The 2023 removal of Nigeria’s long-standing fuel subsidy triggered immediate and widespread socio-economic shocks. This paper examines the effects of this reform on Sokoto State’s informal transport sector, comprising motorcycles, tricycles, and minibuses that provide affordable transport and employment for low-income residents. Using documentary and secondary data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and national media sources, the paper explores how subsidy removal influenced operating costs, income, fare structures, and household welfare. Findings indicate that while subsidy removal aimed to promote fiscal sustainability, it has sharply increased operational costs for informal operators, leading to higher fares, reduced accessibility, and declining real incomes. Compounding these effects are weak and uneven palliative implementations. The study concludes that targeted palliatives, subnational microcredit schemes, and state-level transport support systems are essential to mitigate welfare losses while preserving reform objectives.
Keywords: Fuel Subsidy Removal, Informal Transport Sector, Sokoto State, Fiscal Reform, Public Policy, Nigeria.

This study analyzes the role of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) in preventing violent extremism in Kenya between 2015 and 2024. The research adopts a descriptive survey design, drawing on interviews with government officials, civil society actors, and community members, as well as document analysis. The findings reveal that UNCCT initiatives have shifted from state-centric, securitized approaches to more inclusive, community-led strategies that prioritize trust-building, capacity-building, and addressing root causes such as poverty and lack of opportunity. Key strategies include youth engagement, economic empowerment, strategic communication, and multi-agency coordination. The study highlights the effectiveness of localized, participatory models in building resilience, especially in urban informal settlements, and underscores the importance of involving local leaders, women, and former extremists in program design and implementation. However, challenges remain, including limited resources, poor coordination between national and county governments, and the need for more robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks. The research concludes that UNCCT’s holistic approach has contributed to Kenya’s evolving counter-extremism landscape, but ongoing refinement and inclusive participation are essential for sustainable impact.

The sixteenth century novel The Plum in the Golden Vase goes lengths to portray characters peeping and spying in the narration, suggesting a sense of voyeurism. Sight and vision in The Plum in the Golden Vase mainly stem from direct observation of characters’ quotidian life. Characters see or happen to see what happens in front of their eyes. Physical sight relies on characters’ physical proximity to what is being caught sight of. In later seventeenth century texts such as Li Yu’s Xiayilou and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, both texts point out an attempt to look into the distance. To mediate a geographical distance, Qu Jiren in Xiayilou extends restricted scope of human eyesight and observes what happens in the Zhan family through a use of the telescope. Resonating with Jiren’s extended vision, The Tempest draws on Ariel’s supernatural power to move across the space to extend Prospero’s vision, thereby creating a narrative telescope through the agency of Ariel’s sight. With a consideration of Zhang Dai’s “Mid- September on West Lake” in The Dream Recollections of Tao-an, the essay further draws attention to the subject and object of sight and to the question—who sees whom, implying a paradoxical fact that a spectator is simultaneously sighted by another spectator. This overlap of the subject and object of vision complicates the scope of human sight by emphasizing the scope of the subject of vision.