This opinion piece, written by two long-term students of Nigerian politics, proposed a different course to the one taken following the death in mid-1998 of a military tyrant and the elected president he had imprisoned. It called for the creation of a caretaker national government of respected civilians that would...
This is the text of a public address at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs delivered soon after the inauguration of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. It identified several priorities after fifteen and a half years of military government. The country’s eroded legislative, judicial, and other state institutions needed to be rebuilt...
A Dialogue on Nation-Building took place in Bishoftu, Ethiopia, on January 14-16, 2018. I was one of a dozen individuals invited to serve as resource persons for this meeting of over a hundred representatives from the government, civil society, political and faith-based organizations. The aim of the gathering was to...
Plenary Address to the African Economic Conference of the African Development Bank and the Economic Commission for Africa Addis Ababa, December 4-6, 2017
In May 1991 the allied armies of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) overthrew the 27-year military regime (Dergue) in Ethiopia. During the succeeding 27 years, the EPRDF-dominated government attracted one of the highest per capita levels of external aid in the...
In this essay, I will focus on the fifth theme of the Collaborative Learning Initiative: Reclaiming Security. Attempts to reclaim security in many African countries, tragically, often lead to greater insecurity as rulers respond by heightening repression. Some even close down access to social media and global communications thereby harming...