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Nigeria

Infrastructure turned suprastructure : unpredictable materialities and visions of a Nigerian nation

Upphovspersoner: Trovalla, Ulrika | Trovalla, Eric
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Urban Dynamics
År: 2014
Ämnesord: African urbanity, anthropology, infrastructure, materiality, Nigeria, Jos, Urban environment, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
There are signs hidden in the infrastructure. In the Nigerian city of Jos, the unpredictable availability of power, fuel, water, etc. becomes a vehicle of meaning. In many settings across the globe, infrastructure is often made invisible, and the centre stage that it takes in everyday life remains unrecognized. In Jos, however, as in many African cities, the constant need to predict its flows contradicts the prefix infra (below); rather than being hidden beneath the realm of experience it is brought to the surface as a puzzle to be figured out. These explorations in turn come to reveal matters beyond the infrastructure itself. Just as diviners infer the state of the world from the stones they have thrown, reading significance out of the seeming randomness of matter, the infrastructure turns intricate questions into tangible clues. It becomes a suprastructure - a divination tool giving clues about the past, present and future of the Nigerian nation.

Suprastructure : A photo exhibition

Upphovspersoner: Trovalla, Ulrika | Trovalla, Erik
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Urban Dynamics |
År: 2013
Ämnesord: photo exhibition, photos, Jos, Nigeria
The photo exhibition ’Suprastructure’ was first displayed at Museum Gustavianum in Uppsala between 17 November 2012 and 5 March 2013. It was digitally published in March 2013 as part of a research project entitled ‘Infrastructure as Divination: Urban Life in the Postcolony,’ financed by the Swedish Research Council. The scholars behind the exhibition, Ulrika and Erik Trovalla, are researchers in cultural anthropology and ethnology. They are based at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, and Uppsala University. Drawing on their photographs from the million city Jos in central Nigeria, they here give a glimpse of their research into the meanings of infrastructure in everyday life.

Urban governance and spatial inequality in service delivery: a case study of solid waste management in Abuja, Nigeria

Upphovsperson: Adama, Onyanta
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Urban Dynamics |
År: 2012
Ämnesord: Urban governance, spatial inequality, State, Privatization, solid waste management, Abuja, Nigeria, SOCIAL SCIENCES, SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
Spatial inequality in service delivery is a common feature in African cities. Several factors account for the phenomenon but there is growing attention towards urban governance and the role of the state. Urban governance policies such as privatization serve as key strategies through which the state regulates and (re)produces spatial inequality in service delivery. This study examined how governance practices related to privatization and the regulatory role of the state reinforce spatial inequalities in the delivery of solid waste services in Abuja, Nigeria. It focused primarily on the issue of cost recovery. Privatization became a major focus in Abuja in 2003 when the government launched a pilot scheme. Although it has brought improvements in service delivery, privatization has also increased the gap in the quality of services delivered in different parts of the city. Drawing on empirical data, the study revealed that little sensitivity to income and affordability, and to income differentials between neighbourhoods in the fixing of user charges and in the choice of the billing method is contributing to spatial inequalities in service delivery. Furthermore, the study suggests that these practices are linked to a broader issue, a failure of the government to see the people as partners. It therefore calls for more inclusive governance especially in decision-making processes. The study also emphasizes the need for a policy document on solid waste management, as this would encourage a critical assessment of vital issues including how privatization is to be funded, especially inlow-income areas.

Movement for the emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) : political marginalization, repression and petro-insurgency in the Niger Delta

Upphovsperson: Courson, Elias
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation | Uppsala : Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
År: 2009
Ämnesord: Energy resources, Petroleum industry, Transnational corporations, Macroeconomics, Geopolitics, conflicts, violence, Marginality, Protest movements, Nigeria, Niger Delta, Political science, Statsvetenskap
This Discussion paper addresses the linkages between the political economy of oil and violent conflict in Nigeria’s main oil and gas producing region, the Niger Delta. It is based on a case study of the insurgent Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), which has targeted and attacked the interests of international oil companies and the federal government in the oil-rich, but impoverished, Niger Delta region of Nigeria, in its professed campaign for the control of the oil wealth of the region for the benefit of local people. Through this study of MEND, fresh perspectives are brought to bear on the causes and ramifications of the oil conflict in the region, and the role of various actors at the local, national and international levels. This is important in grasping the nature of the violence in the Niger Delta and Nigeria and the enormity of the task of resolving the complex conflict in which the region is immersed. It is a challenge, which as the author argues, transcends the resort to the militarized or securitized solutions that often fail to adequately address the roots of conflict.

Biafran ghosts : The MASOB Ethnic Militia and Nigeria’s Democratisation Process

Upphovsperson: Okonta, Ike
Utgivare: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Conflict, Displacement and Transformation | Uppsala, Sweden
År: 2012
Ämnesord: Nigeria, Biafra, Democratization, political development, Ethnicity, Ethnic groups, Interethnic relations, Social movements, nationalism, Political science, Statsvetenskap
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 part of the country to be known as the ‘United States of Biafra’, thereby raising the spectre of a possible break up of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This Discussion Paper examines the circumstances of MASSOB’s emergence in a period of political transition and considerable uncertainty as the Nigerian armed forces began to prepare to relinquish their grip on power, and the specific ways the promoters of this ethnicmilitia movement have shaped Nigeria’s still unfolding democratization process since 1999.

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