The Economist: Big men, big fraud and big trouble (Nigeria's Elections)
The deep rottenness of Nigeria's political system threatens all the economic gains this giant country has made.
EVER since Sani Abacha expired in the arms of two Indian prostitutes, possibly from an overdose of Viagra, in 1998, Nigerians supposed that their worst days were behind them. The “coup from heaven”, as Abacha's death was called, seemed to release the country from three decades of increasingly ruinous military dictatorships that had brought Nigeria diplomatic isolation and economic collapse. In 1999, the country made a fresh start with a new elected civilian administration led by Olusegun Obasanjo, the outgoing president. He has been lauded in the West for his economic reforms and his drive against corruption.
But the organised vote-rigging and fraud that characterised the state and local elections on April 14th, as well as the parliamentary and presidential polls on April 21st, suggest that Nigeria may be sliding backwards again. Nigeria's own independent observers' group has called them a “sham”. The European Union, normally a master of nuance in these matters, baldly stated that the whole electoral process “cannot be considered to have been credible”, and remarked that its report was the most damning it had ever issued anywhere in the world. …
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