Agricultural Policy and Political Governance in Nigeria: Fiscal Sociology and the Challenges of a Rent-Seeking Economy

Despite the current financial crisis facing all levels of governments of Nigeria, virtually no efforts have been directed at the sociological analysis of the finances. The situation particularly begs for attention considering the dwindling agricultural status, focusing on cocoa, and the multiple socio-economic, political and cultural distortions embedded in its monolithic source of revenue. The literature is replete with the sociological analysis of pubic financial management. However, those analyses appear to be much more concentrated on the advanced than the developing economies. In this review article, we attempted a public economy discourse of developing economies, focusing on the deleterious interplays between the dominant oil income and agricultural outputs and how the duo has made Nigeria a rentier economy. With a critical review of integrated literature on the sociology of oil politics; the institutional and symbolic element of the tax-dependent economy; and the historical volatility of rentier economies; we critically drew a nexus between the current life-threatening revenue profile of Nigeria and her major, if not solitary, reliance on petrodollar as well as the socio-cultural manifestations. Like this, the essay advanced the significance of fiscal sociology as a veritable tool for constructing a theory about state finances. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-14-08 Publication date:July 31st 202

Colonial Basis of Anomie in African Youth: Implications for Political Governance

The festering phenomenon of morally deregulated conditions among African youths such as curricular impropriety, cult activities, from examination malpractice, cultism, viciousness, computer-related crimes, and sexual decadences depicts what Emile Durkheim (1893) used anomie to describe. Durkheim posited anomie as the inevitable expectations when societies become more complex, or organic, leading to impersonal behaviours, the dearth of the social bond, and normlessness. Emile Durkheim was a French Sociologist who had mobilised the coinage ‘anomie’ to explain the phenomenon of deregulated societies where interaction rules and expectations were breaking down. The demographic bulge in favour of youth in Africa has raised the stakes for the exacerbation of the lingering governance crisis should the youth continue to flounder in the disintegration of shared norms that hold the morality of societies firm from moral decadence. Most research studies have bordered on documenting that a good number of African youth have become enmeshed in depravities, such as lawlessness, violence, sharp practices, and scams. The focus of this paper provides an improved perspective by examining the social-economic and political foundations of irrational behaviour among African youth and the implications they portend. The paper argued that the youth in the modern States (former colonies) of Africa are unfortunate victims of a loose governance history: a manifestation of colonial masters’ ‘scramble for Africa’ without a whiff of consideration for the fate of the youth and post-independent leaders, who simply continued in the same fashion. The modern-day political praxis in Africa of low participation of youth and lack of youth liberty and self-development is a carry-over of not only the over-utilisation of elders as colonial proxies despite much aspiring youth but also the suppression of agitation by the youth against the commissioned elders. This conditioned many of the attitudes, which dominated policy-making and political victimisation of the youth in contemporary Africa. Thus, it is that colonial past that provided (or failed to provide) the definition of morality spectrum capable of insulating the youths against the festering anomic spree. Keywords: Youth Anomie, Social Norms, Colonialism in Africa, Moral Decadence; Political Governance DOI: 10.7176/DCS/10-7-05 Publication date:July 31st 202

Cooking Energy Nexus in the Policy on Rural-Urban Indices and Climate Change Mitigation in Nigeria

Despite the preponderance of solid fuels as a major source of cooking energy in Africa, mainstreaming their contributions to rural-urban inequalities and climate change in scholarly debates and policy advocacy appears incommensurate. This article engages the discursive reconstruction of the interdisciplinary debate about how energy choices shape poverty incidences and climate change. Emphasis is on the conceptualisation of rural-urban inequalities and climate change in relation to cooking energy sources. How may policy advocacy for cooking energy choices in Africa induce poverty alleviation and climate change? What lessons are discernible from national policies on cooking energy and why the tendency for more alternative cooking energy at the urban centres than the rural areas? These questions are analysed mainly from a systematic review of policy literature and quantitative data sourced from key rural and urban informants in the south-western region of Nigeria, the most populous state in Sub-Saharan Africa. The theoretical foundation is hinged on Rational Choice Theory to explain how individual cooking energy choices can interact to generate often surprising aggregate outcome on poverty incidences and climate change. Evidence mainly reveals that cooking energy choices significantly shape rural-urban indices and climate change mitigation. Implications for climate change and development are also discussed. Keywords: climate change mitigation, urban-rural indices, rational choice, alternative cooking energy, Nigeria, Africa DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-8-10 Publication date: April 30th 202

Patrimonial Politics as a Functional Threat to Good Governance and Development in West Africa

Beyond the abstract use of the term patrimonialism and its variants appended with prefix neo- or adjectives modern traditional or developmental the leadership challenges in Africa manifesting in festering governance crisis have not benefitted from the deserved scholarly debate in a particularized manner From the writings of the German sociologist Max Weber 1864-1920 in particular his Economy and Society and his tripartite dichotomy of leadership legal traditional and charismatic to the different notions of patrimonialism patronage or clientelism employed by notable writers like Roth 1968 Lemarchand and Legg 1972 Eisenstadt 1973 all have fallen short of explaining the functional threat to destructive politics and underdevelopment of African societies Even the neo-liberal scholars like Le Vine s 1980 attempt to coin African patrimonialism have foundered in understanding the pattern of political organisation struggle and puzzling change translating into democratic authoritarian rule of the few characterized by co-optation factionalism and clientelism and other modes of elitist domination In contrast to all the works discussed above in which a universalistic approach to patrimonialism is taken this paper adopts a particularistic approach to grapple with the narrow and narrowing peculiarities that currently dominate the processes and structures of leadership crisis which has led to dearth of good governance and development occurring in Nigeria in particular and a number of West Africa countries The paper argues that a culture of institutionalised subjugation of the political sphere over the economic pervades in the sub-region leading to a norm of profoundly state-driven economy and a character of patron-clientele interactions between the state and the economy Following independence for instance both Ghana and Nigeria have a leading sector cocoa and petroleum respectively which might hav

Factors in Mass Media, Third-Term Agenda and Governance in Nigeria

There are plethora of contending reasons for the failure of the third-term agenda embarked upon by the erstwhile President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo to elongate his term of office from the constitutional two terms to a third term. Although no single account is sufficient to explain the failure and its implications on the festering governance crisis in the country, one key point of convergence is that the media played a pivotal role in ensuring public education on the contentious issue. The study therefore assessed the influence of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s policies on the role of mass media against the Third Term Agenda. It also attempts to verify the actual nature of the role of mass media in the Third Term Agenda and investigated the influence of ethnicity and media ownership on the role of the mass media in the Third Term Agenda. It further examined the efforts of the mass media in the emergence of the Fourth Republic in Nigeria. This was with a view to assessing the roles of the mass media in President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Third Term Agenda. The study utilized both primary and secondary data. A total of 170 copies of questionnaire were distributed among members of political parties, academia, journalists, pro-democracy groups and relevant NGOs. The selected respondents were: two members of five major political parties; twenty scholars from recognized academic institutions in Nigeria; three journalists each from three dailies and two weekly newspapers; one member of staff of FRCN in five States as well as National Television Authority staff members: and two members of staff each from state owned radio and television stations in the sampled states; five members of staff each from Private radio stations; five members of staff each from two private television stations; five members of five pro-democracy Non Governmental Organisations across Nigeria; and five members of staff each from National Broadcasting Corporation and Ministry of Information. The secondary sources included books, journal, dailies, among others. The primary data were analysed using the descriptive and inferential statistics while the secondary data were subjected to content analysis. The results showed that 37.2% of the responded clearly that government’s policy did not impact the role of the mass media on the third term agenda. It also, the study showed that the mass media played agenda setting role upon which other actors based their agitations in the third term agenda (54.3 per cent) and that ethnicity did not condition the role of the mass media. Furthermore, the result showed that privately owned media outlets provided a quantum of agitation against the third term agenda. Finally, the mass media were major actors in the race that birthed the fourth republic and in the quest to ensure the preservation of the democracy. The study concluded that the mass media, maintained an approach and strategy that were largely encapsulated in aggressive attack and criticism rather than an educative effort that is capable of nurturing a democracy. KEY WORDS- Mass Media, Democracy/democratization, Third-Term Agenda, Tenure Elongation

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Global, regional, and national burden of disorders affecting the nervous system, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BackgroundDisorders affecting the nervous system are diverse and include neurodevelopmental disorders, late-life neurodegeneration, and newly emergent conditions, such as cognitive impairment following COVID-19. Previous publications from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor Study estimated the burden of 15 neurological conditions in 2015 and 2016, but these analyses did not include neurodevelopmental disorders, as defined by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-11, or a subset of cases of congenital, neonatal, and infectious conditions that cause neurological damage. Here, we estimate nervous system health loss caused by 37 unique conditions and their associated risk factors globally, regionally, and nationally from 1990 to 2021.MethodsWe estimated mortality, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), years of life lost (YLLs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), with corresponding 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs), by age and sex in 204 countries and territories, from 1990 to 2021. We included morbidity and deaths due to neurological conditions, for which health loss is directly due to damage to the CNS or peripheral nervous system. We also isolated neurological health loss from conditions for which nervous system morbidity is a consequence, but not the primary feature, including a subset of congenital conditions (ie, chromosomal anomalies and congenital birth defects), neonatal conditions (ie, jaundice, preterm birth, and sepsis), infectious diseases (ie, COVID-19, cystic echinococcosis, malaria, syphilis, and Zika virus disease), and diabetic neuropathy. By conducting a sequela-level analysis of the health outcomes for these conditions, only cases where nervous system damage occurred were included, and YLDs were recalculated to isolate the non-fatal burden directly attributable to nervous system health loss. A comorbidity correction was used to calculate total prevalence of all conditions that affect the nervous system combined.FindingsGlobally, the 37 conditions affecting the nervous system were collectively ranked as the leading group cause of DALYs in 2021 (443 million, 95% UI 378–521), affecting 3·40 billion (3·20–3·62) individuals (43·1%, 40·5–45·9 of the global population); global DALY counts attributed to these conditions increased by 18·2% (8·7–26·7) between 1990 and 2021. Age-standardised rates of deaths per 100 000 people attributed to these conditions decreased from 1990 to 2021 by 33·6% (27·6–38·8), and age-standardised rates of DALYs attributed to these conditions decreased by 27·0% (21·5–32·4). Age-standardised prevalence was almost stable, with a change of 1·5% (0·7–2·4). The ten conditions with the highest age-standardised DALYs in 2021 were stroke, neonatal encephalopathy, migraine, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, diabetic neuropathy, meningitis, epilepsy, neurological complications due to preterm birth, autism spectrum disorder, and nervous system cancer.InterpretationAs the leading cause of overall disease burden in the world, with increasing global DALY counts, effective prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation strategies for disorders affecting the nervous system are needed

Narrative of governance crisis in Nigeria: Allegory of resource curse and “Emergence” in Tunde Kelani’s Saworoide and Agogo-Èèwò

From the resource curse perspective, this article investigated how Tunde Kelani’s twin-movies, Saworoide and Agogo-Èèwò, explored the vulnerability of leaders in natural-resource dependent state to corrupt practices, leading ultimately to governance crisis. Textual and mythical representations in the movies are critically analysed to explain the significance of tackling governance crises during the leadership-making process. Significantly, the article investigated the historical revisionism contained in the films as a predictive imagination of how the future (political-economy) will remain bleak in the face of the continued maladministration of the resources in Nigeria. Focusing on the socio-economic and political malaise that has continued to play out since the discovery of crude oil at Oloibiri community in Nigeria by mid-1950s, the article sought to unravel what Tunde Kelani’s allegorical postulations in Saworoide and Agogo-Èèwò reveal about leadership experiences of states depending solely on natural resources income. It explained how the absence of shared goal and dearth of mass mobilization strategies, which were successfully deployed in the films for denouncing despotism and yokes of elitism, are lacking in the present-day Nigeria. The insulations against irresponsible public administration, which the leadership-making process in Saworoide and Agogo-Èèwò rigidly built into the leadership-making process in Saworoide and Agogo-Èèwo, arguably, showcase the consequences of unscrupulous choices emanating from gamed electoral system inherent in the modern liberal democracies. In doing so, the study showed how the conjoined films are a unique art that figuratively lends itself to explanations of leadership challenges arising from natural resource endowments

Geographic Variation in Medicare and the Military Healthcare System

Research Objective: Geographic variation in per capita healthcare spending is well-documented using Medicare claims data but it is unclear whether spending patterns in Medicare are representative of the rest of the health care system. Differences in price and Medicare reimbursement rates account for only a small portion of the variation observed and variation in practice patterns likely explains this phenomena. We explored geographic variation in health care spending and health care utilization within the Military Healthcare System (MHS) compared with Medicare spending and healthcare utilization across Hospital Referral Regions (HRRs). Study Design: A retrospective cohort approach was used. Data on age, sex and race adjusted Medicare expenditures by HRR were obtained from Dartmouth Atlas website. MHS data were obtained from the MHS Data Repository. Patients in the MHS were assigned to one of 306 HRRs using zip code crosswalk obtained from Dartmouth Atlas. Utilization measures of inpatient days, hip and back surgery were also analyzed. Measures of variation included coefficient of variation (CoV) and interquartile range. Depending on the measure, HRRs with less than 5 surgical events over the study period were excluded from our analysis. Population Studied: Medicare beneficiaries included those above 65 years from 2007 to 2010. MHS Beneficiaries included military personnel, retirees and dependents above 18 years living within the U.S. and enrolled in TRICARE Prime, an HMO-like option in which all enrollees are assigned a Primary Care Manager. For MHS, we included data from 2007 and 2010 (the only 2 years available at the time of this study). The average number of enrollees per year was 3.4 million and 10.1 million within the MHS and Medicare respectively. Principal Findings: The CoV for spending was higher in the MHS compared with Medicare (0.27, 0.15, respectively). Interquartile range was also higher in MHS compared to Medicare (1.44 and 1.22, respectively). The top 5 Medicare spending markets differed from top MHS spenders although the bottom 5 Markets exhibited some similarity as they were mostly located in the upper Midwest. The CoV for inpatient days was lower in Medicare compared to MHS (0.19, 1.29). Hip and back surgery rates were variable within Medicare and MHS with COV greater than 0.9 in both systems. Conclusions: Despite being a managed care system, geographic variation in spending exists within the MHS to a higher degree than in Medicare. This may be partially explained by demographic differences in patient population in the MHS in addition to other unaccounted factors. Although variation in inpatient days was similar, other measures such as rates of back and hip surgery were highly variable within both systems. Implications for Policy or Practice: Assessing variation in healthcare spending and utilization within the MHS compared with Medicare provides insight into potential sources of variation. Higher variation in spending within MHS may reflect its diverse patient population or a lessened delivery of integrated care given similar reimbursement rates to Medicare. This may inform policy solutions aimed at reducing unwarranted variation in health care