would culminate in an…