2007 Chapters (Layout Features)

Nigeria: A Challenging Case

Obe, Ayo

Dismantling that apparatus and making government open to even those whose precolonial experience was less transparent is throwing up a number of challenges for today’s Nigerians. This chapter examines how different aspects of Nigeria’s history and political and socio-economic make-up encapsulate several of the factors that make attaining and sustaining a viable transparency regime particularly difficult in many countries. These range from the effects of colonial cobbling together of numerous ethnic groups and a colonial heritage of secrecy, to the corrosive and corrupting effect of long years of unaccountable military dictatorship against a background of increasing economic dependence on income from petroleum resources. It is in this challenging environment that a campaign for greater transparency is being waged.