A commitment to democratic politics

Keep these words of President Obasanjo in mind when the Nigerian Federal Assembly reintroduces his gay marriage ban (which, I have to keep saying, really just bans homosexuals from speech, assembly, and the press) [emphasis mine]:

[W]e can assure you of our unmediated commitment to moving Africa away from the past towards a new dawn of unity, harmony, love, tolerance, dialogue and democratic politics.

Mr. Obasanjo was speaking today in Paris at the "presentation of the 2005 Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize to President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal," after a near-death experience in his brand-new $70 million Boeing 737-800 presidential jet, and soon after his party's unsuccessful attempt to bribe Federal Assembly members to change the Nigerian constitution to allow him a third four-year term.