Nigeria: The Historic PDP Presidential Primaries

This is the contest

There are reasons why I have concluded that the nominated candidate of the ruling party would be the next elected president of Nigeria.

So far, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) appears to be the only party that has properly extended its representation across the country, either by winning or usurping representation in the gubernatorial or legislative arms of the government.

In any case, it was such a privilege to be part of an international audience that drew in Nigerians at home and as far afield as Australia and the United States to those of us in Europe as we monitored the presidential primaries of ruling party which at 3:45AM CET still had a good few states to be counted.

Africa time commencements

The PDP convention itself took on an African time dimension, it was to kick off at 10:00 prompt, but prompted or promptly is never to be believed, it was at least 5 hours on before things got into a motion.

Some rogue court had placed an injunction on the chairman of the ruling party preventing him from operating in that capacity; at some stage the chairman delegated his functions to his deputy which ended it with the convention presumably being declared open twice.

The presidential candidates gave their speeches with the supposed consensus candidate from North going on about the zoning policy which for all intents and purposes was technically torn up when President Yar’Adua yielded to the forces of mortality.

After the speeches the voting went smoothly with each delegate posting their hand-written ballots in to the ballot boxes of their respective states.

The count and the audience

The count started just before midnight and many have been burning the midnight oil witnessing an historic moment where votes have been cast and they are publicly counted without opportunists taking advantage of subverting the will of the delegates.

Bringing together Twitter, Facebook, video streams from Nigeria Connect (good audio) and Channels TV (good video) and news lines from 234Next, the eyes of the world have gazed on what is possible with Nigerian democracy.

This experience needs to be extrapolated to the real national voting exercise in April, I wonder if the Ushahidi and FrontlineSMS technologies can be deployed in the polling centres and enumeration centres to keep an eye on the will of the people gathering actionable evidence against those who try to subvert our democracy.

The party for all

One can only commend the foreign correspondents that have committed to staying to the very end until the final count is done and certified with a nominated candidate.

The trend as it seems is showing the incumbent president as the consensus candidate for the whole of Nigeria, he even took his opponent’s home state with 71% of the delegates – such is his appeal.

The sole female candidate seems to have only managed to get her own singular vote counted.

For a review of the Twitter feed of the PDP Primaries can be access on the hash tag #PDPPrimary or #PDPPrimaries which has more results.

Iowa is not Bethlehem of Judea

A baptism of hope

I woke up to the news that Mike Huckabee, the Baptist preacher and former governor of Arkansas State had taken the Republican nomination for the Iowa State caucus. The man was born in a little town called Hope where a Bill Clinton was born too.

Hope and Change are the message that resonates from the lips of Barack Obama the first-term Illinois Senator who took the Democrat nomination beating Hillary Clinton to 3^rd place.

Indeed, I feel sorry for Hillary and her organisation which apparently failed to convince Iowans of her experience and leadership qualities, it is an unfortunate situation but not one that she cannot recover from – Next is New Hampshire.

Convinced for change

The Presidency of George W. Bush leaves us in no doubt that there is a renewed need for change and definitely one of great hope – people need to be inspired beyond the foreboding of war, famine, disaster, turbulent markets and pocket-book strictures.

The people need a Kennedy-esque vision of what they can do for their country which would in turn make their country work for them to greatness and achievement.

Senator Barack Obama seems to encapsulate that view and concept, it is a good thing, but the Presidency of America is not just the leadership of 300 million American citizens, it bestows the mantle of leadership that encompasses the whole of over 6 billion people of the human race.

The people of America are very well entitled to vote for local issues, but their leader would be a global leader of great importance to the peace and stability of the world – we do not have review the Presidency of Bush that much to see where relative inexperience garnered from being a State governor has lead us to a more restless world than when he assumed power.

I worry that Americans might be deluded into expectation of youth and right-sounding oratory without assessing the real substance of what it takes to lead the world by becoming the President of the United States of America.

New expectations

Now, the prospect of America having a black man as President means the country has moved by leaps and bounds, it does not mean that the issues of race are not still a problem, also the likeable prospect of a credible female President is something useful too, if America can be liberal enough to escape from the strictures of religious-driven male chauvinism to accept a woman as leader.

However, Iowa State, 26^th in land size and 30^th in population size which is not even a hundredth of the total in the United States is not the Bethlehem of old.- Out of Iowa shall not come the great leader that should take the world to new heights – the win in Iowa for Obama is a good and great one, but I still see Obama as better running for President in 8 years after having served as vice-President of the nation for 2 terms.

This job really does require experience, we need someone who would be ready and able on the 1^st day, the 20^th of January 2009 – Obama might be able, but definitely not ready to lead the world – there is a lot more to believing in a place called hope and it is not just in making us feel good.

The least significant

Note: The reference to Bethlehem comes from the prophecy about the coming of Jesus Christ – made in Micah 5:2 and recalled in Matthew 2:6 (NIV) - But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.

Iowa is the first in the primaries and one of the least in the United States, but the political Messiah of the United States and the world will not hopefully be decided by the events of this morning.