THE history of crude oil production in Nigeria informs us that the Shell Oil Company was the first to discover oil in commercial quantity in Nigeria.

THE history of crude oil production in Nigeria informs us that the Shell Oil Company was the first to discover oil in commercial quantity in Nigeria. The location was Oloibriri (now in Bayelsa State), and the year was 1956. Two years later, Nigeria’s first consignment of crude oil was exported from the Oloibiri oil fields. But what is not well advertised is the fact that gas flaring has been taking place in Nigeria since 1958. The ecological disaster and associated consequences of gas flaring in Nigeria have been well-documented, and do not constitute the main objective in this dispatch from America.

IT is not often that Nigeria or indeed any developing nation gets applauded in the Western media. The issue has to be undeniably and incredibly worthy of celebration for it to be given space or airtime in the press. Such is the case of Kenya’s Lupita Amondi Nyong’o whose sterling performance in 12 Years a Slave earned her an Oscar.

AT the outset of his presidency, President Barack Obama must have calculated that it was not in his strategic interest to single out minorities in the U.S. for special attention. His mantra was that he was elected the president of the United States, not of a faction or fraction of its population. It was a way of being politically correct. He needed to serve two terms of office and sending any signal that he would pay more attention to the two most important constituencies that elected him to office – African Americans and Hispanics – may have been politically naïve.

THIS is a tale of two protests; one in Russia and the other in the United States. How both stories were treated in the U.S. press tells yet another story. First, to Russia.

THE biggest political buzz in the U.S. was, is, has been and will continue to be about Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady, Senator, and U.S. Secretary of State. Will she or will she not contest the presidency? Even without an answer to this question, it appears as if the gods have decided that come November, 2016, the U.S. presidency will be hers. But Hillary is yet to publicly declare her interest in running for the White House.

THE day was January 21, 2014. I entered my ‘International Media Systems’ class and introduced myself to about twenty American university students who were eager to learn how the media work around the globe. “I’m originally from Nigeria; who knows where Nigeria is located?” I asked. Silence. I repeated the question.

THE downside to being in public office in the U.S. is becoming an object of intense, and often irritating, highly intrusive and critical, media and public scrutiny. Your action and inaction invariably become subjects of serious debates, even from uninformed quarters and from people with less than noble intentions. What choice do you have? None.

‘PING-PONG’ diplomacy paved the way to a political rapprochement between the USA and China in the 1970s. Those were the days of China’s Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, US President Richard Nixon and his diplomatic soldier and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Now, Dennis Rodman is trying to use ‘basketball diplomacy’as an instrument to defrost the ice-cold US-North Korean relations.

NEW Jersey Governor Chris Christie does not see himself as a bully. But his burly physique and tough-talking mannerisms make you want to believe that he is. Now, he is fighting like a bull to clear his name in the on-going ‘bridge-gate’ scandal. If not handled with care, the scandal might scuttle Christie’s unstated but well-known ambition to run for the US presidency in 2016.