Is Nigeria jinxed to fail?

[Richard Akindele]

For Nigeria, our country, I have observed a recurring pattern of tragedies that seem to befall our country each time we want to transit from one administration to another. Since 1963, mayhem, threats of anarchy and disintegration, fear, tension and violence seem to be our lot each time arrangements are on to change from one government to another.

We are all familiar with the violence that erupted in the former Western Region following that year's regional elections. It is the series of very ugly events that followed that violence in the Western Region that led to the collapse of the First Republic in 1966.

Ten years later in 1976 when General Yakubu Gowon promised to hand over power to the civilians and reneged on that solemn promise, he was overthrown by his colleagues in a palace coup led by General Murtala Muhammed who was assassinated two hundred days later in a failed coup attempt.

1983 was another transition year for Nigeria. Following a massively-rigged general elections and the uproar that greeted the political robberies that took place in the name of the choices of the people, the military were reportedly invited by the aggrieved opposition which was schemed out of victory by the ruling NPN to take over power.

After several broken promises to hand over power to elected civilians, the administration of General Ibrahim Babangida finally fixed 1993 as the year to hold elections and give the reins of power to politicians. The elections were duly held and were adjudged as some of the freest and fairest elections this country has ever seen. Unfortunately, as if the nation has been fated to suffer one form of crisis or another during the transition of power, the presidential election was annulled by Babangida, plunging the country into a very deep political turmoil that nearly tore it apart. Mercifully for Nigeria, fate once again intervened in its affairs and saved her from disintegration.

The year 2003, another transition year, was again a very trying period for Nigeria. As has always been the case with virtually all the post-independence elections before it, there were widespread allegations that the 2003 elections were massively rigged, and as usual, by the ruling party, which this time around is the PDP. The hand of God has always been with Nigeria and so as with other previous rumblings over elections, Nigeria did not go down.

If power had been transferred from Obasanjo to somebody else, we would have heaved a sigh of relief that the jinx of transition has been broken. As it is now, that jinx is still very much around to haunt us.

This piece is motivated by the heated debate in the land today about whether or not President Olusegun Obasanjo and some other office-holders should be given a chance to have a go at the current offices they are holding through an amendment to the constitution. This debate is otherwise called the third term project.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200604200305.html