Whatever happens in today’s presidential election, the candidacy of Peter Obi already represents a significant, if not seismic, shift in the Nigerian democratic process. Until now, Nigeria’s election cycles have been characterised by a collective resignation of the electorate to limited, and often poor choices, offered by two dominant parties. As a result, the selection process in the dominant parties is always a high stake, desperate affair, in which politicians go to incredible lengths to win the party’s nomination. Unable or unwilling to mobilise and organise, Nigerian voters agonise perennially in vain. In a sisyphean routine, the moaning process is…

With all the predictions of Armageddon and doubt about whether Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly polls would hold it does sound a bit silly to contemplate life after. Even those who grudgingly concede a life after fear it might be worse. Optimism is like playing the Ostrich. Nigeria’s history of electoral violence in the sixties and even in the mid-nineties might justify these concerns. But the last six election cycles in 24 years have proved that in spite of the hysteria about its viability, Africa’s largest democracy defies the odds. Saturday’s election would, yet again, prove the skeptics wrong. Despite…