By Olu Fasan
THE 2015 general election was conducted under the watchful eye of the world. The flurry of diplomatic activity before, during and after the election was unprecedented. It was such a high stakes election that the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United Nations weighed in heavily from start to finish. Indeed, ahead of the elections, President Obama made an unusual video appeal to Nigerians, telling them that: “To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done”!
In his recently published book, My Transition Hours, former President Goodluck Jonathan described Obama’s intervention as “condescending” and partly blamed it for his defeat. But Jonathan’s criticism ignores the fact that Obama’s intervention was against the backdrop of apocalyptic predictions of post-election violence and possible disintegration of Nigeria. It was widely feared that if Jonathan lost, the Niger Delta militants would blow up oil installations and cripple…
