Author: Ejeviome Eloho Otobo and Oseloka H. Obaze

The herders-farmers conflict in Nigeria remains a thorny issue. The death, destruction and displacement arising from the conflict have been incremental, and have extended beyond the Middle-Belt region into various Nigerian communities. Besides, killing by herdsmen has assumed a sectarian nature, a fact confirmed in a 15 June 2020 report titled, “Nigeria: An Unfolding Genocide?” by the U.K. Parliament All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief, wherein it was noted that “this violence has manifested along religious lines, as the herders are predominantly ethnic Fulani Muslims and the farmers are predominantly Christians.” That assertion mirror concerns variously…

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The oil resource curse has been Nigeria’s bane. This reality is well known. Yet no discernible effort is being made to transcend the pitfall, even as Nigeria’s political leaders, business elites and experts continue to exhort Nigerians to look beyond its oil era. In reality, it is not the vagaries of the global oil market or the growing emphasis on renewable energy that has posed the greatest challenge to Nigeria’s oil political economy, important though all these factors might be. Rather, it is the lack of political commitment to diversification coupled with corruption. This exemplifies the dissonance that has hobbled…

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On the eve of the 12th Extraordinary Summit of the African Union Heads of State that took place on the 7th of July 2019 in Niamey, Niger; the federal government announced that it would sign the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). This created audible sighs of relief around the region. Nigeria’s delay in signing that treaty – and its entry into force without her ratification – had raised questions as to whether Nigeria was abdicating her leadership role on the continent and, more importantly, whether she can still be regarded as a regional hegemon. Long before now, Nigeria was…

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Ungoverned space is a new concept applied to an old problem, namely the lack of effective government presence in parts or places within its territory. Ungoverned space is a direct reflection of the inability the state to effectively perform its minimal statutory functions: exercise of monopoly of use of force; full territorial control; and provision of basic social services. Many analysts think of ungoverned space in strictly security terms. In reality, however, ungoverned spaces are also marked typically by significant absence or limited provision of basic social services, making such places vulnerable to the control of criminal networks, radical extremists…

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