Banking sector reforms in Nigeria: legal implications for the banker–customer relationship

In 2005, the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced a programme of reforms which created a new minimum paid‐up capital for all banks, from two billion Naira to 25 billion Naira; with a compliance deadline of 31 December 2005. This reduced the number of banks operating in Nigeria from 89 to what is now the 25 mega banks. However, the process equally threw up a major legal issue in terms of the impact on the bank‐customer relationship. This article analyses the new reforms, their implications for the banker–customer relationship and concludes with proposals towards better achieving the objectives of the reforms.     

Governing the Water Use in the Greater Richmond Area: Dispute and Resolution

This study probes into the governing issues centering around the water use dispute and resolution between Richmond City and Henrico County in the Greater Richmond area, Virginia. For a variety of reasons, Richmond City strongly opposed the initiative by Henrico County to construct and operate its own water treatment plant in 1987. As a result of rigorous multi-party planning, mediation, and negotiation processes, Richmond City and Henrico County finally reached a compromise settlement in 1994. This study concludes that mediating and resolving public policy disputes between localities within the metropolitan area is a highly complicated and politically charged process, which can involve different levels of government, business community elites, and other stakeholders; driven by their common interests, the public-private intersectoral boundaries are increasingly blurred; and a planning process blends both political and technical factors together. In this case, the Henrico County's newly proposed water treatment plant project was environmentally cleared by the Water Review Panel's technical report.     

Tempest in a Textbook: A Report on the New Middle-School History Textbook in Japan

How does a middle-school history textbook go about promoting nationalistic pride in adolescent Japanese? Trying to reconcile this goal with the sorry examples of Japan's military exploits before and during World War II has created considerable domestic and international concern, not to mention highly emotional protests. This report presents some of the provocative contents, strategies of presentation, and political repercussions of the “new history textbook,” approved by Japan's Ministry of Education and Science in 2001 for use in public and private middle schools nationwide. Sponsored and authored by the Japan Society for History Textbook Reform (Atarashii Rekishi Kyōkasho o Tsukuru Kai), the textbook's problematic rendition of history has produced an uproar over the government's screening and approval process, renewed concern about an upsurge of nationalistic activity in Japan, and adversely affected Japan's relations with China and South Korea.