Nigeria: hope for change?
Ever since I first studied about Nigeria in the mid-1960s, I've been whiplashed back and forth between optimism and pessimism. One day things seem hopeful and the next day they appear hopeless.Of course from a distance, an incredibly complex set of "places" like Nigeria can look like whatever the latest reporter describes.
To see the latest, get out your copy of The Economist for November 14 (or use the link below) and turn to page 30. There's a good update on some things Nigerian. It might make a good supplement for the end of your study of Nigeria. You could choose a number of observations from the article as writing or discussion prompts.
Hints of a new chapter
[U]nusually hopeful things are happening in the Delta...
[O]ver the past three months the militants have been giving up both themselves and their guns in unprecedented numbers...
It is rare to have any reasons to be cheerful about Nigeria...
Yet for all this, while other African countries such as Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Rwanda have been improving in the past decade, Nigeria has, in many ways, gone backwards...
[I]n 1999, 12 of the northern Muslim states adopted sharia law, putting an enormous strain on the unity of a Nigerian state that had previously been run only under the secular, civil law bequeathed to it by British colonial rulers...
Terrorism-watchers are also concerned that al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups from across north Africa may have attached themselves to some of these Islamic sects to mount attacks on the government...
Much rests on the enigmatic figure of the country’s president, Umaru Yar’Adua...
Find out What You Need to Know
Labels: cleavages, Nigeria, political culture, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:08 PM
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