Nigeria: Democracy at the crossroads

Nigeria's presidential, legislative and gubernatorial elections scheduled for 2007 have the potential to be a huge milestone in the history and development of democracy in the country, as they will be the first time one administration reaches its constitutionally mandated term limit and must hand over to a successor, begins a document from the Centre for Democracy and Development. "But just as observers concur that the 2003 polls were in many places marred by fraud and violence, the 2007 polls also contain huge potential to go badly off-track; to become not a milestone in democratic consolidation, but instead one marked by malpractice, injustice, criminality, violence, human rights abuses and increased instability."