Turd polishers at Levick fail to put Goodluck in front

It raised a few eyebrows last year when word came out that Nigeria Big Boss Goodluck Jonathan had hired on American PR giant Levick to spruce up his image going into the home stretch before the election.

Apparently the millions lavished on Levick have failed to make a decisive difference. Nor has the six week delay in the election, during which time Goodluck had promised to vanquish Boko Haram.

While there has certainly been no shortage of declarations of victory over Boko Haram, nobody believes them. However, everyone is aware that the armed forces of several neighbouring countries now have a free hand in the north.

That can't be a happy thing for the Big Boss.

And while, under Goodluck's tenure, the one percenters have made out like bandits, millions have joined the ranks of the absolutely impoverished, the poorest of the poor, the two dollar a day crowd (and that's on a good day).

Insofar as the wretched masses will vote, it's hard to imagine them voting for more Goodluck.

Nevertheless, Goodluck will declare victory, the streets will erupt in rage, and after days or weeks or perhaps even months of violence, the military will step in to restore order.

Outtaluck Jonathan's impossible Nigerian quagmire

Nigeria watchers everywhere are wondering what the next six weeks will bring.

That's the timeline Jonathan has established for not only crushing Boko Haram but also holding an election!

I'm not the only one who finds this fanciful beyond belief. Sonala Olumhense has been writing about Nigerian politics for thirty years, and it's very hard to find even a hint of optimism in his most recent ruminations.

The think tank here at Falling Downs is betting military coup.

Democracy on hold as Nigeria heads down shitter

Nigeria has announced the long anticipated delay of the long anticipated Feb. 14 elections. Just for six weeks or so mind you - till that pesky Boko Haram menace is swept under the rug, which won't take long now that Goodluck has invited in the armies of Nigeria's neighbours to do what the Nigerian army has been unable or unwilling to do for the past six years. Maybe they'll even bring back the Chibok girls in the process, and hopefully the oil price will also bounce back in that time, thereby giving the incumbent something to crow about.

What could possibly go wrong?

Does Goodluck come up with this foolishness on his own or is this the handiwork of his US advisers?

From bad to worse for Noluck Jonathan

With less than two weeks to go before the general election, President Goodluck Jonathan's election rallies are being stalked by exploding suicide bombers.

This phenomenon can only assist Mr. "Law and Order" Buhari, not only in the north but in the rest of the country as well.

What many Nigerians readily acknowledge but few Western media outlets will report, is that Nigeria has long been a "failed state" by any conventional definitions of the words "failed" and "state."

Instead, what we in the West get is the happy-time story of the Nigerian economy mysteriously being elevated to the biggest and most robust in all of Africa! You have to wonder if we're just getting that message due to the efficacies of Goodluck's hundred thousand dollar a month retainer at Levick, one of the most influential PR concerns in Washington.

The reason everybody knows it and our media fails to report it is because Goodluck is down with our "War on Terror."

Buhari, on the other hand, is a Muslim.

The odious links between Boko Haram and the Nigerian military

You have to go out of your way a little bit to find them, but there's no shortage of stories like this one claiming a close relationship between Boko Haram and elements within the Nigerian military.

This should not come as a complete surprise. In many areas of rural Nigeria, the dollar-a-day folks fear the state at least as much as they fear the militants. And don't forget, the country has spent more time under military dictatorship than under an elected government. Democracy is more of a decorative façade than than an institution.

The corrupt buffoon running for re-election is spending millions on an American PR firm to burnish his image - not among the voters in Nigeria, but with his pals in the West. Is it a coincidence that America is threatening greater involvement in Nigeria just before the election?

I think not.

Goodluck Jonathan's luck running out

If recent polls are accurate, President Goodluck Jonathan's dreams of another term in the big chair are rapidly coming to naught.

As Fisayo Soyombo points out in this story, matters have gone only from bad to worse for the incumbent. The spectacle of a political debate over whether institutionalized corruption is really "corruption," which is really bad, or mere "common thievery," which is apparently not so bad, gives a sense of how out of touch the Jonathan administration has been.

The "Chibok girls" farce went from tragic to even worse last month with the much ballyhooed Boko Haram ceasefire proving to be little more than wishful thinking on the part of certain Jonathan underlings.

The news that Goodluck was paying some extra-smart white folks in Washington millions from the public purse to polish his halo leading up to the election has had rather the opposite effect, revealing him to be a shallow conniver who is concerned more with his image than with getting results for his people.

And if all of that is not enough of a gathering storm, the global petroleum markets are now conspiring against Mr. Goodluck Jonathan. Oil prices may be one thing he can justly claim no influence over, but if prices languish in the $60 range for long, Nigeria is doomed.

Or at least the Westernized elites are doomed. The impoverished masses have seen scant benefits from the oil boom, and will scarcely notice when it's over.