Friday, April 29, 2011

Slouching Toward Democracy: The Elections in Nigeria

Burning Pot (blog)
28 April 2011


By Paul Beckett
 
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Nigeria is among the world’s most dangerous countries.  Nigeria has the seventh-largest population in the world (nearly 160 million), and that population is a potentially explosive mixture of peoples, regions, and religions – a mixture of almost infinite complexity.  The center’s holding (to paraphrase Yeats) has indeed been challenged throughout Nigeria’s 51 years of independence. At various times, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s longest-serving head of state (sometimes military, sometimes elected) has compared his country’s potential for violence to cases like Bosnia, Rwanda or Burundi – but on a much larger scale. 

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