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Donald Trump wanted Greenland. Not in the quiet, diplomatic, “let’s explore strategic interests over aquavit and polite nods” manner that grown-up nations occasionally attempt. No. He wanted it the way a toddler wants the biggest toy in the shop window: loudly, immediately, and with zero regard for the fact that it already belongs to someone else.
Every generation seems to produce its own undertakers, its own mourners and its own carefully worded obituary announcing that the republic is finally approaching the end.
In 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar rode into Aso Rock together, a presidential double act that Nigerians assumed would age like most political marriages: quietly, then not at all. They survived one term. They won a second in 2003. Then, somewhere in that second term, Obasanjo discovered a constitutional itch that the 1999 Constitution's two term, eight year ceiling on the presidency simply would not scratch. He wanted a third term. Atiku, nursing a presidential ambition of his own and possessed of the inconvenient habit of reading the Constitution literally, said so publicly. The friendship ended there.
In the fearful months and years following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, Western democracies faced an unenviable dilemma. Their citizens demanded protection from an enemy that recognised no borders, wore no uniforms and deliberately targeted civilians.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 