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.

IN the past couple of columns, I have dwelled on the President’s continued absence and the courage that was so magnificently displayed by Prof. Dora Akunyili, the Minister of Information. I have also said that even though I regard the President as a basically decent man, I despise those of his loyalists who aggressively resisted moves to make Dr Goodluck Jonathan Acting President and think that a medical team should be sent to Saudi Arabia to find out whether Yar’Adua is likely to recover enough to return to his desk at some point in the near future.

Acting President, Goodluck , stands at history’s crossroads. The road he chooses to travel will make all the difference for him as a historical figure in Nigeria and for Nigeria itself. He is faced with the choice of either charting a new course and laying the foundation for the new Nigeria of our dreams or following the ignominious familiar road which we have travelled in the past.

AND the incumbent won. Ordinarily, there is no big deal about that, to use the pedestrian parlance, except you consider that the re-elected Anambra State Governor is no ordinary politician.

When former President Bill Clinton made a historic trip to Africa in March 1998, he hailed Presidents Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Isaiah Afwerki of Eritrea, Laurent Kabila of Congo DR, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda as the new leaders of Africa taking charge of their own backyard. As it turned out, the so-called “new leaders” were just old win in new bottles.