A monumental amount of naivety is being displayed by those heralding the election of Muhammadu Buhari as a new democratic dawn for Nigeria. I certainly hope that Jonathan’s concession does lead to a peaceful transition. But analyses which ignore the tribal factor are worthless. What has happened since 2011 is simply that the Yoruba have changed sides and swung behind Buhari. They did so largely because of his Yoruba running mate, married to a granddaughter of Awolowo. Awolowo is relevant because the map of the results looks just like the disposition of forces at the start of the Biafran war, with the Yoruba/Northern alliance back in existence.
I confess I am relieved that Buhari won, as the Muslim north would simply not accept a fourth consecutive southern Christian presidency, a potential situation which arose due to the death of Yar Adua. I feared very substantial violence following a Jonathan victory. Nigeria is spared that, and this tumultuous, sprawling and totally illogical colonial creation will be able to hang together a while longer. A northern Muslim President is better placed to crack down on Boko Haram, though given the abysmal condition and discipline of Nigeria’s armed forces I remain dubious about how effective this will be.
What will not change is the abysmal poverty, inequality, pollution and corruption. Buhari claims to be a reformed character, but his previous military dictatorship was characterised by massive corruption and human rights abuse, some of which – like his imprisonment of Fela Kuti – was hard to explain. Fela was only released by Buhari’s overthrow.
As ever, I shall watch events in Nigeria with great interest. I have fond memories of the countryside around Buhari’s home town of Katsina. But naive reactions like those of the Robert Kennedy Centre for Human Rights which sees this as a “watershed moment” for Africa will, I predict, only lead to great disappointment.
Hi Craig.
Don’t Know much about Nigerian politics
Bad luck i suppose to Goodluck Jonathan , but he seems to be taking defeat Gracefully.
Jonathan has publicly conceded defeat and conveyed his “best wishes” to the president-elect.
He urged his supporters to follow “due process” in channeling their frustrations at losing the election amid fear of violence.
“Nobody’s ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian,” he said in a statement issued after his election defeat. “The unity, stability and progress of our dear country is more important than anything else.”
P.s…Hope the Batteries are Somewhat recharged.
Craig, thank you for this informative blog post.
Like BrianFujisan’s comment above, I’m not qualified to open my big mouth on this one.
From the SNP post:
“Power has a fatal attraction to politicians, and I think I detected that exercising power in the United Kingdom is today gleaming brighter in the dreams of some professional SNP politicians than is independence for Scotland.”
This statement touches the root of all colonialism, the attraction to the natives who live in the margins of a country to the power deal offerred them by the external superpowers.
I know nothing about Nigeria but it seems obvious to me that Boko Haram is run by the CIA to legitimise superpower military presence of external superpowers who are otherwise not wanted, masquerading as Israeli advisors or whatever, same same.
Does the Muslim name of the incoming president mean that he will be exempt from the ‘gleaming brighter dreams’ offered by the CIA? Suffering an overload of bollocticks right now from the UK election. All politicians are arseholes whose purpose is to gain personal power from selling their own clans to the superpowers.
I have more faith in Russia and China than the fucking Zionist neo-cons Cameron and Miliband, Obama, Clinton etc with their pet paid jihadists Al Qaida, Islamic Stooge and their divide and rule demonic Islamists funded by Saudi Arabia/ alias Zionist bankers.
But at least in Nigeria the ordinary people understand the game of politics and you can smell real coffee. More chance of finding reality there than here.
I found A Line in the Sand to be quite revealing about the M.E.
Craig, Is there a history of C19 & / or C20 Africa that you would recommend?
” I know nothing about Nigeria but it seems obvious to me that Boko Haram is run by the CIA ”
Yes and the CIA is run by giant lizards from Pluto.
Mrs Buhari says that her husband will bring transparency and honesty to the job. Where and when have we heard those words before?
Another tribal issue seems to have been resolved with the decision by the European Commission to acquire the two ‘Russian’ Mistral warships from France; UKIP, Putin and Greece had better watch-out!
Allegedly https://euobserver.com/news/128217
Youknowmyname
I think you will find that is an April Fool joke.
Thanks for the informed update on Nigeria, Craig. I am wondering if Buhari is capable of mitigating the growing inequality in all parts of the country, perhaps exemplified by the Eko Atlantic project – effectively a gated internationalised city for rich people – just up the coast from a floating slum.
I am not reassured by Buhari’s reported* visit to Blair’s country residence shortly before the election (and see https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-1/#comment-510575 ). It’s almost as if the result had been known in advance: at any event Blair didn’t see Jonathan as he is alleged to have said he would.
*There was a lot of Nigerian noise about this one’s authenticity, and Nigerian media don’t seem to be the most impartial…it wasn’t reported by UK MSM.
Thanks Craig, I did detect the ‘April Fish’ – but it is such a reasonable parody of EU policy that I thought others might enjoy it. What shocked me most about the complicated EU recently was Junckers decision to make a milestone visit to Kiev this Monday, to participate in their current government cabinet meetings. That meeting somehow never took place, due either minor health issues, or non-transparent pressures?
I think your clarity of vision for explaining Nigeria is very helpful, I wish someone could explain to me what is going on in the EU!
The creation of Nigeria may have been a recipe for chronic disharmony. Possibly Nigeria should be partitioned like Sudan.
PS. I’m not joking.
An interesting perspective on Nigeria ( more particularly – Lagos) is stated here:-
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/mega-cities-ungoverned-areas-and-the-challenge-of-army-urban-combat-operations-in-2030-2040
And this observation:-
“Life in megacities will deteriorate as populations surge beyond their capacity. The teeming populations of Lagos, Karachi, Cairo, and Dhaka have few options. In Lagos one could almost say that the rule of law does not exist.”
Gives food for thought as follows:-
Since Goodluck had to some extent disinclined from further US military expansion in Nigeria and had signed significant deals with the Chinese to develop the oil sector – the question becomes – how will Buhari deal with the existing Chinese connections and what will the nature of his relations with Washington be? I suspect he is/was Washington’s choice as “our man in Africa” vis-à-vis Goodluck.
The Zionist regime received another blow in Africa over the weekend. It lost Africa’s most populous and rich ally, Nigeria to a ‘Sharia General’ Mahammadu Buhari. Pro-Israel outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from South, conceded the defeat on Tuesday and congratulated his opponent, a Muslim from North, on his victory – “first transfer of power through an election (Katy Lee at Jewish website Vox)”.
Personally, I’m no fan of any Nigerian political leader since the assassination of Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello in 1966 military coup engineered by Christian military officers, which also killed country’s first prime minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa, a Muslim from North. However, every time the Jewish-controlled western media demonizes some leader – from Hitler to Putin – I know the victim must be doing something good for his nation which the organized Jewry disliked.
“Goodluck is a stupid man for conceding, a disappointment for Nigeria,” Reuters quoted some “waitress” in oil city of Port Harcourt.
Adam Nossiter at the Jew York Times blames Boko Haram, a USraeli creation and mass corruption for Jonathan’s defeat.
Tim Cocks at Jewish Reuters accused Buhari as a military dictator some 30 years ago, “he imprisoned journalists and opposition activists without trial, executed drug traffickers by firing squad and ordered soldiers to thrash those who failed to queue in an orderly fashion at bus stops.” Not kosher actions of course – except that Israeli Jew soldiers killed 17 journalists during Israel’s 50-day attacks on Gaza Strip last year.
David Smith at the UK’s Guardian accused Buhari, “in the past, he supported implementing Islamic sharia law across the country, rather than just in Muslim-majority regions, though he’s downplayed these comments in this campaign.” My guess is Buhari was stopped implementing his wish as a military dictator by the US and Israel, right!
Chris Wright wrote at Jewish Forbes on April 1 that Buhari would be judged how he deals with Boko Haran more than his strict economic policies.
“Those who are unfamiliar with Nigeria may think that Buhari, as a Muslim who has talked before about imposing Islamic law, might in some way be aligned with Boko Haram, but he is understood to be deeply committed to their eradication, having seen up close the damage they have done to northeast Nigeria,” Wright said.
Watch below Buhari’s interviewed by the pro-Israel Al-Jazeera English.
http://rehmat1.com/2015/04/01/nigeria-the-sharia-general-won-presidency/
@Rehmat “every time the Jewish-controlled western media demonizes some leader – from Hitler to Putin – I know the victim must be doing something good for his nation which the organized Jewry disliked.”
I know the opposite – that Hitler and Putin were no good. Nor Mao, nor Pol Pot, nor Saddam Hussein, nor Mugabe, nor Gaddafi, nor Idi Amin, nor Sani Abacha, nor Khomeini, nor the Assads of Syria, nor the Kims of North Korea, nor the Taleban, nor IS. Good riddance to all of them.
On the subject of assassinations, I recall Sani Abacha taking power in a coup and hanging Ken Saro-Wiwa.
I listened with some dismay to the Today programme on this. The particular highlight for me was when they referenced the adventure from the new ruler’s past when he tracked an opponent down to London, packagd them into a crate and labelled it as diplomatic baggage in order to airfreight them back to Nigeria – and then, without breaking stride, went on to eulogise him for the next 2 minutes as ‘incorruptible.’