Abuja - It's harmattan time in Abuja - a hot, dry wind from the sahara blows through the city and stirs up the dust, bringing a haze to the air. Nigeria's capital, constructed under military rule in the 1980s, is a place designed for the car and not one that is easy to get to know. You drive from meeting to meeting without really getting much of a sense of place or atmosphere. The rooms are air conditioned, the conversations (depending on the interviewee) often repetitive and sprinkled with acronyms: PDP, APC, BH, INEC et al. I am here to scope out contributors and ideas for our new 'Nigeria Forum'; an analysis project that is building towards the elections in February 2015. A week is not nearly long enough to get to know the scene. But it gives me a chance to meet a variety of people and start to piece together what's going on. And Abuja certainly is a good place to come to talk about an election which looms, menacingly on the horizon. For the first time since the end of military rule in 1999 the ruling party has a chance (theoretical, at least) of losing. But ruling [...]
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