Felsunseg:
NIGERIA made history in its 2015 presidential
elections. In the March 28-29th vote, deemed mostly
free and fair, Muhammadu Buhari became the first
opposition leader to eject an incumbent president at
the ballot box. Goodluck Jonathan, whose People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) has been in charge since the end of military rule in 1999, accepted his loss with
grace. He will step down in May, leaving his long-time
political foe in charge of Africa’s biggest economy
and its most populous nation. How did this democracy
come of age?

Nigeria is a rich country full of poor people. Despite
pumping roughly 2m barrels of oil per day, most of its
population lives in abject poverty. Much of the blame
for that falls on elected politicians, who have spent
years lining their pockets with the booty. Billions
disappear from the accounts of the opaque state- owned oil company. A rainy-day savings account was
depleted even when prices were high. Even worse,
government members are accused of involvement in
industrial-scale theft, which plunders 100,000 barrels
of black gold a day. If corruption and theft were not
enough, Mr Jonathan’s government also failed utterly to stop Boko Haram, whose six-year-old
military campaign has cost 15,000 lives. Workings of
the country's electric power network is little better
than in the days of the military junta, millions of
children are out of school, and healthcare is a
disgrace. Each of those issues is a shameful indictment of the PDP, which has had both the time
and money to make improvements.

A lack of political accountability may have had
something to do with that poor performance. In the
past the PDP faced little opposition. Rival parties were
small and appealed to narrow regional and ethnic
interests. Mr Buhari, who swept to power in a coup in
the 1980s, had contested three previous elections without coming close. His chances changed in 2013,
when four of those parties merged to form the All
Progressives Congress (APC). On this ticket, the
dictator-turned-democrat rode the wave of national
discontent like a pro. His reputation as tough on
security and corruption grew legendary. A clever campaign positioned him as the face of “change”
for Nigeria. Once this might not have mattered; the
government would have rigged its way to victory
regardless. This time, biometric-voting technology
made fixing the outcome more difficult. Mr Buhari,
who hails from the predominantly Islamic north, won overwhelming margins from devoted disciples there.
Yet his party also made unprecedented inroads into
the central and south-western zones. That dispelled
conventional narratives about sectarian voting, and
showed that Nigerians, not just northerners, were
ready for new direction.


A peaceful handover will be transformative for
Nigeria. For the first time its people feel they have the
power to hold their politicians to account. It will also
send a meaningful signal across Africa. After years of
progress, democracy on the continent has slid of late.
Leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and the Republic of Congo have made moves
to extend their terms. There is much they could learn
from Mr Jonathan, who did more in standing down
than he ever managed in leadership.