No matter how one looks at it, 2015 is Nigeria’s year of destiny. It is the year when the electorate will again decide the fate of the contestants for executive and legislative positions at the federal and state levels. It is the year when the voters will either extend the PDP’s 16-year unbroken hold on power or give the opposition a chance to approach the challenges facing our country from a new angle. Curiously, it is also the year that the apostles of doom expect Nigeria to disintegrate. … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2014
State reform perspectives revisited
Introduction I need to take a short break from my weekly commentary on Nigeria's power struggle to address a global and broader theme--that of state reform within and across countries. While the article would first appear to be targeted at my academic colleagues, the issues raised therein will resonate with the general reading public. There is no country which has not at one time or the other experimented with a variety of state-led development strategies. However, while some states have … [Read more...]
What is your citizenship worth?
Introduction Against the backdrop of the on-going dialogue on the essence and structure of the Nigerian state, I have decided to reproduce a revised version of the paper that I presented last June on the value of our country's citizenship. Though still fairly lengthy, the new text is considerably shorter than the original. I. Identity value of citizenship: meaning and significance Ever since our emergence as an independent nation on 1st October 1960, our single dominant concern has … [Read more...]
Nigeria, Time for change!
This is not the topic that I had chosen to write about this week. I had planned to move away from the increasingly boring debate on the 2015 power play and focus instead on something really exciting—like a no-holds barred assessment of Nigeria’s investment climate, otherwise termed ‘ease of doing business’, and the country's international competitiveness. I had to reconsider in light of the persistent rumour that the President was determined to run for another term in 2015. Apparently, the … [Read more...]