Once again, Nigeria has entered an awful, familiar season. The country’s air is rent with talk of power. Not electric power, no; we’re talking raw political power! And the general elections of 2015 seem to have concentrated the mind of every politician in Nigeria, incumbent and aspirant alike. Nigeria is gravely tense. The country’s political rope has become extremely taut, threatening to snap.
I’d suggest that Nigeria cancel the 2015 elections. The country should then be put in a controlled comatose state, ready for the commencement of urgent, critical care. First, let me offer a sketch of the country’s pathologies.

Nigeria is beset by myriad crises. Boko Haram continues to make life in parts of the country nasty, brutish and short. After a few years of relative quiet, the creeks of the Niger Delta are flaring with sporadic acts of violence, much of them directed at police officers. Other parts of the country are in the vice grip of kidnappers who, when it suits them, murder their quarry even after ransom is paid. Businesses and individuals face a bad – some argue, worsening – state of electric power supply. The streets of many (I suspect, most) Nigerian cities are rife with clogged, fetid gutters that are both eyesores and health scares in-waiting. Hundreds of thousands of university and polytechnic graduates, many of them with cash-acquired or sexually transmitted degrees, haunt the streets, unemployed – some unemployable – and hopeless. Hospitals are so ill-equipped, so scary, that a good percentage of sick Nigerians now fly to Europe or North America (if they can afford it), or flock to India or South Africa (if they don’t have the means for the top-tier destinations), or make do with Ghana (if all farther locations are too expensive), or head for some money-grubbing, “miracle”-minting pastor or imam. The road networks are a shambles....

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