Nigeria

John Campbell is the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served twice in Nigeria, from 1988 to 1990 as political counselor and from 2004 to 2007 as U.S. ambassador.

• Introduction: An Ambassadorial Credential PresentationChapter 1: “Un Peu d’Histoire”Chapter 2: If Nigeria Is So Rich, Why Are Nigerians So Poor?Chapter 3: Who Runs Nigeria?Chapter 4: FaithChapter 5: The Niger DeltaChapter 6: A President for Life?Chapter 7: The “Election-Like Event” of 2007Chapter 8: The Breakdown of the Nigerian Political SystemChapter 9: Boko HaramChapter 10: Washington and AbujaChapter 11: Dancing on the Brink

Nigeria, onetime giant of Africa, rich in both human and natural resources, has in the past decades or so descended into what Samuel P. Huntington calls 'praetorianism'—control of society by force or fraud, especially by venal, corruptible, and often sycophantic people; into what Richard Joseph calls 'prebendalism'—the disbursing of public offices and state rents to one's ethnic-based clients; and into what Larry Diamond calls 'uncivil society'—lacking the horizontal relations of reciprocity and cooperation that breed the honesty, trust, and law abidingness that mark the civic community. The aforementioned descriptions of Nigeria raised the specter of a failed state. Campbell (Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies, Council on Foreign Relations), former US ambassador to Nigeria, cites numerous factors responsible for this situation: endemic corruption, maladministration, election malpractices, and sectarian violence perpetrated by Boko Haram. Campbell condemns Washington's indifference in the past and cautions the Obama administration to be circumspect in helping Nigerian civil society in reversing this trend. A must-read for people interested in security of Nigeria and US-Nigeria bilateral relations; recommended for other readers. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional collections.