Nigeria Election Postponed

Flowers for Valentine’s Day

Lovely flowers arrived Thursday morning, with sweet words from my husband. Aren’t they pretty?

Election Day in Nigeria

I though I would be able to tell you something about today’s election in Nigeria, though I did not think we would have the final result yet. But the election has been postponed for a week.

Chinaku phoned us on Friday at 7 pm our time, 1 am in Nigeria, and said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was meeting at that very moment to decide. He expected they would postpone

Before I went to bed I read on Twitter that INEC announced the postponement at 2:30 am in Nigeria. This morning, Saturday, I read all about it in The New York Times.

Many people had already traveled to their home towns to vote, including President Buhari. Poll workers were ready to start work early in the morning on Saturday.

“The decision upended the plans of millions of people, including huge teams of international observers from the European Union, the African Union and pro-democracy organizations in the United States and elsewhere. Observers had fanned out across the country and set up command centers in hotel conference rooms to monitor the election,” The New York Times said.

The piece below from Pew Research is still relevant and informative.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/12/as-elections-near-nigerians-view-their-countrys-economy-and-political-system-negatively/

Turnout is likely to be lower because of the postponement, but whether that will benefit one candidate over the other is unclear.

Another article is in Legit, a fairly recent news site that Chinaku recommended. It has pictures of people gathered to hear the explanation of the postponement from the Chairman of INEC.

Stay tuned!

My Book Launch

I will launch my second book, Breaking Kola: An Inside View of African Customs, on March 7. The Westport Library and TEAM Westport are sponsoring the event.

My husband does not like performing the ceremony of breaking kola. So I asked my friend Ebong Udoma of WSHU if he would break the kola for us. He suggested I contact a couple of his friends and invite them to do the honors. I have. They have agreed and will demonstrate for the audience!

Although people in other parts of Nigeria chew kola (the phrase is always chew, not eat) and use it for ceremonial purposes, it is best known among the Igbo people. Ebong is not Igbo, and doesn’t speak the language, but his two friends are, and do!

If you’re able to make it, you’ll see the ceremony. And it will be in Igbo, since it is said that the kola only understands Igbo. They or I will translate for you, so you’ll know what’s going on. I’ll get someone to make a video and share it with you afterwards.

One Great Principle

In Governor Roosevelt’s address on the eve of the US election in 1932, he said, “There can be only one great principle to guide our course in the coming years. We have learned the lesson that extravagant advantage for the few, ultimately depresses the many.”

He was of course referring to the Great Depression. But it can be said about today too. I read figures like Jeff Bezos’ wealth is greater than the rest of the world put together. Well, it isn’t quite that, but it’s still alarming.

De-cluttering, also Known as Getting Rid of Junk

And how did I happen on that quote? I’ve been clearing papers from the basement.

My husband has never seen a piece of paper he doesn’t think he needs to keep! There are heaps. Most stacks are a mixture of important and junk. Sorting to find the valuable bits is part of the work.

A few documents relate to land disputes still underway today – those I keep. The Roosevelt address was in a small envelope as if hand delivered. Clem has no idea how it got into his papers.

Then there are my own, neater but still mostly ready for the trash heap. I have notebooks from my two years of study for the Yale MBA. Will I ever need to review Competitive Strategy or International Finance again? I think not! Even I wanted to explore those topics, ideas have changed in the 30+ years since.

I also found notebooks from international consulting projects I did soon after I finished the MBA. One project took me to Germany to interview people about environmental protection standards. In that notebook I found “Umweltpolitik, Guidelines on Anticipatory Environmental Protection” from the German government.

The booklet, published in 1986, is a guide to “avoiding and gradually reducing . . . all substances introduced by man into the atmosphere, water or soil which disturb or destroy nature’s ability to regenerate on a permanent basis.” Sounds like early climate change thinking, but did we even use the term “climate change” then?

What do you have stored in your basement?