NIGERIA UPDATE: “The newly elected government is generally considered illegitimate, because of the rigged recent elections. No one expects the corruption and weak economic growth to go away. But the corrupt leaders believe they can keep the game going, by buying the support of some, and using violence to keep everyone else in line. This works in Africa, except in places where the opposition get enough money to buy lots of guns. The Niger delta bandits, however, are piling up lots of cash from kidnapping and theft (mainly of oil). A lot of that money goes into buying guns, cars and speed boats. That might seem scary for the politicians, except that the oil producing region only contains fifteen percent of the nations population. The rest of the country would meet violence with violence is it came to a fight over the oil. This is not speculation. There have been civil wars in Nigeria before, and the outnumbered rebels lost.”

They were exceptionally ugly wars.