Nigerian elections
From This Day (Lagos), an editorial on the upcoming Nigerian elections. Note to students in the USA, the sports analogy in the lead paragraph is not about basketball, despite the reference to dribbling.Nigeria: Obasanjo's Last Dance
"And finally, April is here. In another fortnight from today, the governorship and State Assembly elections would have been over even as the nation would be getting ready for the presidential and National Assembly polls. President Olusegun Obasanjo is at the threshold of yet another history, and in all likelihood the final one. The president still has an opportunity, indeed the final opportunity, to exit the stage of public service as an authentic national hero. This can only be if he ensures that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) organizes free, fair and credible elections. In fact, the elections would be the president's last dribble. Whether he scores fairly or dives in the penalty box would by and large determine how kindly or harshly history would judge him...
"The indications on ground leave little room to be hopeful. The feud between Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar has in the last one year generated unnecessary tension in the polity...
"The two agencies - INEC and police - crucial to the conduct of credible elections have not particularly helped matters. Both have lately been behaving as if they are Directorates of the PDP...
"This is Obasanjo's last dance. He has the option of either entertaining the audience and receiving a standing ovation or annoying the audience and being booed and shooed off the stage. The president should not be deluded for one moment by the fawning adulation of his party leaders that he is the father of modern Nigeria. He needs to rise above partisanship to be the statesman that he once was by ensuring that the elections are free, fair and credible. History would not be kind to him should the elections be flawed."
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:47 AM
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