Word: nigeria
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Asked how his son came by his unusual name, Pa Ebele Jonathan once told a reporter that as soon as the boy was born, "I instinctively realized that this child has that element of fortune." Pa Jonathan, a canoe-maker from southern Nigeria, could not shake the thought. "I just said to myself, 'this boy is lucky,'" he said. "So I decided to call him Goodluck." The father's instinct proved true. But his son's good fortune would often come after the misfortune of others. In 1999, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was elected deputy governor of Bayelsa province...
Jonathan will need more than luck to fix Nigeria. His most pressing job is to re-energize the peace process in the oil-rich southern Delta region. Talks to end the decade-old conflict with Delta rebels - they say they are fighting for a fairer share of the revenues from their land, and are also angry about the pollution caused by oil spills - was a central thrust of Yar'Adua's early presidency. Six months ago, Yar'Adua persuaded the rebels to agree to a ceasefire and mass disarmament in return for an amnesty, a small monthly stipend...
...last November the president, a chain smoker who has been ill for years, left for Saudi for treatment for a heart condition from where he is yet to return, and the peace process - and all Nigeria - were left in limbo. In December, the main rebel group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), announced it had lost patience with the delay and re-started its campaign of attacks on pipelines and installations and kidnappings of Western oil workers. A few thousand gunmen with a thing for shades, bandoliers and fast boats had the global price of crude...
...university in the oil hub of Port Harcourt. He also once worked as an environmental protection officer in the region. "He will perform," says Clark, a political powerbroker in the south and then man who persuaded Jonathan to stand for vice president. (See if a military coup would help Nigeria...
Security experts believe that AQIM's shift in tactics began in earnest with the December 2007 killing of four French tourists in Mauritania in what officials believe was a botched kidnapping. Successful abductions of Westerners then followed in Tunisia, Nigeria, Algeria and, most recently, in Mali, where French aid worker Pierre Camatte was snatched from his hotel on Nov. 25, and again in Mauritania, where three Spanish volunteers and an Italian couple were kidnapped on Nov. 29 and Dec. 19, respectively. (See pictures of a jihadist's journey...