Botswana’s Success Sparkles amid African Gloom
While the world has been watching the pathetic spectacle being played out in Harare, Zimbabwe, as Robert Mugabe clings desperately to the levers of power he has held for nearly three decades (see...
Olusegun Obasanjo
Côte d’Ivoire Crisis: Some Lessons to Be Learned
In my review last week of Africa's likely top flash points for 2011, I expressed my concern that The year that was supposed to be Côte d'Ivoire's "ann...
Op-eds
Nigeria at the Crossroads, Again
Focused on the final stretch of the midterm elections at home, policymakers and pundits in the United States have hardly evinced any interest in concerning themselves with electoral politics abro...
Op-eds
Botswana’s Success Sparkles amid African Gloom
While the world has been watching the pathetic spectacle being played out in Harare, Zimbabwe, as Robert Mugabe clings desperately to the levers of power he has held for nearly three decades (see my report last week), not enough attention has been paid to the truly remarkable transition taking place contemporaneously just 500 miles to the west in Gaborone, Botswana. There, on March 31st, President Festus Gontebanye Mogae stepped down and was succeeded by his vice president, Seretse Khama Ian Khama (generally known as Ian Khama).
Op-eds
Nigeria: Flailing State
On the final day of their summit last week at the German Baltic seaside resort of Heiligendamm, as they are nowadays wont to do, the leaders of the G8 received a select delegation of their Africa...
Op-eds
Building Security by Ending Impunity: The Trial of Charles Taylor
This being a column devoted to terrorism and other security issues affecting Africa, it regrettably must devote most of its coverage to the bad news of which the continent is all too familiar: po...
Op-eds
Vulnerability of Nigerian Oil Infrastructure Threatens U.S. Interests
Last Friday, oil prices climbed toward $67.00 a barrel as supply disruptions in Nigeria compounded concerns about insufficient gasoline inventory levels in the United States; which have been decl...
Op-eds
Nigeria Teeters Back from the Brink — For Now
Two weeks ago in this column space I observed that free, fair, and credible elections in Nigeria "would lead to the inauguration of a legitimate political order;[which] would not only consolidate...
Op-eds
Nigeria: Crisis of Legitimacy
Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Monday that Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, the candidate of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), the winner in last...
Op-eds
Decision Time in Nigeria
Over the course of the last year, this column has regularly chronicled developments in Nigeria; including Islamist activism in the north, evidence of growing connections to international terroris...
Op-eds
The Battle for Nigeria
WITH AROUND 36 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves-the largest in Africa and the eighth largest in the world-Nigeria is America's fifth-largest supplier of oil. In 2006, the United...
Op-eds
The Return of the “Nigerian Taliban”
While the attention of most Africa security analysts and policymakers has been focused recently on the campaign to root out the militant Islamists of Somalia's Islamic Courts Union, evidence...
Op-eds
Nigeria’s Electoral Intrigue
It barely registers on inside-the-Beltway policy discussions, but few countries are as vital to the strategic interests of the United States as Nigeria. With some 35.9 billion barrels of proven p...
Op-eds
Islamism Comes to the Niger Delta
Last month, I discussed in this column the immense importance of the Nigerian elections scheduled for April 21, 2007, concluding: "If President Obasanjo manages to hand ov...
Op-eds
Still at Large: Qadhafi the War Criminal
It's hard to have any sympathy for Charles Ghankay Taylor. During his murderous fourteen-year rampage through West Africa, the former Liberian president was responsible - according...
Op-eds
In Nigeria False Prophets Are Real Problems
Last week a judge in Yola in the Nigerian state of Adamawa sentenced Musa Ali Suleiman (aka Musa Makaniki) to death by hanging. As his nom de guerre hints, Musa Makaniki is a mechanic who gave up...
Op-eds
Nigeria at the Crossroads
Over the long-term, perhaps no African country is as vital to the strategic interests of the United States as Nigeria. Alas, the country is also a study in contradictions. With some 35.9...
Op-eds
Militant Islamism’s Shadow Rises Over Sub-Saharan Africa
While the genocidal activities currently being perpetrated in the Darfur region of western Sudan at the instance of the country's Khartoum-based Arabist Islamist regime – and this comi...
Op-eds
A Retirement Plan for Tyrants
By Amb. Richard Carlson One of my partners as an observer at the South African elections of 1994 was General Olusegun Obasanjo, now president of Nigeria. We traveled around together a bi...