ACTING President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday February 16, made his debut on the international stage. It was at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Heads of State Summit which had been on hold due to President Umaru Yar’Adua’s poor health. It was a befitting one for him as 10 of the 13 expected ECOWAS leaders showed up and the rest were represented.

I SPRINTED into a shop in Algiers. The weather was very cold. Although it was not raining, people were getting wet. Even in the streets, here and there, you found pools of water. I was fully kitted wearing layers of shirts, a sweater and two trousers. Surprisingly, there were youths with just T-shirts and jackets, some with their trousers not around their waists but their buttocks. This clearly was the American gangster influence.

MICHEAL Kaase Aondoakaa, Attorney General and Minister of Justice until shoved aside on February 9, reminds me of the infamous Clement Akpamgbo. He held the same portfolio in the insidious military regime of General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida.

Twenty years after these earth-shaking events, Mandela’s profile continues to grow. This year, the United Nations set aside his birthday to be commemorated eternally. In venerating Mandela, the world is also honouring the heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle particularly those who did not live to see freedom day such as Robert Sobukwe, Ruth First, Solomon Mahlangu, Bram Fischer and the children of Soweto whose blood watered the tree of freedom.

One of the main problems of Africa is leadership powered by visionless, self-glorifying, egoistic, power-conscious, unprincipled, mostly greedy, corrupt and vain political elites. But for people like Nelson Mandela who shun power and refused a second constitutional term which was his just for the asking, most people could have argued that this is a genetic African trait.