Nigerian acceptance/fatalism/inability
Here is BBC reporter Patrick Jackson's analysis about why the flawed elections in Nigeria will probably not be overturned.There are good comparative assertions in the article that students could critique with a little research on the countries they haven't studied.
Could Nigeria go Orange?
"After European Union and other monitors condemn Nigeria's landmark elections as seriously flawed, we ask if 'People Power' or outside pressure could force a re-run.
"Nigerian opposition politicians have been looking abroad for inspiration in their battle to have the presidential and state elections repeated.
"As a legal challenge was being mooted, one spokesman called for replicating the kind of revolutions seen in Ukraine and the Philippines.
"But in African states, as in many emerging democracies, it is more common for leaders accused of vote-rigging to weather the storm...
"However, African superpower Nigeria fits no easy pattern.
"In the first place, there is no obvious [Ukrainian President]Yushchenko figure for the whole of the country...
"'None of the opposition candidates can be said to command enough national support to dominate,' [Nigerian newspaper commentator Tunde Fagbenle] told the BBC News website.
"Secondly, there is little cohesion between the opposition groups.
"Thirdly, there is the absence of a Kiev or Manila to be occupied by tent cities and mass rallies.
"'The capital, Abuja, is new and not very heavily populated,' notes Richard Dowden, executive director of the Royal African Society.
"'You can't bring it to a standstill. The only place where that could be effective is Lagos and it would not have any impact on the people in Abuja.'
"Mr Fagbenle also points out that the ethnic divisions within Africa's most populous state act against any sense of collective response, as does popular cynicism about opposition politicians, many of whom were in power before 2003.
"'Yes, people do feel robbed of their vote but there is a stronger feeling of weariness that no politician is different from any other,' he says...
"With the White House calling the elections 'deeply flawed' and the EU pronouncing them 'not credible', could foreign pressure on the government produce a repeat ballot where popular pressure fails?...
"Mr Dowden also doubts there will be any sanctions, simply because it is difficult to hurt Nigeria.
"'It is not Malawi,' he says.
"'You can't take their aid away because there isn't any. It's such a huge, powerful country that there is very little leverage that either the Commonwealth or Britain could deploy against Nigeria, and Nigeria is too powerful for other Africans to criticise.'...
"[Patrick Smith editor of UK-based Africa Confidential magazine] and Richard Dowden predict a period of horse-trading between the official winners and losers.
"They are members of an elite, Mr Dowden says, who 'shout at each other quite a lot but in fact never push it to extremes... because they have too much to lose'.
"In Nigeria, he adds, 'the ordinary people don't matter and are all but completely ignored during the election - there is no reason why that voice should be heard so they don't have much leverage'..."
Questions:
- What does "Go Orange" refer to?
- What does "People Power" refer to?
- What were the revolutions in the Ukraine and the Philippines?
- What role did Yushchenko play in the Ukraine? What role did Corazon Aquino play in the Philippines?
- What happened after the 2005 elections in Togo?
- What happened after the 2002 elecitons in Zimbabwe?
- Who are the likely candidates to be a Nigerian Yushchenko or Aquino?
- Why do they not fit the Yushchenko/Aquino model?
- Are the ethnic cleavages in Nigeria more politically potent than the cleavages in other countries?
- What factors deter EU and US leaders from putting pressure on the Nigerian government?
- Are Nigerian politics really so elitist that popular sentiment can't affect the outcome of the political battles?
- etc., etc.
posted by Ken Wedding @ 9:06 PM
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