"Only a parent that doesn’t love his child will send him to a public school"

This comment made by a highly educated principal of a private school shocked me greatly. This was before I interviewed public school teachers. Their responses perplexed me even more. ‘Corrupted’, ‘miscreants’, ‘thugs’, ‘wretched’, ‘from bad homes’, ‘don’t value education’ …were some of the common terms with which public school teachers described their pupils.

Fascinating stuff on low fee private schools in Lagos from Modupe Adefeso-Olateju

How to make maps

It's not new, but thought I'd share this handy tool "StatPlanet" for mapping country-level and sub-national state-level data. It took me half an hour to download and figure out, and then all you have to do is import your Excel spreadsheet in the right format, and it spits out pretty maps. The list of countries with sub-national maps built-in is here. The interactive flash maps are pretty cool too. 

Nigeria: Primary School Net Attendance Ratio (%)

Source: Nigeria Education Data Survey 2010

The political economy of Nigeria and Indonesia

A Nigerian and an Indonesian attend a foreign university together in the 1960s and become friends. After graduation, each returns home to join the government. Several years later, the Nigerian visits his colleague in Jakarta, and finds him living in a big, luxurious house with a Mercedes car parked outside. ‘How can you afford such a nice house on a politician's salary?', asks the Nigerian. ‘Do you see that road?', replies the Indonesian, pointing to a magnificent highway outside. ‘Ten per cent.' Some time later, the Indonesian goes to visit his Nigerian friend, and finds him living in a vast palace with ten Mercedes cars parked outside. Amazed, he asks where the money had come from. ‘Do you see that road?' asks the Nigerian, pointing to a thick tangle of rain forest. ‘A hundred per cent.'

From the Economist (old, but good)

The Hyena Men

---Pieter Hugo

New Blog: Former US Ambassador to Nigeria

John Campbell, a former US ambassador to Nigeria has a new blog "Africa in Transition" at the Council on Foreign Relations. Looks like a must-read.

International Thief Thief

Global Witness drop some UK development-policy-beyond-aid wisdom.

British banks have accepted millions of pounds from corrupt Nigerian politicians, raising serious questions about their commitment to tackling financial crime.

…

Without access to the international financial system it would be much harder for corrupt politicians from the developing world to loot their national treasuries or accept bribes. By taking money from such customers, British banks are fuelling corruption, entrenching poverty and undermining international development assistance.

…

The UK regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) needs to do much more to prevent banks from facilitating corruption. As yet no British bank has been publically fined, or even named, by the regulator for taking corrupt funds, whether willingly or through negligence. This is in stark contrast to the U.S., where banks have been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for handling dirty money.

…

The UK’s aid to poor countries has been ring fenced against budget cuts. Meanwhile, banks - themselves propped up by taxpayer’s money - are getting away with practices that fundamentally undermine the effect of aid. This is not just illogical, it is immoral

African Heroes: Naija Edition

Gettin’ by in Lagos

The BBC documentary, Welcome to Lagos, now on YouTube. This is really really good.

HT: Marginal Revolution

DFID in Nigeria

DFID is another donor that could not account for all its activities. When asked to provide information on the sectors and states DFID is operating in, it simply wrote saying ‘we do not require our programme managers to collect expenditure on a state-by-state basis.’…

Huh? Isn’t Nigeria quite a big country? With quite a large population? Some casual googling tells me that the average (mean) Nigerian state has 3.7 million people, more populous than Liberia, Mauritania, Namibia, Botswana, or Lesotho.

Lagos State has 9 million people, more than Rwanda or Sierra Leone.

Why do countries get so much more weight in our decisions than people?
--------------
Quote from Global Dashboard’s summary of a Nigeria National Planning Commission report which analyses the aid to Nigeria between 1999 and 2007.

Richard Dowden on Nigeria

“Would ordinary Nigerians have felt Yar’Adua’s absence? Since the experience of the Nigerian state for most Nigerians is limited to demands for bribes by officials and policemen, the government and who is running it is of little consequence to them. Everything positive in their lives is achieved by themselves in spite of the ruling elite and their officials, not because of it. Many might say that Nigeria would be better off without a government at all.”

Pretty damning.