Will President Goodluck Jonathan Deliver on Electoral Reform Ahead of the 2011 Presidential Elections?
As Nigeria prepares for the next presidential election in 2011, are we confident that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led government can produce free and fair elections? Since the 2003 and 2007 elections were clearly a charade, can we infer that the power brokers and god fathers of the ruling PDP, already know who the next president will be? Due to the absence of a strong and viable opposition, Nigeria has been reduced to a one party State by the PDP which controls all three branches of government in the country. Having stolen the last two presidential elections, can Nigerians truly expect free and elections in 2011? More…
The Arab Spring – Lessons for Other African Dictators II
As a follow-up to the last article on this subject, it is gratifying to report that three more dictators have lost their grips on power. Two lost their jobs as a result of the uprising in the Arab world, while one as a result of French and United Nations involvement. It is sad to note that amongst these three dictators, Muammar Gaddafi the former strong man of Libya lost his life under very tragic and humiliating circumstances. Laurent Gbagbo the former president of the Ivory Coast who had refused to step down after losing to Alassane Ouattara in the November 2010 presidential elections in spite of numerous mediation efforts by the ECOWAS, the Africa Union, The UN and the European Union was kicked out of office in April 2011. These bodies had demanded his resignation imposing severe economic sanctions that crippled the economy of the country but failed to push him out of power. Instead, it took devastating air strikes by French and UN helicopters to help end Mr. Gbagbo’s gamble to defy the international community. He was captured like a common criminal in April and taken into custody by his rival. The rest like they say is now history. More…
The Arab Spring – Lessons for Other African Dictators
Fear has been defeated in Tunisia and Egypt. Once paralyzed by the fear of challenging the dictators that held a strangle hold on their nations, they can now breathe a sigh of relief after decades of living under totalitarian regimes. Fear has been defeated was the phrase aptly coined by CNN newsman Anderson Cooper in describing the recent revolution in Egypt. Like their counterpart in Tunisia, the people of Egypt are relishing their new found freedom. They woke up on February 12, 2011 to a new dawn, a dawn without Hosni Mubarak, the former strong man who for Egyptians under the age 30 years old was the only president they had ever known. How can one man rule a country for thirty years? Is he the only one with a brain in that country? May be he was the best thing that ever happened to mankind since sliced bread. This phenomenon is often described as the “sit-tight” syndrome, a syndrome that has plagued the African continent for decades. It is tragic that the African continent has continued to lag behind other continents in all areas of human development due largely to the poverty of leadership brought upon by sit-tight leaders who generally lack the vision to transform their respective countries. More…