Late last year, over 50 African leaders gathered in Riyadh for the first ever Saudi-Africa summit. Their objective? To wangle a slice of the $40 billion Saudi Arabia plans to invest in Africa.
Matthew T. Page is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Matthew T. Page was a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Page is also a consultant and coauthor of Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2018). Additionally, he is an associate fellow with the Africa program at Chatham House, and a nonresident fellow with the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja. Until recently, Page was the U.S. intelligence community’s top Nigeria expert, serving with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Marine Corps Intelligence. He also served as deputy national intelligence officer for Africa on the National Intelligence Council.
Late last year, over 50 African leaders gathered in Riyadh for the first ever Saudi-Africa summit. Their objective? To wangle a slice of the $40 billion Saudi Arabia plans to invest in Africa.
Nigeria’s presidential transition offers US and UK policymakers a chance to reset their relations with Abuja.
The country’s stability and prosperity will hinge on whether they can translate their grievances into political power in the upcoming election.
Confronting kleptocratic networks will be a defining challenge for democratic societies and their policymakers. Unfortunately, too many democracies fail to prioritize global corruption as a major national security threat or to see how their own laws, institutions, and social norms enable it.
Despite their hard-hitting rhetoric, Nigeria’s political leaders have done little to rein in local government corruption and the governance failures it causes.
If Russia wants to be influential on the continent, African political and economic leaders should demand more of Moscow, not simply settle for the symbolic diplomatic engagements or agreements at which the Russian leadership excels.
Regrettably, educational institutions that accept illicit funding and welcome students from families with ties to criminal activity currently do little to counteract this threat.
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has been slow to land in Nigeria. To explain why Russia’s vaccine diplomacy fell short, these domestic factors in Nigeria need to be taken into account.
In many other countries—both developed and developing—these types of maneuvers are also used to stifle dissent and perpetuate ruling elites’ hold on power. In this respect, the recent rise of pro-government NGOs in Nigeria may be a cautionary tale.
A conversation on key news stories from Nigeria.