The worthless life of Africans

No wonder the Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo told the perplexed world this week that the Saturday state elections had "gone on very well across the country".   This is despite the fact that 34 civilians and 10 policemen have lost their lives in clashes over the weekend poll.

It beats logic why the leader of Africa's most populous nation should accept as normal an electoral process in which lives are lost and property destroyed.  Several factors could help explain this situation, leading among them the obsession with making the elections as not free and unfair as possible.  As a result, scant attention is given to the creation of a proper electoral infrastructure that ensures the conduct of elections is free and fair. It is common knowledge that elections however heated or big should not cause death and destruction. Otherwise how do countries such as the US, Japan, and others with comparable populations manage to hold elections without the unnecessary loss of life and property?