Nigeria's Rigged Democracy

Jean Herskovits

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007

Summary:  Nigeria's elections last April were among the most seriously flawed in the country's history, thanks largely to the manipulations of the U.S.-backed ruling party. With Nigerians increasingly clamoring for accountability, Washington's continuing support could generate more unrest -- and could pose a risk both to oil supplies coming out of Nigeria and to the stability of West Africa.

Jean Herskovits is Research Professor of History at the State University of New York, Purchase.

FOUL PLAY

The official results of Nigeria's elections last April showed overwhelming victories for the ruling party. The presidential winner, Umaru Yar'Adua, received 70 percent of the vote; his nearest opponent had 20 percent -- a margin of victory exceeding that in 1983, when discontent over extensive rigging led to a coup ousting the just-elected civilian president.

According to international and domestic observers alike, the process was deeply flawed. It was unclear until just days before each election -- for state offices on April 14 and for the presidency and the National Assembly on April 21 -- who the final candidates would be. On election day, the names of some contenders who had been reinstated by the courts were not on the ballots. The elections themselves were disastrous, with even more rigging and violence than during the previous presidential election, in 2003, when stolen ballot boxes and bogus vote counts marred the polling. All told, there were some 700 violent election-related incidents between November and March, among them the assassinations of two gubernatorial front-runners.

None of this was supposed to happen. Nigeria's April elections were billed as a landmark: the first time since the country's independence, in 1960, that political leadership would change hands from one civilian to another. Africa's most populous country would thus join the small list of entrenched African democracies and boost its clout as a regional player. Instead, when President Olusegun Obasanjo steps down, he will be leaving behind an unsettled polity with still-weak political institutions and a successor struggling for legitimacy.

Since coming to power in 1999, Obasanjo has achieved some progress, although not enough, mostly on macroeconomic issues. Even as the Nigerian economy grows at five percent a year, poverty cripples most of the country's 140 million people. Nigeria is the world's eighth-largest oil producer and one of its top oil exporters, but it imports all the refined oil products it consumes. Despite eight years of record oil revenues, its infrastructure is crumbling, and most Nigerians lack access to basic medical treatment and education. Each mangled election brings disillusionment, not with democracy but with how Nigeria's leaders impose their will. Nigerians talk of "the power of incumbency": ample money, control of the security forces, and, this year especially, a compliant electoral commission.

None of this bodes well for U.S. interests. The United States gets some ten percent of its crude oil from Nigeria and hopes to get more in the future, partly as an attempt, as Washington sees it, to wean itself off Middle Eastern suppliers. Believing that Obasanjo is central to these U.S. interests, Washington has supported him, despite human rights abuses and the flawed 2003 elections. But now, with Nigerians increasingly clamoring for accountability, the price of that support could be more unrest -- and pose a risk not only to oil supplies coming out of Nigeria but also to the region's stability.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

No Nigerian head of state had ever come into office with as much goodwill, at home and abroad, as did Obasanjo in 1999. He was elected soon after being released from jail, having served time for allegedly participating in a coup attempt against General Sani Abacha in 1995. He was a known entity: after running the country's then military government in the 1970s, he had handed it over to elected civilians in 1979. In the late 1990s, both Nigerians and Washington believed that despite his military background, Obasanjo was a committed democrat who would reform the country's economy and lay the basis for political liberalization.

As president, Obasanjo has presided over a few notable and well-publicized economic successes. In 2003, he entrusted economic policymaking to a team of energetic young technocrats he referred to as his "apostles." Several were recruited from overseas, most notably former Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who had previously served as a vice president at the World Bank. Okonjo-Iweala and her colleagues set out to implement an ambitious reform program that would strive for transparency in financial matters and "due process" in the awarding of government contracts. In 2006, Okonjo-Iweala, helped by the U.S. Treasury Department, persuaded the Paris Club to forgive some $18 billion of Nigeria's foreign debt.

Another positive development was the creation in 2003 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate corruption. Nigerians have applauded the efcc for prosecuting corrupt officials, notably former Inspector General of Police Tafa Balogun (he was later convicted of laundering some $98 million, much of it, he said, used to fund election victories in 2003). The EFCC's mere existence signaled that for the first time government officials would be held accountable for their financial wrongdoings. Although so far the commission has caught mostly small fish, it has probably restrained the activities of some of the larger ones.