NIGERIAN NOSTALGIA….

Who can forget those Fabulous Seventies? Last week’s visit to Moscow by Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo was a time to remember. The joint declaration Obasanjo signed with President Vladimir Putin referred glowingly to the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77, two relics of a Third World that lost its political cohesion when the Second World disappeared. Who can say what the Non-Aligned Movement is not aligned with now? Much of the Group of 77–a United Nations caucus of developing countries that may number 136–runs headlong toward the global economy. Mexico and South Korea have joined the OECD, a rich man’s club; China and Brazil are the leading recipients of foreign direct investment by private-sector companies. None of the poor oil-importing countries are cheering OPEC’s price hikes now, as they did in 1973 and 1979. Brezhnev’s mischievous economic diplomacy was not much of a hit the first time around. Now the audience has moved on, and a reprise is likely to be as welcome as disco Saturday night.