Watch a video of Basil Omiyi, Shell’s Country Chair in Nigeria, who was at the United Nations in New York attending a pan-African investment round-table. He spoke to Paolo Black about some of the challenges facing Nigeria and Shell’s operations there.
Courtesy of Shell Worldwide Inc. Thank you Shell. Ugh.
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As militants lay down their arms in the Niger Delta, the battle is on to tackle Nigeria’s other massive ills…
Over the past three months the militants have been giving up both themselves and their guns in unprecedented numbers. The federal government has promised them an unconditional pardon for past crimes, a small stipend to live on and the promise of retraining in order to “reintegrate” into society.
Special Briefing from the Economist
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Imprisoned three times by the Nigerian government, Chris Abani turned his experience into poems that Harold Pinter called “the most naked, harrowing expression of prison life and political torture imaginable.” His novels include GraceLand (2004) and The Virgin of Flames (2007).
Chris Abani tells stories of people: People standing up to soldiers. People being compassionate. People being human and reclaiming their humanity. It’s “ubuntu,” he says: the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.
His Ted Talk remains among the best I’ve seen
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Obasanjo’s Bid to Allow 3rd Term
Nigeria Seeks an Historic Accomplishment
Who will be Nigeria’s Next President?
Response Sheet for 2007 Election
…
Nigeria’s Elections: Fraud and Troubles
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24 page Lazar lecture notes on Nigeria
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Your task is to use specific evidence from Peter M. Lewis� briefing paper Performance and Legitimacy in Nigeria’s New Democracy as published in the 2006 issue of “Afrobarometer” to analyze how democracy is perceived in Nigeria.
In order to succeed you must use AND cite both the Lewis document and Mundt and your textbook. Your analysis should be 1-2 single-spaced pages and must be posted below (the comments link) by the time class commences.
I advise you to structure your essay as follows, though you may deviate from this outline as you see fit (I likewise envision a thematic approach):
I.The implications of history: evolution towards democracy
II.Analysis of the state of democracy in Nigeria 2000-2007
III. An explication of citizen perceptions towards Nigerian democracy
IV.The implications of performance on legitimacy: what needs to be done?
Read the Lewis piece:
Performance & Legitimacy in Nigeria’s New Democracy
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Afrobarometer is an independent nonpartisan research center that measures the social, political and economic atmosphere in African countries. Their main page is here.
From the essays most relevant to you are:
Performance & Legitimacy in Nigeria’s New Democracy
and
Identity, Institutions & Democracy in Nigeria
Both essays provide concrete statistical analysis gleaned from questionairres such as this one
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As political parties in Nigeria pick their presidential candidates for the April 2007 elections, the BBC News website’s Senan Murray profiles the strongest of them. Read On
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With an ethnically and religiously combustible population of 130 million, Nigeria is lurching toward disaster, and the stakes are high—for both Nigeria and the United States. An OPEC member since 1971, Nigeria has 35.9 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves—the largest of any African country and the eighth largest on earth. It exports some 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, and the government plans to nearly double that amount by 2010. Nigeria is the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the United States; U.S. energy officials predict that within ten years it and the Gulf of Guinea region will provide a quarter of America‘s crude.
It is hardly surprising, then, that since 9/11 the Bush administration has courted Nigeria as an alternative to volatile petro-states in the Middle East and Latin America. In 2002, the White House declared the oil of Africa (five other countries on the continent are also key producers) a “strategic national interest”—meaning that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to protect it. In short, Nigeria‘s troubles could become America‘s and, like those of the Persian Gulf, cost us dearly in blood and money.
Read more from Jeffrey Tayler here
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