scholarly journals Weak Institutions and Poor Governance in Nigeria: A Socio-Legal Perspective

Author(s):  
Azoro C.J.S. ◽  
Onah C.A. ◽  
Agulefo Q.O.

The Nigerian state as a governance template has been dominated by the vexatious problem of underdevelopment since post-colonial history. Good governance and development as an intertwine concept have largely been elusive, rather, poor governance has dominated the Nigerian society, resulting from leadership problems, pervasive corruption, the existence of multiple centres of loyalty base regime, ethnic and religious interest among others, all indicative of weak, underperforming or non-performing institutions of government. This paper made an in-depth inquiry into the correlation between weak institutions and poor governance, highlighting the Nigerian situation. It critically analyzed the concept of good governance as the opposite of poor governance. This paper found that unless the Nigerian state cures itself of the malaise of weak institutions and procures a situation where both the leaders and the led imbibe the ethos of good governance, it will continue to struggle with the burden of poor governance and the concomitant lack of social development it breeds in the society.

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Jaap Woldendorp

The existence of a specific ministry for overseas territories in the Netherlands — Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (Interior Affairs and Relations within the Realm or Kingdom) — is the outcome of a few hundred years of (post) colonial history. In the 1970s and 1980s Dutch governments pushed for independence of the Netherlands Antilles and Suriname in order to get rid of the colonial stigma. In 1975, Suriname became an independent state. However, subsequently a combination of factors made decolonization of the Netherlands Antilles unfeasible. The first factor was the experience with the negative developments in Suriname after its independence.


Author(s):  
Henk Addink

The pivotal aim of this book is to explain the creation, development, and impact of good governance from a conceptual, principal perspective and in the context of national administrative law. Three lines of reasoning have been worked out: developing the concept of good governance; specification of this concept by developing principles of good governance; and implementation of these principles of good governance on the national level. In this phase of further development of good governance, it is important to have a clear concept of good governance, presented in this book as the third cornerstone of a modern state, alongside the concepts of the rule of law and democracy. That is a rather new national administrative law perspective which is influenced by regional and international legal developments; thus, we can speak about good governance as a multilevel concept. But the question is: how is this concept of good governance further developed? Six principles of good governance (which in a narrower sense also qualify as principles of good administration) have been further specified in a systematic way, from a legal perspective. These are the principles of properness, transparency, participation, effectiveness, accountability, and human rights. Furthermore, the link has been made with integrity standards. The important developments of each of these principles are described on the national level in Europe, but also in countries outside Europe (such as Australia, Canada, and South Africa). This book gives a systematic comparison of the implementation of the principles of good governance between countries.


Itinerario ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 263-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Laura Stoler

This essay takes as its subject how intimate domains - sex, sentiment, domestic arrangement and child rearing - figure in the making of racial categories and in the management of imperial rule. For some two decades my work on Indonesia's Dutch colonial history has addressed patterns of governance that were particular to that time and place but resonant with practices in a wider global field. My perspective thus is that of an outsider to, but an acquisitive consumer of comparative historical studies, one long struck with the disparate and congruent imperial projects in Asia, Africa and the Americas. This essay invites reflection on those domains of overlap and difference. My interest is more specifically in what Albert Hurtado refers to as ‘the intimate frontiers’ of empire, a social and cultural space where racial classifications were defined and defied, where relations between coloniser and colonised could powerfully confound or confirm the strictures of governance and the categories of rule. Some two decades ago, Sylvia van Kirk urged a focus on such ‘tender ties’ as a way to explore the ‘human dimension’ of the colonial encounter.’ As she showed so well, what Michel Foucault has called these ‘dense transfer point[s]’ of power that generate such ties were sites of production of colonial inequities and, therefore, of tense ties as well. Among students of colonialisms in the last decade, the intimacies of empire have been a rich and well-articulated research domain. A more sustained focus on the relationship between what Foucault refers to as ‘the regimes of truth’ of imperial systems (the ways of knowing and establishing truth claims about race and difference on which macro polities rely) and those micro sites of governance may reveal how these colonial empires compare and converge.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
PJC Lassou ◽  
Trevor Hopper ◽  
M Tsamenyi ◽  
V Murinde

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd This study compares government accounting reforms in an Anglophone and a Francophone African country, namely Ghana and Benin, with respect to neo-colonialism. The data draws from interviews with local officials concerned with government accounting, documents and documentaries. The focus lay on the perceived effectiveness of reforms, and their formulation and implementation. In both countries their former colonial powers, Britain and France, still influence accounting through economic means (through monetary systems), international financial institutions, political advisors, Northern accounting associations and neo-patrimonialism. However, their use of these differs. While France structures her control mostly around the monetary system established during colonialism, Britain relies on its post-colonial infrastructure and accounting profession, and concedes much influence to the USA, essentially through international financial institutions. France exerts more direct control through advisors than Britain (with the USA). The French approach is conceptualized as coercive-neo-colonialism and the British as soft-neo-colonialism. Despite international financial institutions’ pervasive presence, they are not monolithic agents with a uniform role and influence in Ghana and Benin, and good governance aims to increase civil service capacity, financial transparency and accountability remain problematic.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Yared Teshome Geneti

In Ethiopia, Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) is prioritised as important means of economic diversification, job creation, income generation and equity distribution as indispensable poverty reduction sector since 2006. Despite the great attention given to micro and small enterprises, little research exists that examines challenges and opportunities of the Sector in the implementation trajectory. With the new initiative of National Development Programme to Accelerate Sustainable Development to Eradicate Poverty (PASDEP) in 2006-2010, the government has been commencing a new Micro and Small Enterprises Development Strategy. However, the blue prints strategy would be able to prove in the process to achieve the goals and target through timely evaluation of its implementations. It has been long time and common to listen and observe complains of MSEs on the overall sectoral performance and strategic incompatibility both among the unemployed societies and existing MSEs. Based on this rationale, the study was intended to assess the challenges and opportunities of the existing MSE strategy in Ambo town. In this descriptive research primary data were collected from 135 MSEs in Ambo using stratified and purposive sampling design.<br />MSEs in Ambo town are facing different challenges. These challenges are identified as marketing, financial, good governance, i.e., lack of market place; inadequacy credit facilities and inefficient service delivery. The study shows that the long and delayed procedure to establish MSEs is the most common challenges observed in both the old (2006) and new (2011) strategies. These are mainly as a result of inefficient human resource capacities of the sector and cumbersome procedures of credit and saving institution in the town. Moreover, a little understanding of unemployed society on the strategy is the main gap creating misunderstandings. Findings indicated that, the above challenges are a bottle-neck to the goal set by the strategy to create jobs for unemployment and being urban base of local economic and social development. In prospect wise, the study asserted that, the 2011 strategy has been improving MSEs to have a clear definition, typical set ups and structure arrangements as enterprise. Therefore, the strategy has identified as the means to change the societal structure by creating broad local economic and social development to the extent of medium investors. Finally, promoting awareness to active unemployed citizens by giving continues capacity building for both office staff and members of enterprises, local governance reforms and the rechecking of MSE establishment procedures are important in alleviating the problems at implementation stage.


2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fahreen Alamgir ◽  
George Cairns

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the discourse of globalisation and its implications in the case of state-owned jute mills (SOJMs) in the post-colonial state of Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach – The authors draw upon a critical debate on the concept of globalisation and critical political economy to revisit the country’s historical, political, social and cultural construction to discuss conditions of its conformity within the global order. Additionally, the perspective of subaltern studies underpins discussion of the context of the post-colonial state. Findings – A schematic analysis of the context surfaces issues that underpin the process of “truth production” and that have contributed to global integration of the Bangladesh economy. We consider how this discourse benefits some people, while over time, the majority are dislocated, excluded and deprived. Hence, this discourse denotes a territorial power of globalism that leads us to conceptualise Bangladesh as a neo-colonial state. Originality/value – Through a case study of SOJMs, this paper contributes to discussion on the essence and implications of the globalisation discourse and on how its methods and techniques reinforce hegemony in the name of development and sustainability in the forms of liberalisation, democratisation and good governance in a state like Bangladesh.


Author(s):  
Oluwakemi Damola Adejumo-Ayibiowu

This chapter presents African indigenous knowledge as the missing link in achieving good governance and rural development in Africa. The failure of rural development projects in Africa has mostly been attributed to weak institutions and bad governance. Consequently, good governance has become the cornerstone of donors' development cooperation in Africa since the 1990s. While it is true that African public institutions may be weak, the analysis shows that the West contributed to this problem through European colonization of the continent as well as the imposition of Eurocentric one-size-fit-all reforms of the World Bank on indebted African countries. The chapter argues that to improve governance and rural development in Africa, there are well-established and effective cultural indigenous governance systems in the continent from which we can learn.


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