Filmed during the 50th anniversary conference 'Fifty years with Africa in focus', 12 October 2012 in Uppsala, Sweden. Part 1: 30 min. 14 sek. Part 2: 26 min. 32 sek.

Decentralisation is regarded as a way of reducing political competition between people. However, studies in Nigeria show that decentralised politics actually can fuel confl icts and ethnic divisions as community identities become basis for representation.The February 2015 elections have – if the electoral process is free and fair – a potential to ease some of the d...

The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), an ethnicmilitia, emerged in the Igbo-speaking region of Nigeria in 1999, shortly after military rule ended and Olusegun Obasanjo took office as elected President. MASSOB’s stated goal is the struggle for Igbo self-determination and the re-emergence of a new sovereign state in the eastern...

Nigeria’s political and economic fortunes and the country’s ability to play a stabilizing role in the African region partly depend on the resolution of the lingering Niger Delta conflict. The Niger Delta covers nine out of 36 states and 185 out of 774 local government areas of the Nigerian federation. It occupies a total land area of 75,000 square kilometers and is...

This Discussion Paper critically examines the pivotal role religion plays in Nigerian politics, particularly as it relates to the ways Islamic and Christian identities have been manipulated by competing political elites in their struggle for power. It provides a concise but well-informed history of the evolution of the religious factor in politics and its adverse i...

Extracts Republished with permission in French, as, “Ecologie politique du pouvoir et du conflit. L’exemple du movement Ceinture verte au Kenya”, Dirige par Christine Verschur Genre, mouvements populaires urbains et environment, Cahiers genre et developpment, no. 6, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007