They Eat Our Sweat: Transport Labor, Corruption, and Survival in Urban Nigeria-Building Stata Capability Book Talk

Date: 

Monday, February 6, 2023, 12:00pm

Location: 

Malkin Penthouse and virtual

Speaker: Daniel E. Agbiboa, Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.  

About the talk
The informal transportation network, characteristic of many African cities, is notoriously dangerous. In Lagos, drivers are constantly threatened and forced to pay bribes; they suffer health problems like hypertension and partial blindness, and accidents are common. Fear is a form of governance. The police and the union extract money from transport drivers and share it with each other. The money passes up the ranks, to the union authorities and to political leaders. 
 
In this book talk, you will hear about the author’s first-hand experience as a minibus conductor in Lagos as a way to better understand the culture and complexity of corruption, and learn more about how such a harrowing and corrupt system can endure.

Hosted by: Harvard Kennedy School of Goverment 

Register