The first four months of the year 2015 will be remembered by many as some of the most apprehensive days ever in the history of Nigeria. The destiny of Nigeria was hanging in the balance. In the centre of this political theatre were two personalities with significantly different trajectories: one, the incumbent president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who had enjoyed an unprecedented, almost meteoric rise, to the apex of political power, and the other, then General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Buhari: The Making of a President is a story of intrigues, suspense, betrayals, reconciliations, collaborations and strategic concessions, one which only an insider could have told to such detail.
This authorized biography of the current president of Nigeria provides an up-close look at the life of a major ally of the West in the fight against terrorism, poverty, and corruption. The book covers Buhari’s early life and education, his military career, and his brief stint as military of state before he was deposed in a coup. A beacon for democracy in Africa, Buhari is the only Nigerian opposition candidate to be elected to the presidency. The book examines the first year of his presidency, looking at the immense security, economic, and political challenges he faces and the bold moves he is making to tackle them with support at home and abroad.
Buharinomics takes a surgical view at the leadership style of President Muhammadu Buhari both as Nigeria's Military Leader after truncating a democratically elected government in 1983 and his second advent as Nigeria's elected democratic president. After being in power for three and half years, it is clear to every Nigerian that electing Buhari as Nigeria's President in 2015 amounted to the worst miscalculation and biggest political travesty in the history of Nigeria.During his short time as Military leader, Nigeria suffered the worst economic recession and suppression of free press. In fact, Nigerians had never seen that kind of hunger and recession as we suffered under Buhari's Military government as Nigerians had to queue for essential commodities such as bread and milk. Nigeria was again thrown into another avoidable economic recession that saw several millions of people losing their jobs, businesses closing down due to unbearable economic environment and the prices of basic goods and services skyrocketing, making Nigeria the country with the highest number of poor people in the world.This book is intended for Nigerians at home and abroad, irrespective of tribe, language, ethnicity or religious affiliation, Africans, potential investors, the International Community, students, policy makers and anyone who is interested in understanding the political economy of Nigeria.
The Victory of Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian Dream: My Testimony on the 2015 Presidential Election is an important chronicle of the 2015 presidential election in Nigeria and the principal actors in the emergence of the first Nigerian presidential candidate to defeat an incumbent President in the political history of Nigeria.
What well-meaning Nigerians hope is that the Buhari administration meets their expectations in the change they desired and voted for. The administration should continue to learn from the mistakes of its predecessor, build upon those mistakes and deliver from that knowledge. The Buhari administration should appreciate this fact. It is the truth spoken to authority. When Jonathan was there, he inherited and had to deal with many problems, just as the new Buhari administration is expected to do. Those challenges were there before President Jonathan was elected into office. And he dealt with them as much as he was able to do during his one-term tenure. Some of them will definitely be inherited by the Buhari administration. He, too, will be expected to deal with them to the best of his ability. No one expects all of the country's problems to be solved under one government or under one term of office. The metamorphoses of armed militant ethnic groups of the Niger Delta, armed resistance of the dreaded Boko Haram in the north-east, the MASSOB and IPOB in the east, OPC in the west, APC in the north--these militant groups were there. They didn't start with Jonathan's administration. They may not end with Buhari's government. Nation-building implies continuity. A new incoming government continues from where its predecessor stopped.
In Religion and the Making of Nigeria, Olufemi Vaughan examines how Christian, Muslim, and indigenous religious structures have provided the essential social and ideological frameworks for the construction of contemporary Nigeria. Using a wealth of archival sources and extensive Africanist scholarship, Vaughan traces Nigeria’s social, religious, and political history from the early nineteenth century to the present. During the nineteenth century, the historic Sokoto Jihad in today’s northern Nigeria and the Christian missionary movement in what is now southwestern Nigeria provided the frameworks for ethno-religious divisions in colonial society. Following Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960, Christian-Muslim tensions became manifest in regional and religious conflicts over the expansion of sharia, in fierce competition among political elites for state power, and in the rise of Boko Haram. These tensions are not simply conflicts over religious beliefs, ethnicity, and regionalism; they represent structural imbalances founded on the religious divisions forged under colonial rule.
Discover Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, in this thematic encyclopedia that covers everything from geography and economics to etiquette and pop culture. Part of Bloomsbury's Understanding Modern Nations series, this volume takes readers on a tour of contemporary Nigeria, helping them better understand the country and the many cultures, religions, and ethnicities that call it home. Chapters are organized thematically, examining a variety of topics, including geography, history, government, economics, religion, ethnic and social groups, gender, education, language, etiquette, food, literature and the arts, and pop culture. Each chapter begins with an overview essay, followed by a selection of encyclopedic entries that provide a more nuanced look at that facet of modern Nigeria. The main text is supplemented with sidebars that highlight additional high-interest topics. A collection of appendices rounds out the volume, offering short vignettes of daily life in the country, a glossary of key terms, statistical data, and a list of state holidays. Once a pawn of British colonialism, today Nigeria is a sovereign nation and key player on the world stage. Its vast oil resources have made it an international powerhouse and the wealthiest country on the African continent, yet political unrest and corruption, and ethnic and religious violence continue to threaten this prosperity. Nigeria is equally rich culturally, a nation where time-honored traditions mix with contemporary influences. Explore the diversity of modern Nigeria in this concise and accessible volume.
History Maker presents the story of Lamidos political journey as told by different authors. It captures his origins, struggles, achievements, and travails. The book attempts to bring out the salient virtues of consistency, determination, belief in individual abilities, faith in God, and resolve to endure hardship to fulfil a personal dream, which are the hallmarks of Lamidospolitical life. It provides a guide to the attitude and disposition of Lamido to life and politics.
This book shows that the security, economic, political, and social problems challenging national security, democracy, and good governance currently in Nigeria would get better or worse, depending on what happens to the seventy-one percent (71%) of Nigerias population still living below poverty line. This is in spite of the billions of petrodollars that Nigeria garnered as revenue over the past few decades. It reveals that one does not need to be a political prophet to predict that if these challenges are not successfully addressed through good governance and inclusive growth, this country will witness the worst civil disobedience, violence, revolts, militancy, breakdown of law and order, more kidnappings, and more of the citizens trying to check out of the country to other parts of the world in future. It concludes, however, that under such intense pressures, the Government of Nigeria, even if it is simply for its self-preservation, will be forced by the objective conditions to move against the interests of the dominant groups and classes in Nigeria. These are the ones who have, for long, captured and hijacked state power and the resources of the country for their exclusive use.
Nigeria is rife with divisions, particularly between Christians and Muslims. Both groups aim at converting others, and so they are in direct conflict with each other. The bitterness came to a head when Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian, succeeded his former boss, Musa Yar’Adua, upon his death. Jonathan would serve as president from 2010 to 2015. The northern oligarchy was infuriated because they depended on rent and patronage, which they knew would not be feasible under a Christian president. They employed every tactic they could to destabilize his regime, and in 2015, he lost the presidential election to the former military head of state, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. In this book, the author lays out how politics in Nigeria is no longer based on what politicians can do for the community. Rather, the focus is on what they can do for themselves. There is no more catching fish for God. The religion they follow is based on stealing from the people. Buhari was presented as an agent of change, but his seven years in charge have only brought pain, bloodshed, anarchy, and more turmoil. Something must be done to move Nigeria away from the precipice. Praise for Conspiracy of Silence “Azukaoma Uche Osakwe’s book is another in a growing list of sad narratives on the failure of leadership in Nigeria under the leadership of Muhammadu Buhari's Administration. The book painstakingly combs through the many ills of Nigerian society under Buhari and the collapse of such institutions as the police, army, electoral body, government officials and the various ethnic nationalities. He accuses these people of conspiring to stay mum amid terrible governance. The author charges the citizenry, as well as the Igbo Nation, which, he says, are marginalized, to buckle up and take what remains of their destiny in their own hands.” —Jude Atupulazi, editor-in-chief, Fides Newspaper, Awka, Nigeria “Conspiracy of Silence ... this book must necessarily take a long title. It would indeed, be difficult to capture the Muhammadu Buhari era as president of Nigeria with an elegantly titled book. The simple reason is that the Buhari tenure was devoid of neither elegance nor finesse. Conspiracy of Silence encapsulates this rather dark epoch in fine detail – warts and all. It’s a racy report of Africa’s giant caught in the vice grips of mediocrity and mendacity in equal measures. It's stranger than fiction!” —Steven Osuji, columnist and former member of the editorial board, The Nation, Nigeria
