Whatever you think you know about Nigeria’s politics and the latest goings on, you have to admit that the next election is shaping up to be a humdinger. To understand it all you need to go a ways back, almost to 1914 when Fred Lugard, a British soldier, mercenary and ultimately a huge wanker; decided to join the north and south of the country under one political administration (fwiw, this link is pure opinion, not even sure I agree but it has the basic history right). These two culturally unalike parts of the African continent were from then on condemned to solider on as one country, each part hating the other guts and each with a knife in its back pocket and a fake smile on its face.
During the struggle for independence from the British, everyone from every region in Nigeria pitched in and thus after it, people expected Kumbayas. But the cultural differences were deep and the normal back and forth of politics eventually became mortal combat. In retrospect, the biggest mistake the founders of the modern Nigerian republic made, was NOT to renegotiate the terms of engagement and polity and maybe even to think about an amicable separation when there was little at stake (although imperial governments would probably have tried to put a stop to that). They did however setup a loose federalism which seemed to work initially. But cracks emerged quickly:
- The country’s economic centers (and areas of highest opportunity) were not culturally centered and became forced melting pots that condensed the politics of resentment.
- Federal resource and capital allocation (appropriations) became political football, won by whoever was in power because the appropriations process was mostly executive driven.
All in all, these cultural stresses, exacerbated by the need to share one central power lever, has led to almost all the problems Nigeria faces as a political entity: coups, military rule, corruption and stagnation; name it. Imagine the French and The German having to govern one country in Europe….yup, just blew your mind.
In 1999 as stagnation was met with a public hunger for some kind of stability, Nigeria transitioned once again into a democracy. The compact for peace at that transition was essentially the following – the north and the south would do a power sharing agreement where they would rotate power every 2 terms (incumbents always won reelection and were only tossed out by term limits).
So, here comes the curve: after the south gave up power after a first 2 term stint, the north picked it up as expected. But then the Northern president died in office and his southern vice president finished his term and then ran for reelection and won. The incumbent has argued that finishing the partial term does not count and is going to run for a second full term. If you’re counting, that would be 13 years of Southern rule and 3 years of northern rule across 4 presidential terms with a 5th term for the south in the offing. So basically the north was gypped.
There is a ton of speculation that the current fiasco with Boko Haram is simply a politically motivated calculation to destabilize the current government. Regardless of whether you believe that or not, the fact is that the current government has lost immense credibility in the North by not finding a way to deal with the attacks effectively. Even in the south, there is a lot of disenchantment (the South is not uniform culturally, there are two main power blocks that compete). So to recap, the current president has been delegitimized in the north of the country by design or circumstance. The south west is completely opposed by and large but may not have the candidates to file effectively against the incumbent. Since incumbents tend to win (mostly by corrupting elections), if the current president wins re-election or does not, there will be some serious hell to pay on the streets of Nigeria.
The irony is that Nigeria’s macroeconomic trend is very positive. The only real argument that can be had is about the pace of it and how quickly other problems like human rights, press freedom, literacy and so on are being tackled. But alas those pesky pocket book issues are standing in the way. The people will not eat GDP growth especially when starting from such a tiny economic base.
