Politics...

Okay, to be honest Nigerian politics are hard for me to follow. There are over 50 different parties, with only a few carrying any nationwide clout. The party in power presently is the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). The two other parties that I see around here are the Labour Party (LP) and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN or AC, I can’t keep up) There are many more, but those seem to be the most prominent ‘round here. Currently there is a boatload of activity as 2011 is an election year. Back in September the elections were set to go for January 11, 2011, but since they didn’t get around to registering voters in time, the Independent National Election Commission (INEC, the body responsible for organizing and setting dates for elections) postponed the presidential elections until April 9th (I believe).

The actions afoot now are smaller elections, reruns, and primaries. The biggest story (in my opinion) is the primary for the PDP coming up this Thursday. The incumbent president, Goodluck Jonathan, is up against former vice president (under Obasanjo), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar (the founder of AUN). The past few days (I guess perhaps months) there has been a back and forth between these two candidates as to whom should be the flag bearer of the PDP.

Goodluck Jonathan

Atiku Abubakar

Jonathan from the south, is the incumbent has been questioning the eligibility of Atiku to run under the bye-laws of the PDP. Most of his claim is based on a stipulation that anyone essentially associated with scandal, corruption, etc… cannot run under the PDP banner (Atiku has been alleged to be involved with some money laundering, but only $40 million or so ;). Atiku claims that Jonathan cannot be the PDP presidential candidate based on the zoning rules set forth in the party’s constitution. I don’t fully understand the zoning law, but in a nutshell it says that someone from the south (mostly Christian) gets to rule for 8 years, then it is the north’s (mostly muslim) turn for 8 years (imagine if the US did that). Essentially Atiku believes it is the north’s turn, and more to the point his turn as the northern ‘caucus’ of the PDP has given him the nod to run for president.

I guess what muddles things is that Jonathan became president after the death of President Yar’adua (spelling…sorry, from the north). I am guessing that this contingency was never planned for in the zoning mechanism, which is leading to some problems. Who’s turn is it now???

The late President Yar'adua

Anywho, our two candidates are up for screening by the PDP ‘board’. The delegates will vote on Thursday, and we should have a presidential candidate from the PDP (the presumed winner by many, this is why many people refer to this process as a selection, not an election). The reports are mixed, but it seems that Atiku believes he is going to be passed over as the delegates appointed are not particularly fond of him. If this is the case it is also presumed that he will run under a different party, perhaps ACN or another. All in all we are simply concerned that the process proceeds peacefully!!

A good link to another blog on this topic is here.
http://sahelblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/nigeria-pdp-primary-approaches-poll-gives-abubakar-hope/

Disclaimer: I have not made a study of this, so please do not take this for gospel by any means. This is my understanding from what I have been able to glean, I could be (and I am sure on some points) totally of base. If you are interested check some of the links I provided early on on this blog. You also have the RSS feeds from AllAfrica.com on the right of the text here. They do a nice job of scanning the African papers.

Cheers