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Comment by churchill | Hacker News Reader

Watching this brings back memories of Nigeria's 2023 elections. It was (one of a series of) turning point(s) for me when it slowly sank in that the country wasn't worth building a life in. Working remotely & spending in a local currency meant that for the past couple of years, I was insulated and could accumulate savings with little effort. But, the blatant corruption pushed me off the edge.

Quick scan of my social network just confirms the same: anyone extremely agentic, intelligent, or educated I know has either left, is in the process of leaving, or is considering leaving.

Last person out of Nigeria can turn the lights off.

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This is why my dad left Bangladesh in 1989. Over the years he developed hope that maybe things had turned around. For awhile, the government wasn’t quite so corrupt and GDP was growing at a fast clip. Then the people overthrew the government and now who knows. I could see that he was upset about having believed for the moment in the country getting better.

I've been through your comment history and I can relate. If you're highly placed enough as an elite, you can form a counter-elite and stage a change of government.

But, in most cases, if you have portable, in-demand skills, it's more reasonable to decamp to a better team than try to fix a failing one. The ones with enough proximity to make any change are usually co-opted, driven into exile, threatened into compliance, or straight-up murdered.

Based on what I read about her and the Awami League, I think removing Hasina will be a net-positive for Bangladesh. Yunus is a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist and widely-respected, and if they can keep AL out of power, and pacify any extremists, I think Bangladesh will quickly continue growing.

Awami League started as a socialist party, but had become pretty neo-liberal by the 2010s. The uprising ended up with Yunus in power, but the students had no real ideology. And Yunus id a smart guy who has no skill as a leader. That’s created a power vacuum that will be filled by Islamists, who Hasina had banned. The opposition party, BNP, definitely doesn’t have a majority, and they can’t win a fair election without the Islamists.

That's very sad to hear. I've been to Lagos and I always have wished I could have visited longer. As an American I found it an absolutely fascinating place.

I'm happy (?) you found it fascinating, but only because you were visiting. If you had to live in Lagos for, say, 1 year, your opinion would change drastically and you'd be eager to leave.

In many ways it seemed to be a very chaotic place, where money makes the rules, and most people get by however they can, some in the direst of circumstances. I can understand not wanting to live there long-term. But it's also a city of over 10 million people, so I can only image there's so much more to it. I'm just genuinely glad I had the opportunity to visit, because it made real to me the place and the people that I would otherwise only hear about on the news.

Brazilian here. Similar feelings.

At least people can actually audit paper ballot elections. In my country we use electronic voting machines. Attempts to add a paper trail were declared unconstitutional.

Considering the population growth of Nigeria I find it hard to believe that one of the most populated countries in the world will ever run out of talented people.

The systems eroding the country & making the educated & talented leave will make any new batch raised to self-select out of the country. In fact, successive generations of talented kids won't even be raised (or, only at a significantly reduced rate) because of poor investment in education.

Or, to be blunt: a syndicate of evil clown politicians have seized control of the ship of state, looting it of anything not bolted down, and murdering anyone who challenges them.

Fixing it is an extremely high-cost endeavor, so leaving is just the only logical option if you have a portable, in-demand skill.

Perfect example would be 1940s China vs. modern China. Same people, but went from a pre-industrial hellhole to a technological superpower because the gov. deliberately invested into creating a sustainable STEM pipeline and creating a nation where their talented young people are happy to live and work. Nigeria isn't doing any of that in any significant capacity.

On the population angle, Nigeria's politicians have a thing for fudging population numbers and realistic figures are closer to 120M to 140M, vs. the 240-260m Western demographers take at face value. I explained in detail in this comment here. [0]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44870564

Population may also be misreported because allocations and power for some depend on the population numbers.

See also the last presidential elections in Venezuela, where they did not even bother to pretend they did not steal the election, even under overwhelming evidence. A year later, we are still waiting for the official ballots.

That's almost the final level. The final level would be not even holding elections...

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