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Opposition supporters throw rocks during rioting with pro-Mubarak supporters near Tahrir Square in Cairo February 3, 2011. (Goran Tomasevic/Courtesy Reuters)
Sub-Saharan African leaders, particularly those with less than stellar records of accountable governance, are certainly wary of the upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt. However, while the likelihood exists that the bug may spread south, I wouldn’t count on a continent wide revolution. Some governments are all too willing to fire into crowds, and a weak national identity means people are not ready to die for their country. In other places, government is so weak, ineffective or irrelevant to most people that they prefer to rely on their social networks as the state withers away.
Nigeria is an excellent example. The Nigerian security services have a long history of using indiscriminate violence to put down social unrest. At the same time, people have become so alienated from the federal government that they have largely abandoned any sense of Nigerian national identity. In the end, many are unprepared to risk their lives for an entity—Nigeria—that they view as largely insignificant and absent from daily life.
h/t to Asch Harwood.
Ini nation states control significant per capita cash flows from oil or other minerals the elites controling the government will need to use violence to maintain the control of these cash flows. Nigeria, Angola, and Chad are just three examples of where this is already taking place without any lessons from countries in North Africa.
The need for violent suppression will increase the more that security forces humiliate people in order to protect the elites in control of the country.
In nation states that control significant per capita cash flows from oil or other minerals the elites controling the government will need to use violence to maintain the control of these cash flows. Nigeria, Angola, and Chad are just three examples of where this is already taking place without any lessons from countries in North Africa.
The need for violent suppression will increase the more that security forces humiliate people in order to protect the elites in control of the country.
There are lot of sit-tight dictators in Africa who could have qualify as good examples for this comparison with the situation in Egypt. On the otherhand,I don’t think Nigeria qualifies as one since there exist an opportunity to vote out an unpopular president every four years. Nigeria is a democracy and no president can stay more than eight years in Nigeria. In fact, nobody has ruled Nigeria more than eight years except Gowon who ruled for 9 years, and that was a long time ago (1966-1975), and may be Obasanjo, if we consider his 3 years as a military head-of-state.
Mr. Ojeah’s point about Nigeria is well taken. But is it plausible that the citizens of Nigeria, or of other nations badly governed despite provision of elections, could choose to protest against, so to speak, moving targets? Perhaps this is not the right expression, however, since the Nigerian security services do not quite constitute a moving target–although they surely constitute a legitimate target for protest.