Word: obasanjo
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...Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo MTV Jennifer Lopez...
Thousands of Nigerians clumped along Airport Road and cheered at their fleeting glance of Clinton. The National Assembly and President Olusegun Obasanjo both gave him rousing ovations. But each leader wants something from the other: Clinton wants Nigeria, an OPEC member and the sixth-largest supplier of oil to the United States, to encourage its fellow cartel members to pump more oil to reduce its price below inflation-inducing $30-a-barrel levels. In exchange, Obasanjo wants Clinton to fight to reduced the crushing $30 billion the nation owes the industrial powers, debt amassed by military autocrats...
...head for Nigeria, which Clinton spurned on his six-nation tour of Africa in March 1998. He simply flew over Nigeria to protest the brutal and corrupt military dictatorship run by Gen. Sani Abacha. Abacha died mysteriously in 1998, and last year Nigerians elected Obasanjo as their president. But Obasanjo, while hailed as the man who has brought a fragile democracy to Nigeria by Clinton and other western leaders, isn't viewed so favorably by his constituents, who continue to live a life of grinding poverty...
...only by reassessing the role of the Nigerian military that lasting political and economic progress can go hand-in-hand in Nigeria. Perhaps this is true for many other developing countries. President Obasanjo is in a unique position to embark on such a strategy. The idea of pulling Nigerian troops from international missions in order to save money towards the national debt is a brilliant first step that can be taken to disguise the critical issue of reducing the size and power of the military. The international community should support such a plan instead of or as a complement...
Hopefully, President Obasanjo's optimism will spread beyond the geographical boundaries of Nigeria, and the country's lost role as the "Giant of Africa" can be recast as the "Phoenix of Africa...