Election fever - free, fair and fatal

When VSO asked us to stay inside during all three voting days, and on the days that results were announced, I thought they were being over-cautious but my Nigerian colleagues did not!  It turned out that every voting day between 8am and 4pm, there were “movement restrictions”, people being supposed to travel only on foot, and only with the purpose of voting.  This was to reduce the possibility of anybody interfering with the voting process, by intimidation, persuasion, or other means.  
 

Voting is time consuming, despite already being registered voters had to turn up for “accreditation” and then wait to cast their vote.  They were also encouraged to stay around until the end of voting and witness the count, which was to be posted at each voting post. 

Generally the elections have been commended by national and international observers as free and fair, although there have been “isolated” cases of rigging and stuffing.  Stuffing – is a term applied to stealing ballot boxes and “stuffing” them with votes, using ballot papers of voters who didn’t show up to vote.  There were also a number of bombings and fatalities: of the INEC (electoral commission office) and several in Maiduguri.  My colleagues said “they gave their lives for democracy”.

Nigeria only emerged from a military government in 1999, the President “elected” then was a former military dictator, he was re-elected in 2003.  In 2007 the late Yar’Adua was elected, and succeeded by his Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan last year, who has now in 2011 been elected President.

All was well (ish) until the outcome of the presidential election, after which riots erupted in the North, leaving around 800 dead and displacing around 50,000.  A quick look at the map below helps to explain why. (Map from BBC website read more here)  Apparently the trouble began in Katsina, when people already celebrating the supposed victory of Buhari, heard the news that Jonathan had been elected and assumed that the election had been rigged, not in their favour.  To give some context this country is enormous, and is massively divided between rich and poor, Islam and Christianity, 250 ethnic groups and 500 languages.  And of course these many groups did not chose to become a country, like most of Africa, the country Nigeria is a result of colonialism.  The practice of gaining control over other countries and ocuppying them with settlers, (Oxford English Dictionary) 

Source BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12893448

Three large cities in the North, (all of which I have visited) Kano, Kaduna and Kafanchan were affected.  Here are two stories of people affected. 

xxxx, originally from Lagos (in the South) was in his house, when people came to the door and asked him if he was a Christian or a Muslim, fortunately for him, they were looking for Muslims.  They made him recite the Lord’s Prayer to prove his Christianity, and killed his Muslim friends in front of him.  He fled hiding in the bush, until he could fly out of the area.  Unsurprising he has now resigned his job in the North.

Kim a volunteer, based in Kafanchan, was out of the country at the time.  She lives in Kagoro, the market was burnt down, now there are two markets one for Christians and one for Muslims

Clearly many people were involved in this violence, some say it was orchestrated, whether or not it was, people took part in widespread violence and murder.  After the Rwanda genocide, I came to the inclusion that in the right circumstances anybody could become a murder, these circumstances could be fear, hunger, anger, ......  In Nigeria, 90% of people live on less than $2 a day, and 70% on less than $1 (that is not enough to live on, I tried $1.25 a day just for food for a week, I was hungry, you can read about it here).   There is  a lack of political leadership, and  underlying tensions between ethnic groups...., maybe someone offers you money to take part, or threatens to kill you if you don't, what do you do...?

Ironically while all this was going on all was well in the South, I was reading War and Peace at the time, which recounts the insanity of a war between the Russian and the French, in the midst of it the “high society” continue their lives relatively normally.

So what next? – Well people try to get on with their lives, Kim, above is amazed by their tenacity – read here.  VSO volunteers who were evacuated from those towns go back to their houses and jobs, and I have now experienced an African election.  On a positive one of my Nigerian colleagues says that Nigeria is on a journey towards democracy and despite the violence and trouble things are getting better.  I hope he is right.

The long silence

I try to update my blog at least weekly, after my Mum telling me she gave up looking because it never changes, this has not been possible in the last couple of months.  My laptop died, and thanks to a Dell warranty has now been resurrected.  Dell actually sent their engineer to me, (from Lagos) to put a new motherboard in my computer, much to my amazement and relief, it took three weeks for this “Next Business Day” service to happen but at least it did.

In the meantime, I borrowed a desktop from work, which is OK, but with very limited electricity that can go off at any second, rather frustrating.  A few times I borrowed my friend Rebecca’s tiny lap top, and I got a two week extension on my two assignments that were due for my MSc, submitted last Thursday.

So hopefully with work submitted at least for now, next deadline 4th July, and the scary prospect of having planned the next 16 months of my life away, (one of those two assignments was a proposal for my MSc dissertation, to be submitted in 16 months and estimated to take 600 hours) I will manage to blog a little, plenty to tell you about, watch this space!

How many Nigeirans does it take to change a lightbulb?

This morning I went to buy a lightbulb and some akara, a delicious Sunday morning breakfast treat, basically deep fried beans, so healthy in a protein kind of way, but in Ibadan they don’t give you extra pepe like they did in Abuja, must remember to add some next time!

Anyway, my lightbulb was not in a “nylon” as Nigerians call plastic bags, but just loose in a box in my hand.  So a neighbour asked me what I was going to do with it?  I thought this a rather ridiculous question so I asked him what he thought I was going to do with it.  To this he asked if I was an electrician, no I said but I do know how to change a lightbulb.  He then told me that many Nigerian women do not!

This afternoon I met my British friend Rebecca, and over lunch at the lovely Kokodome, relayed the story, she told me that the Nigerian family where she stayed in Ife, called an electrician to change a lightbulb.

Now a word of caution, in Nigeria changing a lightbulb is different to changing one in the UK, for a start it happens more often.  I have been in Ibadan, for four months, and only have four lightbulbs, I have bought and changed at least three lightbulbs in this time. 

Much as its life is significantly shortened by the unreliable, surging power, so is the risky manoeveur of changing it greater, hence I am far more cautious   I follow all the rules that I may be a little lax about at home; make sure the switch is off, my hands are dry, and wear shoes with rubber soles while I do it!  A quick look at Nigerian wiring and you will see why!

Election Fever - POSTPONED!

Having had strict advice from VSO not to leave the house for all voting days; on Friday, I made sure I had plenty of things to eat and drink on Saturday and prepared for day one of “house arrest”!

I was very productive, pancakes for breakfast, mung beans cooked with coconut and chapattis for dinner, did my laundry, studied, watched two movies, but I began to understood the term “Cabin Fever”, which got worse when I found out the election had been postponed until Monday. However I thought I’d better not leave the house, unless VSO “released me” as there were rumours of trouble as people who were turned away from voting.

The election was postponed because the ballot papers had only arrived in the country at 9am on Saturday, polling booths were due to open at 8am. I fail to see why this couldn’t be announced on Friday, but one of my colleagues told me that it was to prevent allegations of fraud, or to stop trouble or some such.

So on Sunday, I had déjà vu of Friday, and prepared myself for another day of “house arrest”, for the Monday elections, only to be find out they were now to be held next Saturday. Both times I found out about the change of plan from friends postings on facebook, not from the BBC World Service which I listened to, VSO or the FCO travel advice to Nigeria.

To plan or not to plan, that is the question...

Nigerians and I have a different attitude towards planning, and towards making plans public. I find this strange, but as my Dad would tell me its not strange its different!



Actually Dad now denies this is his phrase but I distinctly remember him telling me it as a child, I can’t remember what “it” was!


When I started work at NEST I suggested that we had some kind of shared calendar, so that we would all know the whereabouts of our colleagues. To me this is a useful planning tool; to my colleagues it clearly seemed to be like something all together different, police state or something. They protested that there really wasn’t a problem, when staff travel away from the office they always let others know of their whereabouts!


Many planning / not planning / not sharing examples took place last week


On Tuesday – colleague A was not in the office, when I asked where he was somebody thought he had gone to Abuja but they weren’t sure when he would be back.


On Wednesday – colleague B and I met to plan some work, we planned a meeting on Friday with colleague C who was due back in the office that day after 10 days of external meetings. I also wanted to meet him on Friday regarding a different project.


On Thursday – I was due to meet colleague D, he was out of the office all day, as another colleague (more important than me) had sent him on another task.  I also found out that colleague C wouldn't be back on Friday when I had planned to meet him.


On Friday – the Governor of Oyo State, announced a public holiday, so that people could travel to vote the following day. Unfortunately I only had confirmation of this holiday at 7:30am, when I was about to leave for the office.


On Saturday – the President of INEC (the election commission) announced that that day’s elections would be postponed until Monday, as the ballot papers had not arrived in time.


On Sunday – the President of INEC announced that Monday’s elections would be postponed until the following Saturday to ensure that everyone gets a chance to vote.


Now I am sure behind each of these examples there is a good reason, perhaps because so many things are just outside of ones control, like an election being postponed, a public holiday being announced a big oga / boss telling you to drop everything and do something else.

Snappy Dressers

One of the things I love about Nigeria is the variety of clothing that people can wear, men and women.  These images from Jonathan's rally last Saturday, show some examples.

Jonathan's rally

Election Fever - a bike instead of a car

Many years ago, I met a Kenyan who had spent some time in the UK and was there during a general election, he had been surprised how life went on as normal.

I am about to experience my first African election, there are three voting days, on 2^nd, 9^th and 16^th April, Parliamentary, Presidential and State governors and legislators. 

Things are a little tense, before 1^st October, when there was a bombing during the Independence Day Celebrations; any violence in Nigeria was isolated, in specific points and linked to ethnic / religious issues.  Since then there was another bombing at Abacha Barracks on New Years Eve, and MEND a group trying to get justice from oil companies for the people in the Delta have threatened to bomb strategic locations in the Niger Delta, Abuja and Lagos.

During January all the schools were closed, supposedly for voter registration, but others said it was to stop the schools being a focal point for violence.

Last week, we received a strongly worded email from VSO with their security plans, these are that we should not leave our houses for the three voting days, or on the day results are announced.  If we feel unsafe we are to let VSO know and move somewhere safer.  If VSO or our countries want us to evacuate we should proceed to Abuja.  Hopefully of course apart from being “grounded” (yes they used that term) for four days, none of this will happen.  However when I told my colleagues that VSO didn’t want us to leave the house all day, they thought it was very sensible advice, I was expecting them to tell me it was over cautious.  

The other election advice we have been given, and have been being given for months, is to avoid crowded areas and talking about politics.  So my first action to maintain my safety took place yesterday.  I had just arrived back in Ibadan, after a weekend in Ife, and was at Iwo Road, a big junction full of traffic, traders, people begging, and the Ibadan Marathon was passing through.  I walked off to get the first of two shared taxis home to be told there was “no road” (a Nigerian term used when a road is closed, in this case for the Marathon), I would have to take a motorbike, now I am quite scared of Ibadan traffic so I decided to take a taxi instead.  Then as I sat in the taxi I realised I was in the middle of total grid lock, in a crowded area, in the part of town I had been warned could be prone to election violence.  I got scared and decided I would after all be safer on a bike.  So my first "keeping safe in the election action" was to take a bike instead of a car.