Amaka Anku

Over the past two decades, Nigeria’s democracy has grown much more competitive. Elections have become more transparent and less susceptible to elite manipulation. The press is as free as it has ever been. And President Muhammadu Buhari is about to step down after his second four-year term and make way for the winner of this week’s election, a move that will make him the third consecutive president to complete a peaceful transfer of power. Nigeria’s next leader could even be a third-party candidate, Peter Obi, who has run a surprisingly competitive campaign against the nominees from the country’s two major political parties.…  Seguir leyendo »

Next February, Nigeria will hold its seventh election since transitioning to democracy in 1999. Nearly 100 million Nigerians are registered to vote, most of them under 25. By 2050, according to UN projections, Nigeria will be the third-most populous country in the world after China and India. But despite having the world’s ninth- and tenth-largest natural gas and crude oil reserves, respectively; one of the world’s largest swaths of arable land; and a young and entrepreneurial population, Nigeria has fallen far behind peer countries such as Indonesia and South Korea when it comes to gross national income, GDP per capita, and industrial production.…  Seguir leyendo »