Nigeria s Failures as a Nation
At first glance, India and Nigeria appear to be two nations with as much in common as do apples and pears. India, which is home to more than one billion total Muslims and Hindus, is one of the world’s newest nuclear powers, seemingly more than willing to test them against her neighbor Pakistan. Nigeria, which has only one-tenth the population, is one of the world’s largest oil exporters, most recently making headlines for rioting in protest of the Miss World Pageant. ... Both were previously ruled under British colonialism and did not attain full statehood until well into the 20th century; India attained her state hood in 1948 and Nigeria in 1960. ... International debts in the billions, sluggish or non-existent economies, and governments riddled time and time again by political corruption have all become commonplace in both Nigeria and India. ... And as a result, Nigeria and India have followed two distinctly different paths. India has been a solid bedrock of democracy for more than fifty years, while Nigeria has barely gotten its feet wet. The central reason for Nigeria’s failure is most likely lack of time. ... What is often forgotten is that India has had over fifty years to experiment with democracy, Nigeria spent 30 years under the strangle hold of dictatorships and has really only had the last 4 or 5 years to try its hand at civilian rule. It seems logical to assume, that given a reasonable amount of time, Nigeria will eventually find a solid foothold and have a successful democracy. Economists inside and outside of India have repeatedly said that India’s democracy has been the cement holding the country together ever since 1948.