This book shows the push and pull effects between resources, human security and conflicts in Africa. It recognizes the need for resources in Africa to be processed into finished goods in order to influence global market and redefine the pattern of trade relations with powerful countries of Asia, America and Europe in shaping the destiny and future of African countries. The achievement of this laudable objective is plagued by the security challenges which are directly or indirectly linked to resource-related conflicts rocking most of the resource endowed countries in the continent, thereby threatening global peace and security. To deal with this menace in the continent, it requires global co-operation and support of foreign governments, international organizations, international non-government organizations, governments of host countries and its citizens. The book presents the cases and experiences of countries that are endowed with resource, as well as have experienced different forms of human insecurity and have witnessed environmental conflicts in its analysis, which make the discourse interesting and quite educating.

In Conflict and Human Security Threats in Africa, South African scholar Victor Ojakorotu unravels the dynamics of conflicts and human security threats now affecting numerous African nations. While some of these conflicts are local, others are national and international. This current and highly engaging study captures multiple cases of insecurity, presenting discussions of terrorism, kidnapping, militia activities, human trafficking, political violence, teenage pregnancy, civil war, and armed conflicts, as well as strategies for their future management. Ojakorotu documents a philosophical assessment of African politics as well as the place of the "new" media in the politics of human security and the development of an African worldview in the post-modern intellectual arena. This book is a must-read for all students of African and global politics, as well as policy makers and diplomats working with Africa, which will soon be home to more than three billion people and a center of global growth.

This book interrogates the nature of elections and election violence in the African countries. It traces the causes of the governance menace to multiple factors that are not limited to poverty, unemployment, and media. The book documents how election violence cripples the nation-building process across many African countries. Consequently, it reveals that states have lost their manifest destiny of national transformation in Africa because they cannot guarantee that legitimate candidates, who should win elections, due to the widespread manipulation of violence at all levels of electoral engineering. The chapters rely on the cases and changing dynamics of elections and electoral violence in the different Nigerian states. It traces the origins of elections, the nature and patterns of a number of past elections as well as the roles of youth, judiciary, electoral umpire, social media, and gender on the changing nature of elections in Nigeria.

This work examines the struggle for leadership relevance between Nigeria and South Africa. An analysis of hegemoic contest between the two states is provided. Such hegemonic contest is experienced on continental political and economic issues, this contest between the two states has overlapped to issues of UNSC reform.This struggle for relevance has far reaching implications for African continental Integration.

The Niger-Delta region of Nigeria continues to be a topical area of concern not only to the Nigerian state; its peoples and government, but also to scholars and human development agencies globally in spite of the plethora of studies on the region since the 1990s. This is essentially because the pervasive crisis of underdevelopment which underlies various forms of social and armed conflict in the region remains unresolved.In this light, this book attempts a peak into the ever unfolding dimensions and trajectories of human insecurity in the Niger-Delta

Since the 1990s, oil violence in the Niger Delta has constituted festering sores on the thumbs of the Nigerian state, the Multinational Oil Companies (MNOCs), and the Niger Delta communities. The deployment of physical force by the dramatis personae in petro-business, for the achievement of their respective goals with regards to the appropriation of crude oil and its accruable benefits had continued unabated until the granting of general amnesty to the armed non-state actors, by late President YarAdua on 25 June 2009. Cognizant of the fact that the earlier use of amnesty by the Nigerian state as a strategic state policy for diffusing oil violence only resulted to the de-escalation of conflict without an enduring peace, this edited book is therefore, a contribution to the search for durable panaceas for checkmating the resurgence of oil violence in the Niger Delta. The various writers analytically interrogated the variegated issues pertaining to oil violence and proffered solutions for the advancement of lasting peace, security and stability in the region. This compendium should therefore be very useful to students, scholars, diplomatic professionals, statesmen and policy makers.

Edited by Victor Ojakorotu and Olawale Olaopa, two of the leading minds in African development issues, this volume showcases and shares knowledge of numerous areas where women have contributed to the socio-economic, cultural, religious and political development of their respective African societies. The articles featured in this engaging study will stimulate academic debates on perspectives and factors addressing women's empowerment and disempowerment. They also seek to demystify those impediments to women's pathways to total liberation in the context of sustainable development everywhere in the African continent. Bringing together some of the best minds in development, this book, therefore, presents historical, theoretical, conceptual, and pragmatic contributions from the disciplines of political science, international relations, conflict studies, sociology, health sciences, development studies, public policy, management studies, economic history and public administration. It is therefore relevant for students and scholars in these disciplines and beyond. The volume examines different ways of analysing social and gender relations, and interrogates the relationship between academic and policy work in this field. It further investigates current thinking and concerns relating to the practice of social development and to the promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment, describing tools and frameworks to inform policy making and practice.