Street level bureaucrats, policy entrepreneurship, and discretion in enforcing bans on motorcycle taxis in Lagos, Nigeria

Recently, the authorities in Lagos have implemented policies progressively restricting the operation of okadas (motorcycle taxis). We analyse the enforcement of these measures through the lens of Street Level Bureaucrats (SLBs) and Street Level Policy Entrepreneurs (SLPEs). Doing so, we introduce two novel features into the literature. First, the extant literature focuses primarily on policies that deliver public services, whereas policies can also control proscribed behaviour. We refer to these as service delivery and regulation, respectively. Second, the exercise of discretion by SLBs and SLPEs can result in both ‘under-enforcement’ and ‘over-enforcement’ of regulatory policies, the latter potentially involving breaking the law. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Lagos between 2021 and 2023, we find strong evidence of both under- and over-enforcement of okada bans over time, but with more over-enforcement. This offers important insights conceptually for the SLPE literature, and empirically to the challenges of policing urban Lagos

Housing finance between social needs and economic realities: The dilemma of policy transfer under neo-liberalism

The aim of this paper is to show how the interplay between social needs and economic realities affects housing policy in developing countries. The paper addresses the very topical issue of housing finance policy for low-income dwellers in rapidly urbanizing African countries. The paper locates housing finance firmly within the neo-liberal development framework being canvassed as the panacea to underdevelopment in these countries and argues that the dilemma facing governments in the current economic downturn is manifested in the realities of decreasing productivity, marginal economic growth, low development and massive urbanization problems versus low-income housing need within the constraints of a neoliberal macro-economic policy. The study adopts a comprehensive content analysis methodology which is based on the review of literatures, the analysis of media accounts of government activities in the housing sector and analysis of official government policy statements. This methodology is applied to housing policy in Nigeria (as a case-study of developing countries) and Britain (as a case-study of developed countries). Findings reveal interesting dimensions of change in institutional and political transformation of housing services in developed and developing countries: while housing finance reforms are generated within the system in developed countries, it is led by international institutions such as IMF and World Bank in developing countries. Thus, while developed countries have responded to the present economic downturn by adopting \u91more government\u92: direct injections into the housing finance basket, developing countries have exhibited a dilemma \u96seeking to satisfy legitimate, obvious housing needs and facing the need to conform to neoliberal policies in the hard realities of low productivity and marginal economic growth. The result has been the adoption of an \u91enabling\u92 toga which is overwhelmingly displayed as reduction of fund injection into low-income housing and a disturbing readiness to appropriate this role to a reluctant The paper concludes that sectorial policy transfers are incapable of meeting developmental needs when they take place within the context of divergent macro-economic policies. What is needed therefore are policies that are in tune with local realities, and are flexible and responsive to change. This is best achieved with home-grown policies. However, governments necessarily operate within a comity of nations and therefore have to sign on to global agreements. The challenge for governments here is to localize foreign policies and then mainstream them into indigenous policies and hence ensure that when policy transfer occurs, it is not to the detriment of the people they are meant to serve

Integrating Sustainability into the Real Estate Valuation Process: A Nigerian Perspective

This paper sought the perception of Nigerian real estate valuers on sustainable development and how sustainability can be integrated into the real estate valuation process in Nigeria. One hundred and sixty Estate Surveyors and Valuers were asked, among others, to rate the significance of a range of sustainability features on the market value of a hypothetical property based on the social, economic and environmental features that make up the triple bottom line of sustainability. The study showed evidences of a growing awareness of the need to mainstream sustainability into the real estate valuation process: though the majority of the respondents tended to define real estate sustainability only in terms of its social features leaving out the economic and environmental features. Nigerian valuers are therefore enjoined to broaden and improve on their present knowledge of sustainability to enable them to account for the phenomenon in their valuations as appropriate. the study identified the investors, the government, property occupier, and the estate surveyor and valuer (appraiser), in that order, as the frontline drivers of the sustainability crusade in the country.Keywords: integration, perception, real estate, sustainability, valuation process