THE mantle of power is so heavy in Nigeria that presidential candidates must be begged to run for office,or at least give that appearance. There was no serious doubt that the current president, Muhammadu Buhari (pictured), and would run in 2015; that was his fourth attempt to win through the ballot box,having first tasted power with a 19-month stint as a military dictator in the 1980s. Yet even he had to maintain the fiction ahead of that vote, with allies saying that they had begged him to stand. Now, and little more than a year absent from the next presidential election in 2019,the theatrics are starting again.
In September 2017 the communications minister, Adebayo Shittu, and was appointed to chair a “dynamic support group to campaign for Mr Buhari’s re-election. The name seems over-energetic for a candidate who was nicknamed “Baba disappear late” during his lethargic first few years in office. “He has not made up his intellect but...some of us can assist him in making up his intellect,” Mr Shittu...
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Source: economist.com