Nigerian selections.

AuthorWilmot, Patrick
PositionNotebook

Most urban areas in Nigeria go for days without electricity, some have lighting for only a few hours a day, and total electricity production is less than at the time of independence in 1960. In rural areas there is almost no electricity. As a result most houses lack regular water supply, industrial production has been destroyed, and consumer goods are dominated by cheap Chinese imports. There are no reliable statistics for unemployment, civil servants go for months without pay, and the country's 76 universities have been on strike for months. Despite the fact that the President had been a high official of the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International, Nigeria still appears near the top ten of that organization's index. Public transport, health, housing and education have deteriorated and people avoid travelling after dark for fear of armed robbers. In the oil rich Delta region the government has been unable to provide a political solution to widespread violence and the police and military have been impotent in the face of militants who kidnap oil workers for money. The 'militants' consist largely of political thugs recruited by the ruling party to rig the elections

in 2003, and they still share the booty from oil theft and ransoms with its leaders. High profile political killings remain unsolved due to collaboration, incompetence or lack of will by those in power.

The positives of the last eight years of 'democratic' government pale in comparison with the failure to provide the public goods and services for which it was elected. Reform of the financial system has made it less easy to loot the economy than under military rule, but corruption continues on a massive scale. Despite the success of the EFCC, the anti-corruption agency led by Nuhu Ribadu, corruption flourishes among those protected by men of power. The press has not suffered the assassinations of the military era and provides genuine opposition to the excesses of the regime. The judiciary and legislature have begun to express a measure of independence, despite threats and the offer of spectacular bribes. At the moment Nigeria hangs near the bottom of the UN's index of social development and 70 per cent of the population subsist on about one US dollar a day despite hundreds of billions earned from oil since 1970 when the Civil War ended.

Yet despite this dire performance from 1999 the ruling People's Democratic presidential candidate won a landslide victory of nearly 70 per cent in the polls of April 2007. In the House of Representatives and state elections the party dominated everywhere except Lagos, Kano and Zamfara.

Nigerians are politically cynical so expect nothing from government. In...

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