Jean Herskovits
Essay
Jul/Aug
2007
Nigeria's elections last April were among the most seriously flawed in the country's history, thanks largely to the manipulations of the U.S.-backed ruling party. With Nigerians increasingly clamoring for accountability, Washington's continuing support could generate more unrest -- and could pose a risk both to oil supplies coming out of Nigeria and to the stability of West Africa.
Essay
Winter
1979
On October 1 Nigeria added to its list of vital statistics a new status as the world's fourth largest democracy. The list was already impressive. One African in four is a Nigerian; with a population of 80 million or more, Nigeria is larger than any country in Europe. It is also the world's eighth largest producer of crude oil and has been the United States' second largest supplier for six years, neither joining in the Arab boycott of 1973-74, nor cutting exports for policy reasons subsequently.
Essay
Jan
1975
At least one African in four is a Nigerian; there are more Nigerians than Germans or Frenchmen or Britishers. Nigeria is now America's second-largest supplier of crude oil. Yet most Americans know nothing of this vast country, or if anything, only that there was a bloody civil war a few years back.
Essay
Jan
1973
In February 1972, just two years after Biafra's sudden collapse, a news- magazine cover featured "Africa's Forgotten War." Nigerians who saw it thought: now at last the world may learn what has been happening here. In fact, the article was on the Sudan, but the reaction meant something. For all the keen and colorful attention to the civil war by the foreign press, there has been scant interest since the secessionist surrender. Because there was no genocide, the world's attention wandered. But while there has not been reconciliation in, say, Northern Ireland, Bangladesh or Burundi, there has been in Nigeria. This is one thing that makes Nigeria important; another is that, taught by world reaction, Nigeria really does want to go it alone, quietly and without much rhetoric, within a 12-state structure that gives her new opportunities.
