“Organized crime threatens peace and human security, violates human rights and undermines economic, social, cultural, political and civil development of societies around the world.” ~ UNODC In the last century, organised crime has drawn a lot of attention globally, with its transnational dimension as the main focus. According to Howard Abadinsky, an American professor of criminal justice and legal studies, [...]

It goes without saying that Nigerians love to talk. We are known for vivaciousness and our noise making is legendary in African circles. Wherever two or more Nigerians are gathered, rarely will you hear them talking in soft tones, except, of course, if it is a really private conversation. And we talk about anything and everything. Name it: from football [...]

Issues is a new NT series in which academics and policy experts write on their areas of expertise. If you would like to contribute to the series send an email to Olumide (his email address is on the page under the link).  The columnist this week is public policy analyst Abimbola Agboluaje. I was delighted when I discovered that President Goodluck [...]

It is no longer news that in the past year or so, Nigeria has become another byword for terrorism. From the first bomb blast at the 50th independence anniversary celebrations in October 2010, we have experienced countless others, almost on a daily basis. Just over this weekend, two churches, during service, were attacked in Kano. The attacks killed at least [...]

Issues is a new NT series in which academics and policy experts write on their areas of expertise. If you would like to contribute to the series send an email to Olumide (his email address is on the page under the link).  The columnists this week are sociologist Ebenezer Obadare and cultural theorist Akin Adesokan Video footage of Bishop David Oyedepo, [...]

As usual with just about everything we have done in the country in the last couple of years, there was a farcical quality to Nigeria’s bid to have its coordinating minister for the economy Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, succeed to the office of president of the World Bank. Paradoxically, the main arguments in support of her candidature were flawless. Take merit. [...]

There is clear mismanagement, fraud and abuse of due process in the way Nigeria’s aviation agency is run The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria has been a drain on the nation’s economy as millions of naira is lost to phony deals and contracts executed by the agency’s management, an investigation by this newspaper has shown. According to documents available to [...]

We are generally agreed, in Nigeria, that the quality (or lack of it) of our leadership is one of the more daunting hurdles we face in the task of moving the economy forward. A cadre for whom “everything is local” is always going to suffer from a severe form of solipsism, against which the benevolence necessary for the design and [...]

On Friday, 13th April 2012, the Nigerian mainstream and new media were awash with reports of Nigeria’s dwindling savings. In particular, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala raised alarm over the depletion of the Excess Crude Account (ECA) from $20 billion in 2006 to current levels of $3.6 billion. Ngozi thus confirmed what many analysts [...]

It is no longer news that the Boko Haram terrorist group has held the city of Maiduguri, which happens to be my hometown, captive for almost 2 years now. Having turned it into their centre of operations, they have made a city once reputed to be the most peaceful in the entire North into something closer to a city in [...]