Ernest Toochi Aniche

Federal University Otuoke (FUO), Bayelsa State, Nigeria · Political Science

Recent studies on armed banditry in Zamfara have commented on climate change, weak security infrastructure, and setbacks in socio-economic developments. The communal-level issues in the threat such as farmland allocation, vigilantism, and local intelligence provision have largely remained understudied. This study exploits the gap to explain armed b...

The fall of colonialism in Africa was meant to usher in a new period of stability and inclusive development in Africa. However, the continent, in a post-independence era, has been engulfed by widespread scenes of violence and conflict, often with devastating repercussions. Whether it be conflict relating to blood diamonds in Liberia and Sierra Leon...

This article examines political leadership and government effectiveness in ethnically diverse countries in Africa using the experiences of Kenya and Nigeria—two of Africa’s most ethnically diverse countries. The study reviews different proxies for government effectiveness in Kenya and Nigeria. Drawing on inclusive leadership theory and based on an...

The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria’s North-East and the activities of Violent Extremist Groups (VEGs) in the Northcentral and Northwest regions have caused a humanitarian disaster and commission of significant human rights violations by insurgents and state security forces in counterinsurgency. Under international law, the intent and method of th...

West African borderlands still depict free labour migration that weaves a complex grid of relations and inter-dependences over the ‘artificial’ borders inherited from colonialism. Migrants consider the sub-region as a single cultural and socio-economic unit within which trade and services are intertwined across countries, and where border crossing...

The Covid-19 pandemic border closure policy and other anti-migrant policies in 2020 have become another basis for flaunting the ECOWAS free movement protocols by member states now referred to as pandemic nationalism. Although not limited to (West) Africa, pandemic nationalism reinforces the inability of ECOWAS to demonstrate supranationalism and en...

This chapter deals with the relevance of Pan-Africanism for African development trajectories and prognoses. Pan-Africanism has historically evolved from being a liberation movement to eradicate oppression, slavery, and colonialism to an ideology of achieving continental unity, interdependence, self-sufficiency, and economic transformation. In other...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

The menace of cultism is not fundamentally new, especially in the tertiary education system in Nigeria, but it has assumed a worrisome dimension going by the recent experiences in rural areas. This study examines the changing manifestation and extension of school cultism from university campuses to secondary schools in rural communities. Primary da...

On 20 October 2020, the military and police force opened fatal shootings at peaceful unarmed #EndSARS protesters. This article examines the political and socio-economic undercurrents of #EndSARS protest. It argues that the predatory state–society relations where the state is the predator and citizens are the preys nurtured the increasing distrust b...

The emergence of ethno-political organisations pre-dated Nigerian independence and democracy. Most pre-independence political parties in Nigeria were simply transformations or metamorphoses of ethno-political organisations. As a colonial heritage, this trend continued after independence to the extent that some of the political parties in the Second...

How are political decisions made in Nigeria today? What factors account for the differences between the design of statutory structures and processes of political decision-making and how they operate in reality? In other words, how wide are the gaps between statutes and practice of political decision-making? Or still, are there gaps between de jure...

What factors account for the limitations of the formal structures and processes of political decision making and governance in Nigeria? Why has the non-formal dimension of political decision making in Nigeria become so dominant that they have largely undermined the formal structures of decision making and by extension, the democratic system? What i...

The 1979 Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS ) Protocol, or Article 59 of the 1993 ECOWAS Revised Treaty, encapsulates the terms and conditions for a visa-free and borderless economic community. It is geared towards decolonising the colonial borders and encouraging economic activity. But despite the ratification of the Protocol, docu...

The defects and susceptibility of the Nigerian federalism are more pronounced at this period of the Covid-19 pandemic. Existing studies are yet to articulate how the states, in the formulation and enforcement of the lockdown and physical distancing policies, infringed on the federal exclusive matters by closing land borders, airports and imposing p...

This study explores the experience of small business operators in South-Eastern Nigeria to underscore the sub-sectoral effects of COVID-19 lockdown measures on small businesses. Although COVID-19 lockdown and social distancing policies are generally perceived to have negative effects on small businesses, this study argues that these policies have h...

This article investigates how the Nigerian state is implicated in police brutality and clampdown on the #EndSARS protesters and its implications for democracy, development and national security. The article used primary data comprising 38 telephone interviews, 19,609 Facebook posts/reposts and 24,799 Twitter tweets/retweets, complementing it with a...

This study examines how COVID-19 lockdown and social distancing policies impacted on citizens' access to healthcare facilities and the level of patronage of chemist/pharmacies for self-treatment. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey method was used to collect data by asking individuals quantitative and qualitative questions in person which includ...

This briefing explores how the administrative fight against Covid-19 in Nigeria, particularly the conflictual political economy of federalism in this mono-product/oil-dependent economy, has shaped the making and implementation of virus containment policies and strategies. The analysis shows that the disconnects between the federal and state governm...

The ‘coloniality’, porosity, and ‘ungovernability’ of borders in West Africa, have engendered undocumented migration, in which most people engage to visit their kin and for economic reasons such as herding, farming, fishing, hunting, and trading. This occurs concurrently with human smuggling, human trafficking, gun-running, terrorism, and money lau...

This article examines the effects of COVID-19 lockdown measures on small business units, thus departing from previous studies which only focused on general effects. Based on qualitative and cross-sectional survey methods, the article depicts a cross-sectoral disparity in the patronage level and income stream of small businesses found on the streets...

Politics is human and social activities, but in practice it is usually difficult to separate this sphere of activity from other forms of human activities like economic, religious and socio-cultural activities. This is because all these forms of activities are closely and intricately related as they inhere in man. Yet politics is a distinct form of...

While Afro-optimism emphasises the prospects of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), Afro-pessimism focuses on the challenges of AfCFTA in Africa. Even as Afro-optimists and Afro-pessimists continue to dominate academic discourse and African scholarship, this article departs from these two by interrogating the free trade area in Africa...

This study explores the experience of the sub-urban slum residents in Okpoko (Anambra State), Ngwa-road Aba (Abia State), Ajegunle (Lagos State) and Gwagwalada (Abuja), to underscore the elitist and western contexts of Covid-19 lockdown and physical distancing policies. The study apprehends these policies as being counter-productive due to Nigeria’...

Migration has been dominating the national, regional, and global scholarly discourse in recent years. Recent global estimates indicate that 3.4 percent of the world’s population, about 258 million people, are international migrants and all countries are origins and destinations of human migration. Poverty and inequality constructed within the domin...

Plea bargain has been adopted as a strategy of fighting corruption in Nigeria. The objective of this study is to determine if the misuse of plea bargain has eroded public confidence in the fight against corruption in Nigeria. To achieve this, the study essentially adopts mixed methods or a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Thus,...

Classical African regionalism, as rooted in pan-Africanism, is a strategy for decolonisation, anti-colonial and neo-colonial struggles, and continental unity. Modern African regionalism is a means to achieving continental unity, collective self-reliance and economic transformation as well as to creating an agenda for solving African developmental c...

African regionalism is rooted in pan-Africanism. While pan-Africanism served as strategies for decolonization, anti-colonial and neo-colonial struggles, continental unity, and means of solving African developmental challenges, African regionalism has been a means of collective self-reliance or strategy for economic transformation and development fr...

The Brexit is unprecedented in the history of European Union (EU) and unparalleled in the annals of European integration. The seemingly unexpected outcome of the Brexit referendum has instant, far-reaching and remote consequences for Britain, EU, European integration, and neo-functionalism. The implications for African countries, African Union (AU)...

China–Africa economic relation has expanded significantly since the 1990s. In recent years, China’s activities in African countries have attracted criticisms bothering on fears that financial flows from China could exacerbate poor governance and human rights abuses in these countries. However, our assessment of the dynamics of China’s engagements w...

The Niger Delta is a trouble spot in contemporary Nigerian politics and, in fact, a hotspot of youth militant activities. This is because the nature of oil exploitation and the politics of distribution of oil wealth has created disempowerment, frustration and deprivation that underpinned outbreak of violence and conflicts in the form of youth milit...

Africa has a long history of migration which predated European colonialism. Long before colonialism, people had been migrating and settling within Africa and even beyond. No doubt various kingdoms guarded and protected their territories against invaders often leading to war of conquest and annexation. But the partitioning of Africa in the 1884/5 Be...

1 Intra-regional migration is not new in West Africa. Long before colonialism, people had been migrating and settling within West Africa and even beyond. European colonialism only created artificial boundaries in far away Berlin. No doubt various kingdoms guarded and protected their territories against invaders often leading to war of conquest and...

Community policing is neither foreign nor novel to Africa. Long before the coming of the Europeans, the traditional Igbo society of what is now Southeastern Nigeria (Igboland) had devised means for curbing and preventing crime, using primarily the age grade system and masquerade secret society. These approaches were very effective in enabling the p...

Pan-Africanism served as strategies for decolonization, anti-colonial and neo-colonial struggles, continental unity, and means of solving African developmental challenges. Whilst, African regionalism has been a means of collective self-reliance or strategy for economic transformation and development framework. The main objective of this paper, ther...

The Brexit is unprecedented in the history of European Union (EU) and unparalleled in the annals of European integration. The seemingly unexpected outcome of the Brexit referendum has instant, far-reaching and remote consequences for Britain, EU, European integration, and neo-functionalism. The implications for African countries, African Union (AU)...

Generally, Nigerian political parties in the present republic have been hampered by crisis of internal democracy thus undermining their political leadership recruitment function. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is a good example of one of these Nigerian political parties that lacks internal democracy. In fact, PDP was a leviathan. The 2015 Elect...

Historically, integration in Africa preceded European colonialism and as well predated European integration. But in the scramble for Africa, the continent was partitioned into specific spheres of influence in the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) among the various European powers. This partitioning has continued to haunt Africa many years after colonia...

Oil is indeed the ‘devil’s excreta’. Consequently, gas flaring in Nigeria began with production of crude oil in 1958 resulting in serious trans-boundary environmental, energy, economic and health implications. This has led to the adoption of zero-gas flaring policy in 2003 in line with the domestication of related international initiatives and trea...

Globally, over 150 billion cubic metres of associated gas are being flared and vented annually. Africa flares 40 billion cubic metres annually in which 35 billion cubic metres are flared in sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria alone, gas flaring amounts to about 23 billion cubic metres per annum in over 100 flare sites, constituting over 13 percent of gl...

Africa is a continent ridden by crises, and thus, confronted with enormous security challenges in the post-cold war 21st century. Regrettably, the end of cold war did not result in conflict reduction in Africa as predicted or expected, rather it exacerbated suggesting that the problem is more internal than external requiring Africa to look more inw...

The interpretation or ruling on international immunity cases are often surrounded by controversies, sometimes leading to inconsistencies. The British municipal court rulings on international immunity cases are not exception, and in fact are embodiments of inconsistencies. The judgements have been consistently inconsistent. The rulings are not just...

In spite of many years of regional economic integration, African regional blocs have been seriously hampered by historical, colonial, neo-colonial and vertical linkages of their economies to Western economies in terms of trade and investments. This study is essentially a qualitative research and thus relies heavily on secondary sources of data such...

Community policing is neither foreign nor novel to Africa. Long before the coming of Europeans, the traditional Igbo society of the now southeastern Nigeria had devised means of policing its communities and curbing or preventing crime using primarily the age grade system and masquerade secret society. This approach was very effective in enabling th...

China is not doing Africa any favour. China’s investment patterns, aid conditions and trade strategies show that she is driven by her economic interest in economic relations with Africa reinforcing the decimation of African economies long fragmented in Berlin Conference (1884-1885) by European colonialism. The wide trade imbalance between China and...

Historically, integration in Africa preceded European colonialism and as well predated European integration. But in the scramble for Africa, the continent was partitioned into specific spheres of influence in the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) among the various European powers. This partitioning has continued to haunt Africa many years after colonia...

The ghost of Berlin Conference (1884-1885) that partitioned Africa into specific spheres of influence has continued to haunt Africa many years after colonialism through neo-colonial ties thereby consolidating and reinforcing the balkanisation of African economies. The principal findings of this study, therefore, are that the regional economic integ...

The 2011 National Minimum Wage Act raised serious controversy and debate in Nigeria thereby problematizing the nature and structure of Nigerian federalism and fiscal federalism. By adopting qualitative method of analysis, the study concludes that, one, the trade unions' insistence on uniform national minimum wage scale hinders the enforcement of th...

Globally, over 150 billion cubic meters of associated gas are being flared and vented annually. Africa flares 40 billion cubic meters annually in which 35 billion cubic meters are flared in sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria alone, gas flaring amounts to about 23 billion cubic meters per annum of the gas generated in association with crude oil producti...

Oil is indeed the ‘devil’s excreta’. Consequently, gas flaring in Nigeria began with production of crude oil in 1958 resulting in serious trans-boundary environmental, energy, economic and health implications. This has led to the adoption of zero-gas flaring policy in 2003 in line with the domestication of related international initiatives and trea...

Generally, Nigerian political parties in the present republic have been hampered by crisis of internal democracy thus undermining their political leadership recruitment function. Also, this has negative implications for party discipline and unity. The resultant effects are party factionalization, defection and carpet-crossing. The Peoples Democrati...

Published: ANSU Journal of Arts and Social Sciences, 4 (1): 48-74 2 Abstract NNPC in joint venture partnerships with international oil corporations (IOCs) from the United States of America, Britain, France and the Netherlands flared 514,779,616 standard cubic feet (scf) of associated gas out of 619,032,858 scf of total associated gas flared in 2011...

The purpose of this study is to determine if the adoption of inefficacious gas utilization technologies and gas flare elimination strategies by IOCs hinders their compliance to the zero-gas flaring deadlines resulting to the failure of zero-gas flaring policy in Nigeria. By adopting rentier state theory, using qualitative methods and relying on sec...

Keywords: Community policing, community development, rural development, security, Nigeria

The recent North African and Middle East crises have created gap in absorptive capacity or resulted to absorptive-refugee gap. Thus, resulting to the incapacity of the host countries to absorb all the refugees, and in turn leading to refugee crisis in the Middle East and North Africa. Consequently, refugees often face substantial difficulties in se...

The ghost of Berlin Conference (1884-1885) that partitioned Africa into specific spheres of influence has continued to haunt Africa many years after colonialism, reinforcing the fragmentation of African economies. The shadow of the Conference is still with us such that after over a century of pan-Africanism and five decades of regional integration...

The logical outcome of the renterism of the Nigerian state is oil dependence. The Nigeria’s dependent and rentier economy has ensured that oil remains the mainstay of the country’s economy since early 1970. In Nigeria, oil revenue alone accounts for nearly 90 percent of the total revenue and foreign exchange earnings, and more than 90 percent of ex...

The primary concern of African Economic Community (AEC) as an arm of African Union (AU) is to coordinate the activities of various regional economic groups in Africa, and ultimately guides them to a single market and possibly continent-wide economic and monetary union. But under AEC watch the regional economic organizations have proliferated and st...

Keywords: Feminism, International Relations, Theory, and Liberalism

The emerging partnership between the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) in crisis management is clearly a desirable development. EU can contribute to the UN by providing vital capabilities, especially in rapid redeployment while the UN can confer legality and legitimacy to EU operation thereby enabling the Union to become fairly a glob...

Conflict is as old as man himself, and pervades all societies, both ancient and modern, and thus, an inescapable aspect of human interaction, an avoidable concomitant of choices and decisions, and an inevitable part or process of social life and a continuing reality of social existence. Many studies have drawn attention on the cause-effect relation...

The United States African Command (USAFRICOM) was formally established on October 1, 2007 to achieve US strategic, economic and security interests in Africa, and at the same time enable Africa to tackle its numerous security challenges necessary for building safe, secured, stable, peaceful and developed continent. The study concludes that, one, the...

Keywords: Politics, Government, Constitution, Election, Pressure Groups, and Tanzania

Nigerian political parties in the present republic are hampered by crisis of internal democracy thus undermining their political leadership recruitment function. The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is a good example of one of these Nigerian political parties that lacks internal democracy. The study, by relying on the theory of relative autono...

The Neo-liberal framework of World Bank inspired economic reforms in Nigeria has ensured that Nigeria adopts a comprehensive approach to the implementation of National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategies (NEEDS), rather than gradualist approach thereby, (a) necessitating increased World Bank development aids/assistance to Nigeria, (b) m...

Nigeria is richly blessed with mineral resources, and of all these mineral resources oil and gas with the proven 600 trillion cubic feet reserve of gas and estimated 40 billion barrels of crude oil reserve is the most strategic and fundamental to the Nigerian economy such that Nigeria is reputed to be the seventh largest oil producing country in th...

The purpose of this study is to critically examine the impact of the United Nations Security Council’s imposition and implementation of no on humanitarian conditions in the 2011 Libyan crisis. The paper relied solely on data collected from secondary sources. We argue that the imposition of no (UNSC) has lasting impacts on the civilian population of...

Citizen diplomacy was geared towards boosting Nigeria’s image abroad and achieving Nigerian foreign policy objectives and national interest that suffered under Afro-centric philosophy of Nigerian foreign policy and economic diplomacy. But the initiators of citizen diplomacy ignored the interface between domestic politics and international politics,...

The purpose of this study is to critically evaluate the effectiveness of the Cabotage Act 2003 on Nigerian maritime administration. The paper relied so gathered from secondary sources. This study contends that, one, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) institutional incapacity to monitor compliance affects adversely the e...

Community policing is fast becoming a global trend, especially in the 21st century. But the key elements or core component of community policing is not foreign or new in Africa, for example, the pre-colonial Igbo society did not distinguish between policing or fighting crime with the overall role of the society. Consequently, the role of policing i...

Nigeria is abundantly endowed with mineral and human resources, and is reputed to be the seventh largest oil producing country in the whole world. Despite the huge investments made by Nigerian government in oil and gas sector, an average of $10 billion per annum, the contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is minimal an average of less than 30...

The proposed Tripartite Free Trade Area (T-FTA) of the EAC-SADC-COMESA in eastern and southern Africa has been received with both optimism and pessimism in many quarters. The optimism concerning the prospects of the proposed T-FTA, though often exaggerated, is not totally unfounded as it could help African Economic Community (AEC) strengthen intra-...

Gas flared in association with the production of crude oil began in Nigeria under the British Colonial rule when Shell began oil production in 1958, and with the increasing production of oil, the volume of gas flared in the process of oil production increased. In Nigeria alone, gas flaring amounts to about 23 billion cubic metres per annum of the g...

Generally, Nigerian political parties in the present republic have been hampered by crisis of internal democracy thus undermining their political leadership recruitment function. Also, this has negative implications for party discipline and unity. The resultant effects are party factionalization, defection and carpet-crossing. The Peoples Democrati...

International inequality is not just inequality between countries but as well inequality between individuals and groups within and outside countries. It is also inequality between regions of the world or globe vis a vis economic, social and political inequalities. International inequality is cross-country that cuts across countries of the world at...

Community policing is fast becoming a global trend, especially in the 21st century. But the key elements or core component of community policing is not foreign or new in Africa, for example, the pre-colonial Igbo society did not distinguish between policing or fighting crime with the overall role of the society. Consequently, the role of policing i...