| Extrait - What we know: In late 2009, Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua vanished to Saudi Arabia, where he was said to be receiving medical treatment for a long-suffering heart condition. In the interim months, as it became less clear what the president's condition actually was -- or if he would recover -- the Nigerian government grappled with the question of who would run the country in his absence. After months of uncertainty, the president eventually returned to Nigeria. But he died just days later and Vice President Goodluck Jonathan at last definitively assumed office. What we learn: It wasn't just Nigerians who wondered who was in charge during Yar'Adua's long convalescence. According to leaked State Department cables, the U.S. ambassador held a meeting with Jonathan on Feb. 24, 2010, when he was still acting president of Nigeria (and Yar'Adua was still alive.) In the discussion, Jonathan admitted that "everyone is confused" about who was running the country. He blamed the uncertainty on a small cadre close to the ailing president, led by Yar'Adua's wife, Turai, who was restricting access to the president. Jonathan described how he would attempt to manage regional tensions if succession was necessary and the ambassador urged him to "be his own man," to which Jonathan replied: "I was not chosen to be Vice President because I had good political experience," he said. "I did not. There were a lot more qualified people around to be Vice President, but that does not mean I am not my own man." President Goodluck Jonathan's office released a statement on Dec. 9, however, refuting the account of the meeting in no uncertain terms: "[W]hat is served up is an unfair account severely impacted by selective perception and individual expectations. For instance, how can it be said that a man who had been a Deputy Governor, an Acting Governor, a governor, a Vice President, and then Acting President could have described himself as "lacking in administrative experience".... This only goes to show that the report itself is a souped up version of the standard conversation that takes place in such meetings. We find this account as wholly unfortunate, and we are only employing the best of diplomatic finesse in that statement!" The curveball: In a series of cables regarding the country's proposed oil-industry reform law, Shell oil tells U.S. diplomats that it has eyes in the Nigerian government: "Shell had seconded people to all the relevant ministries and that Shell consequently had access to everything that was being done in those ministries." A separate cable discussing Nigeria's instability and its importance to the United States -- both as the most populous country in Africa and a major U.S. oil supplier -- warns that "Nigeria has the possibility of becoming the next Pakistan within 25 years." Needless to say, that's not intended as a compliment. |