There is hardly any Nigerian alive who is wholly satisfied with the current state of the nation. The economy is not growing fast enough to meet the demands of a growing and largely youthful population. Entrenched poverty and widening inequality continue to breed tension and resentment. Life and property remain perpetually at risk, as armed robbers, kidnappers, ritual killers and other anti-social elements go on the offensive, while the state's capacity to respond is at best, weak, at worst, … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2018
Pushing for change in Nigeria IV: Neo-feudal culture and widening public administration deficits
"You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself, that values itself, that understands itself."-- Wangari Maathai Why does "the system" appear not to be working in Nigeria? Why, in spite of the huge sums allocated to Ministries, Departments and Agencies at every budget cycle, Nigerian public administration has not delivered the expected results? Access to essential services (such as electricity, potable water, sewage disposal, security and safety) remains highly restricted. The economy persistently … [Read more...]
Pushing for change in Nigeria III: why real change proves elusive
The picture emerging so far is of a country wobbling from one pile of challenges to another since independence. Curiously, the country, Nigeria, has not buckled under, but has yet to record any significant breakthroughs. While the challenges keep multiplying and mutating, substantive change has proved largely elusive. This raises at least three questions: if the country’s hardships have persisted for so long, is it because (a) the challenges, are by nature superhuman and intractable, or (b) they … [Read more...]
Pushing for change in Nigeria II: the catalysts
Nigerians disagree on so many things. The need for change, howsoever defined, is not one of them. Everyone—or almost everyone—wants change, probably because the status quo is either not working for them or is perceived as not working at all for anybody. The driving force is the pace of social change which has outstripped the economy’s capacity to meet individual or aggregate demand. The high rate and the unique pattern of population growth, for instance, are asymmetrical to the economy’s … [Read more...]
Pushing for change in Nigeria I: First, the theoretical underbrush
Introduction Change was the mantra that galvanized Nigeria's All Progressives Congress/APC in the run up to the 2015 elections and enabled it to terminate the People’s Democratic Party’s/PDP’s sixteen-year grip on power. Alas, the party of change has, by its opponents’ reckoning, yet to make good its promise. The question is whether the PDP has what it takes to change, within four years, what it could not throughout its sixteen-year uninterrupted rule. Still, and regardless of whether it might … [Read more...]