A couple of weeks ago I attended the launch of Oil Contracts: How to Read and Understand them, a BookSprints book by OpenOil, a Berlin-based energy consultancy and publishing house. They basically got ten people with different expertise on the oil sector – corporate lawyers, energy activists, government negotiators – together in a house for… Read More »
As we are reminded by Chinua Achebe of the atrocities that led to the Biafra War, and the horror that the war was, we should also not forget the era that it heralded – that of humanitarianism. From a 2010 article New Yorker article by Philip Gourevitch: Since Biafra, humanitarianism has become the idea, and… Read More »
The Africa editor of The Economist talks to Lizzy Donnelly of Chatham House on Boko Haram. I mostly agree with her, mainly because she made sure to express the uncertainties about Boko Haram, the disagreement among ‘Nigeria watchers’ and ‘analysts’ on the group, and the fact that there is so much that is not known… Read More »
First the conclusion of this ‘review’ (really, it is a summary of what the ‘reviewer’ likes in the book; and such a word as review should ideally not be used for it. If, however, we choose to call it a review, we should add that it is at best anodyne) by Noo Saro-Wiwa: The final… Read More »
Ken Opalo has an excellent article on drug trafficking in Africa: The problem of drug trafficking in Africa is not merely a law enforcement concern. Firstly, it is a threat to the development and consolidation of important state institutions, especially the region’s judiciaries and security agencies. In many of the African states that have been… Read More »
On August 30, president Goodluck Jonathan flew by helicopter to Aguleri Otu in Anambra state, in south-east Nigeria, to commission the construction of the country’s first privately-owned refinery and declare Anambra Nigeria’s tenth oil-producing state. Hours into the festivities, two bordering states, Kogi and Enugu, issued public statements claiming that the oilfields, OPL 915 and… Read More »
Thoughts are with Ghana at the passing of President Atta Mills, who many described as being slow but steady. The vice president was sworn in last evening as the new president. The video of the swearing-in ceremony is here. The new President John Dramani Mahama was a minister for communication between 1998 and 2001. Shortly… Read More »
If you get pissed off by the non-reflective, non-critical, and arguably racist list that the Failed States Index is, you should read this: There will never be a Postcard from Hell that bears a picture of an American street. But what if there were? What would go on there? Might it not apply the very… Read More »
I review Edward R. Carr’s book for SAIS Review. An excerpt: Underlying typical research is the assumption that a more intense integration into the global market economy is the solution to development problems, and that GDP growth brings an improvement in the well-being of a country’s citizens. Most existing development indicators have these same assumptions… Read More »
This is a pet peeve of mine. Why are European and North American media houses willing to splash pictures of dead and/or mutilated bodies of Africans on newspapers and on-air? I really have to find the time to do a proper post on the subject. But while you are waiting, see this, from G. Pascal… Read More »