In one of Africa’s most celebrated surprises this past year, Nigerian voters unseated President Goodluck Jonathan.
The election of Muhammadu Buhari defied expectations of electoral fraud and violence, and his anti-corruption platform sparked hopes for reform and economic growth.
Yet progress on both fronts has been slow and uneven.
To understand why, pick up Tom Burgis’ “The Looting Machine,” a bracing look at why a continent blessed with one-third of the world’s hydrocarbon and mineral wealth remains mired in poverty and dysfunction.
A former Africa correspondent for the Financial Times, Burgis goes beyond the tales of spectacular venality among Africa’s “Big Men” — the world’s four longest-serving rulers are in African countries bursting with oil or minerals — to explain how the continent’s “resource curse” is sapping its development.
The election of Muhammadu Buhari defied expectations of electoral fraud and violence, and his anti-corruption platform sparked hopes for reform and economic growth.
Yet progress on both fronts has been slow and uneven.
To understand why, pick up Tom Burgis’ “The Looting Machine,” a bracing look at why a continent blessed with one-third of the world’s hydrocarbon and mineral wealth remains mired in poverty and dysfunction.
A former Africa correspondent for the Financial Times, Burgis goes beyond the tales of spectacular venality among Africa’s “Big Men” — the world’s four longest-serving rulers are in African countries bursting with oil or minerals — to explain how the continent’s “resource curse” is sapping its development.
