John Campbell and Matthew Page provide an overview of the politics, history, and culture of Nigeria, including the threat of Boko Haram and religious conflicts.
About the Expert
Expert Bio
John Campbell is the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. He is the coauthor, along with Matthew Page, of Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, which was published in July 2018, and he writes the blog Africa in Transition. From 1975 to 2007, Campbell served as a U.S. Department of State Foreign Service officer. He served twice in Nigeria, as political counselor from 1988 to 1990, and as ambassador from 2004 to 2007. Campbell's additional overseas postings include Lyon, Paris, Geneva, and Pretoria. He also served as deputy assistant secretary for human resources, dean of the Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies, and director of the Office of UN Political Affairs.
From 2007 to 2008, he was a visiting professor of international relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was also a Department of State mid-career fellow at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Prior to his career in the Foreign Service, he taught British and French history at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia.
Campbell has also written Morning in South Africa, which came out in May 2016 and Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink, the second edition of which was released in June 2013. He edits both the Nigeria Security Tracker and the Sub-Saharan Security Tracker.
Campbell received a BA and MA in history from the University of Virginia and a PhD in seventeenth-century English history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Affiliations:
American Academy of Diplomacy, fellow
American University of Nigeria, executive committee of the board
The Washington Institute for Foreign Affairs, member
Featured
President Jacob Zuma’s cabinet reshuffle has exposed growing fissures within the ruling African National Congress, writes CFR’s John Campbell.
The terror group Boko Haram is diminished but far from vanquished in Nigeria, and it appears to be expanding its regional reach, writes CFR’s John Campbell.
In Morning in South Africa, John Campbell provides an incisive and deeply informed introduction to post-apartheid South Africa.
Current Projects
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The Council on Foreign Relations's Nigeria Security Tracker is an effort to catalog and map political violence based on a weekly survey of Nigerian and international press. The data presented includes violent incidents related to political, economic, and social grievances directed at the state or other affiliative groups (or conversely the state employing violence to respond to those incidents.)
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The African National Congress, which has governed since the end of apartheid, won again in May’s national election. But a growing opposition will watch to see whether it can revive the economy and curb corruption.
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February’s presidential election does not inspire confidence in the democratic trajectory of Africa’s most populous country.
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The Giant of Africa’s next president will have to contend with daunting security and economic challenges.
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The Sub-Saharan Security Tracker (SST) draws on data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) Project, which documents political conflict across Africa. ACLED collects and codes reports of political violence from the media as well as local and international organizations.
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A new compilation of data gives insight into the African Islamist insurgency’s reach, tactics, and evolution. It reveals a far higher victim count than previous estimates.
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John Campbell and Matthew Page provide an overview of the politics, history, and culture of Nigeria, including the threat of Boko Haram and religious conflicts.
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President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga’s impasse over the 2017 election has cast a shadow on Kenya’s future.