Nigerian Elections: A Classic Example of How the Nigerian Government Has Failed its People…
April 23rd, 2007 | Published in Democracy, Governance, Human Rights, Nigeria, elections | 5 Comments
Although the elections are somewhat over; the drama and intriques will continue for several weeks.
While the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) pats itself on the back for a job well done, and is busy rationalizing the lapses of the electoral process, almost all the group of observers that monitored the elections scored the commission and Nigerian government “F”.
In fact, some observers from the United States’ International Republican Institute described the general election as a “classic example of how the Nigerian government has failed its people.”
â€The system failed the Nigerian people. The process failed the test of credibility. What we are talking about is that the system as designed did not work. This has nothing to do with the Nigerian people. It is a case of the government failing the people.” - Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper, member of the IRI and former United States Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes.
Period.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:20 am (#)
Almost every legitimate election observer team that was working in the country during these elections has labelled these polls as a sham if not worse. I’m happy that the U.S. observer team, the IRI, spoke out so strongly against the manipulation and intimidation and total breakdown of logistics and fairness. Even the EU observer team got pissed off and they often avoid speaking out so strongly so as not to upset their lucrative business relationships in Africa and elsewhere.
O.K., so they cheated (massively and unashamedly), but we knew they were going to do that. Was nun? What now? What should the millions of honest Nigerian voters who were cheated and their friends in the world community do now?
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:29 am (#)
Breaking News Update: Results are in for the Nigerian Presidential Election 2007 in record time (less than 24 hours)
Huge Win for Nigeria’s Yar ‘Adua
BBC News Abuja 14:50 GMT
Nigeria’s ruling party candidate Umaru Yar’Adua has won controversial presidential elections by a landslide, according to official results. He gained 70% of the vote but European Union observers say the elections were a “charade” and any administration that resulted would not have any legitimacy.
The EU says at least 200 people have died in poll violence in the past week.
The two main opposition candidates have told their supporters to reject the results and want a re-run.
Mr Yar’Adua gained 24.6m votes, against 6.6m for his closest challenger, Muhammadu Buhari.
Vice-president turned opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar came third with 2.6m votes.
Damn! That was fast. When’s the swearing in ceremony? Tomorrow?
Read more at the Beeb:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6584393.stm
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:51 am (#)
Tune into BBC World Service Have your Say in 10 mins (6pm GMT) to join a conversation about the Nigerian elections.. see my blog post about it for details.
I’m really interested as this evolves to see how Nigerians harnessed technology during this election, in particular civil society groups.
Cheers,
Tobias
April 24th, 2007 at 10:34 am (#)
Both of you guys (Imnakoya and Tobias Eigen) need to run over to the Huffington Post and read Bennet Kelly’s post “The Nigerian Elections and the U.S.: the high price of April Fools”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/the-nigerian-elections-an_b_46468.html
It’s a hammer and deserves some high-profiling in the Nigerian and Africa sectors of the blogosphere. Read it real careful like and note the following paragraph toward the middle of the piece:
Over the past eight years, one-third of the states have adopted Islamic law in defiance of the constitution’s declaration of a secular state, contributing to the 15,000 deaths from religious and ethnic conflicts during this period. In the oil rich Niger Delta, southerners have shared in little of the wealth, but have had an abundance of environmental degradation, poverty and disease. This has fueled a growing insurgency that has kidnapped more than 100 foreigners since 2006 and reduced the region’s oil production by 25 percent. President Bush, who once declared that Africa is “a centerpiece of the [his] foreign policy agenda,” nonetheless denied the Nigerian government’s request for U.S. Marines to help reestablish control in the area.
The Nigerian government under President Obasanjo made a formal request for U.S. Marines to aid in putting down the rebellion in the Niger Delta… and was turned down flat with a big NO out of Washington? When did this happen? Was there any MSM coverage of that story? Where is CNN’s Jeff Koinange? Isn’t he supposed to be on top of this kind of thing down in the Delta?
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:37 am (#)
[…] The world just saw an unprecedented large-scale electoral scam committed against the people of Nigeria, yet some have enough patriotic zeal to go out and march? March for who? It’s either we Nigerians are some supernaturally optimistic and resilient group or we’ve over time developed some serious deficits in our reasoning faculty. […]