John Campbell, former US ambassador to Nigeria,
says the 2019 presidential election in the country
has been bad news for democracy.

Campbell, who also served as US Department of
State foreign service officer from 1975 to 2007,
said the election was “marred by historically low
turnout and credible allegations of rigging”.

In his election post-mortem for the Council on
Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, Campbell, who
has co-authored a book on “Nigeria: What everyone
needs to know,” also said Atiku Abubakar of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is unlikely to win
his electoral dispute in court.

“Buhari’s margin of victory—some four million votes
—is so large that it is unlikely courts will overturn
the result,” Campbell said.

He also suggested that the elections were a step
back from the 2015 presidential election, quoting
Situation Room’s report on the election.



THE FULL ARTICLE REPRODUCED BELOW

Nigeria’s latest presidential election cycle has been
bad news for democracy in Africa’s most populous
country and across the continent. Though President
Muhammadu Buhari won the election, it was marred
by historically low turnout and credible allegations of
rigging.


The Old Guard

Buhari and his main challenger, former Vice
President Atiku Abubakar, both Muslims from the
Fulani ethnic group in the country’s north, are part
of the political class that has dominated Nigeria
since independence in 1960. Their contest meant
there would be no generational leadership change in
a country where the average age is eighteen and
half of registered voters are under thirty-five.

Buhari, who spent much of his last term abroad for
medical treatment, hardly campaigned at all.

Buhari and Abubakar are the standard-bearers for
two political parties descended from the military
regime of General Ibrahim Babangida: the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP), respectively. Both parties
are undemocratic in spirit and function primarily to
contest elections rather than to promote legislation
or policy. During their campaigns, the candidates
and their parties offered little that was new to
address security breakdowns caused by Boko Haram in the country’s northeast ; conflict over land use, ethnicity, and religion in the Middle Belt; and the
division of oil revenue in the Delta. Moreover, they
were mute on climate change, urbanization, and a
population boom that is expected to push Nigeria
past 450 million people by the middle of the
century.


A Step in the Wrong Direction

The Situation Room, an umbrella organization of
Nigerian civil society groups, wrote that [PDF] the
vote marked “a step back from the 2015 general
election and actions should be taken to identify what
has gone wrong and what can be corrected.” Just
hours before polls were set to open on February 16,
the election commission delayed the vote by a
week. This was particularly disruptive for the many
Nigerians who had travelled from one part of the
country to another to vote. When voting finally took
place, there were numerous irregularities, and many
polling stations opened several hours late. There is
also evidence that the security services at some
stations prevented voters from casting ballots,
particularly in opposition strongholds, and
intimidated election commission staff.

Of the more than eighty million Nigerians registered
to vote this year, just thirty-five million actually
voted. In the north, where Buhari is popular among
the poor, turnout was around 50 percent . But in the
predominantly Christian south and east, where
Abubakar was favored , turnout stood around 20
percent , a continuation of a long decline in voter
participation .


The Nigerian Example

Nigeria’s influence across sub-Saharan Africa is
outsized. Its population and economy are Africa’s
largest; its cultural influence, symbolized by the
Nollywood film industry, is far-reaching; and its
traditional diplomatic activism, through participation
in peacekeeping missions and the regional economic
bloc ECOWAS, is consequential. When Nigeria
transitioned from military to civilian rule in 1999, the
effects on West Africa were palpable: coups lost
their legitimacy, and the region has pursued a
positive democratic trajectory ever since. But the
latest presidential election is far from an example
for those African countries consolidating their
democracies or emerging from quasi-authoritarian
regimes to emulate.


A Broken System
Younger and aspiring politicians also ran for the
Nigerian presidency: Oby Ezekwesili, leader of the #
BringBackOurGirls campaign and cofounder of
Transparency International; Donald Duke, a former
governor of Cross River State known for his
innovative business development initiatives; and
Kingsley Moghalu, an economist and former UN
official. But they were frozen out by a geriatric and
unresponsive system whose patronage politics
requires candidates to have vast sums of money and
the ability to distribute them. These candidates
failed to connect with voters, winning only a tiny
percentage of the vote.

Abubakar says he will contest the election, but
Buhari’s margin of victory—some four million votes
—is so large that it is unlikely courts will overturn
the result. Aside from some small pro-Abubakar
demonstrations, Nigerians appear resigned to the
outcome. The poor quality of this election cycle and
the low and declining number of voters do not
inspire confidence, and some Nigerians have begun
to question whether democracy is right for their
country.

https://www.thecable.ng/ex-us-ambassador-nigerias-2019-presidential-election-has-been-bad-news-for-democracy/amp

God punish bullhari and all apc e-rat