OMOJUWA.COM WELCOMES TOM PALMER, FRANKLIN CUDJOE ET AL TO NIGERIA

Nigeria’s quest for economic liberalization and socio-cultural liberty will receive a massive boost when some of the world’s most productive Libertarian voices come calling this week. Africa’s most populous country will host the Students and Young Professional African Liberty Academy Seminar SYPALA 2011 at the historic Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria from the 10th-15th August.
Some of the dignitaries expected at the yearly event hosted by Nigeria this year include Tom G Palmer and Franklin Cudjoe.

Tom G Palmer:

is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, director of the Institute’s educational division, Cato University, Vice President for International Programs at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and General Director of the Atlas Global Initiative for Free Trade, Peace, and Prosperity.
Palmer has published essays on the philosophy of individual rights (e.g., in an essay from Individual Rights Reconsidered, edited by Tibor Machan (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2001),a substantive response to G. A. Cohen’s attack on property rights, several responses to the theories of Cass Sunstein and Stephen Holmes, and essays on multicultural politics, on globalization, on globalization and personal and cultural identity, and on libertarian political philosophy. Palmer also published an extensive bibliographical essay on libertarianism in The Libertarian Reader, edited by David Boaz. He has published law review articles on intellectual property that have garnered substantial attention within the legal and technological community for his general critique of patents and copyrights and his suggestions of contractual and technological solutions to the problems for which intellectual property rights are usually proposed as solutions. In 2009 many of his essays and op-eds were published as Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice.

Franklin Cudjoe:

Franklin Cudjoe is Founder of IMANI, a think tank dedicated to fostering public awareness of important policy issues concerning business, government and civil society. This year, the Foreign Policy Magazine named IMANI “the fifth most influential think tank in Africa”. Cudjoe is also Editor of AfricanLiberty.org, dedicated to syndicating open-society type articles throughout Africa. He holds fellowships from a wide range of organizations including the Mont Pelerin Society, New School of Athens, Instituto Bruno Leoni, Evian Group at IMD, Independent Institute. He has won two John Templeton Foundation awards for advancing the institutional foundations of the free and democratic society in 2006. He has been cited in the UK House of Commons debate on aid and development in Africa and by South Africa’s Supreme Court Judge on patents and intellectual property in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Cudjoe is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media about Africa development issues. He is Co-Author of “The Water Revolution: Practical Solutions to Water Scarcity” (with forewords by Hernando de Soto and Sir Ian Byatt). He just completed a scholarship programme at Harvards University. Franklin Cudjoe will be speaking on a wide range of issues and he is often direct and engaging in his delivery.

PS: OMOJUWA will feed you with up to the minute updates of SYPALA 2011 live from ABU Zaria. Follow our twitter handle @omojuwa to get plugged in. We will also profile some of the other speakers and do a review of SYPALA next week.