ESSAY TASK

First, do the attached reading and watch the documentary “Fueling Poverty” on Nigeria

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVq10BwzQoI). Then, discuss the following issue:

Despite its vast oil wealth, Nigeria has struggled to achieve economic development.

While Nigeria enjoyed a successful democratic transition in 1999, in recent years, the

country’s economic woes have been complicated by struggles with political violence

rooted in ethnic and religious divisions.

Imagine you have been appointed as a special advisor to President Muhammadu

Buhari. You have been tasked with outlining a political and economic plan to stabilize

Nigerian development. As President Buhari’s advisor, you know that Nigeria is divided

into three regions, each dominated by a single ethnic group: the Hausa-Fulani

(sometimes referred to as the Hausa) in northern Nigeria, the Igbo (sometimes referred

to as the Ibo) in Eastern Nigeria, and the Yoruba in Western Nigeria. Within each

region, the dominant ethnic group comprises about 2/3 of the total regional population.

But overall, there are more than 250 distinct ethnic groups in Nigeria. Further, the

country is also divided religiously, with approximately half of all Nigerians being

Muslim, 40 percent Christian, and about 10 percent practicing.

As President Buhari’s advisor, explain how Nigeria’s federal structure and electoral

system both attempt to accommodate different religious groups and ethnic groups and

why these structures have been unable to resolve tension in the Niger River Delta

region. Then, in your capacity as presidential advisor, develop a specific policy or

structural reform you would advocate to address Nigeria’s internal divisions.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (Important! Read carefully before submitting your essay)

You will submit your essay on Blackboard as Word attachment using the assignment submission

link. Your submission will be processed via “SafeAssign”—an originality checking, plagiarism

prevention tool made available by UTEP (see further information below).

All essay responses must be minimum 750 words and maximum 1000 words. Shorter or longer

responses will not be accepted. Please note that any list of references you may provide at the end

of your essay will not count towards your 1000-word limit. The text should be double-spaced, in

Times New Roman 12 font, and with 1-inch margins.

The essay is due on Friday, May 7 @ 11:00pm (MT). Essays submitted late will lose 10 points (1 letter grade) per day (including weekends). Your essay score will constitute 15 percent of

your final grade.

More Information on the SafeAssign Tool

Here is a helpful video tutorial on “Safe Assign” paper submission/originality check

tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gGRgjzDYEA

When you first submit your paper on Blackboard, you will initially see the note “Report in

progress.” You can later refresh the page, or click back on “Research Paper Submission Link”

on our Blackboard home page and you will see your score “X% overall match” noted under your

submission. Once you click on that score, you will see “View Originality Report” and clicking

on that will let you access the report with the matching text highlighted in different color codes

corresponding to the sources where they match with.

It may take some time (even several hours) for the system to generate a report on the originality

of your paper (checking the content and comparing it to all the existing sources on the Internet

and databases) so if you want to see your originality report before the final submission and have

time to revise and resubmit your paper if necessary, you should submit your paper ahead of the

deadline. You can submit your paper twice–this is to allow for a revised version to be submitted

if you wish to do so (resubmission is optional–NOT required). I will grade the latest submission

if you decide to revise and resubmit your paper based on the originality report.

When you see the originality report, SafeAssign provides the percentage match as your

score. So the lower the “overall match score” (at least below 20% and more ideally below 15%),

the higher the probability that the paper submitted is original (ideally over 80% or even better

over 85%). As explained in Blackboard Help web page, “The overall SafeAssign score indicates

the probability that the submitted paper contains matches to existing sources. This score is a

warning indicator only. Review papers to see if the matches are properly attributed.

 [Overall Match] Scores below 15 percent [= originality over 85 percent]: These papers

typically include some quotes and few common phrases or blocks of text that match other

documents. Typically, these papers don’t require further analysis as there is no evidence of

plagiarism.

 [Overall Match] Scores between 15 percent and 40 percent [ = originality less than 85

percent, over 60 percent]: These papers include extensive quoted or paraphrased material,

or they include plagiarism. Review these papers to determine if the matching text is properly

referenced.

 [Overall Match] Scores over 40 percent [ = originality less than 60 percent]: A very high

probability exists that text in these papers was copied from other sources. These papers

include quoted or paraphrased text in excess, and need to be reviewed for plagiarism.”

So, in short, if your overall match score is less than 20 (and more ideally less than 15

percent) and the highlighted matching areas in your originality report indicate that the

matching text was already properly cited (or simply a list of references), than the risk

of plagiarism is minimal. But, a match score of more than 20 percent (so less than 80 percent

original) often signals that the student needs to revise the paper with proper referencing, and

should incorporate more original ideas and words.

It should be noted that the originality score serves only as a warning indicator and papers should

be carefully reviewed to see if the matches are properly attributed. A low percentage match does

not guarantee that there is no risk of plagiarism and, by the same token, a high percentage match

does not necessarily mean the paper is fully plagiarized (although such a high match score

strongly signals that the paper should be reviewed and revised). Remember that while

SafeAssign is a useful tool to help prevent plagiarism and promote originality, it is not foolproof

and should only be used as a complimentary tool for checking your work. It is your full

responsibility to ensure that your paper is original and the sources you use in writing your paper

are properly cited.

CITATION AND REFERENCE GUIDELINES

If you use information from an external source or incorporate in your essay other people’s ideas,

you must give credit to those sources by citing them within the text and providing a list of

references at the end of your essay. That said, if you are simply presenting your own ideas and

opinions, you do not need to cite other sources.

If you decide to cite other resources, you are free to choose any mainstream citation format (such

as APA, MLA, Chicago…). In the “Welcome and Course Introduction” folder on Blackboard, I

have provided a document explaining the “American Political Science Association” (APSA)

format as a sample format for citation and referencing. As mentioned above, the list of

references will not count towards your 1000-word limit.

GRADING RUBRIC FOR THE ESSAY

Development of Ideas: 50%

Organization: 10%

Voice (i.e., professional, academic tone, scholarly quality of writing): 10%

Conventions (i.e., grammar, spelling, and punctuation): 10%

Focus and Coherence: 20%