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…
Corruption
Corruption in Nigeria: Is it Curable? Part Four
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…
Corruption
Corruption in Nigeria: Is it Curable? Part Three
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…
Social Relations
Rancour: An Ode to A Lost Oppressor
Rancour: An Ode to A Lost Oppressor When I nurse the hurts inflicted on me by friends and brothers within the spectre of brotherhood on so many occasions, it becomes a hard and fast law of my interaction to abhor it. Circumspection somehow replaces those he once trusted and bonded…
Corruption
Corruption in Nigeria: Is It Curable? Part Two
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…
Corruption
Wikileaks: The Hard Lesson So Far
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…
Corruption
Wikileaks Leaks – So Very Ordinary?
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…
Ecocide
Resisting Ecocide: Crimes and Rents
t is interesting to know that the Niger Delta is listed third out of ten hotspots of ecocide in Polly Higgins’ Eradicating Ecocide. I have written a review of the book on this blog for two reasons: its project represents the amalgamation of my three main research interests namely, corruption,…
Institutions
The Grandeur of Rejecting a Disabled Person
The Grandeur of Rejecting a Disabled Person Being disabled is neither pleasant nor easy in any society, and Britain is a society civilised enough to appreciate the fact fairly in all institutions. Not everyone in Britain shares such civilisation.
Musings
Spiritual Infections, Physical Cures
Spiritual Infections, Physical Cures: Catching Gonorrhea In A Dream I am increasingly taking the message of James Randi quite seriously, well beyond and above average, because of the decadent state of belief and irrationality that certain people adopt and adhere to in their quest to explain the unacceptable conditions of…