Nigeria is famous for "419" e-mails asking recipients for bank account information and for scandals involving the disappearance of billions of dollars from government coffers. Corruption permeates even minor official interactions, from traffic control to university admissions. In Moral Economies of Corruption Steven Pierce provides a cultural history of the last 150 years of corruption in Nigeria as a case study for considering how corruption plays an important role in the processes of political change in all states. He suggests that corruption is best understood in Nigeria, as well as in all other nations, as a culturally contingent set of political discourses and historically embedded practices. The best solution to combatting Nigerian government corruption, Pierce contends, is not through attempts to prevent officials from diverting public revenue to self-interested ends, but to ask how public ends can be served by accommodating Nigeria's history of patronage as a fundamental political principle.

Moral Economies of Corruption: State Formation and Political Culture in Nigeria: State Formation and Political Culture in Nigeria

Illicit small arms and light weapons

The challenges of terrorism and insurgency have continued to attract regional response. A significant aspect of such response is the demonstration of shared responsibilities by various nation state...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/19392206.2021.1929747

Regional Cooperation in West Africa: Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency

2019 marked 10 years since the beginning of the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria—a violent conflict that later spilled over to Chad, Cameroon, and Niger, killing over 37000 people and displacing 2....

Fragility and Insurgency as Outcomes of Underdevelopment of Public Infrastructure and Socio-Economic Deprivation: The Case of Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin:

Terrorism and Violent Extremism in Africa

With about 200 million people, Nigeria has the largest population and also the largest economy in Africa; the country has the world’s 10th largest proven crude oil and the 9th largest natural gas reserves (Oxford Business Group 2019a; UK DfID 2019). With an expanding middle class and the global population projection of the country set to reach 300 m by 2030 and 400 m by 2050, Nigeria is seen to potentially provide growth for Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (Oxford Business Group Report 2020b). Nigeria is therefore a significant emerging and investment partner for global competitiveness and in the best place to reap the opportunities of global new industrial technologies for governance, development, and security. It is important to stress from the standpoint of certain political, economic, and sociodemographic base factors that Nigeria is arguably seen as the giant of Africa. However, Nigeria has continued to struggle with Boko Haram terrorism and insurgency in the North east, economic sabotage on its strategic oil facilities and infrastructure in the Niger Delta‚ and the menace of cattle rustling and armed banditry in the north-central and west geopolitical zones. The missing link associated with these poor development and insecurity indices is lack of good governance as abundance of resources cannot guarantee security and development when there is absence of active commitment to political governance (Akahalu 2014). It is against this backdrop that this chapter examines the prevailing challenges to governance, security, and development in Nigeria. The chapter captures an exploration of the governance, security‚ and development nexus in Nigeria‚ and provides a sectoral analysis of Nigeria based on the performance of key sectors, as well as the key challenges of security and development besetting the country. The chapter thus concludes that for Nigeria to reclaim its continental hegemony, it needs to address those multi-faced challenges counting the cost on the country’s peace, security‚ and international outlook.

The Giant of Africa? Explaining the Nigerian Governance, Security, and Development Paradox

This book focuses on the implementation of AI for growing business, and the book includes research articles and expository papers on the applications of AI on decision-making, health care, smart universities, public sector and digital government, FinTech, and RegTech. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a vital and a fundamental driver for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR). Its influence is observed at homes, in the businesses and in the public spaces. The embodied best of AI reflects robots which drive our cars, stock our warehouses, monitor our behaviors and warn us of our health, and care for our young children. Some researchers also discussed the role of AI in the current COVID-19 pandemic, whether in the health sector, education, and others. On all of these, the researchers discussed the impact of AI on decision-making in those vital sectors of the economy.

New architecture of regional security in Africa: perspectives on counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin

Lake Chad Basin : Emerging regional architecture for counterterrorism and counterinsurgency

The scourge of SALWs proliferation has precipitously altered the charged security environment in Africa and the Sahelian region remains the most affected by the preponderance of entries, exits and routes of illegal trafficking in arms. This situation was compounded by weak government structures, ineffective border policing strategies couple with lack of compliance with various regulations and protocols of SALWs. Weak control and management have heightened the inflow of SALWs in the Lake Chad Basin (LCB). This has particularly given an operational edge to various terrorist and insurgent groups in the region. It is against this backdrop that this chapter examines the ramifications of transnational insurgency within the framework of SALWs proliferation in the LCB. The chapter conceptualizes transnational insurgency, counterinsurgency and SALWs within the broader defense and security discourse. The chapter articulates that the incessant farmers–herders conflict, unmanned porous borders and the loosening of control and administration of sophisticated weapons during the Libyan uprising have resulted in SALWs availability and proliferation in the LCB. The chapter prescribes full compliance on the existing multilateral and bilateral protocols on SALWs control, effective border security and management as well as interagency cooperation back by robust civil society advocacy against the use of SALWs as some measures for combating the proliferation of SALWs for effective counterinsurgency in the LCB.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-030-62183-4_44.pdf

Bashir Bala

Papers

Regional Cooperation in West Africa: Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency

The Giant of Africa? Explaining the Nigerian Governance, Security, and Development Paradox

New architecture of regional security in Africa: perspectives on counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin

Lake Chad Basin : Emerging regional architecture for counterterrorism and counterinsurgency

Lake Chad Basin: Transnational Insurgency, Counter-Insurgency and the Proliferation of Small Arms