Nine movement leaders from all over the world share their hopes for the year to come.
2017 Was Rough, But Movement Leaders Have High Hopes for 2018
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Niger Delta
Oil Over Troubled Waters?
In 2007, Tullow Oil and partner Kosmos Energy discovered substantial petroleum reserves in the Jubilee field 37 miles off the coast of Ghana. Oil production began in December 2010, attended by rather inflated expectations of sudden wealth for this rapidly developing West African country. As Christiane Badgley says in one of her many authoritative articles on Ghana’s oil industry, nothing seems to capture the public imagination like oil.
Loose Oil Is a Way of Life in West Africa
Big oil spills are no longer news in Africa. The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates
Africa: C
Africans greeted Barack Obama’s presidential election with excitement and hope. Few ever imagined that a son of Africa would come to inhabit the most powerful office in the world. One year on, however, Obama’s legacy in Africa remains unclear.
Africa Needs Strong Institutions, Not Strongmen
President Barack Obama’s election brought jubilation to the streets of Nigeria. However, hopes for a new U.S. engagement with Africa under the Obama administration are dimming. Nigerians are rankled by two high-profile events that illustrate how U.S. foreign policy still ignores the opinions and perceptions of African people.
Postcard From…the Niger Delta
60-Second Expert: A Tipping Point in the Niger Delta
For the past two months, the Nigerian military has been engaged in a standoff with armed resistance groups in the Niger Delta. The full-scale offensive, launched by Nigerian forces on May 13 with fighter-planes and gunboats, has destroyed villages and displaced upwards of 30,000 people from the region.
Niger Delta Standoff
Behind fighter-planes and gunboats, Nigerian forces launched a full-scale offensive in the Niger Delta on May 13, displacing 30,000 people and sparking a humanitarian crisis. Thousands of civilians fleeing destroyed villages are now trapped between armed resistance groups and the Nigerian military. These civilians are hiding in the bush without food, water, or medical supplies, let alone Internet access to alert the world of their plight, as Iranians are doing via Twitter.
Alienation and Militancy in the Niger Delta: A Response to CSIS on Petroleum, Politics, and Democracy in Nigeria
In the wake of the September 11th attack and the Iraq war, Nigeria’s geopolitical significance to the U.S. has come into sharper relief. In March and April 2003, militancy across the Niger Delta radically disrupted oil production in this major oil supplier nation. News of these actions, following conflict-ridden national elections, has reinforced the notion that Nigeria and the new West African “gulf states” in general are matters of U.S. national security.
U.S. Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine Bane of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Watchdogs
U.S. President George W. Bush’s new doctrine of preventive war and pre-emptive strikes is turning the UN’s nuclear watchdog into a lapdog.