Perhaps the greatest argument against open-ended aid is the damage it does to recipient countries’ social contracts and institutions of restraints. Nobel Laureate economist, Angus Deaton, agrees. Having studied poverty extensively in the developing world, worked at the World Bank, and thoroughly reviewed most of the data on aid, the Princeton Economist believes aid is actually making Africa poorer and making governments less effective. “Like revenue from oil or diamonds, wealth from foreign aid can be a corrupting influence on weak governments, “turning what should be beneficial political institutions into toxic ones.” It corrupts governments, empowers dictators and tyrants, and…
Author: Christopher Akor
Haiti is the 21st-century classic case study of the destructive effects of foreign aid. Following the 2010 earthquake that killed 230, 000 and destroyed infrastructure, humanitarian aid – from governments, and multilateral and private institutions – poured into the country, ostensibly to help Haitians cope with the disaster and rebuild damaged infrastructure. In 10 years, over $13.5 billion was donated to the country, more than the estimated $7.8 billion of critical infrastructure damaged in the quake. Despite the good intentions, the massive inflow of aid robbed the Haitian government of legitimacy, destroyed the country’s already weak institutions, destroyed local businesses,…
Last week, I wrote that the Economic Community of West Africa’s (ECOWAS) threat to Nigerien coupists sounds eerily like the voice of Jacob and the hand of Esau. I suspected the regional body’s actions were being dictated by France. I went down history lane to show a similarity with what happened in Cote D’Ivoire in 2010 and how ECOWAS similarly threatened Laurent Gbagbo with military action were he to refuse to vacate power for Alassane Ouattara. On that occasion, France was too impatient to wait for ECOWAS and never cared to disguise its interference. It just bombed Gbagbo’s residence, sent…
Following the military coup in Niger which appears to be roiling the international community, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has joined the fray, sounding unusually aggressive, going as far as issuing a one-week ultimatum to the coup plotters in Niger to return power back to the democratically elected president or risk the use of force. “…in the event the authority’s demands are not met within one week, [we will] take all measures necessary to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger. Such measures may include the use of force” read an ECOWAS communique. The last time…
Russia may have genuine grievances over what it is getting from the United Nations and the Türkiye-brokered grain deal. It may want to renegotiate the deal. It may want to get more sanction relief and better deals for its fertilizer and grain exports. But by terminating the deal and going all out to bomb the port city of Odesa and especially, Ukrainian grain export facilities, Mr Putin is not only threatening to plunge the world into another global food crisis, but he is also directly hurting his allies or friends mainly in Africa, the Middle East and Asia that disproportionately…
By 2020, Jack Ma, China’s Business guru, was Asia’s richest man, worth more than $61.7 billion, and his companies, Alibaba and Ant Group collectively were worth more than $1.5 trillion. He went about with some air of importance. He was the face of China’s new economic power and was invited to speak all over the world on economic and business issues. Then, in October 2020, he made what he thought was a non-political and harmless criticism of China’s financial regulatory system, saying it was stifling innovation and needed reforms to fuel growth. He claimed the banks operated with a ‘pawnshop’…
In the 1970s through the 1990s, during the heady days of pan-Africanism and dependency theory, it was taken as gospel truth that resources flow from a ‘periphery’ of poor and underdeveloped states to the ‘core’ of wealthy states. In this structured global relationship, it is uncritically assumed that the ‘periphery’ supplies raw materials, agricultural produce, cheap labour, and markets for expensive manufactured goods from Metropolitan ‘core’ centres. Although the theory has been shown to be vacuous and fails scientific and or empirical validation, many in Africa have continued to hold on to the basic tenets of the theory and parrot…
On May 25th, I wrote about the criminal takeover of Nigeria with the impending swearing-in of Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president. I had argued that Tinubu, a documented drug dealer on the streets of Chicago, has long normalised and enabled a “system or pipeline of crime to power in Nigeria,” and thanks to him, many ex-convicts in the United States are now holding top government positions in Nigeria and that his presidency will only further entrench that system. Expectedly, the very first appointment he made – that of Chief of Staff – was of an ex-convict in the state of…
Senegal has remained a beacon of Democracy not only in West Africa but in Africa as a whole. Its people have consistently fought against sit-tight dictators and have always succeeded in removing them from power through the ballot box, though at great costs of lives, property, and infrastructure. But it is becoming a tortuous process, occurring virtually every decade or so. The sad part is that the same pro-democracy activists and opposition politicians they die to install every time turn around to become the sit-tight incumbents that do not want to leave or want to keep changing the goal post…
Earlier this month, I had asked what South African leaders were thinking when they decided to send weapons to Russia even when a pro-Russian superpower like China has clearly refused to send weapons or even violate the economic sanctions on Russia? That African braggadocio that would clearly not mind destroying their own country just to make a worthless political point, I guess. See how Mugabe and ZANU PF destroyed Zimbabwe just because Tony Blaire refused to fund the land reforms program. Even after being caught, African National Congress (ANC) apparatchiks have been making all the right political noises, boasting that…
For years, Nigerian, Africans and Africanists have campaigned for the return of the Benin Bronzes, stolen by British troops in 1897 after they sacked Benin in a punitive expedition for the ambush and killing of British troops and their African porters in the kingdom. These bronzes, estimated to be as much as 10, 000 and worth about $30 billion, are scattered in museums and universities across the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. In 2021, the Nigerian National Commissions for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) began issuing formal requests for the return of the bronzes to museums, universities, and treasure…
I was not going to comment on the new government of Bola Ahmed Tinubu for a while. But I watched the inauguration and couldn’t help it. Besides, some Tinubu supporters and hangers-on who would lose out in the sharing of the spoils of office will shortly join us, the collective children of anger (apologies to Reuben Abati). So, it is better to begin early before those motivated by grievance join us. Unforced error For some of us, we knew the fuel subsidy was unsustainable and unaffordable and have been campaigning for its elimination since 2010. In fact, it was its…
In this inaugural newsletter, I talk about the difficult balancing act in South Africa, a new development in the payment of White settlers in Zimbabwe, the ongoing destructive war in Sudan, and migration politics in Tunisia. Picking a side in a Euro-American war? On May 11, the United States ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, announced that the US was “confident” that South Africa, despite its often-stated neutrality in the war between Russia and Ukraine, supplied arms to Russia in December 22. It said an arms trading Russian ship docked in Simon’s Town on December 5, turned off its location…
On May 29th, a certified drug dealer and the head of the mafia that has held Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, in a suffocating grip, will be inaugurated as President of Nigeria. It is a pity the late Africanist, Stephen Ellis, who has devoted so much time to researching and writing about the unholy alliance between state actors and criminal gangs in both South Africa and Nigeria won’t be alive to witness the entire criminal takeover of the state itself. In the 1990s, Ellis systematically showed how all state actors in South Africa got entangled with, legitimized, armed, and collaborated with…
The explanations INEC and Mr Yakubu gave for the non-uploading of the results of the presidential election to the INEC server in real time were unconvincing and even downright insulting. While INEC national commissioner, Festus Okoye, acknowledged they “promised that results would be uploaded in real time to our result viewing portal,” he conceded that “there were challenges” that were not anticipated. But as to the nature of those challenges that curiously only affected results of the presidential elections and not those of the National Assembly elections conducted the same day, Okoye didn’t explain. The All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential…
Mahmud Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is not only a pernicious liar with a history of lies as INEC chairman, but he is also a real treacherous human being with weak moral fiber and has absolutely no respect for Nigerians. He must be denied the social respectability that he and all men in his position crave and demand. After the shambolic 2019 elections where INEC declared Muhammadu Buhari winner, whistle-blowers from the commission let it be known that despite the refusal of the president to sign the electronic transmission of results into law, INEC still went…
Last week, I traced the history of the current conflict in Sudan to the Janjaweed genocide in Darfur between 2003 and 2005 and the coup-proofing measure of the now-ousted leader, Omar al-Bashir, who formalised the militia, christening it the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and setting it up as a counterweight to the Sudanese military. Hemedti, on his part, was smart enough to know when al-Bashir’s game was up and quickly collaborated with the army to remove him from power at the height of the protests in 2019. Surprisingly however, while Omar al-Bashir has since been indicted by the International Criminals…
As the 2023 sudan conflict continued the Janjaweed militia – a conglomeration of Arab-speaking pastoralists and camel traders recruited to fight recalcitrant African Muslims in Darfur protesting marginalisation because the Sudanese army was busy with the civil war in the South – engaged in a vicious genocidal campaign against non-Arab communities in Dafur, the Arab elite and even ordinary Arab Sudanese in Khartoum and surrounding cities could not be bothered. Many argued that the conflict was necessary to maintain control over the region and prevent the secession of Darfur from Sudan. Some even denied the gruesome campaign of murder, rape, and…
Every society and individual needs heroes. They help us survive through our worst times and to thrive. They symbolise for us the kinds of qualities we would like to possess (usually of courage, honour, justice, and human excellence) and all the ambitions we would like to satisfy. Therefore, societies select the best among themselves to serve as the embodiment of their values and a guide and aspiration to the members of that society. Like all societies, Nigeria too has elevated some of its members to hero status. Mostly, these are our nationalist/independence leaders, soldier state-men, and those who have risen…
In 2004, as Colin Powell rounded up his tour of duty as Secretary of State – and with the war in Iraq still raging but at that stage, it was clear Saddam Hussein did not possess the weapons of mass destruction, the very pretext on which the war was launched and haven fell out with President Bush and was certainly not returning as Secretary of State even if Bush won re-election – Powell, the New York Times reported, had a series of conversations with friends and aides and one thing continually disturbed him. It was said that Powell recognized quite…
Winners in the Nigerian general elections of 2023 should be celebrating, but they are not, especially in the camp of the President-elect. The expectation was that after his declaration as winner, he would be able to sue for peace and settlement and even persuade opposition parties and candidates from going to court to challenge his declaration as president. That hasn’t worked out. The content of the petition of the Labour party candidate, which calls into question his very eligibility to stand for the elections citing his drug-dealing and a string of perjury allegations has sent shockwaves through the presidents-elect’s camp.…
I am not the least surprised that the 2023 election has descended into ethnic bickering with each major ethnic group parading a frontline candidate for the presidential election. The voting pattern, the bickering, the mobilisation across ethnic lines point to the saliency of ethnicity in elections in Nigeria. All the talk about policies, the economy, inflation, human rights abuses, and holding those who facilitated or looked the other way as protesting youth were being massacred at the Lekki toll gate have now been forgotten. The surprising defeat of Bola Tinubu in Lagos has raised the stakes as the ethnic dog…
Last week’s Supreme Court judgment granting all the reliefs sought by sixteen states against the federal government’s currency redesign policy took many by surprise. To some, it shows that the Nigerian judiciary is still alive, strong, and capable of dispassionately mediating disputes between Nigeria’s constituent units and between citizens and an overbearing government. A closer look at judgment, however, especially in comparison with past judgments and the behaviour of the judges of the high court, shows a different reality. It is, as yet the clearest case of what is known in Political Science literature as strategic defection – where judges…
The title of my article last week was “2023 elections: Will Nigerians, INEC, Politicians, or the courts decide? I put Nigerians first because it was supposed to be an election and Nigerians are supposed to choose those they want to represent and govern them. But historically, it has not always been so. More often than not, the electoral management body, politicians, and even the courts, have acted to foist a predetermined candidate on Nigerians regardless of what Nigerians really want. The history of elections in Nigeria is a history of open brigandage, voter suppression, ballot box snatching and stuffing, violence…
For eight years, Nigerian politicians, except for Godwin Obaseki, Edo state governor, and a few others, kept urging Godwin Emiefele on as he printed free money for the government illegally. The law only allowed the Central Bank to lend to the government not more than 5 percent of its revenues yearly. But Emiefele did not care. An otherwise, incompetent and amoral fellow, he largely operated as a rogue central banker, bludgeoning the Nigerian economy with one catastrophic monetary policy decision after another while violating all ethics, norms, and procedures so long as it satisfied his political masters. As at the…
For those who decide to ride on the back of the tiger, the problem is not how to mount, but how to dismount without ending up in the belly of the tiger. For Godwin Emiefele, the incompetent and amoral governor of Nigeria’s central bank, that time is now. For eight years, he operated as a rogue central banker, bludgeoning the Nigerian economy with one catastrophic monetary policy decision after another while violating all ethics, norms, and procedures to satisfy his political masters. He went on a money-printing spree for the government over and above the legal limits, lending to the…
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts – Bertrand Russell. In 2014/2015, I watched with horror as the All Progressive Congress (APC) and a significant section of the Nigerian elite and the middle class decided to sell General Muhammadu Buhari, perhaps the most unenlightened, dull but brutal military ruler as the solution to virtually all of Nigeria’s problems. I wasn’t so much concerned about their efforts to get Goodluck Jonathan out by all means. My concern was the lies and revisionism they promoted…
Christopher Akor This must go down as one of the wildest political comebacks ever: from the verge of resigning a month ago over the publication of a damning parliamentary investigation into the Phala Phala “farmgate” scandal that accused him of holding undeclared foreign currency, tax evasion, and misusing state resources, Cyril Ramaphosa “snatched victory from the jaws of defeat” by clinching the presidency of the African National Congress (ANC) last week. For added measure, his victory this time around was emphatic. He secured 2476 votes while his challenger, former health minister, Zweli Mkhize and the arrowhead of the Jacob Zuma…
Christopher Akor Nigeria claims to be a democracy and a federation. Its whole democratic apparatuses and federation are modelled after those of the United States of America. It has elaborate constitutional designs sharing powers among arms and orders of government and setting up a so-called system of checks and balances. But Nigerians have a legitimate complaint, which is that its constitution allocates way too many powers and functions to the federal government than is healthy in a true federation. And despite all the powers allocated to the federal government, it has failed in virtually all its functions, especially that of…
Christopher Akor As a student of Nigerian government and politics, I cannot stop reflecting on the aberration that is Nigerian democracy. We all agree that Nigeria returned to democratic rule in 1999 and has successfully had four different civilian administrations at a stretch. What is more, it has even peacefully transitioned from one political party to another. That, in some democracy scholarly parlance, is one of the prerequisites for being regarded as a consolidated/entrenched democracy. However, like I have always argued, Nigeria and African countries under pressure to democratise society and liberalise the economy have mastered the art of…