Muktar Usman Muktari-Janguza (JanguzaArewa)

Image: BBC On Saturday, 7 th of January, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced that after careful deliberation it was acceding to the demands of the National Security Adviser (NSA) and the Service Chiefs to postpone the General Elections for six weeks. The new dates the Commission’s Chairman announced were now to be March 28 (Presidential and Federal Legislative elections) and April 11 (Gubernatorial and State Legislative elections). Much has already been written about the wide-spread suspicion which has greeted the postponement. Remi Adekoya’s article in The Guardian , Karen Attiah’s article in The Washington Post , and Tolu Ogunlesi’s article in the Financial Times , give a good sense of this general scepticism – much of which I share. In this article I instead highlight the implications and impact of the postponement on the country’s economic stability.  Stability Deferred The ebullient glow that once pe...

The Lesson of History and the Influence of Geography Chadian soldiers gathered near the Nigerian town of Gamboru after retaking the town, 1 February 2015. ( AFP ) On Thursday morning, January the 29 th , news broke that Chadian forces, with the tacit consent of the Nigerian government, had crossed the international frontier and recaptured Malam Fatori – a north-eastern Nigerian town that had been captured by Boko Haram in October last year. This was a watershed moment. For the first time in Nigeria’s 54 years as an independent country, foreign troops are conducting major military operations inside the country. Similarly, with Chad’s intervention, the war against Boko Haram has entered a new phase; and possibly presages a wider regional intervention – the balance sheet of which can only be properly assessed in the fullness of time. So why did Idriss Deby send Chadian troops into Nigeria? How are we to make sense of this bold gambit? N’Djamena’s Paramount Ruler: Th...

Three drivers of change transforming global order The UN Security Council in Session These are transformational times. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 left the US as the sole Superpower in world politics, and gave the international system its unipolar structure (a system with a single power centre). In the years following this, the US enjoyed unparalleled freedom – unique for any Great Power in the modern era – to shape global order according to its values and interests. By most accounts, this era of unipolarity is fading. Several powerful trends are eroding its foundations and heralding the onset of a multipolar world. I will focus my remarks on what I believe to be the three most important. The Rise of New Powers The leaders of the 5-member BRICS pose for a photo-op for the 2014 summit in Fortaleza, Brazil. (Wikipedia)   The first is the rise of new economic and geopolitical centres of po...

What will the new global order look like? What implications will it have for Nigeria’s foreign policy options? How should Nigeria orient itself in this emerging world order? President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Office. Whoever emerges as Nigeria’s President after the 2015 elections should set as one of his priorities the formulation of a new conceptual doctrine to guide Nigeria’s relations with the global powers of a multipolar world . Historic changes are taking place in the international system that should command our attention. Shifts in the global balance of power, barely perceptible 10 years ago, have gathered pace. The unipolar era, characterised by America’s unrivalled primacy in global affairs, is drawing to a close. The contours of an emerging multipolar world, with its multiple competing sources of global power, are becoming more clearly visible. How Nigeria apprehends and responds to this emerging multipolar world, and the shifts in global power which...