Africa and the world is waiting with bated breadth. Nigeria will hold its elections in the next few weeks. This election pits the north and the south, and could redefine the future of the country. If the elections are peaceful, then the country could emerge as one of the strong democracies in Africa, and a beacon of hope for the continent. The election pits a southerner, President Goodluck Jonathan, and one time military ruler, Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner. For a long time, Nigeria has had a sort of a gentleman's agreement in which power is rotated between the north and the south, but this time, there is no clear favorite, and the vote will be too close to call.
Some of the key issues in the election will be how President Goodluck Jonathan has handled the Boko Haram insurgency. To many observers, President Jonathan has failed in this, although the President insists that sabotage from some leaders within the government has ensured that the sectarian group continues to
grow. There will also be the issue of corruption, and whether the President has handled it well. The former central bank governor Lamido Sanusi lost his job as central bank governor and some believe that it was because he was too vocal in fighting corruption, most recently when he acknowledged that nearly 20 billion dollars of oil money had disappeared from the state coffers.
However, there are still some positives for the President. First of all, the economy is growing at unprecedented rates, although it is not lifting all tides. There are still more people that continue to be left behind. In April last year, Nigeria became Africa's largest economy after it rebased its economy, and the President is likely to cite this as one of his achievements.
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