Jean Herskovits

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Campaign posters for Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, an opposition candidate, in Lagos. Credit Ahmed Jallanzo/European Pressphoto Agency

Nigeria’s government canceled the February presidential election just days before it was to be held, postponing it until March 28. If this weekend’s vote is delayed, disrupted or canceled, it will imperil the democratic future of Africa’s most populous country.

This election is unlike any other in Nigerian history. President Goodluck Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party is facing the first credible challenge to a ruling party, and he is intent on staying in power, even though popular discontent with the P.D.P. is rife.

If the election had been held as scheduled on Feb. 14, it is likely that Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the opposition All Progressives Congress would have won.…  Seguir leyendo »

Goverments and newspapers around the world attributed the horrific Christmas Day bombings of churches in Nigeria to “Boko Haram” — a shadowy group that is routinely described as an extremist Islamist organization based in the northeast corner of Nigeria. Indeed, since the May inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the Niger Delta in the country’s south, Boko Haram has been blamed for virtually every outbreak of violence in Nigeria.

But the news media and American policy makers are chasing an elusive and ill-defined threat; there is no proof that a well-organized, ideologically coherent terrorist group called Boko Haram even exists today.…  Seguir leyendo »