Adewale Maja Pearce

Continuity has always been the name of the game in Nigerian politics and this time is no different. The outgoing president, Olusegun Obasanjo, made much of the fact that he oversaw the first civilian-to-civilian transition in the nation’s history, but what does this amount to?

We can judge how far the recent Nigerian elections fell below internationally accepted standards by the wide range of observers who cried foul. The two previous exercises — 1999 and 2003 — were marred by widespread irregularities, but on a lesser scale and at a time when everyone was still anxious to keep the military at bay.