The irregularities reported in this month's Nigerian elections are a mix of elementary and intermediate techniques - deplorable, but all too common around the world. Whether their total effect was enough to call the election a stolen one is a call for statisticians to make. But seen in stark political terms, any judgment of the election has to take into account not just the voting process, but the context - those endless organisational difficulties, not to mention the high cost -and the most vexed question of all: whether the fraud made any real difference to the outcome.