To Cook a Continent: A Review and a Comment REVIEW: To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and Climate Crisis in Africa is yet another book about Africa’s exploitation but with a significant difference from all others. The author presents the challenge “what can be done now to end destructive exploitation in Africa?”. This is a…
A Metaphor: Ending Corruption in Nigeria In 2001, a high-ranking military officer, a commodore, reluctantly offered me a literary metaphor for solving the problem of corruption but warned me earnestly not to take it literally. He informed me that African corruption was an African problem and can only be effectively solved by an African understanding….
The Evolution of Banditry in Nigeria: Markets, Independence, Oil Boom and Settlement Years The two most obvious periods of steep rises in corruption in independent Nigeria were the oil boom years of General Yakubu Gowon and the settlement years of General Ibrahim Babangida, two military heads of state; the former associated more with waste and…
The Owners of Nigeria Technostructure In Nigeria, there exists a non-market non-governmental extortionist technostructure that is nameless, but for convenience, we shall call it the ONT (i.e. the Owners of Nigeria Technostructure). The ONT is somewhat implicated in existing in the works of many authors (Dudley 1982; Agbese 1990; Diamond 1991; Osoba 1993, 1996; Cayford…
Contrary Institutions: A Brief Description Why is it that institutional reform as touted by the international and local anti-corruption industries always fails in tackling the problem of corruption in Nigeria or elsewhere in Africa? One major problem is that the reforms are based on the foundations of Western institutions without giving adequate thought or attention…
Wikileaks: The Hard Lesson So Far “Financial asphyxiation” or some synonym is going to be a buzz word that will be popular with politicians (silently) and activists (openly) in future… I guess. Why? I will briefly and emphatically state that the core message and implication of the Wikileaks saga so far is. If you act…
Wikileaks Leaks – So Very Ordinary? If Wikileaks has leaked nothing of the confidential and classified information relating to the workings, conditions and decisions of the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. Nothing of exploitation-driven genocides in the Third World. Nor the arms trade, genetically modified foods, corruption. Nor regime change, insurgency sponsorship et…
Corruption in Nigeria: Is It Curable? Part One The Nigerian nation might not be a failed state but it is certainly by all ostensible standards of politics and governance a true kakistocracy. Nigeria’s condition of kakistocracy is a function of corruption and moral decadence. It is a truism to say corruption is a major societal…
Ever since ex-President Obosanjo threw the gauntlet to Nigerians in general in to prove the acts of corruption of General Babangida (rtd) (Nwaobi 2004), it has become fashionable for specially interested Nigerians to ask for proof of obvious crimes and malfeasance carried out against the nation and its people by either privileged individuals or organisations…
