Nigeria election is historic - now the hard work begins

Gratifying to see pretty good coverage of Nigeria's recent election by news agencies. Because this election, conducted Saturday, March 29, resulted in the nation's first apparently successful and peaceful transition from one party to the opposition, a public exchange of respect and support by the incoming and outgoing president, a pledge to tackle corruption which has plagued this oil rich nation for decades, and finally a resolve by the new Muslim President to get serious about Boko Haram.


Nigeria - huge potential, still unrealized. Graphic from nigeriamasterweb.com

As a Voice of America report stated, "President-elect Muhammadu Buhari said his country has "embraced democracy" and put its one-party-state past behind it. “We have proven to the world that we are a people who have embraced democracy and a people who seek a government by, for and of the people," Buhari said. He spoke Wednesday in Abuja, just hours after the electoral commission declared him the official winner of Saturday's presidential election, defeating incumbent Goodluck Jonathan by more than 2 million votes.

Buhari says his government will "spare no effort" to defeat insurgent group Boko Haram. Buhari called Jonathan "a worthy opponent" and said he extends the "hand of fellowship" to the outgoing president. Jonathan, who conceded, called for peace, saying, “The unity, stability and progress of our dear country is more important than anything else.” ... There have been no reports of post-election violence in Nigeria - a major change from 2011, when news of Jonathan's victory over Buhari sparked violence in the north that killed about 800 people."


President elect Muhammedu Buhari (left) being publicly acknowledged by incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan. (Is that Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary in the background?) Photo from http://nationalmirroronline.net

Election factoids (from the Voice of America article)

*Jonathan's People's Democratic Party has ruled Nigeria since 1999.

*Buhari, 72, of the All Progressives Congress, is to be inaugurated May 29.

*Nigeria's Electoral Commission chairman Attahiru Jega announced earlier Wednesday that Buhari had officially won the election, getting 15.4 million votes to Jonathan's 12.9 million.

*President-elect Buhari was previously Nigeria's military ruler for 20 months after officers seized power in a December 1983 coup. He was toppled by another military coup, but has run for the presidency four times since democracy was restored in Nigeria in 1999.

Teatree musings

Mr. Buhari has declared two great directions for his incoming administration - 1) an end to endemic corruption that has stemmed to a great degree from revenues generated by the country's oil industry. 2) A serious fight to degrade if not destroy Boko Haram. These militants recently declared their allegiance to ISIS, the Islamic State jihadists ravaging Syria and Iraq and elsewhere.

His hands will be full. High oil prices that have long buoyed Nigeria have fallen in half in the past six months. Budgets that have been used to lavish funds on a variety of important and phantom needs alike are facing deep cuts. Now it gets serious - how to cut the fat and waste while leaving essential services functioning.


While Nigerian oil overwhelmingly flows via pipeline, apparently some fossil fuel is still delivered in barrels. In either case, the fortunes of Nigeria and revenues from its oil reserves go hand in hand. Photo from www.djazairess.com

Corruption

From an al-Jazeera article, "fundamentally, Buhari will need to oversee structural changes to the Nigerian state. Constitutional reform is needed to update or even replace the 1999 constitution with one that empowers citizens, decentralizes power and enables a more efficient governance framework. He will also need to revamp the oil sector. Jonathan’s administration was incapable of even enacting a new oil law, let alone tackling the massive corruption in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. There are perhaps 10 to 15 profitable years left before the world begins a concerted move away from hydrocarbons. Buhari’s administration can steer the Nigerian economy away from the curse of oil. A more efficient use of its diminished oil revenues could offer an opportunity for long-term infrastructural development and rapid turnaround in the power sector."

Military effectiveness and Boko Haram

Perhaps most intriguing is the emphasis that Mr Buhari has placed on defeating the Boko Haram insurgency. The nation, long split between a Christian south and Muslim north, has to some degree united behind the promises of Buhari to take the fight to Boko Haram. With his Muslim credentials, he has a high degree of support from many northern Nigerians, and thus may be able to push security initiatives against the jihadists in more certain terms. Certainly the very low bar of military effectiveness to this point gives him room to improve. As recently as January, the UK Guardian stated the prognosis succinctly, "Army corruption, troop mutinies, alienated citizens and a lack of political will are among reasons that militants continue to thrive." Items three and four may have changed dramatically with this election.


Nigerian soldiers training. To Teatree, the readiness and trustworthiness of Nigeria's military is a mystery. Certainly its performance in the past several years attempting to deal with the jihadists is dismal enough. Photo from africajournalismtheworld.com

As to turning around Nigeria's military effectiveness (items one and two above), that may be a much more difficult task. Time Magazine carried a recent piece (here) where it stated, "Nigeria’s military has been in decline for the past 16 years, says J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Washington D.C.- based Atlantic Council, ever since the country moved from a military dictatorship to a democracy in 1999. The intervening years have seen the country’s armed forces hollowed out by a combination of poor leadership, graft, misdirected staff training and a succession of civilian governments so worried about another coup that they have starved the armed forces of key resources.

To a certain extent, part of the issue is size. The country may have a 90,000 strong standing army, says Pham, but not all of them are soldiers. Nurses, medics, administration personnel and military police don’t fight, “so the actual number of combat ready troops is much lower.” Add to the fact that some 3,000 troops are currently serving in United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world, and the number left is “inadequate for the task of defending a country the size of Nigeria,” with its population of 174 million and a history of local insurgencies."

Nigeria should be respected for its successful, clean election, while the leadership's unity during the changeover should not be minimized. And yet, now the hard work of good governance has just begun.

Much at stake in Nigeria's March election

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation with over 173 million citizens. It is also the country where Boko Haram, the jihadist faction, has terrorized the northern half for the past several years, with little competent response from civil and military authorities.


Nigeria, in West Africa, and the jurisdictions where Boko Haram has been active in intimidation, kidnapping, general violence, and even massacres of villagers and university students. Graphic from The Economist.

So, there is some point to paying attention to its presidential and general assembly election scheduled for March 28, which is a six week postponement from the original plans. The current President, Goodluck Jonathan, has presided over nearly five years of apparent incompetence in attempts to contain and degrade the Boko Haram. Teatree is unsure whether this is due to distraction with other matters, or the exposure of a hollowed out military with a lack of discipline and focus when confronted with this internal force of marauders (ie. think of the meltdown of the Iraqi army when attacked by the Islamic State).


President Goodluck Jonathan, now facing an election where Boko Haram has become the main political issue, and one in which his track record is fairly dismal. Photo from festiveinspire.com

Officially, Nigerian leadership's reason to postpone the election was reported this way, "The security authorities claimed that a six-week military operation against the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, which is being conducted in the northeast of the country, was scheduled to begin on the same day as the election, leaving an inadequate security presence for voters in the rest of the country." President Jonathan's internal critics and political rivals for the presidency have called into question the postponement of the presidential elections, describing the extra weeks as a way for to him consolidate and build electoral support.

President Jonathan's main challenger is General Muhammadu Buhari, described in a Feb 20 Newsweek article as a "devout Muslim, ... a former military general [who] has failed on three occasions (2003, 2007 and 2011) in his bid to return as Nigerian president since the country moved from a series of military rulers to a democratic system in 1999. He survived a Boko Haram assassination attempt last July when a suicide bomber aligned to the radical Islamist group targeted his car in the northern city of Kaduna."

Nigerian opposition leader Buhari shown here speaking in London in early February. Photo by Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters

As many are aware, Nigeria is characterized as having a Christianized southern population and a Muslim northern population. The political and military leadership over the past decades of independence have generally taken into account the two mainstream perspectives with northern representation in roles of authority when a Southern individual was in power and vice versa.

With Boko Haram now savaging regions of the country, this election has bigger consequences at stake. Essentially, who can best tackle the jihadist scourge is the leading concern (while addressing corruption stemming from managing oil revenues being the perennial issue). One of Nigeria's best known voices, Wole Soyinka, was interviewed by the BBC recently. A website, Culture Custodian describes the interview this way, "Soyinka admits that President Goodluck failed in tackling Boko Haram but that the problem began with previous governments. Soyinka asserts that General Buhari represented one of the more brutal phases of military dictatorship but that he is willing to allow him take control of the country now. He also goes on to say that Nigeria must be prepared to deal with any betrayal from its leaders as we cannot continue with the cycle of evil and irresponsibility."


Wole Soyinka, Nigerian writer and world figure, might be characterized as thinking Nigeria is caught between a rock and a hard place when considering the two presidential contenders. Photo by Tomi Idowu February 16, 2015 in culturecustodian.com

In recent days, a suddenly motivated Nigerian military has claimed advances against the Boko Haram, but Teatree wonders how much of these gains might be better characterized as pronouncements that might influence the electoral outcome. Boko Haram, for its part, has attacked villages in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger over the past weeks, regionalizing its conflict into four countries rather than just Nigeria.


By now, most of us are at least aware of Boko Haram. In a BBC summary, we can read, "Founded in 2002; Official Arabic name, Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad, means "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad"; Initially focused on opposing Western education; Launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state; Designated a terrorist group by US in 2013; Declared a caliphate in areas it controls in 2014." A screen grab by the BBC from a video distributed from the group itself.

In any case, jihadists across northern Africa and in the Arab world have displayed their ability to bring down governments, or at the very least significantly destabilize them (Yemen, Libya are the two latest) so Nigeria's election is being watched with more than passing interest.