U.S. security assistance and America’s complicity in the Nigerian government’s human rights violations fuel insurgencies and boost public support for them.
Biden Faces Nigeria Crisis
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Nigeria
Chinese Fossil Fuel Investments in Africa
African countries need investments, China needs raw materials, and African activists are fed up with the resulting corruption and environmental damage.
Supreme Court Decision on Same-Sex Marriage Will Resonate Globally
The U.S. Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage will bolster the work of human rights activists around the world. But it will also pose some challenges.
The Latest Blow to Israeli-Palestinian Peace
The United States blocked the latest UN resolution to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine for the most disingenuous of reasons.
Boko Haram Makes Al Qaeda Look Benign in Comparison
What do you expect from a group that doesn’t believe in ― never mind evolution ― evaporation?
Economics by Other Means: War, Poverty, and Conflict Minerals in Africa
With support from Moscow, Washington, and the former imperial capitals no longer assured, armed groups in Africa now compete for riches in diamond mines, gold pits, oil wells, and rare earth deposits.
Bad-Judgment Jonathan Incites Public, Boko Haram
Questions remain about how well Nigeria’s government will manage public dissatisfaction, ethnic and religious divisions, and violent resistance from the Islamist Boko Haram movement.
Occupy Nigeria
On January 1, 2012, Nigeria’s fuel regulator announced that the government was immediately discontinuing its fuel subsidy to help cut government spending, causing an overnight spike in fuel prices from $1.70 to $3.50 per gallon. Such a hike would be outrageous even for Americans. But for a drastically poorer country like Nigeria—where 70 percent of the population of 160 million lives below the poverty line—it was insufferable. Cheap fuel is one of the few benefits Nigerians enjoy as citizens of Africa’s largest (and the world’s 14th-largest) oil producer.
Nigeria’s Perfect Storm
Nigeria is facing a perfect storm of crises including a national strike, widespread protests, and sectarian violence in the north. Although the strikes, attacks, and protests raise the specter of another civil war in Africa’s biggest oil producer, the United States and the international community should avoid aggravating the situation by seeming to encourage a military solution.
The New Scramble for Africa
Is current U.S. foreign policy in Africa following a blueprint drawn up almost eight years ago by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, one of the most conservative think tanks in the world? Although it seems odd that a Democratic administration would have anything in common with the extremists at Heritage, the convergence in policy and practice between the two is disturbing.