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March 12, 2013

Competitiveness
Shortcut to U.S. Economic Competitiveness: A Seamless North American Market

See CFR Senior Fellow and Renewing America Director Edward Alden's accompanying blog post here. In looking abroad to promote economic growth, the United States need go no further than its two clos…

Shortcut to U.S. Economic Competitiveness header

November 7, 2023

Nigeria
Blood Money

When it comes to wealth transfer, Nigerian Pentecostal churches prefer to keep it all in the family.  

Hundreds of worshippers, dressed in traditional attire, attend a church service.

February 6, 2024

Nigeria
Life After Weber

What if the solution to insecurity in Nigeria is beyond the capacity of the state?

A Nigerian police officer is shown holding a rifle while a large police vehicle is shown in the background.

January 18, 2024

Nigeria
Acts of Privation

Feeling stuck and unheeded, young Nigerians are increasingly resorting to all manner of desperate measures.

A man looks on from the doorway of his home in Lagos, Nigeria.

October 19, 2023

Nigeria
In Search of Manhood

The genital disappearance panic sweeping across Nigeria evokes nagging anxiety over masculinity and male power.   

People watch as a man lifts a bar containing 50 kg (110 lbs) iron weights in his mouth.

March 1, 2024

United States
Election 2024: President Joe Biden Delivers His Third State of the Union Address

Each Friday, I look at what the presidential contenders are saying about foreign policy. This Week: Joe Biden will likely stress his domestic achievements over his foreign policy challenges when he a…

Biden SOTU

February 3, 2022

Ghana
Behind Africans’ Thirst for Prophecy; Confusion About the Present and Anxiety About the Future

Late last year, the Ghana Police Service issued a statement in which it warned those it referred to as “doomsday prophets” to desist from prophesying or face prosecution and a term of imprisonment of up to five years. It reminded the Ghanaian public that “it is a crime for a person to publish or reproduce a statement, rumor or report which is likely to cause fear and alarm to the public or disturb the public peace, where that person has no evidence to prove that the statement, rumor or report is true.”

Nigerian preacher in a white robe up on a stage talks to a multitude of believers in the background in a mega church.

March 14, 2022

Nigeria
Mummy G.O.: Nigeria’s Much-Derided Pentecostal Preacher Enunciates a Powerful Social Critique

Within the space of a few months, fifty-five-year-old evangelist Olufunmilayo Adebayo, popularly known as Mummy G.O., has gone from the relative obscurity of downscale Iyana-Ipaja, Lagos, to the most discussed subject in contemporary Nigerian Pentecostalism. The target of a blizzard of savage internet memes and unrelenting mockery, the founder and leader of the self-styled Rapture Proclaimer Evangelical Church of God (RAPEC) has been getting all the attention in a context where the leading—and mostly male—clerical figures dominate the news as a matter of course.

Worshippers attending mass wear face masks and sit in individual chairs six feet away from each other.