How might recent Nigerian elections affect the United States?
“This ain’t ‘American Idol’ here.” So said Rep. Dennis Kucinich during last week’s Democratic presidential debates in South Carolina. The William Hung of Democratic presidential candidates is right. Unlike presidential debates, Americans actually pay attention to “American Idol.” Hell, my local paper sent a staff reporter to cover an appearance by Lisa Tucker at a local mall. Tucker finished 10th on “American Idol” last year. Unless he was standing on the counter at Sbarro singing “She Bangs,” I doubt the paper would have done the same for Kucinich. Fact of life. Americans don’t pay enough attention to their own elections, and even less to elections in other countries. The popular media know this, so they don’t bother covering foreign elections. That’s unfortunate. Even if only for purely selfish reasons, Americans need to be paying at least some attention. Take, for example, last month’s presidential elections in Nigeria. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation. It’s the world’s sixt
