Crime, Livelihoods and Urban Poverty in Nigeria

In mid-September UCL Geography played host to an interdisciplinary workshop as part of the project, Development Frontiers in Crime, Livelihoods and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Department for International Development (DFID).

UCL Geographers, Dr James Cheshire, Dr Tatiana Thieme and Dr Anwar Musah (Research Associate on the project), are working with colleagues from Ahmed Bello University Zaria (ABUZ) in Nigeria to analyse the results of their field survey work and develop fresh perspectives on the analysis of crime.

Dr Faisal Umar, a UCL Geography alumnus, and his colleagues, Professor Adamu Ahmed, Khadija Yakubu, Abdullahi Babagana and Muktar Ahmed, took a break from their survey work in the city of Kaduna to spend a few days at a project workshop in London. During this, they shared insights based on their continuing interviews with both victims of crime and ex-offenders.

They also discussed the impacts of various street characteristics on urban crime, and novel methodological approaches, including graph theory, statistical modelling and GIS, to new sources of data on household victimisation in Nigeria.

The visitors found time to be interviewed at Broadcasting House for the BBC Hausa service, as well as to enjoy some traditional fish ‘n’ chips at the farewell dinner.