More Nigerian analysis
Jeff Silva-Brown posted a link to this op-ed that I had missed. I think Okanta's analysis is a bit more superficial than the one offered by The Economist recently, but it does consider some details overlooked by the magazine's editors. The two together would be good reading for students — especially in the next school year, when students could evaluate these analyses.The writer is Ike Okonta, an Abuja-based policy analyst, who is currently a fellow of the Open Society Institute, New York.
Nigeria, Slouching Toward Nationhood
Nigerians like political theater, particularly if it is loud, colorful, and has a rich cast of “good” and “bad” characters. Such melodrama abounded from November 2009, when ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua was flown out of the country for treatment, until the just-concluded general elections, Nigeria’s fourth since military rule ended in 1999. According to the official results, Goodluck Jonathan, who succeeded Yar’Adua upon his death and became the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, was sworn in as President on May 29…
In the legislative elections on April 9, the presidential contest on April 16, and state elections ten days later, the PDP’s dominance was indeed reduced. But its losses were not significant enough to enable any of the four main opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), or the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) – to take its place. The PDP is still in firm control of the central and state legislatures, and has retained the majority of the state governorships…
Nigeria’s main challenge now is to maintain peace and unity between the country’s fractious ethnic groups while implementing policy, political, and constitutional reforms aimed at quickening the pace of democratization, delivering shared prosperity, and firmly binding Nigeria’s constituent parts into a “more perfect union.”…
On the face of it, there is little reason to expect that another four years of incompetent PDP rule will make Nigeria a more stable and prosperous federal state. Still, the fact that the post-presidential-election violence was contained, and that the opposition, particularly in the ACN-led Yoruba South-West, is now finding its feet, amounts to a sliver of hope. Nations, like democratic politics, take time to form and consolidate. Perhaps Nigeria’s just-concluded elections gained for it a small slice of that better future.
I thought this title looked familiar. When I looked back, I found that I'd cited an article titled "Slouching toward democracy," by Paul Beckett on May 5. That analysis is also still worth reading.
The phrase "slouching toward..." appears to have its origins in a William Butler Yeats 1919 poem, "The Second Coming." (The poem also contains the phrase, "the center cannot hold.") A Wikipedia search for the phrase brings up an incredible variety of references: from Joni Mitchell to Robert Bork to Joan Didion. The phrase is often used in headlines, but its use is so varied, I'm unsure of its meaning.
An online dictionary says slouching means to "walk with an awkward, drooping, excessively relaxed posture." So Yeats' meant what by "slouching toward Bethlehem"? and "slouching toward nationhood"? "slouching toward democracy" "slouching toward" anything? Yeats had a way with a turn of ambiguous phrase.
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posted by Ken Wedding @ 9:34 AM
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