Step up Nigeria: February 2014

About Step Up Nigeria

In order for Nigeria to lift millions of its citizens from poverty, we need to first of all improve the quality of governance. This blog discusses ways to ‘Step Up’ governance in Nigeria such as reducing corruption, promoting transparency and accountability in the provision of public services and strengthening citizen’s demand for an improvement in public service delivery.

The aim of this blog is to present analysis and views on current governance issues in Nigeria.

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Thursday 27 February 2014

Sanusi points to the elephant in the room

Sanusi has done Nigeria a great service by highlighting the unaccounted oil revenues from NNPC. What does the missing $20 billion mean for Nigeria’s 100 million poorest? Suppose by magic this money could be shared equally by all of Nigeria’s 100 million poor people. The poor would get an additional $200 each. So for those earning less than $1.25 per day (yes these people exist!), it would increase their incomes by 40% for a whole year. Will we continue to allow this elephant in the room to be so careless with our God-given resources?

Thursday 20 February 2014

Sanusi suspended, whistle-blower law urgently needed in Nigeria!

The suspension of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria is yet another example of the challenges of whistle blowing in Nigeria. The CBN governor alleged that there was US$20 billion missing from the federation account. It is not surprising that a few weeks after the allegations; he has been suspended from office for blowing the whistle on Nigeria’s missing billions. This shows the need to have a whistle-blower protection law in Nigeria[see previous blog post]. A whistle blower protection law will protect whistle-blowers like the CBN governor from being victimized for speaking out on corruption issues.