Nigeria, July 4 -- It's not every day a professor ends up teaching a country's president. But that's exactly what happened to Eghosa Osaghae, one of Nigeria's most respected political thinkers. He didn't chase the opportunity - it came as a call to serve.

In 1989, while he was barely 30 years old, the University of Ibadan-trained scholar joined a handpicked Nigerian delegation of professors sent to Monrovia to instruct Liberia's ruling elite.

The request came directly from then-President Samuel Doe, who had resumed his studies and needed in-country academic support to complete a Master's in Political Science.

"It was part of Nigeria's support for Liberia," Mr Osaghae, who is now the Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Interna...