Nigerian details
Jean Herskovits, a research professor of history at the State University of New York's Purchase College, offers some analysis and details in Foreign Policy magazine.Is the President of Nigeria Brain Dead?
So, is the president of Africa's most populous country, and its largest oil producer, out of commission or not?... Nigerians [are]... demanding photographic evidence that their president is indeed alive. It's a question that matters: For all practical purposes, Nigeria has been without a government since November, its some 150 million people living in a tense, rumor-filled kind of limbo.
During the seven weeks since Yar'Adua was hospitalized in Saudi Arabia, Nigerian officials have either remained silent or made vague statements that Nigerians struggled to believe...
Indeed, the last month and a half of political uncertainty has been consumed by planning, plotting, and maneuvering among Nigeria's political classes. The debate revolves around two issues: Should Yar'Adua be replaced? The emerging consensus seems to be yes. And if so, who will become vice president?
In theory, the procedure for replacing Yar'Adua is clear: Nigeria's Constitution resembles its U.S. model, whereby the vice president succeeds his boss. But there are a few decidedly Nigerian differences that complicate matters. Any transition requires... both houses of the National Assembly... to approve the successor's choice of vice president. This last bit -- the potential of an open post at the top -- means that the internal politics of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria's de facto sole political party in a theoretically multiparty state, are where the real action is. The PDP has a substantial majority in both houses, but party loyalties are divided among many "godfathers."...
Another complicating factor is an informal PDP arrangement whereby the office of president is to alternate between the largely Christian south and the largely Muslim north every eight years. Obasanjo was from the south, so Yar'Adua, a Muslim, was supposed to be representing the north's turn. If he has to leave office early, some northerners might feel deprived of their full time to rule. However, influential voices from the north have joined those from the south in insisting that the constitutional provisions for succession must be followed.
Amid the jockeying for power, two divergent agendas have emerged. Supporters of the first are pushing for a northern vice president to be chosen... Multiple, self-interested groups of current and former officeholders want to nominate the person who would benefit them most in power...
The second agenda... comes from some Nigerians more concerned with the national interest than their own. Their goal is to find someone -- also a northerner -- of maturity, experience, stature, and integrity to be able to do two things: assist a President Jonathan in dealing with the overwhelming problems Nigeria faces... and put in place electoral reform. With national elections due in 2011, that reform, which is in draft form now, is desperately needed to give Nigeria's battered democracy... a chance at last.
If the situation deteriorates, military intervention cannot be ruled out. Nigerians' desperation with their plight is startlingly evident. And the military has staged coups in the past when popular anger has boiled over. Still, the military hierarchy must know that to move now would be seen as aimed at blocking a Jonathan -- read "southern" --presidency. Widespread, unpredictable violence could be the result -- not least in the turbulent Niger Delta region, where many would see themselves deprived of their right to national leadership through Jonathan...
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Labels: legitimacy, Nigeria, political culture, politics, rule-of-law
posted by Ken Wedding @ 2:11 PM
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