At first glance, the election of Nigeria’s incumbent President, Goodluck Jonathan, who took nearly 60% of the votes cast, signals more of the same. Jonathan’s victory means another term for the country’s dominant People’s Democratic Party , giving it an unbroken four-term hold on power since the return of democracy in 1999.
Since Jonathan is a Christian southerner, his win will rankle northern Muslims, so the Muslim-Christian violence that plagues Nigeria will continue. In fact, the latest bouts, in the northern cities of Kaduna, Gombe and Zaria, began even as results were being announced Sunday and have already cost three lives. Since Jonathan is a product of the PDP, and since the PDP practices systemic corruption, that too will endure. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and the holder of its biggest reserves of natural resources, will likely remain a prime example of a curse that has stood the test of time: how nations blessed with natural riches often end up more corrupt and less stable — and ultimately, poorer — than others.
Whether that doom-and-gloom analysis holds weight depends on Jonathan — and whether he himself offers more of the same. The good news is that there are several reasons for him not to. The biggest is demographics. Nigeria’s high birth rate has produced an extraordinarily young country — the United Nations says 62% of the country is under 24 — and that new generation is both increasingly unhappy with the ruinous ways of the aging elite and able to do something about it. Youthful energy alone is no guarantee of change, but channeled through social networks, powered by new resources bequeathed by an economy which expanded by 7.8% last year and multiplied by sheer size
