With razor’s edge elections, eyes of the world on pregnant Nigeria
By Chido Nwangwu
Special to USAfricaonline.com, and USAfrica multimedia networks, Houston. Follow USAfrica at Facebook.com/USAfricaChido , Facebook.com/USAfrica247 and Twitter.com/Chido247
Beyond the niceties and glad-handing between incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan (of the PDP) and his opponent retired General Muhammad Buhari (of the APC), Houston-based USAfricaonline.com is reporting that there are simmering tension at several flashpoints as 55 million of Nigeria’s 160 million citizens carry a pregnant future on their PVCs (permanent voter’s cards) into and outside the balloting grounds. Especially in the Rivers State, Lagos State, Ekiti, Ondo, Imo, Delta, Borno and Kaduna and Nasarawa states..
Soldiers have been deployed at key locations
across the country.
The activist supporters of the 2 major candidates are both making preemptive claims to a certain victory at the polls. Those are veritable recipes for post-election conflict between supporters of Buhari who come from the mainly Islamic north, plus swaths of support from the Bola Tinubu-led campaign machine in the Yoruba southwest versus those of the President drawn mainly from the South South, South East and north central.
The statistical difference between the presidential election opinion polls are so marginal that different interests groups have interpreted the polling data to assign victory on March 28, 2015.
In a metaphorical as much as practical depiction, I know that Nigeria is pregnant but no one is certain whether on March 31, it will be a Frankenstein; or a Frankenstein…. •Dr. Chido Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher of USAfrica multimedia networks since 1992, first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the INTERNET USAfricaonline.com; served as adviser to Houston’s ex Mayor on Africa business and recipient of several journalism and public POLICY awards, has been profiled by the CNN International for his pioneering works on multimedia/news/public policy projects for Africans and Americans. —–
networks Chido Nwangwu. CNN anchors John Berman n Michaela Pereira. VIDEO of the CNN International broadcast/profile of USAfrica and CLASSmagazine Publisher Chido Nwangwu. http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/07/29/mpa.african.media.bk.a.cnn
reportage book, MANDELA & ACHEBE: Footprints of Greatness, about two GLOBAL icons and towering persons of African descent whose exemplary lives
and friendship hold lessons for humanity and Africans, USAfrica Founder Chido Nwangwu takes a measure of their works and CONSEQUENCE to write that Mandela and Achebe have left “footprints of greatness.”
to Achebe. He moderated the 2012 Achebe Colloquium at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.“I’ll forever remember having walked inside and peeped through that historic Mandela jail cell (where he was held for most of his 27 years in unjust imprisonment) at the dreaded Robben Island, on March 27, 1998, alongside then Editor-in-chief of TIME magazine and later news chief executive of the CNN, Walter Isaacson (and others) when President BILL Clinton made his first official trip to South Africa and came to Robben Island. Come to this island of scourge and you will understand, in part, the simple greatness and towering grace of Nelson Mandela”, notes Chido Nwangwu, award-winning writer, multimedia 
specialist and founder of USAfricaonline.com, the first African-owned U.S-based newspaper published on the INTERNET, in his first book; he writes movingly from his 1998 reporting from South Africa on Mandela. http://www.mandelaachebechido.com/ •Dr. Chido Nwangwu, moderator of the Achebe Colloquium (GOVERNANCE, SECURITY, and PEACE in Africa) December 7-8, 2012 at Brown UNIVERSITY in Rhode Island and former adviser on Africa business/issues to the Mayor of Houston, is the Founder & Publisher of Houston-based USAfrica multimedia networks since 1992, first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the internet USAfricaonline.com; CLASSmagazine, AchebeBooks.com, the USAfrica-powered e-groups of AfricanChristians, Nigeria360 and the largest pictorial events megasite on the African diaspora www.PhotoWorks.TV . He was recently profiled by the CNN International for his pioneering works on multimedia/news/public policy projects for Africans and Americans. http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/07/29/mpa.african.media.bk.a.cnn E-MAIL: Chido247@Gmail.com wireless 1-832-45-CHIDO (24436).
Thank you, Mr. President Jonathan, for conceding very early and giving Nigerians a surer path to a peaceful transition. All supporters, please take a cue.
This is the time for both Buhari and Jonathan to come out and unequivocally call for PEACE. It's not enough to sign peace accords. This is the time for each of them to live it out. They should not hide behind overzealous supporters. A legislator or federal minister interrupting INEC's results reporting is unacceptable.
If anything, Jonathan and Buhari should both be on national media in this very serious waiting period and loudly call for peace and calm, regardless of the outcome. They are better able to reach their supporters and discourage any violence. As I have stated previously, they both must prepare to lose. It's as much a mark of statesmanship as is winning.