Uche Igwe

A few years ago, a former US ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. John Campbell, wrote a tiny, brilliant book titled ‘Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink’. I wrote a piece acknowledging the searching intelligence and inspired insight in that book and got so many knocks on the head for doing so.

Georges Clemenceau, the former Prime Minister and wartime leader of France once said: ‘When you want to bury a problem, appoint a committee to investigate it.’ That seems to me the regular pattern of the Jonathan administration. It has assumed an amusing and almost ridiculous dimension.

The tragedy of the Nigerian political class is multi-dimensional. They are greedy, dubious and desperate. They are gullible almost to the point of nincompoopery.

Goodluck Ebele Jonathan comes across as a very humane, compassionate and calm person. He is always quick to brandish his less privileged upbringing as a unique selling point to anyone who cares to listen. However, he often portrays himself in public as someone who is hardly on top of his game.

I was not so surprised to read that Nigeria has joined the ten bottom governance performers in Africa.

I was invited to a roundtable on the Nigerian Petroleum Industry Bill organised by the Africa Studies Department of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC on the 3 November 2010.

About a month ago, the world was awoken with the news of the death of the Malawian President, 78-year-old Professor Bingu wa Mutharika. He reportedly collapsed in his official residence on the 5 April and became unconscious after he suffered a cardiac arrest.

The prospect of economic emancipation and development in Africa was the biggest motivation that drove the struggle for independence.

As Kenyans prepare to go to the polls once again, her political terrain is getting charged as ethnic formations rehearse for potentially combustible struggles against each other, which may make or mar the fragile peace in the country.

It seems that the last has not been heard about the implications of the recent confirmation of charges against three prominent Kenyan politicians and a journalist at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.