The Petroleum Industry Bill and the Quest for a New Nigeria
By Obadiah Mailafia LAST week, Thursday July 1, the Senate finally passed the long-awaited Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB. A milestone in the history of our legislative affairs. Too many interests had repeatedly scuttled it over the years. According to the auditing and advisory firm, KPMG, previous attempts in 2009, 2012 and 2018 failed “because of […]
What does a chief of staff really do?
By Obadiah Mailafia DURING last year I had the honour of being received by Abba Kyari, the larger-than-life Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari. His office was neat and well-organised; the furnishing in the classic Nordic minimalist style. Sitting next to me on the sofa, he softly asked if I needed coffee or any […]
Building economic resilience in a time of adversity
By Obadiah Mailafia BLACK swans are rare, unpredictable, large-impact occurrences. The theory of complexity provides a good framework for understanding black swans and for learning how better to cope with uncertainty under the dynamics of open, complex adaptive systems. The paradigm of Complex Adaptive Systems, CAS, draws insights from multiple disciplines, ranging from evolutionary biology […]
China’s Wuhan ends its coronavirus lockdown but elsewhere one begins
China sealed off Wuhan, a central city of 11 million people, on Jan. 23, a drastic step that came to symbolise its aggressive management of the virus. More than 50,000 people in Wuhan were infected, and more than 2,500 of them died, about 80% of all deaths in China, according to official figures. READ ALSO: […]
The perfect storm and the re-alignment of global economic power
By Obadiah Mailafia EVOLUTIONARY biologists tell us that viruses have been with us since the beginning of time. Civilisation itself has been a struggle between humans and viruses. Conspiracy theories abound. The Chinese and Americans have been at each other’s throats. Some claim it was a Chinese invention to get even with the West. Others […]
A destiny among the nations (2)
By Obadiah Mailafia THE late French agronomist, René Dumont, once lamented that African nations have no purpose. I would imagine he was starting from the premise that the majority of our countries emerged as colonial contraptions that did not follow the linear path of nation building and political evolution followed by the European Westphalian state. […]
