First some cases I had been thinking about writing about this for a while, but due to work I have not had the time to do it, until now, that is. I got to Nigeria to learn that a friend who got married and whose wife gave birth while I was away was a wife… Read More »
Early this morning I listened to a technology podcast from PRI’s The World. Chris Carrol, a National Geographic writer, had been travelling around the world, looking at the way e-waste is managed. He wrote an article about it; an interview with him took a portion of the podcast. He first talked about how most e-waste… Read More »
We woke up this morning to the news that Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, the Chairman of the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, is to go on a course at the Nigerian Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies for a year. Actually, it was announced yesterday by Inspector General Mike Okiro yesterday, but I didn’t hear… Read More »
Last night, after dinner, my parents and I sat watching TV, and at some point, the local TV station showed an orphanage. I find the way we treat orphans highly linked to our claims to any sense of humanity and humaneness, but like so many other things, I rarely think about the reasons babies end… Read More »
A documentary on the way mining companies are taxed in Zambia makes me wonder about the details of the deal between Nigeria and the oil companies.
Sometime ago, I wrote a paper on development and the African culture for a PhD level course at the Centre for Development Studies (CEMUS), Uppsala University. The paper tried to examine the debate on the impact of the African culture on development.
There is hardly any way one can escape hearing about China these days. I have not written anything about Sino-African relations simply because I was not willing to take a side in the debate on whether the effects of Chinese interests in Africa are positive or not. Arguments and all A main argument of those… Read More »
I normally download a podcst of the round-up of major stories on/from Africa by the BBC each evening. Yesterday’s edition was concluded with a report by Sola Odunfa. The story goes something like this: Joshua Dariye, the former Plateau state (Nigeria) governor who is currently on trial on corruption charges, accuses the Economic and Financial… Read More »
Last week, Yoko Ono and Amnesty International celebrated the sale of 15,000 copies of a special album of John Lenon’s post-Beatles songs. Ono gave the rights to use all of the songs to Amnesty International. The album was made to raise money for the victims of the conflict in Dafur. The album, which was released… Read More »
I downloaded Andrew Mwenda’s TEDTalks presentation and watched it last night. One of his main arguments was that aid makes the government fat, and that because of aid, governments are more attentive to the World Bank and the IMF than to their own citizens. Let’s elaborate on the argument a bit: governments know from whom… Read More »