Democracy and its discontents
THE street names haven’t changed. Some of the grandest thoroughfares in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, commemorate former military dictators. But Nigeria has been a civilian democracy for nearly six years now, and its people show no appetite for a return to the bad old days of bemedalled presidents. Why, then, are so many prominent Nigerians so gloomy? Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate for literature, says that the elected regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo is so unpopular that it is headed for collapse. Even more worryingly for Mr Obasanjo, the head of his own party made a similar prediction last month, drawing a parallel between the current regime and a notoriously corrupt one that was overthrown in a coup in 1983.Full Story