Nigeria's critical
election
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF
Associate since 1991
Comments directly to
JonatPower@aol.com
March 7, 2007
LONDON - The air is hot here in the deep beyond of
Nigeria. So is the talk, as happens at election time in any vibrant democracy.
Yet the heat is measured, as one would expect from the retiring, rather
cerebral, president, Olusegun Obasanjo, and his chosen, would-be successor
Umaru Yar'Adua, a former university lecturer in chemistry, who prefers
to speak as if he were in a class room rather than on a podium surrounded
by a cacophony of banner-waiving enthusiasts, bussed in mainly by the
local churches, even though he is as Muslim as they come.
This is the heartland of the old Biafra, the province of the mainly Christian
Igbo people, who in the 1960s tried to breakaway and start their own country.
The commanding Nigerian general who secured the Biafran capitulation after
a very bloody defeat was Obasanjo. But that was before his days as an
earnest Christian, which began when he was imprisoned by the dictatator,
Sani Abacha. Now, given what he has learnt about life, Obasanjo says that
he would find another way short of violence to have ended the secession,
just as he did recently when he gave the disputed oil-rich peninsular
of Bakassi to the Cameroon rather than fight for Nigeria’s claim
to it.
“Biafra” is now at peace, and quite prosperous. Driving into
the town, along the rather grand Deeper Life Bible Church, the German
Language Center, the dozens of cyber cafes and the local synagogue- all
testament to today’s multifaceted aspects of Nigeria’s rapid
development - we pass row upon row of well built two storey houses. The
mud hut seems to be of a bygone century. Electric pylons dot the landscape
and gas stations without queues are on every corner. Nigeria has shaken
off its sloth, its economic malaise, at least some of its mal-administration,
faced head on its culture of corruption and is now moving forward with
a handsome growth rate of 7% a year (8% in the non-oil sector) with, according
to the International Monetary Fund, a good chance of achieving an “Asian
miracle” growth rate of 10% within five years.
Now Yar’Adua, steps forward and speaks to his “class”,
as he does every day as he criss-crosses the country. “By 2020 I
want to see Nigeria becoming an industrialized state. I want it to be
by then the 20th industrialized state in the world. With the foundations
that have been dug deep into the ground over the last 8 years there is
no reason why we can’t do it.”
Yar’Adua is 56, governor of a northern state, Katsina, who won Obasanjo’s
respect because he is one of the few governors of Nigeria who has not
been tarnished by corruption. Unlike Obasanjo, who likes to dress up in
sweeping robes, Yar’Adua wears a simple blue smock, with his bare
feet in sandals. He doesn’t have the charisma, worldliness or command
of detail of his mentor but he is thoughtful and straightforward in what
he says. “All religions are corrupted. But all religions are about
love, kindness, justice and tolerance. These virtues are difficult for
government to put in practice. But this is what I have tried to do in
my state.” Many of the northern governors tried early on to embarrass
Obasanjo with a strict imposition of Sharia law. Yar’Adua resisted
this strongly and is known as a conciliator, rather than a confronter.
When I asked him how he was going to deal with the armed insurrection
in the oil-producing Niger Delta he replied, “By patient negotiation”.
And then added with a laugh, “You know Obasanjo, with his military
manner, is not very good at being patient.”
Yar’Adua is up against two hardheaded opponents. The first is Muhammed
Buhari, a former military dictator, who when in power killed off dissenting
journalists and locked up corrupt businessmen, but who in the last two
elections has tried, not unsuccessfully, to prove he is now a reformed
democrat. The other is Vice President Atiku Abubakar who broke with Obasanjo
and formed his own party. Last week he was indicted by an investigative
committee of the Senate for serious corruption and this week the government’s
anti-corruption body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, will
present before the Federal High Court, detailed evidence of his corruption.
It is likely that this will lead to his disqualification as a candidate.
Nuhu Ribadu, the clever and brave lawyer who leads the EFCC, told me that
he now believes that he is within reach of decapitating the mafia’s
hydra that has so deeply corrupted Nigeria.
A lot hangs on this election. If all goes well- which means if the election
is honest and Abubakar doesn’t try to extract political revenge-
Nigeria could be launched as one of the twenty-first century’s up
and coming great democratic powers.
Copyright © 2007 Jonathan
Power
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Jonathan Power can be
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