Boko Haram militants in Nigeria’s north-east have been forced onto the defensive, says the country’s military, adding that the Islamist group is “in disarray” and retreating in large numbers as a result of the current offensive.

The insurgents …

There is increasing international focus on the role of legislatures in promoting government accountability. Nigeria is the world’s 8th larger exporter of petroleum which makes up nearly 40% of its GDP and 80% of government revenue. Despite this natural …

Nigeria’s diversity is given political expression in federalism, but shared problems have a unifying effect across state, class, religious and ethnic lines, writes Dave Peterson, the National Endowment for Democracy’s Africa Program Director, who recently returned from an …

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators mobilized for the ninth successive day this week in Bangladesh’s capital to protest the verdict of a trial of a major Islamist leader accused of atrocities during the 1971 war of independence.

The …

Can countries like Iraq, Angola, Nigeria and Ghana overcome the resource curse?

The Center for Global Development thinks so:

Reliance on natural resource revenues, particularly oil, is often associated with bad governance, corruption, and poverty. Worried about the effect of …

Monday, September 24, 2012

Freedom on the Net 2012: Shifting Methods of Internet Control

11 a.m. – Freedom House event to discuss a new report that rates internet access, censorship, and user rights in 47 countries around the world …

“Boko Haram was founded on ideology, but poor governance was the catalyst for it to spread,” says “the most authoritative voice” on the Nigerian jihadist group, killed more than 1000 people, mostly Muslims, in a three-year insurgency.

In 2005, …

The toxic nexus of environmental damage, disregard for the rule of law and human rights violations is nowhere more evident than in the Niger Delta.

“Despite longstanding laws against gas flaring – the burning of natural gas during oil extraction …

Anti-government protests by the M23 opposition coalition in the Senegalese capital “got off to a peaceful start, a day after two civilians were killed by paramilitary police in a similar demonstration,” AP reports:

Several hundred people gathered, holding up signs …

Is Nigeria in a position to lead a sub-Saharan African renaissance? It was the world’s fourth-fastest growing economy between 2001 and 2010, but sustainable development is threatened by a dysfunctional state, Boko Haram’s violent Islamist insurgency in the North …