AFFRIKA Journal of Politics, Economics and Society

This paper focuses on the need for a framework to strengthen the oversight functions of the National Assembly. These functions are notably enshrined in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for purposes of ensuring that public policy are implemented in accordance with the legislative intent of good governance and public accountability. Against the backdrop of this provision, prevails persistent cases of poor administration, under performance, corruption, fiscal indiscipline, lack of accountability and arbitrariness in government MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies). The consequences are public disillusionment and less confidence in the National Assembly. As representatives of the people, the legislators are expected to check and address such issues relating to inefficiency in the delivery of public goods and curtailing executive excesses. Using qualitative research methodology with focus on descriptive analysis, this paper reviews existing oversight mechanisms of the National Assembly since Nigeria‘s democratic transition (1999-2016). The findings of the paper show low oversight instruments and capacity of legislators to carry out oversight functions. However, to strengthen oversight functions and improve outcome, the paper recommends an oversight evaluation framework to achieve effective and efficient implementation of public policies and programmes and in serving as vital component of good governance.

The growing nature of insurgencies in their various forms in Nigeria is now of great concern to both the leadership and the citizenry. The high sense of insecurity occasioned by the unpleasant experience has infact attained an alarming rate in the estimation of both Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike. Consequently, the situation began to attract contributions from scholars and researchers in security-related fields of humanities and social sciences. However, there is little evidence of contribution to the discourse and the scholarship involved by scholars in the field of education. The purpose of this paper is to contribute an education dimension to the growing scholarship on the subject. The study which is situated in the broad scholarship of curriculum making and grounded in both the philosophical and sociological foundations of the curriculum, employs a combination of curriculum criticism, analytic philosophy and creative synthesis, as methods, in constructing an anti-extremist senior secondary school educational blueprint for Nigeria.

The significance of the study lies in its potential to contribute a useful addition to the scholarship of curriculum construction in the Nigerian context. The significance also lies in its potential to offer an ameliorative proposal over unnecessary insurgency or militancy thereby paving way for the enthronement of a regime characterized by peaceful, harmonious and tranquil co-existence among people of diverse orientation in Nigeria. The study is restricted to only the first three stages of curriculum making namely one, the formulation of philosophy which concerns the articulation of objectives, aims, purposes, goals, and principles; two, the formulations of learning experiences and activities; as well as the third stage which covers the translation of such principles to an anti-insurgency senior secondary school curriculum framework for Nigeria.

The overthrow of the Colonel Muamar Ghaddafi regime in Libya in 2011, undoubtedly paved the way for increased Islamist activities in most of the countries in North Africa and the Maghreb region. Gradually, the countries of the Sahel West Africa not only fell within the orbit of resurgent radical Islam but also began to experience an uptick in its violence. Nigeria and Mali are two states within the Sahel West African that have experienced the virulent campaign of Islamist militancy. However, although within the same West African sub-region, the two countries had different European colonial experiences; while Nigeria was colonized by the British, Mali was colonized by France. The two countries have approached the problem in specific ways and so far adopted different strategies in the bid to contain the Islamist militancy within their respective domains. Despite common membership of the regional Economic Communities of West African States, (ECOWAS), those responses reflect essentially the different colonial experiences of the two countries and their power status within the sub-region as they underline also the state of their respective economies within the general framework of their peripheral status in the international political economy.