Shereen Khatibloo

AP Comp Gov./ Pd.5

Mrs. Evans
February 6th, 2015
Nigeria News Update #1
Source: http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21642236discredited-ruling-party-faces-its-greatest-electoral-test-yet-bad-luck?
zid=304&ah=e5690753dc78ce91909083042ad12e30
Topic: The upcoming presidential elections.
Summary: The two main candidates in this presidential election are Mr.
Buhari, who is a member of the (All Progressives Congress APC) party which
is a combination of many of the opposing parties, and Mr. Johnathan, who is
the incumbent part of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It is difficult to
predict the winner as they both have about 42% of the vote. Johnathan
however has the advantage of being backed up by billions of dollars worth of
oil money. However, since oil prices have declined, cash is less available to
help him with his election. In the past, government have been known to take
money from the public without consent, but we now begin to see that more
and more penalties for these actions have been administered, as they harm
the economy and add to public insecurity. The article also briefly reflects on
the state of the country, as the elections are about to occur. The Nigerian
Army is struggling to succeed against the Jihadist insurgency in the
Northeast. Around 1.5 million people have been forced to leave their houses,
and this seems to be causing a lack of support for Johnathan. The elections
have a lot to do with ethnic and religious identity. Johnathan is Christian and
Buhari is a northern Muslim, and having people vote along religious lines
could help them win. Buhari promises to fight corruption and improve on the
Army, but the PDP is bringing up times in his past where there was limited
press, political meetings were banned. His party is a combination of the four
main opposition groups. This idea failed before, but now that they found
someone to elect, they are gong for it. This shows a shift away from one
party rule.
Analysis: This article tells us a lot about the government system in
Nigeria. First of all, we see that Nigeria uses a Presidential System. The
close nature of the race between the two candidates shows that the Nigerian
Government is changing from a One Party System to a Two Party
System. The significance of this is that with one party dominating the
elections, there is limited democracy in choosing the best candidate for
government, but now the people are given more of a choice as to who they
want leading their country, which also tells us that their political culture is
that they seem to value democracy and are working towards

democratization. This article also gave some insight as two what kind of
governing system is used in Nigeria. We have learned that in the past,
during Buharis command, political meetings were banned and the press was
tightly controlled, and thousands of political opponents were detained
without trials. Even though they hold elections for the presidency, this
closely resembles the restrictions of civil rights and liberties that we often
see in an illiberal democracy. They also refer to his role in the government
at that time as the head of state, which leads me to believe that the
president is also the head of state. At one point in the article, Mr. Buhari
told the economist that he is not worried about the past affecting his
election, and that he must stick to the countrys constitution, and that he
does not want to militarize democracy. This not only shows evidence that
Nigeria has a constitution, but that it is closely followed by the government.
Another significant fact that the article presented was that the main source
of funding for the PDP is oil money, and when the oil prices declined,
government revenues have significantly decreased and the currency has
fallen by a quarter, showing that a large part of the Nigerian economy is
based on oil. The article also told us that their source of Legitimacy, which
is based on their appeal as a candidate or leader, so Charismatic
legitimacy, comes in large part by their religion, and their victory depends
on people voting along religious lines. These elections parallel the ones we
have studied in the US and the UK, in their two or multi party systems, the
presidential system (or semi presidential in the case of the UK), and their
democratic nature.