confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Nigeria's election-winners
Blue Lines
Three issues – corruption, jobs and security – have dominated
campaigning in what promises to be Nigeria’s
closest ever presidential
election, on 28 March. All three put President Goodluck Jonathan’s
government on the back foot as it faced a resurgent national opposition
under former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari.
The
six-week delay in the elections, announced on 7 February, has certainly
helped Jonathan. The government claimed that by 17 March its armed
forces, aided by Chad and Cameroon, had pushed Boko Haram out of 17 of
the 20 local government areas in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states that it
controlled at the beginning of the year. Although the fightback has
bolstered the government’s military credibility, it is still exposed on
jobs and corruption.
Voters across the country – not just in the
opposition’s northern heartlands – take seriously claims by the former
central bank governor Sanusi Lamido
Sanusi that about US$1 billion a
month in oil revenues were not reaching government coffers. Worse for
Jonathan, many are attributing fuel shortages, rising unemployment and
power cuts to those claimed diversions. That’s why Buhari and the
opposition All Progressives Congress have rallied supporters with
promises of 'positive change' and a crackdown on malfeasance. Yet the
government's ability to spring surprises – such as the recent military
turnaround – means the two candidates are going neck and neck into the
final straight.