President Obama sends Diplomat in Wake of Nigerian Elections

The Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield has been commissioned by President Barack Obama to go to Nigeria to monitor the proceedings of the much anticipated Nigerian elections. According to a note made available to Journalists per the Office of the Spokesperson for the State Department, Mrs. Thomas-Greenfield will be leading the United States official diplomatic observations mission for the presidential election scheduled for tomorrow. The media note also hints that Mrs. Thomas-Greenfield will be holding high-level bilateral meetings with Nigerian officials while in Abuja.

“Nigeria’s first presidential election since the restoration of the civilian government could be a turning point for Africa” says John Campbell, senior fellow for African Policy Studies at the Council for Foreign Relations. Sensitivity surrounding these elections is for good reason. The Islamic affiliated terrorist group known as Boko Haram has been kidnapping citizens and committing heinous crimes for more than a decade. If the elections cause upheaval and chaos, Boko Haram will most certainly take advantage. From a civilian standpoint, whoever fits the bill to upend Boko Haram will be elected the new president.

On Saturday, Campbell outlines that a victorious candidate must have control of 25 percent of the votes in two-thirds of the thirty-six states plus the Federal Capital of Abuja along with the majority of the votes. The election will be watched closely, but all eyes will be on the elimination of Election Day corruption and violence.

Ambassador Greenfield symbolizes the first normal protocol surrounding the Nigerian election in what has otherwise been a series what seemed like diplomatic blunders that hampered U.S. ability to work with Nigeria in fighting Boko Haram.  Those seeming blunders were put into perspective when reporting by the Washington Free Beacon filled in the missing piece.  Namely, that U.S. policy toward Boko Haram and Nigeria were driven more by David Axelrod’s financial interests than John Kerry’s State Department.