American Woman Imprisoned in Nigeria

In this News article from allAfrica.com, posted on May 20th 2010, an american Woman was imprisoned for curency smuggling in Nigeria. Sharon Thorpe, along with her boyfriend, Nigerian Femi Atoms, and one other accomplice, were charged with 13 accounts of forging cheques, apparaised at $700,000, and smuggleing them out of the country. Sharon plead Guilty, but Femi is still at large. The accomplice plead not guilty, and is now in custody awaiting trial. Sharon has been charged with 26 years of hard labor.

This Sort of action by the nigerian Government shows that they are willing to prosecute anyone, even foreigners from ally countries, to the full extent of Nigerian law. This will give the anti corruption stance of the government an increased amount of legitimacy.

Death of Yar'Adua reveals the Anger of the People

According to the BBC Post "Death of Nigerian Leader exposes 'sham' Democracy" made on Monday, May 10th, Yar'Adua's death, though very tragic, actually has the potential to bring great good to Nigeria. Yar'Adua's Death has given Goodluck Jonathan a lot of power, more than he even had while Acting President, and many feel that he is likely to run for Presidency during the next election period, contrary to PDP doctrine of Switching th presidency every 8 years. This has a lot of popular approval from different areas, because the people don't feel that the region a person comes from is secondary to the ability of that person to deal with economic issues.

This Sort of change in political traditions, especially in a country like Nigeria, always has the potential to be very turbulent. However, if a true majority of the people feel that there is a better way to keep the democracy going than changing the hometown of the presidential candidates, then the legitimacy of the government will be helped.

Photo from Al Jezeera English

Grade this Post.