April 17, 2007, New York: By most accounts and statements of election observers, Nigeria's elections of Saturday April 14th 2007, for the State Houses of Assembly and Governorships were incredibly flawed. It was, in my view, unquestionably the worst election in Nigeria since independence from Britain in 1960.

Essentially, the whole democratic process deteriorated beyond any known Nigeria's reference point. The system of representation as manifested at the election failed to accord the people a supreme role, franchise voters, provide equality of votes, and guarantee the right to stand for public office. All indexes of the electoral process worsened during last Saturday's election.

Nigerians not ready to be governed once again by those they did not give the consent had began to protest and to call for new elections. To compound the tense political situation, the Supreme Court in its ruling on Monday declared that the electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had no right to disqualify candidates. This alone raised serious question the validity of the election when many candidates were barred from participating by INEC.

 This decision has emboldened the opposition and there are talks in opposition quarters to call for the cancellation of the elections already conducted and the postponement of the election to Federal posts slated for Saturday. The rational behind it was that the ruling party and its electoral commission had shown that it could not conduct a credible election.

To fill the vacuum that this would create, the senate president would be asked to head an interim government until a new election is conducted. That way President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration will effectively be terminated on the previously scheduled date, May 29 th 2007. 

This move seemed the most sensible that the opposition can take at this point in time going by what happened on Saturday when local elections were massively rigged right in front of international observers and media groups. With the ruling party, the People's Democratic Party, PDP, winning over 30 of the 36 governorship race, there is no way the opposition will suddenly make a dent in a federal election conducted by the same electoral body, within one week interval, and under the worse political conditions than last Saturdays.

One of the opposition candidates for next Saturday's election, Prof. Pat. Utomi of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, was right in deciding to boycott Saturday's election if the charade of the previous Saturday is not cancelled and the presidential race postponed. He even suggested an adaptation of the Bangladesh's option in Nigeria in which the ruling party should have nothing to do with the conduct of elections.

Days after the Saturday' April 14 election, many parts of Nigeria are already under curfew.  Lives are being lost, properties being destroyed and opposition leaders are being arrested. If the international community does not rein in on President Olusegun Obasanjo to abort the election in its entirety and transfer power to an interim government, there is a real danger that Nigeria will become ungovernable in days to come.

At this point when the oil market is jittery over events in Iran, Venezuela, and Iraq, adding a sustained uncertainty in Nigeria will shoot oil prices higher and could lead to global economic recession.

In the past, the international community had preferred to make conservative pandering for democracy while willing to work with faulty politicians and accept flawed elections in the name of maintaining tranquility. Again and again, it has been shown to achieve nothing but the postponement of the day of reckoning.

Now is the time for Nigeria to get it right. The world must stand behind the long suffering Nigerian people and insist that their political elite must get it right. It has been said that if Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, gets it right, the rest of Africa will begin to get it right. But if Nigeria is once again allowed to fail, the tragedy of Nigeria will inevitable be the tragedy of us all.
Rudolf Okonkwo is New York-based columnist and special correspondent for USAfricaonline.com and CLASSmagazine. He wrote exclusively for USAfricaonline.com, the insightful report: Anambra's rigged 2003 elections, and Chris Uba's confession at WIC 2004 in Newark, USA

Many Nigerians still feel disappointed that a man (Obasanjo) who had gained so much from Nigeria would cling so tightly to power, even against the popular will of the people, moreso with age, energy and fresh ideas for a new era not on his side.

Also, USAfricaonline.com review of Nigeria's recent history show that President Obasanjo seems to be moving rapidly into the zone of ill-repute of his former military colleagues who, like him, refused to leave office when it was time to go. Gen. yakubu Gowon in 1975; Gen. Ibrahim Babangida in 1993; Gen. Sani Abacha in1995, 1996, 1997, 1998. More baffling many Nigerians we interviewed recall is the lessons of the excesses of the late Gen. Abach who jailed Obasanjo while the former schemed to remain in power. For the special report by USAfrica multimedia networks' Publisher Chido Nwangwu, click on 3rd term.

His globalist underpinnings and outlook are truly reflective of the true essence of his Igbo world-view, his Igbo upbringing and disposition. Igbos and Jews share (with a few other other cultures) this pan-global disposition to issues of art, life, commerce, juridical pursuits, and quest to be republicanist in terms of the vitality of the individual/self. In Achebe's works, the centrality of Chi (God) attains an additional clarity in the Igbo cosmology... it is a world which prefers a quasi-capitalistic business attitude while taking due cognizance of the usefulness of the whole, the community. I've studied, lived and tried to better understand, essentially, the rigor and towering moral certainties which Achebe have employed in most of his works and his world. I know, among other reasons, because I share the same ancestry with him. Permit me to attempt a brief sentence, with that Achebean simplicty and clarity. Here, folks, what the world has known since 1958: Achebe is good! Eagle on the Iroko, may your Lineage endure! There has never been one like you!
Ugo n'abo, chukwu gozie gi oo!. Chido Nwangwu, recipient of the Journalism Excellence award (1997), is Founder and Publisher of USAfricaonline.com (first African-owned U.S.-based professional newspaper to be published on the internet), USAfrica The Newspaper, CLASS magazine and The Black Business Journal. He has served as an adviser to the Mayor of Houston on international business (Africa) and appears as an analyst on CNN, VOA, NPR, CBS News, NBC and ABC news affiliates.

CLASS is the social events, heritage excellence and style magazine for Africans in north America, described by The New York Times as the magazine for affluent Africans in America. It is published by professional journalists and leading mulitmedia leaders and pioneers.

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Nelson Mandela, Tribute to the world's political superstar and Lion of Africa   Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's burden mounts with murder charges, trials Why Bush should focus on dangers facing Nigeria's return to democracy and Obasanjo's slipperyslide TRIBUTE A KING FOR ALL TIMES: Why Martin Luther King's legacy and vision are relevant into 21st century. DIPLOMACY Walter Carrington: African-American diplomat who put principles above self for Nigeria (USAfrica's founder Chido Nwangwu with Ambassador Carrington at the U.S. embassy, Nigeria) DEMOCRACY'S WARRIOR Out of Africa. …The cock that crows in the morning belongs to one household but his voice is the property of the neighborhood. -- Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah. An editor carries on his crusade against public corruption and press censorship in his native Nigeria and other African countries. By John Suval. The Economics of Elections in Nigeria HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY How far, how deep will Nigeria's human rights commission go? Rtd. Gen. Babangida trip as emissary for Nigeria's Obasanjo to Sudan raises curiosity, questions about what next in power play? 110 minutes with Hakeem Olajuwon Nigerian stabbed to death in his bathroom in Houston. Since 1958, Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" set a standard of artistic excellence, and more. By Douglas Killam Why Chinua Achebe, the Eagle on the Iroko, is Africa's writer of the century. By Chido Nwangwu(First written on March 1, 2002, for USAfrica, updated for Prof. Achebe's 74th Birthday tribute on November 16, 2004, and published in CLASS magazine same month): Africa's most acclaimed and fluent writer of the English Language, the most translated writer of Black heritage in the world, broadcaster extraordinaire, social conscience of millions, cultural custodian and elevator, chronicler and essayist, goodwill ambassador and man of progressive rock-ribbed principles, the Eagle on the Iroko, Ugo n'abo Professor Chinua Achebe, has recently been selected by a distinguished jury of scholars and critics (from 13 countries of African life and literature) as the writer of the Best book (Things Fall Apart, 1958) written in the twentieth century regarding Africa. Reasonably, Achebe's message has been neither dimmed nor dulled by time and clime. He's our pathfinder, the intellectual godfather of millions of Africans and lovers of the fine art of good writing. Achebe's cultural contexts are, at once, pan-African, globalist and local; hence, his literary contextualizations soar beyond the confines of Umuofia and any Igbo or Nigerian setting of his creative imagination or historical recall. His globalist underpinnings and outlook are truly reflective of the true essence of his Igbo world-view, his Igbo upbringing and disposition. Igbos and Jews share (with a few other other cultures) this pan-global disposition to issues of art, life, commerce, juridical pursuits, and quest to be republicanist in terms of the vitality of the individual/self. In Achebe's works, the centrality of Chi (God) attains an additional clarity in the Igbo cosmology... it is a world which prefers a quasi-capitalistic business attitude while taking due cognizance of the usefulness of the whole, the community. I've studied, lived and tried to better understand, essentially, the rigor and towering moral certainties which Achebe have employed in most of his works and his world. I know, among other reasons, because I share the same ancestry with him. Permit me to attempt a brief sentence, with that Achebean simplicty and clarity. Here, folks, what the world has known since 1958: Achebe is good! Eagle on the Iroko, may your Lineage endure! There has never been one like you! Ugo n'abo, chukwu gozie gi oo!. Chido Nwangwu, recipient of the Journalism Excellence award (1997), is Founder and Publisher of USAfricaonline.com (first African-owned U.S.-based professional newspaper to be published on the internet), USAfrica The Newspaper, CLASS magazine and The Black Business Journal. He has served as an adviser to the Mayor of Houston on international business (Africa) and appears as an analyst on CNN, VOA, NPR, CBS News, NBC and ABC news affiliates. This USAfricaonline.com commentary is copyrighted. Archiving on any other web site or newspaper is unauthorized except with a Written Approval by USAfricaonline.com Founder.

DEBATE: How Black intellectuals let Africa down, and western stereoptypes complicate the rest. By Cedrick Ngalande at the USC, Los Angeles Africa suffers the scourge of the virus. This life and pain of Kgomotso Mahlangu, a five-month-old AIDS patient (above) in a hospital in the Kalafong township near Pretoria, South Africa, on October 26, 1999, brings a certain, frightening reality to the sweeping and devastating destruction of human beings who form the core of any definition of a country's future, its national security, actual and potential economic development and internal markets. 22 million Africans HIV-infected, ill with AIDS while African leaders ignore disaster-in-waiting In a special report a few hours after the history-making nomination, USAfricaonline.com Founder and Publisher Chido Nwangwu places Powell within the trajectory of history and into his unfolding clout and relevance in an essay titled 'Why Colin Powell brings gravitas, credibility and star power to Bush presidency.' Powell named Secretary State by G.W. Bush; bipartisan commendations follow. AFRICA AND THE U.S. ELECTIONS Beyond U.S. electoral shenanigans, rewards and dynamics of a democratic republic hold lessons for African politics. CONTINENTAL AGENDA Bush's position on Africa is "ill-advised." The position stated by Republican presidential aspirant and Governor of Texas, George Bush where he said that "Africa will not be an area of priority" in his presidency has been questioned by USAfricaonline.com Publisher Chido Nwangwu. He added that Bush's "pre-election position was neither validated by the economic exchanges nor geo-strategic interests of our two continents." These views were stated during an interview CNN's anchor Bernard Shaw and senior analyst Jeff Greenfield had with Mr. Nwangwu on Saturday November 18, 2000 during a special edition of 'Inside Politics 2000.' Nwangwu, adviser to the Mayor of Houston (the 4th largest city in the U.S., and immigrant home to thousands of Africans) argued further that "the issues of the heritage interests of 35 million African-Americans in Africa, the volume and value of oil business between between the U.S and Nigeria and the horrendous AIDS crisis in Africa do not lend any basis for Governor Bush's ill-advised position which removes Africa from fair consideration" were he to be elected president. By Al Johnson Johnnie Cochran will soon learn that defending Abacha's loot is not as simple as his O.J Simpson's case. By Chido Nwangwu Should Africa debates begin and end at The New York Times and The Washington Post? No Cheryl Mills' first class defense of Clinton and her detractors' game  It's wrong to stereotype Nigerians as Drug Dealers Private initiative, free market forces, and more democratization are Keys to prosperity in Africa Apple announces Titanium, "killer apps" and other ground-breaking products for 2001. iTunes makes a record 500,000 downloads. Steve Jobs extends digital magic CLASS is the social events, heritage excellence and style magazine for Africans in north America, described by The New York Times as the magazine for affluent Africans in America. It is published by professional journalists and leading mulitmedia leaders and pioneers.