An Accidental Leader Stirs Hopes in Nigeria (NYT)

[On the Road]

ABUJA, Nigeria — The circumstances of Acting President Goodluck Jonathan’s accession to power are so odd that even he looks bewildered as he takes a self-effacing bow in this boiling, fractious nation.

He has not been elected. He has not exactly been appointed. He did not seize power in a coup, unlike many of his predecessors. And as a mild-mannered academic in a black fedora, he seems an unlikely fit in Nigeria’s tough-guy environment.

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Is this the man who can pacify a country with simultaneous on-again-off-again rebellions in the north and south, startling disparities in wealth, a shaky Constitution holding together the biggest population in Africa and 36 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, but electricity output feebler than Puerto Rico’s?

---snip

Yet Mr. Jonathan’s biography, as described by aides and numerous accounts in the Nigerian press, raises questions about whether he will have the requisite toughness to negotiate the minefield that is political life here: 36 powerful state governors, some controlling immense oil-fueled budgets; a large military establishment that has spent much of Nigeria’s 50 years of independence meddling in politics; and factions of northern politicians resentful that one of their own, Mr. Yar’Adua, has been prematurely sidelined before the 2011 elections in favor of a southerner.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/world/africa/20nigeria.html?pagewanted=2


“The war against corruption will be prosecuted more robustly.”ACTING PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN, in dark hat

Sounds like an uphill struggle. Good luck, Jonathan!