Vol 41 No 16 | NIGERIA Transparency test 4th August 2000 Not much is going right in the government's efforts to relaunch licensing of prime oil exploration acreage: it had cancelled many awards made under military rule. The present round...
Vol 41 No 12 | NIGERIA Mixed reviews 9th June 2000 Civilian government wins praise for its democracy but blame for its lack of vision President Olusegun Obasanjo ended his first year in office on 29 May much as he arrived, struggling on several fronts against outbreaks of ethnic, regional and religious violence t...
Vol 41 No 9 | NIGERIA Promises, promises 28th April 2000 Two new rows are brewing about Nigeria's debt. One concerns the whereabouts of some US$700-800 million of Nigerian promissory notes. Although the International Monetary Fund says t...
Vol 41 No 8 | NIGERIA King Oil, again 14th April 2000 Ambitious plans for a competitive oil industry still have to beat graft and political infighting Near the top of the list for President Bill Clinton's trip to Nigeria in June are the Abuja government's plans for a huge expansion of the oil industry, which could make the countr...
Vol 41 No 7 | NIGERIA Offshore, offside 31st March 2000 In a private investigation, a soccer star says he's uncovered a multi-billion dollar debt trading fraud and calls on the government to act The determination of President Olusegun Obasanjo's government to probe the financial management of its military predecessors is to be tested by soccer star John Fashanu. He has lau...
Vol 41 No 5 | NIGERIA In God's name 3rd March 2000 The agitation for Islamic law is as much political and ethnic as it is religious; its proponents have weakened and divided the North The government appears to have negotiated a respite in its latest crisis. On 29 February the governors of five northern states said they would stop plans to enforce Sharia (Islamic...
Vol 41 No 3 | NIGERIA Russian steal 4th February 2000 At least five major Western banks were involved in the transfer, in 1996 and 1997, of 973 million Deutschemark (US$512 mn.) of Nigerian state funds to accounts linked to the son of...
Vol 40 No 24 | NIGERIA Lousy legacies 3rd December 1999 President Obasanjo's good start is being threatened by poverty and ethnic nationalism Street fighting over control of a local market in the old capital, Lagos, in late November, in which over 100 people have died, started just as President Olusegun Obasanjo's govern...
Vol 40 No 21 | NIGERIA Cleaning up oil 22nd October 1999 At last people are taking Obasabjo's crackdown on oil crooks seriously Recent high-level visitors to Abuja have left apparently convinced that President Olusegun Obasanjo is reversing 20 years of corruption and mismanagement in Nigeria's oil industry,...
Vol 40 No 17 | NIGERIA Obasanjo's one hundred days 27th August 1999 President Obasanjo moves with surprising speed against patronage but the inevitable clouds loom For now, it is no longer business as usual in Nigeria. In just three months, President Olusegun Obasanjo's whisk broom of reform has swept away the notoriously parasitical middleme...