Politics — All Publications

Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples: Disproportionate Impact and Opportunities for Inclusion

The impacts of climate change are wide-ranging and global, with examples ranging from increased wildfires, food insecurity due to poor crop yield, and forced migration following rising sea levels, droughts, and other abnormal precipitation. In the face of these changes, Indigenous peoples and communities are heavily impacted through changes in lifestyle and knowledge. However, Indigenous peoples and Indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK) may hold part of the important keys to fighting climate change for the benefit of the planet.

Access and Benefit Sharing in Canada – Stunted Efforts, New Opportunities

Canada lacks a comprehensive federal Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) system for governing genetic resources and the associated traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples, despite years of advocacy. While there is currently an interdepartmental committee on ABS at the federal level that collaborates with provincial and territorial jurisdictions and a lot more diverse initiatives related to ABS, little progress has been made.

Canada: Tackling Vaccine Hesitancy Among Indigenous Peoples

Medical racism against Indigenous peoples is a fact in the Canadian healthcare system. As a direct result of this experience, many Indigenous peoples lack trust in the healthcare system, and they limit their engagement with the system as much as possible. This has caused many detrimental impacts on Indigenous peoples, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted an area of key concern – vaccine hesitancy within Indigenous peoples.

Expedited COVID-19 R&D: Indigenous Knowledge and ABS Imperative

With the world on edge as the COVID-19 crisis progresses, the scientific community has sprung into gear in search of an effective treatment. R&D is progressing at unprecedented speeds, abridging the projected length for the completion of a vaccine from over a decade to just over a year. Amidst this rapid development, traditional knowledge plays a significant role in scientific endeavours. Through traditional knowledge, medical researchers can gain guidance and inspiration and bypass prolonged and expensive scatter-gun approaches to R&D.

Public Health, Africa, and COVID-19

As an African and a Canadian, I inhabit an observatory. I am a resident in two worlds of blunt contrasts. On a good note, daily at every turn, those contrasts offer privileged lessons on the richness and complexity of the human experience, of our world. In this observatory, it is irresistible not to have a geopolitical perspective on the dynamic of Africa’s relationship with the global south. And since the formal declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 by WHO’s Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the reality of that stark contrast has never been more evident.

Justice Oke’s Legacy Of Distinction

On June 10, 2019 the Honourable Chief Judge of Lagos State, Madame Justice Opeyemi Oke, would have attained mandatory retirement age of 65 years. She served in acting capacity from September 25, and was sworn in as Chief Judge on October 20, 2017. Her tenure is exactly 21 months which tallies with the tradition of an average of barely 12 months over a 10-year period for successive Chief Judges of Lagos State. For judiciary watchers and stakeholders in the administration of Justice, Oke’s tenure had no dull moment.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamJune 5, 2019Politics, Nigeria

Tiered or Differentiated Approach to Traditional Knowledge and Traditional Cultural Expressions: The Evolution of a Concept

CIGI Papers
No. 185 (2018)

Nigeria and Britain are ‘Fantastically Corrupt'

One of the off record welcome hospitality that the Conservative Prime Minister of Britain, Mr. David Cameron, extended to President Muhammadu Buhari who attended the May 10 Anti-Corruption Summit in London is his sneaky remark to the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, ahead of that summit that Nigeria (alongside Afghanistan) is a “fantastically corrupt” country. My impression is that Her Majesty may have a better sense of history than Cameron.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamMay 12, 2016Politics, Nigeria, International

Nigeria Faces New Security Threat Fuelled by Climate Change and Ethnicity

Forging national unity has been a perennial challenge to Nigeria’s evolution as a country. Since independence from Britain 56 years ago, the country continues to weather severe existential storms that strike at its very core. These make national cohesion and political stability largely elusive.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamMay 12, 2016Politics, Nigeria, Agriculture and Biodiversity

Herders’ Republic: Nigeria at Cusp of Another Security Crisis

Nigeria’s security challenges continue to escalate. While the Boko Haram insurgence keeps mutating, kidnappings and hostage taking for ransom rise in competition as side dishes in the main course of the country’s ignominious rise in terrorism profile. Yet, the abducted Chibok girls remain a scar on the conscience of the Nigerian government at all levels. At present, Nigeria’s abysmal human rights record is taking another stress at the instance of recent violent encounter between members of the Shiite Islamic sect and the military.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamMay 4, 2016Agriculture and Biodiversity, Politics, Nigeria

Fagbohun and the Challenge of Repositioning LASU

Nigeria’s tertiary education industry is increasingly competitive for all stakeholders. We have transitioned from the so-called first; second, third and, some would even suggest, to fourth generation universities. Except for professional bodies, both the federal and state governments have, until more than a decade ago, been the only major proprietary stakeholders in tertiary education.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamFebruary 11, 2016Politics, Nigeria, Education

Mayor Ford: Good Bye From Toronto Mayoralty

Toronto has been in the news recently, not because of its status as a foremost North American commercial hub, but because of its infamous mayor, Rob Ford. Ford has been on the limelight for many wrong reasons, serving as a butt of joke for global fraternity of comedians on how not to be a mayor. Over 2013, many mentioned how discussions involving Canadians within and without Canada are easily short-changed by a more exciting topic: Mayor Rob Ford and his indiscretions.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamOctober 27, 2014Politics, Canada

African Leaders' Blackmail of the International Criminal Court

In the last decade, warlordism has been on the decline in Africa. But terrorism and other forms of political combustion appear to be on the rise. Recent and ongoing disturbances across the continent are flashpoints of both Africa's political vulnerability and the continent's political renewal. As Africa engages its current positive, albeit, controversial economic transition, the tail of its political contradictions within a hypocritical world order continues to wag the continent.

Obama, McCain, and Nigeria’s Niger Delta

The Niger Delta: Nothing places Nigeria in the news lately more than the Niger Delta. Indeed, the Niger Delta is synonymous with the instability that Nigeria contributes to global oil supply and, by extension, the current global energy crisis. The Niger Delta now attracts some worrisome lexicon in the global report of news about Nigeria.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamAugust 13, 2008Politics, Nigeria, USA

Imo State: Lessons from Anambra

The emergence of Governor Ikedichi Ohakim of Imo State is one of the litanies of surprises in the last discredited general elections. In the period preceding the elections, Imo State was a theatrical site for the absurd.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamAugust 31, 2007Politics, Nigeria

Adewopo, NCC and Dream Killers

Many have the impression that this President is not overly excited about the idea that Nigeria’s dream of transformation can be entrusted in the hands of its younger generation. If clues from the first term of this presidency are guide, there is enough support for this perception. It is not news that the President is more comfortable with and trusting of folks around his age bracket.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamNovember 30, 2005Politics, Nigeria, IP and Knowledge Governance

Anambra State: The Moment of Truth

In the past two weeks, in this column, I serialized a two part commentary on the Anambra and Plateau crises and other incidental issues on the state of the Nigerian nation. My article was titled “Ngige, Dariye and the Presidency: The Morality of the Absurd” (part I-November 30, part II December 6). In this effort, I will not repeat, but would rather recommend for background reading, what I wrote then.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamDecember 15, 2004Politics, Nigeria

Ngige, Dariye and the Presidency: The Morality of the Absurd (Part 2)

On Plateau State, yes, the President may be right in questioning the morality of Governor Dariye’s continued stay in office. However, while the President would prefer that Governor Dariye resign as a matter of honour or be impeached by the House of Assembly, that is not as simple as it seems. Law and morality are not always harmonious bedfellows.

Op-EdChidi OguamanamDecember 6, 2004Politics, Nigeria

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