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Nigeria's 2015 Elections: Raising the Bar

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[caption id="attachment_10186" align="aligncenter" width="610"] Supporters of Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP rally during the 2015 election. Photo by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, via Flickr. Creative Commons.[/caption]

A year later, Jude Cocodia looks back at Nigeria's historic election, why it was so important, and what lessons other African leaders could take from it.

The 2015 Nigerian elections saw the defeat of an incumbent president for the first time in Nigerian history, and the peaceful handover of power that followed. This event runs contrary to the trend in Africa, where rulers manipulate state machinery to perpetuate themselves in office, irrespective of being popular or despised by the people.

Nigeria is Africa's largest country, democracy, and economy, and serves as a West African hegemon. While the country may not set the standard on issues such as transparency, accountability, and rule of law, it does play an influential role throughout the continent, and the reverberations of its election were deeply felt.

The atmosphere surrounding Nigeria's 2015 election was charged. It pitted the popular Muhammadu Buhari of the majority Hausa/Fulani ethnic group from the north against the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, who comes from a southern minority ethnic group and whom many Nigerians had come to detest in the years since he rode a wave of popular support across the nation to become president in the 2011 elections. Most political observers agree that this public goodwill was squandered during his four years in office. Despite his unpopularity, he still had access to the machinery of the state and could have attempted to perpetuate himself in power, like many of his African counterparts.

Since 'sit-tightism' is common among Africa's leaders, analysts feared the 2015 elections would lead to Nigeria's disintegration along the north-south dichotomy. When it was obvious Buhari had won the election with states to spare, Jonathan ceded defeat to the new president-elect. This was the first time an incumbent had lost an election in Nigeria. Better still, he vacated office without stirring violence. Contrary to widespread speculation, 2015 witnessed Nigeria's most peaceful immediate post-election period, with violence at a minimum. 2016 has rolled in and Nigeria's polity is still fairly stable. Jonathan's action of leaving peacefully after being voted out after one term was uncharacteristic of the norm that plagues Africa's leaders.

Nigeria has raised the bar for electoral conduct of elected officials in Africa and avoided the debacle of Burundi and South Sudan. Whether others take that cue remains to be seen. One major lesson from the 2015 elections is that to ensure stability and the growth of democracy on the continent, African leaders have to learn to be gracious in defeat.

Jude Cocodia is a Lecturer at Niger Delta University, Nigeria and a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham.

About the Author

Jude Cocodia

Associate Professor, Niger Delta University Nigeria; Research Fellow, University of the Free State South Africa.

Africa Program

The Africa Program works to address the most critical issues facing Africa and US-Africa relations, build mutually beneficial US-Africa relations, and enhance knowledge and understanding about Africa in the United States. The Program achieves its mission through in-depth research and analyses, public discussion, working groups, and briefings that bring together policymakers, practitioners, and subject matter experts to analyze and offer practical options for tackling key challenges in Africa and in US-Africa relations.    Read more