Obasanjo And the New African Dream.

(From This Day (Nigeria) - AAGM)

Byline: Greg Mbadiwe

The recent election of President Olusegun Obasanjo as chairman of the African Union (AU) is a milestone in Nigeria's foreign relations just as it represents an acknowledgment of the positive impact the country has made in the international scene under him. President Obasanjo's ascendancy to a pre-eminent position in the global arena cannot be surprising because not only is he the leader of Africa's most populous and strategic country, he had prior to his assumption of office as an elected civilian president, distinguished himself as an international statesman. He had been a member of the United Nations Eminent Persons Groups and one of the founders of Transparency International. It was only natural that his colleagues would want to quickly put the fledgling AU under his immediate supervision given his abundant knowledge, interest and stature in the international sphere.

President Obasanjo should be congratulated on this. I think we in Nigeria owe it a duty to rally round him in this assignment because the rest of Africa …