Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, January 10, 2014

More journalists see party change in Nigeria

More journalists are reporting on the apparent creation of a political party in Nigeria to compete with the ruling party.

Nigeria's Jonathan under fire ahead of 2015 poll

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan is facing an uphill battle if he seeks re-election next year, after a series of unprecedented setbacks that have raised doubts about his political survival.

The perceived damage to the 56-year-old's stock has led to questions about whether he can bounce back and whether his People's Democratic Party (PDP) could be heading for its first national electoral defeat.

Jonathan

Last month, Nigeria's former head of state Olusegun Obasanjo accused Jonathan in a critical, 18-page open letter of failing to tackle widespread corruption and piracy as well as kidnapping and rampant oil theft…

"I think he [Jonathan] is a very weakened president at the moment," said political analyst Clement Nwankwo, director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, in the capital Abuja.

"He's been a failure and he really has to do a lot to win back popular support," Nwankwo told Agence France-Presse…

He is also widely seen as having failed to address major concerns about graft, inadequate development and poor infrastructure, and to end the bloody Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria.

The president vaunted his government's achievements of sustained economic growth and job creation in his New Year's message while the PDP denied it was irretrievably damaged.

The recent defections were an example of democracy in action, said national publicity secretary Olisah Metuh, even as the APC hailed the apparent shift in the balance of power as a new dawn for Africa's most populous nation…

[T]he problems may have reached a point that recovery was impossible, forcing Jonathan to make way for another candidate.

Thomas said the longer the president failed to tackle the issue, the more damage it would do to the PDP…