A win for Nigeria

Ahistoric election in Nigeria has come to the most satisfactory of conclusions — a peaceful transfer of power from sitting President Goodluck Jonathan to his opponent Muhammadu Buhari. This is the first time that a sitting president has phoned his opponent to both accept his own defeat and hand on power to his successor. The elections were complex and relied on new technology in the form of thumbprint recognition for every voter, and the technology was not always up to the job. The fears of widespread violence proved largely unfounded and the result is being seen by analysts as a win for democratic processes and a deepening of those processes in Nigeria as a whole. Multiparty democracy has arrived, and the challenge now is to address the many problems that beset the country.

There are parallels between Pakistan and Nigeria, and the pivotal point of the Nigerian election on which the victor vowed to take immediate action — was corruption. It is endemic and deeply rooted and cuts across every aspect of life much as it does in Pakistan. Commentators are saying that the Nigerian people will give their new president six months’ ‘grace’, and they expect to see real change thereafter. That may be easier said than done. The Boko Haram insurgency, despite some recent successes by the Nigerian Army, is still in full swing and showing little sign of abatement. There are deep religious divides, the north of the country being predominantly Muslim, the south predominantly Christian. The tribal rivalries that gave rise to the civil war of the late 1960s have not entirely faded. Yet Nigeria is home to the largest economy on the African continent and is its most populous nation. It has been ruled by the same party for 16 years, and this result will send a powerful signal to other African countries that are democratic in name only, South Africa being one where the monolithic African National Congress has been in power for 21 years. We wish President Buhari well, and wish him luck in the fight against corruption.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 5^th, 2015.

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