Suchergebnisse

Nigeria's security environment continues to be tense, tenuous and fluid. From all indications and yardsticks of policy planning and implementation, the country's security architecture seems to be unraveling. As the nation's security establishments confront multiple security crises especially in Northern Nigeria, their policy and operational reactions continue to be reactive. While the Boko Haram insurgency rages, a decade after the commencement of military operations against the group, military successes in the Northeast are at best modest. Following a decade of commitment of military resources including billions of dollars deployed to the procurement of armament and military hardware, expansion of forces' strength and creation of special operation formations, one can ask why have the military operations continued to falter and security architecture unravel? The study was anchored on the qualitative research approach and sourced data from published and openly available official documents, scientific publications and newspapers articles, reports, opinion pieces and commentaries. Making use of this open-sourced information, this study explains faltering military operations and Nigeria's worsening security environment to the failure of security planning, poor civil-military relations including lack of depth in intelligence agencies penetration of local communities across Northern Nigeria, rivalry among the three arms of the Nigerian Armed Forces, persistency of the poor culture of intelligence information sharing and lack of synergy and poor coordination among Nigeria's security establishments. This study recommends that more attention need to be paid to intelligence gathering, synergy and coordination among the security establishments in the bids to enhance the prospects of Nigeria's counter-terrorism operation and other military engagements across the country.

Since 1999 up till the conduct of the 2015 general elections, Nigeria's party politics has exhibited the near dominance of the political space by the then ruling People's Democratic Party, PDP. Aside the then four leading opposition parties, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN; All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA; All Nigerian People's Party, ANPP and Congress for Progressive Change, CPC; the rest of the opposition pack comprised of smaller parties that lack organizational structure, possess little electoral worth and lack the capacity to make meaningful contribution to the deepening of the nation's democratic process. Realizing the importance of pulling resources together in an alliance, four main opposition parties, ACN, ANPP, APGA and CPC entered into talk directed at facilitating the merger of their parties to form a formidable opposition party. The result was the collapse of their structures and subsequent formation of, the All Progressive Congress, APC. While numbers of issues and factors accounted for the electoral defeat of the then ruling PDP in the 2015 general elections, this paper advance the argument that the united front presented by the opposition elements under the banner of the emergent All Progressive Congress was instrumental to the alternation of ruling party at the national level that Nigeria witnessed in 2015. Informed by this position and drawing insights from newspapers articles, commentaries, opinion piece and academic literature, this paper interrogates the politics of opposition merger and struggle for power in the course of the 2015 general elections.

The outbreak of violence has always generates untoward consequences for the education sector, impacting negatively on safety of learning environment, security of teachers and students alike. Underscoring the linkage between education and political violence, scholars have note that education often act as two edged sword. Since time immemorial, education has serves as instrument to prevent, mitigate and ameliorate conflicts between and within social groups. However, education can also serves as trigger, contribute to and a cause of conflict. This largely occurs through lack of qualitative access to educational services for the poor and through the nature and content of curriculum. When education emerges as victim of violence, women and girl-child are often impacted more as violence are often disproportionately directed at girl-child in their learning environment with the objectives of dissuading parents from sending girls to school. Drawing from the experiences in North-East Nigeria, this article discuss violence directed at learning institutions, teachers and students. It highlights how extremist ideology and violence of the Boko Haram group generates fears in the heart of parents, dissuade them from sending girl-child to school and thus restricts access to education for women and girl-child.

The outbreak of violence has always generates untoward consequences for the education sector, impacting negatively on safety of learning environment, security of teachers and students alike. Underscoring the linkage between education and political violence, scholars have note that education often act as two edged sword. Since time immemorial, education has serves as instrument to prevent, mitigate and ameliorate conflicts between and within social groups. However, education can also serves as trigger, contribute to and a cause of conflict. This largely occurs through lack of qualitative access to educational services for the poor and through the nature and content of curriculum. When education emerges as victim of violence, women and girl-child are often impacted more as violence are often disproportionately directed at girl-child in their learning environment with the objectives of dissuading parents from sending girls to school. Drawing from the experiences in North-East Nigeria, this article discuss violence directed at learning institutions, teachers and students. It highlights how extremist ideology and violence of the Boko Haram group generates fears in the heart of parents, dissuade them from sending girl-child to school and thus restricts access to education for women and girl-child.

There has been a debate on the modality for the management of the Nigerian Police Force since the return to civil rule in 1999. The debate revolves around the need to devolve constitutional authority on policing to sub-national units. In theory, this will entail moving internal security issues, inclusive of policing, from the exclusive federal list to the concurrent list. Given the heighten insecurity that has plagued the Nigerian state in recent times, this paper examines the restructuring discourse in Nigeria with a specific focus on the call for the establishment of state police within the context of the subsidiarity principle. The study was contextualized within the exploratory research design paradigm and it adopted the qualitative approach in the sourcing and analysis of data. To this end, the paper has drawn information from published media reports that include: opinion, commentaries, editorials and news articles. Data was also sourced from published academic and policy publications that include: articles, chapter in books, books and government documents. Drawing on information from these sources, this paper assesses the positions of protagonists and antagonists of state police in Nigeria. It draws out implications for security governance in Nigeria.

Nigeria has contended with violent expressions of conflicts since the return to civil rule in 1999. The Boko Haram uprising is the most devastating of these crises and it has given rise to serious humanitarian challenges. The manifestation of the emergency is revealed in the extent of internal displacement it has generated. Thus, this study assessed the depth of the humanitarian needs of those internally displaced by the insurgency and the nature of state management of the displacement crisis. Data for the study was sourced from national policy documents, media documents, reports and other publications on the displacement crisis. Relying on these sources, the study highlighted the nature of state management of the displacement crisis, assessed recorded successes and noted challenges.

Discourse on women and the discrimination that they suffer in social relations continue to animate discussion about the roles and place of women across societies especially in Africa. It is within the context of the discourse on the nature of the relationship that the term gender emanates. Thus, gender as use in social science discourse highlights the nature, forms and dynamism of social relations between men and women and how this inform power, privileges and aspirations between the sexes. As a social issue, discourse on gender within the media (print, electronic and social media) has gained ascendancy. The media as agenda setting institution has elevated discussion on gender relations inclusive of the discourse on women's active participation in the political process and the implications that its portends for national development. Therefore situating its discussion within the context of liberal feminist theory and drawing insights from news articles, opinion pieces, editorial, and commentaries from Nigerian newspapers and published academic materials this paper examines media discourse on women's political participation within the Nigerian political space. It highlights the centrality of media presentation to the task of advancing women's participation in the political process in Nigeria's Fourth Republic.

Democracy is perhaps the most popular political norm in modern discourse. For most sovereign states in Africa however, democratisation and its challenges have for long remained daunting. Even though described as 'false start', independence presented most African states with the opportunity of transforming colonial structure to democratic hegemony. Regrettably however, post-independence efforts aimed at achieving this have largely remained unimpressive. Till date, when assessed in the light of the pretensions in present times by most African states, one can safely state that democratisation is the most threatened political project in Africa. Suffice to state that this 'struggle' underlies the challenges to democratisation in Africa which is well typified by the Nigerian experience. This paper discussed colonialism, sovereignty, globalisation, military coup, ethnicity, poverty and political leadership as the broad challenges confronting democratisation in Africa within the context of Nigeria.

Discourse on women and the discrimination that they suffer in social relations continue to animate discussion about the roles and place of women across societies especially in Africa. It is within the context of the discourse on the nature of the relationship that the term gender emanates. Thus, gender as use in social science discourse highlights the nature, forms and dynamism of social relations between men and women and how this inform power, privileges and aspirations between the sexes. As a social issue, discourse on gender within the media (print, electronic and social media) has gained ascendancy. The media as agenda setting institution has elevated discussion on gender relations inclusive of the discourse on women's active participation in the political process and the implications that its portends for national development. Therefore situating its discussion within the context of liberal feminist theory and drawing insights from news articles, opinion pieces, editorial, and commentaries from Nigerian newspapers and published academic materials this paper examines media discourse on women's political participation within the Nigerian political space. It highlights the centrality of media presentation to the task of advancing women's participation in the political process in Nigeria's Fourth Republic.

Democracy is perhaps the most popular political norm in modern discourse. For most sovereign states in Africa however, democratisation and its challenges have for long remained daunting. Even though described as 'false start', independence presented most African states with the opportunity of transforming colonial structure to democratic hegemony. Regrettably however, post-independence efforts aimed at achieving this have largely remained unimpressive. Till date, when assessed in the light of the pretensions in present times by most African states, one can safely state that democratisation is the most threatened political project in Africa. Suffice to state that this 'struggle' underlies the challenges to democratisation in Africa which is well typified by the Nigerian experience. This paper discussed colonialism, sovereignty, globalisation, military coup, ethnicity, poverty and political leadership as the broad challenges confronting democratisation in Africa within the context of Nigeria.