Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka once said that “The Nigerian people have always approached democracy and the elites have always turned them back.” The recent elections, which pitted a Northern Muslim and former military ruler against incumbent Christian from the Delta, could easily have ended this way. Muhammadu Buhari had suffered three previous defeats and Goodluck Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party had held power for 16 years, despite failing to modernise the economy (95 per cent of the country’s foreign earnings come from oil), confront Boko Haram and tackle corruption. (The last problem is easily underestimated for Nigerian corruption is sui generis. In February 2014, Lamido Sanusi, a widely respected governor of the central bank, complained that US$20 billion oil revenues had been stolen; he was promptly sacked.)
The Economist quotes a Buhari supporter saying, “We have won the most free and fair election ever to take place in Nigeria. This is a new Nigeria.” Unfortunately much the same could have been said of Mohamed Morsi’s and the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory in Egypt just a few years ago. Since then hopes that the Arab Spring would usher in a new wave of democratic governance throughout the Middle East and Africa have diminished almost to the point of despair. There could therefore be no better time for a democratic transfer of power in Africa’s most populous country.
President Buhari will need to rule with a rare combination of tact, resolve and good fortune if he is to survive Nigeria’s complex political, religious and economic challenges. A promising sign that he may be able to do so was his ability to win support in the south and centre of the country during the recent poll. Given the country’s religious and tribal divisions Nigeria’s presidential elections require the winner to earn at least a quarter of the votes in 24 out of the country’s 36 states, which Buhari was able to do, handily. As important as the breadth of his support, however, is the palpable conviction throughout the country that democracy, however embattled it may be elsewhere, still remains Nigeria’s best hope of emerging from decades of misrule.
Unlike Goodluck Jonathan, Buhari will take office with a strong reputation for personal integrity. In the 30 years since he was ousted from the presidency his record is clean. His time as chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund suggests a genuine interest in public service and at the age of 72 he is old enough to be concerned with a legacy rather than simply looting the national coffers. Richard Joseph, a professor at Northwestern University, writes that Buhari “has the opportunity to accomplish something that few of his predecessors, military or civilian, have even attempted: serving the nation and its citizens rather than members of the political-business-military class.”
Tackling corruption in Nigeria is a tall order at the best of times, however, and doing so at a time when oil prices are at record lows may prove impossible. If his government presses too hard, President Buhari could easily face another crisis in the Niger delta where, for the last six years, former rebels have essentially been paid off by the government. If he wishes to live up to his campaign promises of ending corruption, Buhari will need a great deal of political imagination, or cunning, to end this arrangement peacefully. On the other hand, as a Muslim who supports Sharia law he is extremely well placed to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency and could win much-needed early confidence if he does so successfully.
Whatever lies ahead, Nigeria’s election reaffirms the importance of democracy in countries that have often enjoyed very little of it. A peaceful transfer of power is a promising start, but only time will reveal whether President Buhari’s government has the patience and insight to carry out what the American philosopher Jacob Needleman has memorably called the “inward work” of democracy in which leaders don’t simply enforce rules but transform themselves, and their societies, into democratic citizens who live the principles of democracy rather than merely invoking them. If President Buhari does succeed, his reward could be to lead Africa’s largest democracy out of decades of violence, impunity, under-development and corruption.
