Nigeria's Stumbling Democracy and Its Implications for Africa's Democratic Movement 9780313355875, 9780313355868

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NIGERIA’S STUMBLING DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR AFRICA’S DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT

Praeger Security International Advisory Board Board Cochairs Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs, School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia (U.S.) Paul Wilkinson, Professor of International Relations and Chairman of the Advisory Board, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews (U.K.)

Members Anthony H. Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies (U.S.) Thérèse Delpech, Director of Strategic Affairs, Atomic Energy Commission, and Senior Research Fellow, CERI (Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques), Paris (France) Sir Michael Howard, Chichele former Professor of the History of War and Regis Professor of Modern History, Oxford University, and Robert A. Lovett, Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University (U.K.) Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy, USA (Ret.), former Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Department of the Army (U.S.) Paul M. Kennedy, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History, and Director, International Security Studies, Yale University (U.S.) Robert J. O’Neill, former Chichele Professor of the History of War, All Souls College, Oxford University (Australia) Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland (U.S.) Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Newsweek International (U.S.)

NIGERIA’S STUMBLING DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR AFRICA’S DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT

Edited by VICTOR OGUEJIOFOR OKAFOR Foreword by TOYIN FALOLA

PSI Reports

PRAEGER SECURITY INTERNATIONAL Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nigeria’s stumbling democracy and its implications for Africa’s democratic movement / edited by Victor Oguejiofor Okafor ; foreword by Toyin Falola. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-313-35586-8 (alk. paper) 1. Elections—Nigeria. 2. Democratization—Nigeria. 3. Democratization—Africa. I. Okafor, Victor Oguejiofor. JQ3098.N57 2008 320.9669—dc22 2008009958 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright ©2008 by Victor Oguejiofor Okafor All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008009958 ISBN-13: 978-0-313-35586-8 First published in 2008 Praeger Security International, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This work is dedicated to all Nigerians (including those in the Nigerian diaspora) and non-Nigerians who have dedicated their lives and careers to the struggle for the establishment of a working democracy in that country.

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Contents

Foreword by Toyin Falola

ix

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments Abbreviations 1 Introduction Victor Oguejiofor Okafor

xiii xv 1

2 An Overview of Nigeria’s Political History Gloria Emeagwali

11

3 Nigeria’s Disputed Elections and the Resulting Leadership Legitimacy Crisis Victor Oguejiofor Okafor

17

4 Democracy on Sale: The 2007 Nigerian Elections and the Future of the Democratic Movement in Africa Nkolika Ebele Obianyo

35

5 Dialectics of Patronage Politics and Representative Democracy: The Case of Anambra State of Nigeria Godwin Onu and Makodi Biereenu-Nnabugwu

56

6 Is Electronic Voting an Answer to Nigeria’s Electoral Problems? Godwin Onu

79

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CONTENTS

7 The Role of Geographical Zoning in Nigeria’s Democracy Abayomi Ferreira

98

8 Nigeria’s 2007 Elections and the Future of Democracy in Africa: An Optimistic View Sylvester Odion-Akhaine

127

9 Nigeria’s 2007 Elections: A Great Danger for the Future of Democracy in Africa Adeyinka O. Banwo

134

10 Nigeria’s 2007 Elections in Comparative Perspective: Democratic Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy in Africa Rita Kiki Edozie

141

11 Democracy and Development in Africa: Important Lessons from African American History Sule Bello

165

Index

175

About the Editor and Contributors

189

Foreword

Nigeria and democracy are like Siamese twins: conjoined, they are uncomfortable and at the risk of death, yet the prospect of an operation to separate them generates deep anxiety, leaving concerned onlookers unable to breathe, sleep, or rest pending the outcome. The eleven chapters in this book reveal promises and hope, trust and betrayal. As we approach the second decade of the twenty-first century, we see a drama unfolding that has its origins in the past. Gloria Emeagwali, a talented historian, reminds us in the opening chapter of the rigged elections of 2007 and the possible motives behind them. If the current president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, came to power under dubious circumstances, what does this mean for Nigeria? Victor Okafor, the able editor of this book, answers the question in Chapter 3 in which he notes all the manifestations of a leadership crisis and the dangers posed by corruption. Electoral corruption, he correctly argues, is as bad as the theft of public funds. Okafor’s remark is cogent: “Gaining political office by snatching ballot boxes and by filling ballot boxes with fake votes is as unconstitutional [as stealing public money] and should be considered and treated as treasonable as seizing the reigns of government with a gun.” The challenge of conducting respectable, free, and fair elections is daunting. Nkolika Obianyo underscores this crucial point in chapter 4, arguing that liberal democracy is unsustainable without free and fair elections. When an electoral process translates into “commodities to be sold,” everyone suffers in the process. Patronage politics, a point developed in Chapter 5, becomes the norm: “godfatherism” takes over, poisoning the environment and turning politics into nothing more than an opportunity to amass a fortune. The book puts forward some solutions that might help to correct the process. One method is to use an electronic voting system, which may produce better

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FOREWORD

results, as Godwin Onu clearly articulates in Chapter 6. But, as he admits, the machine cannot work if there is a culture of corruption, along with a host of electoral, judicial, and police institutions that lack integrity. Yet another method is to expand the democratic space in such a way that all nationalities and people will be empowered instead of using the current system of zoning that distributes political privileges to the political leaders of the three dominant groups. For Africa to work, Nigeria must lead. Sylvester Odion-Akhaine shows in Chapter 8 that the success of democracy in Nigeria will have a positive impact on politics in Africa and discusses ways in which that would happen. The converse point is argued in Chapter 9 by Adeyinka Banwo, who believes the failure of Nigeria is negatively affecting the continent. In the same vein, Rita Edozie compares developments in Nigeria with those in South Africa and Kenya in Chapter 10 and concludes that if the crisis of democracy is not well managed, instability will surely follow. The final chapter by Sule Bello pulls various lessons from the black experience in the United States to talk about popular activism and participation in civic responsibilities. This book is both unified and coherent. The authors have the same motivation: to see the emergence of a viable democracy in their country. They write both as citizens and as committed intellectuals who are engaged in the pursuit of knowledge and answers to lingering problems. As a matter of substance, all the essays are rich in details. As a matter of relevance, they are dead right—there are undoubtedly serious problems with the country’s politics. Compounding this crisis is the challenge of conducting viable elections. The elegantly written chapters in this book enrich our understanding of Nigeria’s politics. If this book describes the failure of politics, it does not indict the innocent citizens who are the victims of the activities of corrupt politicians. Rather, the book reminds us of the role of an activist citizenship to empower themselves, and of dedicated leaders to shape, in an honest manner, an alternative path to a greater future. The essays present encounters with failures, but they also present encounters with hope. We are confronted with a fine-grained analysis of the problems, but we also see incisive analysis of the solutions, a clever chemistry of ideas that the Nigerian political class must not ignore if it does not want its countrymen to rise up in arms against it. Toyin Falola

Preface

Nigeria’s Stumbling Democracy and Its Implications for Africa’s Democratic Movement provides an in-depth, holistic, and critical analysis of the controversial general elections that took place in Nigeria in April 2007. It is the first comprehensive and book-length exposition on this subject. Made up of original chapters written by a group of leading scholars of Nigerian and African politics drawn from Nigeria, the United States, and Europe, the book captures the details of what went wrong with the state, federal, and presidential elections that Nigeria conducted on April 14 and 21, 2007. It also provides incisive and forthright discussions of the implications of those disputed elections for both the future of the Nigerian polity and the democratic movement in Africa. Those elections were held after eight years of uninterrupted civilian rule in Nigeria under the leadership of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. Although the results of the elections attracted nationwide and international condemnations, the overall outcome was a rather smooth handover of political power from one civilian government to another—the first in the political history of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with more than 140 million people. Following the elections, on May 29, 2007, Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian from the Southwest who had served two consecutive terms (1999 to 2003 and 2003 to 2007) as president elected on the platform of the Peoples Democracy Party (PDP), relinquished power to Alhaji Musa Yar’Adua, a Moslem from the Northwest, who won the presidential election of April 21, 2007, by a landslide. Although some commentators heralded this transition as a step forward in Nigeria’s political history, which had been dominated and punctuated by long years of military interregna, many more observers and critics pronounced it a sad day for Nigeria’s fledgling democracy due to the widespread rigging and shortcomings that

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marked the April 2007 elections. To critics, including internal and international teams that observed the polls, those elections fell significantly short of basic standards of free and fair elections. Because Nigeria is a microcosm of Africa in terms of its immense population and diversity, its politics represent a mirror by which to view and understand African politics and the ongoing democratic transformations on the continent. Thus, this volume will prove useful for undergraduate and graduate courses in African studies, including Nigerian politics and political economy; African politics; the African democratic movement; Third World politics; international relations; democratization; globalization and liberal democracy; and multicultural politics. Policy makers will find it a rich and reliable source and a hard-nosed political history of Nigeria’s ongoing experience with representative democracy and its impact on the extant democratic movement on the continent.

Acknowledgments

I deeply appreciate the efforts of the scholars who contributed chapters to this volume, but I take full responsibility for any errors and omissions.

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Abbreviations

AC AG ANC ANPP APGA ASGISA AU BEE CORSM COSATU CSOs DPA ECOWAS EFCC ERS EVS FCT FLN GEAR ICT IFIS IMF INEC KANU

Action Congress Action Group African National Congress All Nigeria People’s Party All Progressives Grand Alliance Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa African Union Black economic empowerment Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers State Movement Congress of South African Trade Unions Civil society organizations Democratic Party Alliance Economic Community of West African States Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Economic Recovery Strategy Electronic voting system Federal Capital Territory Force de Liberation Nationale Growth, employment, and redistribution Internet communications technology (also information and communications technology) International Financial Institutions International Monetary Fund Independent National Electoral Commission Kenya African National Union

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ABBREVIATIONS

LEEDS LYM NARC NCNC NDI NEEDS NEPU NGOs NIDO NLC NLP NMTU NNPC NPC NPN NTA NYM ODM–Kenya OPEC PDM PDP PPA PRP PTDF RMAFC SACP SAP SEEDS SOEs SSS TMG Transcorp TUCN USAID

Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy Lagos Youth Movement National Rainbow Coalition National Council of Nigerian Citizens (also the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons) National Democratic Institute National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy Northern Elements Progressive Union Non-governmental organizations Nigerians in Diaspora Organization Nigerian Labor Congress Nigerian Labor Party Nigerian Motor Transport Union Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Northern Peoples Congress National Party of Nigeria Nigerian Television Authority Nigerian Youth Movement Orange Democratic Movement Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries People’s Democratic Movement Peoples Democratic Party Progressive Peoples Alliance People’s Redemption Party Petroleum Technology Development Fund Federal Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission South African Communist Party Structural adjustment program State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy State-owned enterprises State Security Service Transition Monitoring Group Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc. Trade Union Congress of Nigeria United States Agency for International Development

1

Introduction Victor Oguejiofor Okafor

The idea for this book, Nigeria’s Stumbling Democracy and Its Implications for Africa’s Democratic Movement, was born on the day that the first results of Nigeria’s 2007 general elections were published on the Internet. In the days that followed, there occurred an almost global outrage at the abuses that had attended this electoral process, which optimistic analysts said would make Nigeria one of the working democracies of the world. Those hopes were dashed, as is now common knowledge. As a writer, my works tend to be inspired by specific events that occur within the orbit of my intellectual concerns. This was how the idea and title of this book germinated, and I then began to research and develop a monograph on the subject. But it soon became clear to me that this work would benefit from the insights of like-minded colleagues. Thus, I compiled a list of scholars of Nigerian and African politics, located in Nigeria, the United States, and Europe, who had published stimulating and substantive works on the twin subjects of Nigerian democracy and the democratic movement in Africa. I sent off a quick e-mail note to them, informing them about my desire to develop this volume and inviting their chapter contributions. Roughly 70 percent of the scholars responded positively, making this book a reality. I believe that Nigerians, at the core, cherish the values of democracy and crave for their institutionalization as the foundation for governance. As shown by the often huge turnouts on Nigerian election days, despite security challenges and severe shortcomings on the part of institutions charged with administering elections, and despite their doubt that their votes would be counted at the end of the process, most Nigerians aspire to be ruled and represented by persons that they elected to do so. Hence, I objected to one scholar who refused to participate in

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this project unless I changed the title of the work to Democracy on Trial in Nigeria. I disagreed with him because, as the component essays of this work will demonstrate to the reader, what is at stake is not whether representative democracy is workable in Nigeria, given her history and culture, but whether the Nigerian elite can muster the will to allow democratic ethos to flourish and whether that elite can commit to managing Nigerian political institutions according to rules and regulations. Dr. Gloria Emeagwali’s brief Chapter 2 provides a synopsis of critical periods of Nigeria’s political evolution. It encompasses several phases: 1886 through 1914, a period during which the British occupied a set of city-states, kingdoms, and empires that are enclosed in the territory that is now called Nigeria; 1914 through 1960, which witnessed a period of consolidation for the British conquerors; 1960 through 1965, which saw the First Republic of an independent Nigeria; 1966 through 1979, which witnessed Nigeria’s first military interregnum, ending with a handover to an elected civilian administration; and 1983 through1999, which saw the country back in the hands of military rulers who relinquished power to an elected civilian government in 1999 to mark the beginning of the current Fourth Republic. Dr. Victor Oguejiofor Okafor’s Chapter 3, “Nigeria’s Disputed Elections and the Resulting Leadership Legitimacy Crisis,” chronicles the national and international controversies provoked by the botched elections. Placing his discussion in a historical context, he points out that the 2007 electoral experience in Nigeria is merely a continuum on Nigeria’s checkered experimentations with democratic governance. Okafor demonstrates parallels between the 2007 elections and past general elections in that country in terms of their general lack of credibility. He argues that the degree of malpractice reported by both internal and external observers about the 2007 elections places a question mark on the legitimacy of almost all of the political officeholders who were elected and sworn in on the basis of those elections, characterized by observers as the worst in Nigeria’s history. Analyzing the chorus of calls that were made by opposition parties for the cancellation of those troubled elections, as well as other postelection developments in the country, Okafor concludes that the fate of Nigeria’s current effort to govern itself through the system of representative democracy now rests in the hands of the judicial branch of government, which is saddled with the handling of numerous petitions filed by those who lost their elections at the state and national levels. In Chapter 4, “Democracy on Sale: The 2007 Elections and the Future of the Democratic Movement in Africa,” Dr. Nkolika Ebele Obianyo states that Nigeria’s current experiment with electoral democracy has become a victim of extreme commercialization. What goes on at present in Nigeria in the name of democracy, she contends, amounts to a devaluation and deconstruction of democracy itself. She describes this perversion as a form of democracy that is available for sale to the highest bidder. But what is to blame for this rather sordid state of Nigeria’s electoral democracy?

INTRODUCTION

3

Obianyo suggests that to answer this question, an investigator needs to look beyond the deficiencies that characterized the elections of 2007 and cast a limelight on the nature of the state itself. For her, the primary source of the anomalies extant in contemporary Nigerian politics is the economic ideology and practice that has underpinned Nigeria’s ongoing civilian rule. It is a market-oriented economic ideology whose implementation has impoverished and disempowered the people who should be the beneficiaries of democratic governance. As a result of the disempowering and impoverishing consequences of these economic policies pursued by the civilian government, the people have become complacent and disillusioned. Obianyo argues forcefully that market-oriented economic reforms driven by the structural adjustment program (SAP) that successive Nigerian governments embarked upon (even prior to the current third wave democratization movement that included Olusegun Obasanjo’s two-term presidency from 1999 to 2007), have resulted in a shrinking, rather than an enlargement, of the democratic space. Those economic reforms, she contends, have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. Worse still, the reforms have compromised Nigeria’s sovereignty by externalizing important national economic decision making. Obianyo claims that the nature of privatization of publicly owned corporations brought about by the SAPguided reforms has exacerbated the economic distress of most of the population, worsened the unemployment situation, and increased the gap between the rich and the poor. She suggests that this economic ideology, which valorizes market norms and polarizes society into opposing camps of the rich and the poor, poses a threat to the future of democracy in Africa. Obianyo also fingers Obasanjo’s failed third-term ambition and the concomitant feud with ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar as additional background factors that undergirded the malpractices and anomalies witnessed during the 2007 elections. She avers that these factors set the stage for the massive fraud and cheating that reportedly characterized those elections. What then is the future of Nigeria’s experimentation with representative democracy? Surprisingly, Obianyo answers that question with a sense of optimism. She says that despite the malfeasance and abuses that tainted the 2007 elections, there is a reasonable basis for expecting a bright future for Nigeria’s democracy. In her view, the basis of this hope is the unquenchable democratic spirit of the Nigerian people—a democratic disposition that, she argues, accounts for the fact that dictators have not lasted long in Nigeria’s political history. It was this same abiding spirit of democracy within the Nigerian polity that not only helped to dislodge the military from political power, but also stopped Obasanjo’s drive for a third presidential term of office. Obianyo points out that something unintended has resulted from the mishandled elections of 2007: a renewal of the Nigerian public’s confidence in the judicial branch of government. Chapter 5, co-authored by Drs. Godwin Onu and Makodi Biereenu-Nnabugwu, represents a logical progression from the preceding chapter’s macro-analysis of the 2007 elections. Their chapter zeroes in on the particular experience of one of the

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thirty-six states of Nigeria; hence, it is aptly titled “Dialectics of Patronage Politics and Representative Democracy: The Case of Anambra state of Nigeria.” In this chapter, Onu and Biereenu-Nnabugwu provide an illuminating discussion of the impact of godfatherism on Nigeria’s contemporary politics. Initially, they argue that, at the fundamental level, there is nothing wrong with the concept of godfatherism in politics, and that the phenomenon has been a historical part of Nigeria’s political evolution across its component ethno-religious regions. They observe that godfatherism can be a positive force for galvanizing voters in support of a political candidate or the godson. It can also help candidates for political office secure their policy platforms and secure the endorsements of opinion leaders in their communities. Godfathers can also help generate needed campaign funds for candidates for public office who need this assistance. On the downside, godfatherism, they point out, tends to reflect elitist politics and may be at odds with the priorities and preferences of voters at the grassroots level. Godfatherism also becomes a significant problem and a destructive force in politics when it is put to the wrong use. As a negative political phenomenon, godfatherism derives its wealth from the state, hence its desire, in a clientelist or patrimonial society, to secure control of the machinery of governance. In a developing and clientelist country such as Nigeria, godfatherism controls the state because of the weakness of the institutions of governance. Zeroing in on the Anambra state experience of godfatherism, the authors report that since its inception in 1991, the state has been a victim of political godfathers who regard politics as an economic investment that must yield expected returns—not for the development of the state, but for the benefit of the godfathers. Godfathers finance political parties and candidates with the expectation that when these candidates take office, the sponsored parties and candidates will give the godfathers access to the public treasury. Monetary gain may not be the only motivation; desire for status and recognition may also motivate godfathers. Onu and Biereenu-Nnabugwu also draw attention to a host of factors that compounded the politics of godfatherism in Anambra state. Among these are what they describe as post-civil war syndromes, such as a cultural and moral decadence, which has enthroned a value system that valorizes the ideology that the end justifies the means. Another post-war syndrome is the widespread sense of political victimization that exists on the part of Anambra people and Igbos in general. Like other Igbos of Nigeria, the general population in Anambra state views itself as politically and economically marginalized in the Nigerian scheme of things. But the most vicious factor was the moral and material support that Obasanjo’s presidency appeared to have extended to the rascal godfathers of Anambra state. Obasanjo’s federal executive arm of government was not the only accomplice in the havoc that godfathers wreaked on the well-being of Anambra state. Citing certain court orders as examples, the authors also accuse the judicial branch of government of aiding and abetting the process.

INTRODUCTION

5

The authors conclude that the consequences of godfather politics in Anambra state have been devastating. They include the erosion of the right of voters to choose candidates of their choice because, for the most part, political officeholders were selected by godfathers rather than elected by the people. The monetarization of politics in Anambra state has also dissuaded men and women of goodwill from electoral politics. Aside from the imposition of public officeholders on key levers of powers in the state, the resultant diversion of public funds to the pockets of godfathers has led to the neglect of the socioeconomic development of the state and the overall impoverishment of the people. In Chapter 6, Dr. Godwin Onu poses and answers the question, “Is Electronic Voting an Answer to Nigeria’s Electoral Problems?” First, Onu states for the record that Nigeria’s 2007 elections were based on the manual method of voting, although the Independent National Elections Commission (INEC) had attempted but was prevented by the national legislature from using electronic machines in those elections. In any case, INEC did use electronic instruments for the voter registration exercise that preceded the elections. He then argues that the non-use of electronic voting in the actual elections was not responsible for the fraud, inadequacies, and credibility problems that plagued the 2007 electoral processes and activities. While acknowledging that electronic or Internet voting tends to be more versatile and flexible than traditional voting tools and could better serve the needs of certain voting groups, such as the disabled and citizens that live abroad, Onu points out that a set of preconditions must be met before electoral administrators in Nigeria can employ electronic or Internet voting to produce a credible balloting outcome. One of the preconditions is a resolution of the problems that recurrently plagued past elections in the country. Such problems include widespread thuggery, the inability of voters to participate in counting their own votes, greed on the part of the competing politicians, and a general lack of voter education, among other shortcomings. Furthermore, a successful application of electronic voting would require mass access to information and communication technologies, but Onu laments that most Nigerians who are eligible to vote do not have such access because a significant digital divide exists in Nigerian society. Recalling the reasons for the national legislature’s rejection of INEC’s bid to introduce electronic voting in Nigeria, Onu observes that most of the law makers did not understand the system, and many of their constituents did not have access to computers and the Internet. Additionally, there was a public fear that the incumbent Obasanjo administration might use electronic voting machines to rig the elections in a subtle manner that could not be detected by voters, opposition candidates, and the courts of law that would invariably adjudicate resultant election petitions. Onu goes on to identify other factors that impeded the introduction of electronic voting during the last elections. There was an absence of necessary voter education about the system in a country where most eligible voters lack familiarity with the most basic methods of voting. For its part, the government

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made no effort to commission necessary research into the system. Furthermore, INEC’s experimental use of voting machines in the voter registration exercise that preceded the general elections revealed significant operational pitfalls. For instance, there was neither a systematic education of potential registrants nor clear information about registration venues. Other problems that surfaced during the voter registration activity included the inadequacy of basic infrastructure, such as electricity and knowledgeable manpower. The end result was that a large number of eligible voters could not register to vote. Returning to problems that have historically bedeviled Nigerian elections, Onu concludes that the country continues to face issues that cannot be fixed by the mere introduction of electronic voting. Such issues, which have constituted electoral stumbling blocks in the past, include the poverty and want of electoral officials, which makes them susceptible to corruption; and a preponderance of poor and unemployed electoral contestants who are vulnerable to the dictates and manipulation of political godfathers because their campaigns have been financed by these godfathers. Other obstacles to a successful introduction of electronic voting in Nigeria include the ineffectiveness of institutions of state—such as the police, the electoral commission, and the judiciary—that are supposed to be the engines for a workable electoral system. Chapter 7 turns to one of the features of the extant political order in Nigeria that holds far-reaching implications for the viability of the Nigerian political state. Dr. Abayomi Ferreira provides a thought-provoking examination of “the role of geographical zoning in Nigeria’s Democracy”—one that also raises a profound question about the adequacy of the 1999 constitution by which the country runs itself at the present time. Ferreira’s chapter argues that the concept and practice of geographical zoning (which is more popularly referred to as the federal character principle) in the allocation of political and bureaucratic offices in Nigeria has worked to the detriment of the nation’s economic development. Nigeria’s operative constitution of 1999 embodies a provision that national governments should apply the federal character in the allocation of governmental positions. States and local governments are also enjoined to ensure that in their political and bureaucratic appointments, consideration is taken of the diversity of peoples within their areas of jurisdiction. Ferreira traces the roots of Nigeria’s politics of geographical zoning to the age-old struggles for power and control over the economic resources of the country by politicians from Nigeria’s three dominant ethnic groups (Hausa/Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba), along with their counterparts from ethnic minorities. He contends that the politicians were motivated by a thirst for personal enrichment and not necessarily by a desire for the development of their communities. The author also contends that this quest for the sharing of the so-called national cake of Nigeria was behind the clamor for the creation of more and more states—a clamor that led eventually to the breaking up of the country into thirty-six states and 776 local government areas. To him, the economic viability of those state and local governing structures is questionable, given that the thirty-six states and the

INTRODUCTION

7

more than 700 local governments have depended for survival upon financial allocations from the national government—national revenue that is derived principally from Nigeria’s sale of crude oil. He claims that without those revenue allocations from the national government, most of the thirty-six states would not have survived. The Second Republic’s ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and the current Fourth Republic’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have elevated geographical zoning to its highest levels in Nigerian political office distribution and political discourse. They explicitly filled key national, state, and local political offices, including the presidency, on the basis of geographical zoning. Such zoning initially involved rotation of offices between the two main geographical zones of the country, namely the north and the south, but later evolved into six sub-geographical zones. A federal character commission is charged with ensuring that geographical zoning is enforced in the recruitment, promotion, and replacement of federal employees. Ferreira holds that enforcement of the federal character principle tends to lead to the hiring of unqualified individuals. The end result, he notes, has been a decline in standards and in effectiveness of public services in the country. He then concludes that geographical zoning has negated national development and diminished the Nigerian quality of life. In Chapter 8, entitled “Nigeria’s 2007 Elections and the Future of Democracy in Africa: An Optimistic View,” Dr. Odion-Akhaine analyzes the 2007 elections in the context of the general political transitional trends in Africa. He argues that the abuses and violence that marked those elections were the consequences of a set of structural impediments to the institutionalization of genuine democracy in Nigeria. Such structural impediments include personalized rule, ethnic and religious crises, the lack of virile support institutions for democracy, and a lack of legitimacy on the part of those who exercise political power. Nigeria, he says, does not boast an embedded elite—that is, a sufficient proportion of the elite population that is committed to democratic ideals and norms. Not enough of the Nigerian elite regard sovereignty as something that should derive from the people as opposed to the parliament. Making matters worse, he states, is that Nigeria’s community of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) largely owes its allegiance to the international system rather than to the Nigerian people. In short, he declares, Nigeria is attempting to build a democracy without democrats. A consequence of this situation is that Nigeria is now drifting toward authoritarianism. And this drift, he holds, typifies a continental trend. Broad masses of Nigerians are filled with democratic aspirations, but so far all that they have received is a modified form of authoritarianism. For most Africans, such as Nigerians, democracy remains a mere dream, he contends. Odion-Akhaine, however, recalls that despite Nigeria’s disappointing handling of the 2007 elections, the leadership, over the years—including the period when the country was under military rule—has tended to support democratic transitions in the West African sub-region. Odion-Akhaine cites Sierra Leone,

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Liberia, and Sao-Tome and Principe as examples of places where the Nigerians championed democratic transitions. But the author worries that the subversion of democratic norms and practices that occurred during the 2007 elections in Nigeria could affect the rest of the continent negatively, particularly the West African region, because Nigeria’s bad example could be copied by political leaderships on the continent that would like to move in an authoritarian direction in the name of saving democracy. However, all hope is not lost. Odion-Akhaine concludes that Nigeria still faces the possibility of political redemption. Such political redemption could come about through a reform of the electoral process and through an exemplary political leadership that manifests a commitment to true democratic norms and the rule of law. Taking up where the preceding author left off, Dr. Adeyinka O. Banwo contends in Chapter 9, “Nigeria’s 2007 Elections: A Great Danger for the Future of Democracy in Africa,” that Nigeria’s 2007 elections represented a litmus test of the continent’s readiness to internalize a culture of democratic norms. Pronouncing the April 2007 elections as a failure, Banwo opines that one of the possible consequences of that failure would be a boost to corruption and authoritarian rule across the continent. In fact, he contends that as a result of the election debacle in Nigeria, Africa may have lost all the ground that it gained in the 1980s and 1990s in the development of multiparty democratic competition. He foresees the possibility of a return to the era of military seizures of power and a resurgence of civil wars and religious disturbances. The mishandling of the 2007 elections could also lead to a rise in the ranks of ethnic warlords and Islamists who might now be convinced that the only effective avenue to power lies outside the established democratic structures. Nonetheless, Banwo still perceives a chance for political redemption in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. But such redemption, he says, can be pulled off only if democratic movements across the continent take it upon themselves to mobilize and educate their grassroots constituencies about democratic ethos and governance. Banwo then calls upon the democratic movements to press for the actualization of the goals of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. Only the democratic movements can perform this task because the African ruling political elite has failed, he explains. Suggesting that the botched elections in Nigeria must have damaged Nigeria’s image and standing within Africa and among the international community, Banwo regrets that Nigeria can no longer offer credible counsel to African nations that go astray in the administration of elections. Finally, he concludes, Nigeria of the post-2007 elections is now more likely than ever to lose out to South Africa or Egypt in their bids to secure a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Dr. Rita K. Edozie’s Chapter 10, “Nigeria’s 2007 Elections in Comparative Perspective: Democratic Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy in Africa,” takes the position that the controversial elections reflect deep-seated economic and

INTRODUCTION

9

political dilemmas that are characteristic of the nature of the developmental ideology that Nigeria has pursued in recent years. Edozie holds that new democracies in Africa and other parts of the developing world face a crisis of governance arising not only from intrinsic factors, but also from extrinsic pressures that make it more difficult for them to perform as well as the old democracies. She uses three case studies to illustrate and buttress her point: Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya. Edozie explains that the three countries share a common trend. They are engaged in a simultaneous pursuit of capitalist development, class development, and democratic development in the context of a trickle-down neo-liberal ideology that has created enormous discontent on the part of important stakeholders. Each of these countries has experienced a succession crisis in its new democratic experimentation. And each has a record of mass dissatisfaction with the results of democratic rule. In Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya, there is a general sentiment that elections have not been free and fair, coupled with a perception that the decisions of elected officials have not converged with the needs and desires of the electorate. In comparison with the other two countries, Nigeria is experiencing the most severe crisis of democracy. However, Edozie advises that in making judgments about the economic performances and capacities of Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya to distribute democratic dividends, the reader should take into account that, compared with the affluent and advanced democracies, these three developing countries are relatively poor. In conclusion, Edozie points out that although the three case studies of Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya share notable similarities in terms of their common pursuits of capitalist democracy, they also exhibit important differences, which are rooted in each country’s political history and political leadership style. For instance, the South African government of President Thabo Mbeki responded to public outcries about the impact of an earlier and harsher version of its neo-liberal economic strategy by making adjustments to the strategy, whereas Nigeria’s ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo inflexibly stood by his own neo-liberal strategy that neglected the distributional and poverty-alleviating dimensions of economic development. In closing, Dr. Sule Bello’s Chapter 11, “Democracy and Development in Africa: Important Lessons from African American History,” calls upon Africans, African governments, and NGOs to take some cues from how descendants of Africa in the New World, particularly African Americans, had waged their protracted struggles for freedom from slavery and institutionalized racism, and their extant struggles against the challenges of their existence as a racial minority. Emphasizing that a working democracy is a sine qua non for sustainable development, Dr. Bello argues that contemporary efforts on the African continent toward the institutionalization of democracy and against tyrannical rule could make use of grassroots-oriented strategies and tactics applied by African Americans during their own historic battles against racial oppression. He recalls that the

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modern development of democracy in Africa had its foundation in continental struggles for independence and liberation waged by the nationalists against European colonial domination from the 1950s to the early 1990s, and reminds Africans that African Americans played a crucial and facilitative role in those struggles. Pointing to specifics, he recalls that African descendants in the New World contributed to the development of ideas and movements, such as panAfricanism and African nationalism, that aided the process of Africa’s reattainment of independence from colonial rule. Thus, in the present era, Africa can also mobilize a concerted Pan-African approach toward its aspirations for democracy and development.

2

An Overview of Nigeria’s Political History Gloria Emeagwali

This chapter shall, first of all, briefly highlight major periods in Nigerian historical development since the late nineteenth century. It will then provide some of the available information on the newly elected Nigerian president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

BACKGROUND HISTORY 1886–1914 Between the 1880s and 1914, the British invaded and conquered various citystates, kingdoms, and empires within the region that subsequently became known as Nigeria. This episode was part of a new expansionist offensive launched in Africa by several European states in the context of rivalry and competition. The Europeans were in search of lubricants for their expanding rail systems, vegetable oils, rubber, copper, tin, and a host of industrial minerals. They did not want to pay for the resources and decided to acquire such products by means of plunder and illegal occupation.1 Nigerian centers of power included the Kanem Bornu Empire of the Sefawa Dynasty; the Sokoto Empire, comprising Kano, Zaria, Zamfara, Ilorin, Sokoto, Katsina, and some of the former city-states of Hausaland; the Benin Empire, the Igbo village democracies; and several other political formations.2 The year 1914 marked the consolidation of northern and southern protectorates under British domination. African resistance to alien colonial rule continued until the 1920s in Eastern Nigeria.3

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1914–1960 The era between 1914 and 1960 marked the consolidation of British power and the exploitation of Nigerian tin, vegetable oils, and rubber for the world wars of 1914 and 1939.4 Constitutional reforms moved the country closer to independence from colonial domination. Such reforms were due to union activism and high-profile nationalists, such as Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo.5

The First Republic: 1960–1965 Independence was eventually regained by constitutional means. Interestingly enough, there were allegations of election rigging by the British, to the advantage of the Northern People’s Congress.6 Other parties participating in the election included the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC),7 East; Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) (Northern/socialist and anti-aristocracy); and the Action Group (AG), West.

Military Rule: 1966–1979 The military rule of General Yakubu Gowon and, later, brigadiers Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo came about in the aftermath of election malpractice and economic decline. This era was associated with the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970, a war in turn associated with Biafran secession. An oil boom followed the OPEC oil price increase of 1973, and massive development projects were initiated. University expansion, infrastructure development, the establishment of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), and indigenization programs were among the accomplishments of this era, but Nigerians generally felt that the military leaders should return to the barracks.8

Civilian Rule The election of Shehu Shagari marked another attempt at civilian rule, but massive expenditures of petro dollars, flamboyance and extravagance by the elected civilians, and widely publicized incidents of corruption were some of the trends characterizing the short-lived civilian regime.

Back to Military Rule: 1983–1999 The Buhari-Idiagbon coup of 1983 dislodged the civilian government and promised to introduce new programs, such as countertrade with Brazil and

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13

south-to-south networking, to deal with the huge budget deficits created by the excesses of the ousted regime. The new government pledged not to accept the onerous terms of the World Bank and the IMF and to introduce homegrown reforms that would not challenge the sovereignty of the nation-state. The Buhari-Idiagbon junta symbolized the unity of the southern and northern segments of the population to some extent and ostensibly confronted the pervasive climate of corruption. They endured much longer than their predecessors but were soon challenged by a military officer popularly known as “the Maradona of politics,” after the famous Brazilian soccer player. General Ibrahim Babangida’s coup is popularly dubbed “the IMF coup,” given the swiftness with which its stagers endorsed the conditions of the IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs. Indeed, General Babangida was the recipient of massive loans, most of which found their way into German banks.9 By 1992 Nigeria was on the verge of reestablishing a civilian regime, when the military struck once again, ushering in an era of turbulence that ended in 1999 with the death of General Sanni Abacha, who had seized power in 1993 from the Shonekan administration.

Civilian Regime: 1999–2007 The election of Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, under the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), marked a return to civilian rule after several turbulent years of military control. The excesses of Sanni Abacha and some of his predecessors paved the way for a spirit of receptiveness on the part of the general population. Despite skepticism that the former military officer would be able to reinvent himself and become a democrat, the optimists prevailed. The regime, however, particularly during its second term in office, scored no points for tolerance or even honesty, proving some of the apprehensions to be justified.

April 2007 Despite widespread complaints of stuffed ballot boxes, delayed voting, and inadequate security, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a chemistry professor running under the PDP ticket, was declared the winner of the 2007 election. The illegitimacy of the election was clear to all observers, local and international. There have been numerous speculations about the reason for Obasanjo’s sponsorship of Yar’Adua and allegations of his complicity in the electoral malpractice. Was the president attempting to stay in office indefinitely by instigating a coup d’etat and the associated chaos, unpredictable as this would be? Was he attempting to be an active “kingmaker” in an effort to preempt a corruption probe into his finances? Did he simply want to give his rivals and adversaries in the party “a poisoned chalice”? Was the former president paving the way for his own rule by proxy, and would that even be possible, given the strength of character of Yar’Adua?

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WHO IS UMARU MUSA YAR’ADUA? Umaru Musa Yar’Adua is the brother of the late Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Chief of Staff at Supreme Headquarters during 1976–1979 and a civilian politician from the 1980s to 1997.10 A wealthy aristocrat and prince from Katsina, General Yar’Adua shared a jail cell with Obasanjo during the Abacha dictatorship. Indeed, General Yar’Adua had facilitated the election of Obasanjo. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua attended Government College, Keffi, and Barewa College, Zaria, before completing his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in analytical chemistry. He was influenced by the late Bala Usman, a radical visionary, aristocrat, and outspoken critic of past administrations, including that of the former president Olusegun Obasanjo. Observers recall a major confrontation between Obasanjo and Usman in Abuja in 2005.11 While serving as the governor of Katsina state from 1999 to 2007, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua instituted improvements in the educational, health, electrification, and water sectors. He encouraged the exposure of state accounts to public scrutiny. He also balanced the budget and avoided that financial pitfall of United States presidents, deficit spending. This did not surprise his admirers. He was a supporter of the peasant and working-class advocate People’s Redemption Party (PRP), which was in fact opposed to the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), the party of his late brother. He was also a supporter of indigenous knowledge systems and encouraged research into native flora such as the neem plant.12 His presiding over the affairs of Katsina state during the introduction of the Sharia and the persecution of one of its female subjects is certainly a blot on his career profile, and one must wonder if this is a sign of weakness on his part. There has also been criticism of his controversial political dealings in the governorship primaries with respect to Aminu Bello Masari, whom he initially supported but unceremoniously abandoned. However, his humility, simplicity, and clean record with respect to financial dealings in the state are seen as overriding these foibles to some degree. Some have argued that given the questionable backgrounds of some of the other presidential candidates, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was probably the best choice. Among the other candidates was General Muhammadu Buhari, a former coup leader and member of the military junta that ruled Nigeria between 1983 and 1985.13 General Buhari was seen as a disciplinarian who had the potential to curtail corruption. Skeptics, however, noted an earlier, unproven allegation of financial mismanagement and wondered whether his focus on “discipline” would lead him down the pathway to authoritarianism. In the case of former vice president Atiku Abubakar, governor of Adamawa state and another presidential candidate for the 2007 election, accusations of corruption have been rampant, although supporters admired his courage, determination, and willingness to speak out and challenge authoritarianism. Despite a turbulent election, marred not by U.S.-style hanging “chads”14 but by overstuffed

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ballot boxes and a host of other irregularities, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua emerged victorious. The opposition parties cried foul, as did international election monitors. President Yar’Adua has promised to improve on the electoral process during his tenure and to run the government not as the president of the Peoples Democratic Party but as the president of Nigeria. Yar’Adua seems to be an honest, unassuming leader, untarnished by corrupt practices and greed, with a record that presidential aspirants such as General Buhari and Governor Atiku Abubakar could hardly approach. The fact remains, though, that the election was rigged and his credibility thereby tarnished. The challenges confronting President Yar’Adua are many. He will have to find a way to challenge aristocratic privilege, cope with IMF and World Bank usury, and forge a meaningful solidarity between north and south. The Structural Adjustment Program of the IMF and World Bank should be completely abandoned and the oil wealth of Nigeria utilized in the interest of the majority of the population in the form of equitable distribution of resources at the regional and local levels. Loans from China are often interest free and without the onerous conditions imposed by the Bretton Woods twin institutions, so China should be the lender of first choice. Given the rise in oil prices to over 90 dollars a barrel by early December 2007, there is reason to harbor optimism for the oil-rich nation. Yar’Adua should also revive the excellent reputation of Ahmadu Bello University and other tertiary institutions in the country, while continuing the good work he began in Katsina state in the areas of primary education and health. He must have the courage to embark on massive transformations to make Nigeria a better place for all segments of the society. In the first 200 days of his rule, Yar’Adua made a few accomplishments with respect to the economy. The planned privatization process was apparently slowed down, no doubt to the chagrin of the Obasanjo cabal. Joseph King concludes that the former university professor is actually asserting his authority and proving that he is his own man, so to speak. At stake were two important oil refineries whose privatization has been reversed. Five former state governors have been charged with corruption, and one of the demands of the insurgents in the Delta region has been met with the release of Dokubo-Asari. But Yar’Adua’s intervention in the Delta region in terms of consultation and compromise must be swift and decisive, to avert the prospect of irrevocable secessionism. A charm offensive backed by immediate infrastructure and economic redistribution, in the areas of housing and employment, may do a great deal of good.

NOTES 1. This era of plunder is sometimes euphemistically called “the Scramble for Africa.” 2. See, for example, Toyin Falola, ed., Igbo History and Society: The Essays of Adiele Afigbo (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005); and Akinwumi Ogundiran, Precolonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 2005).

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3. See Adu Boahen, Africa under Colonial Domination 1880–1935 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). 4. These wars were essentially European civil wars resulting from German expansionism, Slavic nationalism, and European-derived ethnocentrism/tribalism. 5. See Ehiedu Iweriebor, Radical Politics in Nigeria, 1945–1950 (Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1996). 6. See Harold Smith, “British Nigerian Relations 1955–1966,” Africa Update 12(1) (Winter 2005). 7. Until 1959, the NCNC was known as the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons. 8. For more background information on this era, see Toyin Falola, The History of Nigeria (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999); and Victor Okafor, A Roadmap for Understanding African Politics (New York: Routledge, 2006). A sensational and racy but informative account is given in Karl Maier, This House Has Fallen (New York: Public Affairs, 2000). See also Howard French, A Continent for the Taking (New York: Vintage, 2005), 26–47. 9. See Gloria Emeagwali, Women Pay the Price: Structural Adjustment in Africa and the Caribbean (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1995). Predatory lending is extensively discussed in John O. Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004). See also Gloria Emeagwali, “The Interconnections between U.S. Foreign Policy and the Structural Adjustment Programs,” in Gloria Emeagwali, ed., Africa and the Academy (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2004). 10. See Maier, op. cit., 156. 11. Reports suggest that Bala Usman challenged the integrity of the Obasanjo regime in a well-publicized confrontation in Abuja months before his death in 2006. 12. This is why there is some cause for optimism toward the development of shrewd policies in the sphere of indigenous knowledge systems. See Olayemi Akinwumi et al., African Indigenous Science and Knowledge Systems Triumphs and Tribulations: Essays in Honor of Gloria T. Emeagwali (Abuja, Nigeria: Roots Press, 2007), 1–15. 13. Falola, History of Nigeria, 180–183. 14. The reference here is to the irregularities in the U.S. presidential elections of 2000 specifically, the one in the state of Florida. Thousands of ballots were disqualified under suspicious circumstances in a major election of the world’s leading democracy. See Mary Frances Berry, Voting Irregularities in Florida during the 2000 Presidential Election: Report and Appendix (2003). See a relevant discussion in New African, vol. 468 (December 2007).

3

Nigeria’s Disputed Elections and the Resulting Leadership Legitimacy Crisis Victor Oguejiofor Okafor

Nigeria appears to be in the grips of a leadership legitimacy crisis in the aftermath of the significantly flawed state and federal elections that were held in April 2007. In these elections it was alleged that police and other security personnel assisted fraudulent politicians who reportedly engaged in various acts of electoral crimes against the people of Nigeria—allegations that placed a question mark on the legitimacy of the new political dispensation in Nigeria. As one commentator aptly put it, “Legitimacy in a democracy should be automatic. But what makes it automatic is the guarantee for free and fair elections. Since in the context of Nigeria, democracy was subverted by the sham conduct of the 2007 elections, legitimacy is a critical challenge for the Yar’Adua administration.”1 News media reports showed that all external observers of the elections pronounced them a failure, a charade, and a fraud. They include observers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the European Union, and the United States. Observers from ECOWAS, led by former Gambian president Sir Dauda Jawara, declared that the presidential and National Assembly polls were marred by “gross irregularities,” including late arrival of voting materials and snatching of ballot boxes. Former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who led an international team of election observers, characterized the elections as a “failed process,” adding that “the cumulative effect of the serious problems the delegation witnessed substantially compromised the integrity of the electoral process.”2 EU observers said the results of the Nigerian elections were not credible, pointing out that the elections did not meet elementary international standards for free and fair polling. Notable internal voices and organizations, including newspaper editorials and the Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC), also

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condemned the elections as failing the standards of free and fair polling. In protesting the outcome of the elections, the NLC stated that it “could not accept the outcome of the Presidential elections and the emergence of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s candidate, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as the President-elect, because it was predicated on a flawed electoral process.”3 Continuing, the NLC expressed convictions that “the long-term interests of our nation will be better served by rejecting these elections. Congress therefore, commits itself to working with broad-based interest groups to fashion a way out of what is clearly a national political crisis.”4 The organization went on to assert that “the result of the elections as declared last Monday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is a product of a flawed electoral process which was programmed to fail.”5 Joining the chorus of protests, a public statement on the state elections of April 14, 2007, released by the southeast chapter of the Nigerian Political Science Association said, in part: • No elections were held in the southeastern part of Nigeria due to the fact that electoral materials were either not supplied at all or were not accompanied with result sheets. • There were strong indications that election results were written before the date of the election. • Election results as announced were written to favor candidates of the ruling party. • State security agencies including the military and the police were used to intimidate the electorate.6 Since then, however, significant changes have occurred in the political landscape regarding the fate of the governorship election in Anambra state. Both the Supreme Court of Nigeria and a state election petitions tribunal declared that the governorship election that was held in Anambra state on April 14, 2007, should not have been conducted and was therefore a nullity. The term of the incumbent governor, Peter Obi, was extended until 2010.7 It’s important to note that in ruling the governorship election of April 14, 2007 a nullity, both the Supreme Court and the elections petitions tribunal based their decisions on the nowestablished fact that Governor Obi’s term had not expired by the time of the election. It’s thought-provoking that the irregularities and rigging that were reported in connection with the governorship election, such as those related in the preceding paragraph, were not the bases upon which the election tribunal declared it null and void. Rather, the tribunal’s July 2007 decision amounted simply to a re-echoing of the Supreme Court’s June 2007 ruling.8 All key opposition parties, including the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) and the Action Congress (AC), rejected the results of the April 14 and April 21 elections, and it appeared that only the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was pleased with the outcome. Of course, its presidential flag bearer,

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Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and most of its governorship candidates were winners in these highly disputed elections. INEC announced that Yar’Adua received 24.8 million votes, which was 70 percent of the ballots cast. His closest challengers, Major General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) and Atiku Abubakar of Action Congress (AC), were said to have received 6.6 million and 2.6 million votes, respectively. While still in office, then president Olusegun Obasanjo, with his characteristic inflexible manner, demonstrated condemnable insensitivity to claims and reports (that he himself acknowledged) that the elections of April 14 and April 21 were significantly flawed. He was reported as saying that the degree of irregularities associated with those elections was not high enough to warrant their nullification. Obasanjo tried, but not convincingly, to blame the flawed presidential election on the fact that the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) had to take last minute measures to accommodate a presidential candidate that it had disqualified, following a Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for then vice president Atiku Abubakar to run for the presidential office. Obasanjo explained that “following the Supreme Court judgment on Monday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was faced with the huge challenge of producing 65 million voters’ cards within 48 hours, shipping the cards to Nigeria and distributing to all corners of the country on time for the elections.”9 But months later in a new and surprising twist to the controversies surrounding the April presidential election, counsel for presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar disputed Obasanjo’s claim, alleging in a November 2007 electoral tribunal deposition that the ballot papers used in the April 21, 2007, presidential election were printed in Nigeria by the Nigerian Security and Printing Press and not in South Africa.10 Besides the ballot paper issue, in the aftermath of the elections, President Obasanjo also called on election observers to not just criticize Nigeria but instead to help the country, saying, “We should not be measured by European standards.”11 According to Obasanjo, “Nigeria has come a long way from when I first voted. We are better than 20 years ago.”12 The unanswered question is this: what degree of election illegalities would have convinced President Obasanjo that the outcomes of the elections of April 14 and April 21 were largely questionable? He ineffectually tried to blame the disputed presidential election on INEC’s last minute measures to accommodate presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar. If given the benefit of the doubt on the presidential portion of the elections, what could he offer as an acceptable explanation for the equally troubled April 14, 2007, state assembly and governorship elections that preceded the presidential balloting of April 21, 2007? Even if INEC’s last minute measures affected timely deliveries of electoral materials to designated sites, would that explain reported widespread snatching of ballot boxes or the outright lack of voting materials at many polling stations? One is disappointed that in all of his published postelection statements, Obasanjo did not condemn, in the strong terms that the situation warranted, the reported electoral malpractices of politicians and their hirelings. One would have expected the then president, as the leader of the nation and not just the leader of

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his political party, to say to the disappointed nation that all persons who are eventually found guilty of engaging in electoral malpractices would be punished severely by the law. But a bigger question is whether Obasanjo provided responsible leadership in his handling of this transition. History will decide that question. For now it may be sufficient to ponder the notion that the principal factor that has hindered “the emergence of a strong, viable and enduring political democracy in Africa is that of the absence of a responsive and responsible political leadership.”13 Be that as it may, disappointed Nigerians may take consolation in the fact that by the end of April 2007, INEC announced that 1093 suspects had been arrested and would be prosecuted for various electoral offences during the governorship elections of April 14, 2007.14 In any case, the then president’s view that Nigeria’s elections should not be judged by what he described as “European standards” is questionable. Obasanjo did not need to look to distant Europe for a basis for judging the success or failure of the Nigerian elections. For a context in which to make a serious judgment about the flawed elections of April 14 and April 21, he should have looked to next-door Ghana; he should have looked to not-too-distant Tanzania; he should have looked to war-torn and not-too-distant Liberia; he should have looked to nottoo-distant South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, and Angola; he should have looked to the fellow West African country of Senegal; and he should have looked to not-too-distant Mauritania. Was Obasanjo not aware that all of the preceding African countries, which are less developed and less economically endowed than Nigeria (with the exception of South Africa), had conducted reasonably successful elections in recent years? Although opposition parties called for the cancellation of the April 2007 election results, the dissolution of the present INEC, and the conduct of new elections under the auspices of an interim government, INEC’s national chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, insisted that those who had reported massive problems with those elections were merely crying wolf. Chairman Iwu was dismissive of the reports of international monitors and observers of the elections, labeling them “traitors and anti-democratic elements.”15 Iwu also stated that “the reports of the monitors and observers did not reflect what actually transpired on the election days.”16 Iwu’s incredulous outbursts could best be characterized as an assault on reason, given that the failings of the April 2007 elections were pointed out loudly and clearly not only by international monitors but also by Nigerian voices across the board—voices that cut across the north-south, ethnic, and religious fault lines of Nigerian politics. Perhaps more reflective of the disgust provoked by Iwu’s rather problematic defense of INEC’s handling of the 2007 elections were a set of rhetorical questions posed by Professor Nkolika Ebele: “Why is professor Iwu showcasing shamelessness? Does he think that we are all fools? Is this bravado to prove to the world that his conscience is free of the fraud called elections [that] he organized in Nigeria?”17 But what does the Nigerian constitution say about conditions that would warrant an interim government? The only constitutional provision pertaining to

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an interim national government stipulates that such a government should be headed by the president of the Nigerian Senate. The pertinent section, Section 146 (2), reads as follows: “Where any vacancy occurs in the circumstances mentioned in subsection (1) of this section during a period when the office of Vice President is also vacant, the President of the Senate shall hold office of President for a period of not more than three months, during which there shall be an election of a new President, who shall hold office for the unexpired term of office of the last holder of the office.”18 No interim government came into being, however, and winners of the disputed national and state elections, including current President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, have since been sworn in. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka was among the voices that called for cancellation of the disputed elections. And the ghost of illegitimacy that appears to haunt the new political dispensation in Nigeria was underscored by Soyinka’s description of Yar’Adua as “a Protem President . . . who is running a caretaker government,”19 asserting that “what passed for elections in Nigeria in April 2007 was an abuse of the word ‘democracy.’”20 In a statement echoing Soyinka’s sentiments, the president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba, said that although Yar’Adua had been sworn in as president, his occupation of that office “could only be legitimized at the conclusion of the [tribunal] cases challenging his election.”21 President Yar’Adua himself joined other notable internal and external voices in advising the aggrieved parties to seek legal redress. Initially, General Muhammadu Buhari, the unsuccessful flag bearer of ANPP, stated that he was not going to mount a legal appeal against the outcome of the April 21, 2007, presidential election, citing as his reason his displeasure at the Nigerian Supreme Court’s rejection of his petition against the disputed presidential election of 2003. He contended that this action of the Supreme Court had laid a foundation for the April 2007 electoral imbroglio in the nation. However, in what looked like an about-face, subsequent reports indicated that Chief Edwin Ume Ezeoke’s ANPP later mounted a legal challenge against Yar’Adua’s presidential election victory. So did Atiku Abubakar’s Action Congress (AC) and Odumegwu Ojukwu’s All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).22 After the filing of the legal challenges by the three opposition political parties, a new political twist occurred when General Buhari’s party, ANPP, along with the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), entered into an agreement with the victorious PDP to form what was called a government of national unity, despite ANPP’s legal contestation of Yar’Adua’s victory in the April presidential election. As news reports had it, Buhari did not go along with his party’s decision to enter into a political alliance with Yar’Adua’s government—a government that he considered illegitimate. It was reported that Yar’Adua would not accept a set of preconditions that Buhari had laid down for working with his government, one of which was that “Yar’Adua should see himself as head of an interim government that [would] preside over fresh elections in 18 months.”23 Buhari’s objection to his party’s acceptance of Yar’Adua’s invitation could not have come as a surprise to political observers who had followed

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his statements since the controversial April elections. In early May 2007 he issued a public statement in which he called for a halt to the May 29, 2007, inauguration of Yar’Adua as president. In what appeared to be an implicit appeal to Nigerians’ sense of honor, Buhari said that “inaugurating this government is a clear case of rewarding unconstitutional action which means Nigerians have agreed that cheating does pay.”24 He further pointed out that “going ahead with the inauguration of Yar’Adua and others who emerged through . . . the disputed polls would amount to institutionalizing rigging and fraud in the polity.”25 He worried that if the results of the 2007 elections were allowed to stand, “in 2011 they will just announce the result over the radio 24 hours before the election and Nigerians will have no say on who governs them.”26 So resolute was Buhari in his objection to the controversial presidential election that he was reported to have rebuffed attempts by some Northern traditional rulers (emirs) to get him to withdraw his election petition. As ThisDay relayed it, citing a spokesman for Buhari, “the General is very emphatic that it is not a regional issue. . . . It is a question of election irregularities and legitimacy. He will not bow to any pressure.”27 Buhari’s spokesman was quoted as wondering “why [the issue] would now be reduced to a Northern affair,” adding, “In 2003 when General Buhari filed a petition against the then president after the presidential election, he did so because he believed that was the right thing to do. It did not matter to him that Obasanjo was a Southerner. No Northern elder tried to dissuade him then. Why now?”28 Buhari’s apparent principled opposition to Yar’Adua’s presidential election victory was paralleled by the stance of another opposition party, the Action Congress (AC), which announced in July 2007 that it would not form a unity government with Yar’Adua. Action Congress was the political party that sponsored the unsuccessful presidential candidacy of former vice president Atiku Abubakar in the April elections. It’s worthy of note that unlike ANPP, which in agreeing to form a unity government with Yar’Adua, took a position different from that of its presidential candidate, the Action Congress acted in unison with Atiku Abubakar in its rejection of Yar’Adua’s request that it join in a government of national unity. The party said it would press on with its judicial challenge of Yar’Adua’s victory. Action Congress explained that joining a unity government would rob the Nigerian democracy of “a vibrant opposition and an alternative platform to the ruling party.”29 It also said that joining a government of national unity would have required the Action Congress to jettison its election petitions, adding that “the moment you agree to participate in the government, you have agreed to withdraw your cases, and this will not augur well for future elections and the development of democracy in Nigeria.”30 The party said it believed that “history will judge us as true democrats based on that decision,” pointing out that “joining the GNU would have amounted to a betrayal of its teeming supporters who were terribly shortchanged during the last elections which were heavily manipulated and rigged by the ruling party, using the instruments of coercion under its control.”31 Despite Buhari’s disagreement with his own political party over the latter’s decision to join the national unity government, the leadership of ANPP insisted— at least publicly—that its members who had filed various electoral petitions were

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free to press ahead with their tribunal cases. ANPP’s leadership was apparently attempting to have its cake and eat it too, by on the one hand joining hands with a president whose election it had challenged in court, and on the other, announcing that its aggrieved election candidates would press on with their tribunal petitions. This smelled like an embrace of patronage politics for the sake of some ministerial appointments or what some Nigerians like to describe as “a democracy of the stomach.” It seemed like an assault on logic for the leadership of ANPP to attempt to eat out of the hands of a government that it had loudly condemned as illegitimate. Buhari himself did not mince words about this apparent contradiction when he declared as illegal a list of ministerial nominees (including ANPP candidates) released in July 2007 by Yar’Adua’s government, contending that since ANPP regarded Yar’Adua’s administration as illegitimate, actions flowing from that government, such as the nomination of ministers, should also be construed as illegitimate.32 Buhari’s rebellion against his party’s consort with Yar’Adua’s government and Action Congress’s seemingly firm decision to not only reject President Yar’Adua’s political overtures for a unity government but to also remain committed to its legal challenge of his controversial election victory, came across as actions that placed principled politics above patronage politics— a relatively rare development in Nigeria’s mainstream political culture that could help sow the seeds for a political culture in which principle trumps political expediency. Similar sentiments are expressed in the following excerpt from Vanguard’s commentary of July 10, 2007, aptly titled, “Democracy of the Tummy,” which betrays a deep disgust with the inconsistency and the bread and butter politics that characterized the political game that was played with the idea of a government of national unity. Condemning the brazen patronage politics of the postelection period, Vanguard, most adroitly, made the following observations: The latest indication of this is the rush to be part of the so-called government of national unity, another step in the serial compromises that have been used in holding Nigeria down. Once they smelt the juicy trappings of ministerial appointments, the possibilities of access to national coffers under the guise of serving the people, the politicians jumped ship. They have forgotten their campaigns that dwelt mainly on the evils of the PDP government, only months ago. Most of them have stated that the elections were massively rigged, a position that they share with local and international observers.33

But the newspaper did not forget to give credit where it was due, for its editorial saluted “the courage of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari for standing against his party’s hasty entry into an alliance with the PDP,”34 adding that “the same goes for former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar who has rejected the overtures from the PDP. They are, with a few additions, the remnant of the opposition.”35 An earlier analysis of the 2007 elections asked, rhetorically, whether there was any chance that the notoriously sluggish Nigerian electoral tribunal process

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might proclaim the disputed results of the elections of April 14 and April 21, 2007 invalid before the May 29, 2007, date when Obasanjo’s administration was scheduled to hand over to a new one. Past records of the pace by which Nigerian electoral tribunals functioned indicated that a judicial overturning of the disputed results before the transitional date of May 29, 2007, was a forlorn expectation. The big question that faced the Nigerian nation was this: if the disputed results of the elections were allowed to stand—as has since been the case, and as the then president Obasanjo, the PDP, and INEC insisted—could the incoming governments function effectively against the backdrop of what seemed like a national perception that those governments emerged through a flawed and hence illegitimate process? President-elect Umaru Yar’Adua might mean well, and appears to possess what it takes to lead Nigeria in the right direction—given his track record of success as a two-term governor of Katsina state—but could he function effectively as president under a cloud of illegitimacy? He has since taken charge as Nigeria’s chief executive and commander in chief, and time will answer that question. The present situation is reminiscent of the national outrage that greeted the 1983 re-election of National Party of Nigeria’s (NPN) notoriously incompetent President Shehu Shagari for a second term following his “landslide” victory in the presidential election of that year. Even though Shagari’s earlier 1979 presidential election was forever seen by supporters of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) as an undeserved victory, and he later countered the resulting air of illegitimacy by forming an alliance with the defunct Nigerian People’s Party (NPP),36 his “landslide” re-election victory of 1983 in the midst of a deteriorating national economy—along with a new super majority in the National Assembly— was irredeemably tainted by a national conviction, held across the political spectrum, that his re-election was a stolen victory. Such was the stench that characterized the largely fraudulent state and national elections of 1983 that Nigerians resorted to open advocacy of a military takeover of the government as the only viable alternative for getting rid of a highly corrupt and highly incompetent civilian regime that came to be viewed more as a problem than as a source of national succor. It was indeed no surprise that a military coup d’état that occurred on the eve of 1984 expelled the political villains. What a pity that— judging by current events—Nigerian political leaders seem unable to learn from history! What a pity that the then president Obasanjo, who in 1979 came to be revered almost globally as a statesman (and rightly so at the time) for successfully handing over his military government to an elected civilian government, was the one who presided over what have been characterized as the worst elections in Nigeria’s history, namely the disputed elections of April 14 and April 21, 2007! One recognizes that there is no perfect electoral process, even in countries that have had centuries of experiences with elections. But the shortcomings that were associated with the Nigerian state and federal elections of April 2007 read more like the results of willful and deliberate criminal actions of political candidates and their hirelings to cheat and bulldoze their way to elective offices than

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the innocent products of administrative naivety or sheer lapses that occur in an imperfect world. It remains to be seen, however, whether the electoral tribunals that are currently reviewing petitions against the disputed election results will agree with the contention of internal and external observers that those elections were not free and fair. Although the Fourth Republic37 of Nigeria, which was led for eight years by Olusegun Obasanjo, began only in 1999, as a nation Nigeria is not a neophyte to the task of conducting regional, state, and national elections. Since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1960, Nigeria (despite experiencing a military interregnum for the greater part of its postcolonial life), has gone through several regional, state, and national elections, including those of 1964, 1965, 1979, 1983, 1993, 1999, and 2003. It’s instructive to note, however, that none of the preceding elections received across-the-board national acceptance, perhaps with the grudging exception of those of 1979 (although the presidential election of that year was disputed by supporters of UPN for allegedly falling short, by one state, of the constitutional requirement that a successful presidential candidate must win at least 25 percent of the vote in two-thirds of the states of the federation). However, most analysts continue to hail the annulled presidential election of 1993 as one that approximated basic standards of a free and fair election. At this juncture, there are critical and thought-provoking questions that all Nigerians—and Nigerian political leaders in particular—need to ask of themselves. One, how can one expect a fairly free and fair election in a society where most public institutions seem to malfunction in significant ways? Two, how can one expect a fairly free and fair election in a nation that as recently as 2006 could not come up with a credible headcount of the residents of Nigeria, otherwise known as a national census? The electricity generation and supply system is known for its chronic malfunctioning and seems to defy any solution. Almost nationwide, Nigeria’s pipe-borne water supply system is known for its chronic malfunctioning. The nation’s oil refineries are malfunctioning; so, long-suffering Nigerians have had to pay avoidably high prices for gasoline because their government has to import refined petroleum to make up for the shortfalls occasioned by an unreliable domestic refining system. In fact, in August 2007, a Nigerian newspaper quoted a government official as claiming that whereas the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) “lifts 445,000 barrels of crude oil every day for domestic refining,” the corporation “sells most of these to refineries outside the country because our refineries are not operating at full capacity.”38 According to the Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC), between 2000 and 2006, the federal government of Nigeria spent $18.6 billion on the importation of petroleum products.39 Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian billionaire industrialist who purchased two government-owned refineries under Olusegun Obasanjo’s privatization program,40 blamed the exorbitant price Nigerians were paying for fuel and diesel on inefficiency and corruption within the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)—a public

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corporation that manages the oil sector for Nigeria’s federal government.41 Dangote explained the situation as follows: For the last eight years, the government has given NNPC about $700 million to refurbish the two refineries (Port Harcourt and Kaduna). That money wasn’t properly applied. And even after it was applied, the refineries are still not working. They are worth nothing.42

Providing more details of the corruption that wrecked the petroleum sector, Dangote continued: There are too many people eating too much money right from importers, right from people within NNPC that are collecting bribes to allocate products. I am saying that because I know what I am saying. And I mean it: collecting bribes to allocate products. The problem is, we have a troop of army of people, including people who are getting allocation of this and that.43

In what seemed like a corroboration of Dangote’s indictment of the NNPC, in August 2007 a Nigerian newspaper reported that the chairman of the Federal Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) told President Yar’Adua that “the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) could not account for the sum of N555 billion [about $4.3 billion] from the federation account from December, 2004 to April, 2007.”44 In addition to the apparent mess in the oil industry, reports abound of retired public employees who are hardly paid their pensions and gratuities. In several states, teachers are owed salaries for months on end. Generally speaking, Nigerian public hospitals have been described as glorified death traps—hence, the tendency on the part of wealthy Nigerians and top Nigerian politicians to travel abroad for their own medical needs, while leaving the masses of Nigerians to depend upon an unreliable medical system. Toll gates that were set up on Nigerian highways for the collection of tolls from road users could not function as designed because the toll gate operators perfected means of stealing toll gate collections. They were consequently dismantled through a presidential directive. Although one recognizes that police graft is by no means unique to Nigeria and that the degree to which it occurs across nations may depend upon the effectiveness—or lack thereof—of each country’s anticorruption and fraud monitoring systems, it’s nonetheless no secret that Nigeria’s police force is distrusted by most Nigerians and in some quarters may be regarded as a national disgrace in terms of its general record of performance, although it’s not unlikely that a significant number of its serving men and women are persons of integrity. A recently released survey of public opinion in a cross section of Nigerian cities reported that Nigerians viewed their police force as the most corrupt institution in the country.45 This perception was keenly reflected in a June 2007 editorial by one of

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Nigeria’s leading newspapers, the Daily Trust. As the newspaper put it, “It is highly disturbing that the Nigeria police whose statutory responsibilities include combating corruption at all levels of our corporate existence has disappointedly become a brazen custodian of the sharp practices it was established to fight.”46 Not surprisingly, almost everyone who pays a visit to Nigeria from abroad comes back with tales of countless police checkpoints, ostensibly mounted for the apprehension of suspected criminals, but which are, in reality, sites of iniquity— sites for the extortion of money from travelers at gunpoint. So, the question to ask is how in the world did you expect a cripple to run when he could barely walk? Although one has yet to come across any denial of election-related wrongdoing from the national leadership of the Nigerian police force, the now retired police chief Sunday Ehindero was reported as giving “a pass mark to the police for a successful discharge of their duty in providing a peaceful and enabling environment for the conduct of the elections.”47 Whatever may be the case, it’s saddening to learn that about thirty-nine Nigerian police officers lost their lives in the violence that characterized some of the governorship and state elections of April 14, 2007. Eleven others described as civilians also lost their lives during that election.48 Since the elections, however, the leadership of Nigeria’s police force has changed hands, and the newly-appointed inspector general of police, Sir Mike Mbama Okiro, seemingly sensitive to the huge image problem of his force, has announced a war against police corruption. He is reported as having disbanded the infamous police checkpoints that littered the country and also established anticorruption teams in six geographical zones of Nigeria. His war on police corruption is not directed only inwards, for he was reported, rather impressively, as warning members of the public to desist from bribing police officers, pointing out that “henceforth both the giver and the receiver will face the same music.”49 But Police Chief Okiro did not limit himself to sticks, for he dangled some carrots before the law enforcement community. The carrots included a 15 percent increase in the salaries of Nigerian police officers, and the establishment of a trust fund by the federal government, which would cater for the education of four children of all serving police officers up to university level, and a package for the wives of officers that died in the cause of discharging their duties [to enable them] to continue to provide for the family and bring up the children of such officers up to the stage when the trust fund would take over the responsibility of their education to the university level.50

Okiro explained that the preceding package was “in addition to the new insurance scheme and other benefits that are to be enjoyed by all officers.”51 Such carrots constitute a step in the right direction, because if the government is to check the incidence of public corruption, it owes it as a duty to ensure that public servants, including the police, are provided with remunerations that can pay for a decent standard of living, including befitting retirement benefits. Although sheer greed may be a major motivation for corrupt behaviors on the part of

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offending public officials, it seems that a good welfare package may serve as an effective antidote against corruption that is induced by poverty. Although, as the preceding passage demonstrated, the erstwhile leadership of the police had commended its officers for providing what it described as a peaceful and enabling environment for the April elections, it remained silent on the opposition’s allegations that police officers acted as collaborators in the electoral cheating that allegedly took place in April 2007. In contrast, the leadership of Nigeria’s Military Defense Forces unequivocally declared that the military did not take sides with any political party during those elections. General Martin Luther Agwai, who served as the chief of defense staff for the Nigerian armed forces until June 2007, extolled the role played by the military during the elections, describing its actions as nonpartisan. The following is a pertinent excerpt from Nigeria’s ThisDay newspaper: Military authorities have explained the role of the armed forces during the April general election, clarifying that the role it played was in line with the nation’s constitution. Opposition parties had, since the outcome of the polls, accused the military of partisanship in their peace keeping efforts during the polls, alleging that they were used as instruments to rig the poll in favor of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). However, the outgoing Chief of Defense Staff (CDS), General Martins Luther Agwai, in Ibadan during a farewell visit to military formations across the country, declared that the military played its role according to its abilities and without fear or favor. He pointed out that military operations during the election were professionally done by his men and officers, which, he said, brought about the stability now reigning in the country. “If you see what happened during the elections, we defended the constitution, not the parties, not the party in power. We defended the constitution of this country and I am proud to say that it has brought the stability you see in this country today,” he said.52

Given the foregoing, it would appear that there is a disconnect between the Nigerian public’s perception of the role played by the military during the 2007 elections and the military leadership’s understanding and interpretation of the situation. Be that as it may, some believe that one of the underlying causes of the preceding problems and paradoxes of Nigerian society is public corruption that is fueled by an economic system that fosters greed and caters to the needs of a privileged few while leaving the masses to wallow in abject poverty, against the backdrop of a nation that is believed to be one of the largest producers of crude oil in the world. An annual statistical report by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) showed that Nigeria was OPEC’s third-largest exporter of crude oil in 2005, with an export record of 2.3 million barrels per day.53 Only Iran, with 2.4 million barrels per day, and Saudi Arabia, with 7.2 million barrels per day, were ahead of Nigeria. Although the rampant public corruption in Nigeria is hardly news to the ears of close watchers of that society, it’s nonetheless both noteworthy and praiseworthy that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recently reportedly recovered from

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some former state governors in the just-ended civilian administration corruptly acquired assets worth more than 100 billion naira.54 Another possible causal factor for Nigeria’s problems has been described as Nigerians’questionable loyalty to the nation-state. Dr. Adebola Babatunde Ekanola, in his article titled, “National Integration and the Survival of Nigeria in the 21st Century,” explained: With the adoption of federalism, various constitutional provisions have been put in place to guarantee the federal character of the Nigerian state, with the conviction that these would promote national unity, foster national loyalty and give every citizen a sense of belonging to the nation notwithstanding the diversities of ethnic origin, culture, language or religion that may exist. These provisions have not recorded the expected level of success, as some of them tend to jeopardize national interests in the quest for ethnic balance. Besides, it is observed that much of these constitutional provisions have not been respected in the history of the country. Political elites and the same officials who are supposed to guarantee the sanctity of the constitution consistently violated them.55

Given the apparent pervasiveness of public corruption in the body politic, along with the challenge of disloyalty to the Nigerian nation articulated in the foregoing by Ekanola, it may be hard to argue convincingly that the apparently insoluble power outages of Nigeria are due mainly to technical incapacity. It may also be hard to argue convincingly that the apparently insoluble shortage of pipeborne water in Nigeria is due mainly to technical incapacity. By the same token, it may be hard to argue convincingly that the malfunctioning of the domestic oil refining system is due mainly to technical incapacity. Finally, it can hardly be argued convincingly that the problems that plagued the state and federal elections of April 14 and April 21, 2007, occurred largely because of administrative and technical incapacity. On the contrary, in the view of some scholars, Nigeria possesses the human and material resources necessary for planning and executing successful local, state, and national elections. The cog in the wheel seems to be corruption-induced willful mismanagement that might have been compounded, here and there, by the problem of questionable loyalty to the nation-state. Even if INEC had laid out and tried to execute the best of electoral plans, and even if INEC was constituted of all the saints that Nigeria could produce, it could still not pull off free and fair elections in the face of what seems like a largely corrupt and compromised law enforcement and security establishment. Conceivably, elections are rigged not necessarily out of a burning desire by the Nigerian riggers to have a chance to “serve the people,” but because of the illicit personal enrichment that is expected to accrue from having an elective office. As Agulanna ruefully put it, A lot of wheeling and dealing goes on in the Nigerian society. Corruption and social vices, political assassinations, and the daily killing and elimination of perceived enemies are daily occurrences in the country. . . . From independence until now, Nigeria

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has had the misfortune of having inane, jejune and callow individuals masquerading as political leaders.56

In the final analysis, ex-President Obasanjo should realize that electoral crimes are also grave acts of corruption. Gaining political office by snatching ballot boxes and by filling ballot boxes with fake votes is as unconstitutional as seizing the reigns of government with the gun—and should be considered and treated as treasonable. Obasanjo’s rather stubborn insistence that Nigerians should accept, and thus, swallow like a bitter pill, the conduct and results of the state and federal elections that attracted near universal condemnation by both Nigerians and non-Nigerians, cast a shadow of doubt on the sincerity of the otherwise laudable war on corruption during his administration. His insistence that elections that received worldwide condemnation must stand represented a disservice to Nigeria’s effort to establish a working democracy. Nigeria can borrow a leaf from Ukraine, which experienced an election crisis in 2004. That country’s presidential elections that took place in November and December 2004 were largely between Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and former Prime Minister and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko. Charges of media bias, voter intimidation, and even a poisoning of Yushchenko led to the discrediting of the results of the November 2004 first ballot that gave victory to Prime Minister Yanukovych. Ukraine’s Supreme Court later nullified the results of the November election and ordered a new election. The rerun took place on December 26, 2007, and opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko won 52 percent of the vote to beat Prime Minister Yanukovych, who received only 44 percent of the vote. History will determine whether Nigeria will find a Ukrainian-type solution to its current leadership legitimacy crisis. Another way of putting it is that Nigeria’s political future now lies in the hands of the judicial branch of government, which is vested with the onerous responsibility of adjudicating petitions filed against the disputed elections of April 2007. In fact, judgment has already been rendered on some of the hundreds of electoral petitions filed by aggrieved candidates. There were judicial nullifications of electoral victories at the state and national legislative and executive levels. While eight state governors (seven of whom were PDP governors, while one was a member of PPA) had their elections nullified by electoral petition tribunals by the time of going to press, several state and national legislators had also had their elections nullified. They include David Mark, president of the Senate, who was elected from the state of Benue on the platform of PDP although he has appealed against the judgment.57 But the one electoral tribunal upon which both national and international attention was focused involved the highest office in the land, namely the presidency, which was won by Umaru Musa Yar’Adua of PDP. That election, which as the foregoing passages demonstrated, was criticized by both internal and international observers as failing basic standards of a free and fair election, was, however, upheld by a federal electoral tribunal in late February, 2008. In dismissing58 petitions filed by two unsuccessful presidential candidates,

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namely General Muhammadu Buhari of ANPP and Atiku Abubakar of AC, the tribunal ruled that the petitioners “had failed to prove that violations of the electoral law were substantial enough to invalidate the president’s victory.”59 Both Buhari, the ANPP presidential candidate and Abubakar of the Action Congress have filed Supreme Court appeals against the verdict of the presidential election tribunal.60

NOTES 1. Salihu Moh. Lukman, “Beyond Promises: Sovereignty Should Have Economic Content,” USA Africa Dialogue Series, August 3, 2007, http://groups.google.com/group/ USAAfricaDialogue. 2. Madeleine Albright, “Elections a ‘failed process,’” USA Africa Dialogue Group, May 24, 2007, http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue. 3. Onyebuchi Ezibgo, “Nigeria: NLC Rejects Yar’Adua’s Victory,” ThisDay, April 25, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200704250267.html. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Godwin Onu and C.A.C. Umezurike, press release from the southeast chapter of the Nigerian Political Science Association, April 19, 2007, http://www.toyinfalola.com/ www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa. 7. In a significant postelection development in June 2007, the Supreme Court of Nigeria ordered immediate removal of Andy Uba (PDP) as governor of Anambra state and reinstated Peter Obi (APGA) in that office. The genesis of this development dates back to 2006, when Peter Obi took office as governor of Anambra after winning an electoral tribunal’s petition against then governor Chris Ngige (PDP). In that year, the electoral tribunal upheld Obi’s petition to the effect that he, not Ngige, was the rightful winner of the governorship election held in Anambra state in 2003. Given that the term of governor lasts for four years and that Obi had served only for about one year when the April 2007 governorship elections were held in Nigeria, Obi filed a lawsuit in which he contended that since he had not yet served as governor of Anambra state for a term of four years as prescribed by Nigeria’s operative 1999 Constitution, the court should bar the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from holding a governorship election in the state of Anambra in 2007. As Obi put it, there was no vacancy in the governor’s office in Anambra state. But the lower courts disagreed with Obi, who then appealed to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. While the appeal was pending, INEC went ahead and conducted a governorship election in Anambra state on April 14, 2007, which resulted in Andy Uba of the PDP emerging as the victorious candidate. (Peter Obi was not a candidate in that election.) On May 29, 2007, Uba was sworn in as the new governor of Anambra state, but in an interim ruling before the swearing in took place, the Supreme Court had indicated that if it found merit in Obi’s appeal, it would nullify the election that produced Uba as governor. The court did precisely that when on June 14, 2007, it issued a final ruling on Obi’s appeal. The court not only declared the April 14, 2007, governorship election in Anambra state null and void, it ordered the immediate reinstatement of Peter Obi as the state governor until 2010. He has since resumed duties as governor of Anambra state. 8. Osondu Emeka, “Tribunal Nullifies Anambra Guber Election,” ThisDay, July 20, 2007.

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9. Daniel Idonor, “Nigeria: Obj—No Basis to Annual Poll—Seek Redress in Court— UN,” Daily Champion, April 25, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200704250087.html. 10. Funso Muriaina, “Nigeria: Ballot Papers Not Printed in S’Africa, Says Atiku,” ThisDay, November 27, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200711270594.html. 11. Idonor, “Nigeria.” 12. Ibid. 13. Christopher Agulanna, “Democracy and the Crisis of Leadership in Africa,” Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies 31 (2006): 256. 14. Chuks Okocha, “Elections: 50 Killed, 1093 Offenders for Prosecution,” ThisDay, April 30, 2007. 15. Francis Browne-Awowole, “April Polls: Iwu Blasts Foreign Observers, Says They’re Traitors,” The Sun, June 28, 2007. 16. Ibid. 17. Nkolika Ebele, “The Empty Threats of Maurice Iwu,” USA Africa Dialogue, June 29, 2007. 18. Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, chapt. VI, Part I, Section 145 (2). 19. Constance Ikokwu, “Nigeria: U.S. Congress, Soyinka Differ on Way Forward,” ThisDay, June 8, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200706080617.html. 20. Wole Soyinka, “Nigeria: What Soyinka Told U.S. Congress,” Daily Champion, June 11, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200706111307.html. 21. Etaghene Edirin, “Nigeria: Yar’Adua Presidency Not Legitimate,” Daily Champion, June 11, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200706111311.html. 22. Tashikalmah Hallah, et al., “Nigeria: Atiku, Buhari, Ojukwu Want Tribunal to Annul Presidential Polls,” Daily Trust, May 23, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/ 200705230550.html. 23. Nosike Ogbuenyi and Deji Elumonye, “EFCC Recovers N100bn Assets from Ex-Govs,” ThisDay, June 12, 2007, http://odili.net/news/source/2007/jun/12/217.html. 24. Jibrin Abubakar and Yusha’u Adam Ibrahim, “Nigeria: Buhari Rejects Yar’Adua’s Overtures,” Daily Trust, June 19, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200706190746.html. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Ali M. Ali, George Oji, and Oke Epia, “Buhari Rebuffs Emirs, Says It’s Not a ‘Northern Affair,’” ThisDay, July 4, 2007. 28. Ibid. 29. Chuks Okocha and Oke Epia, “Nigeria: AC—Why We Opted Out of Unity Govt,” ThisDay, July 10, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200707100826.html. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 32. Mohammed Abubakar, “ANPP to Contest Yar’Adua’s Victory at Tribunal,” The Guardian, April 27, 2007, http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/news/article01. 33. “Democracy of the Tummy,” Vanguard, July 10, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/ 200707100151.html. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. In another major postelection development in Nigeria in June 2007, President Yar’Adua and his party, the PDP, followed in the footsteps of Shagari’s NPN by entering into an alliance with two Nigerian opposition parties, namely All Nigeria People’s Party

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(ANPP) and the People’s Progressives Alliance (PPA) for the purpose of establishing what Yar’Adua described as a government of national unity. It’s thought provoking that unlike Shagari, who needed the support of the NPP when his NPN entered into an alliance with the former Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) in 1979 to obtain a working majority in Nigeria’s national legislature (the National Assembly), Yar’Adua entered into his own alliance with two opposition parties despite the fact that his party, the PDP, commanded a comfortable two-thirds working majority in Nigeria’s national legislature. Could it be that the real motivation for Yar’Adua’s alliance with two Nigerian opposition parties was a desire to counter the ghost of illegitimacy that seemed to haunt his presidency? 37. A political program that was meant to serve as Nigeria’s Third Republic much earlier in the 1990s was aborted when military ruler Ibrahim Babangida scuttled the June 12, 1993, presidential election that produced the late M.K.O. Abiola as the winner. 38. Gbola Subair and Kayode Akinmade, “NNPC Can’t Account for N555 bn— Revenue Chairman,” Nigerian Tribune, August 13, 2007. 39. Tordue Salem, “FG Spent $18.6 Billion on Importation of Fuel—NLC,” Vanguard, July 26, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200707260035.html. 40. News reports claim that President Yar’Adua has revoked this sale of two Nigerian refineries to Dangote. 41. “Hurdles We Scaled to Buy Refineries, by Dangote. Plus the Fabulous Wealth of Africa’s Richest Man. Oil Industry Full of Corruption, Says Dangote,” Daily Sun, July 9, 2007, http://odili.net/news/source/2007/jul/9/807.html. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Subair and Akinmade, “NNPC Can’t Account for N555 bn.” 45. Abimbola Akosile, “Nigeria: Police, Most Corrupt—Survey,” ThisDay, June 13, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200706140582.html. 46. “Corruption and the Police,” Daily Trust, June 27, 2007, http://allafrica.com/ stories/200706270723.html. 47. Damilola Oyedele, “Ehindero: We’ve Nabbed Ige’s Killers,” ThisDay, May 23, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200705230063.html. 48. Chuks Okocha, “Elections: 50 Killed, 1093 Offenders for Prosecution,” ThisDay, April 30, 2007. 49. Julian Taiwo, “Okiro Sets Up 12 Anti-Graft Teams, Abolishes Roadblocks, Unfolds 8-Point Agenda,” ThisDay, June 6, 2007, http://odili.net/news/source/ 2007/jun/6/210.html. 50. Ibid. 51. Yemi Akinsuyi, “Nigeria: Police to Get 15 Percent Salary Increase,” This Day, June 28, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200706280381.html. 52. Tunde Sanni, “Agwai Explains Military Role During Polls,” ThisDay, June 4, 2007. 53. Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, “Crude Oil Exports By OPEC Members, 1970–2005.” Annual Statistical Bulletin, 2005, http://www.opec.org/library/ Annual%20Statistical%20Bulletin/ASB2005.htm. 54. Nosike Ogbuenyi and Deji Elumoye, “EFCC Recovers N100bn Assets from Ex-Govs,” ThisDay, June 12, 2007, http://odili.net/news/source/2007/jun/12/217.html. 55. Adebola Babatunde Ekanola, “National Integration and the Survival of Nigeria in the 21st Century,” Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies 31 (2006): 279–293. 56. Agulanna, “Democracy,” 260.

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57. Chuks Ohuegbe, “Nigeria: David Mark Goes on Appeal,” Leadership, March 14, 2008, http://allafrica.com/stories/200803140269.html. 58. It should be recalled that the tribunal had much earlier dismissed Odumegwu Ojukwu’s petition against Yar’Adua’s presidential victor. 59. Estella Shirbon, “Nigeria Tribunal Upholds Election of President,” Reuters, February 26, 2008, http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN637771.html. 60. Funso Muraina and George Orji, “Nigeria: Buhari Files Appeal,” March 3, 2008, http://allafrica.com/stories/200803030017.html; and Funso Muraina, “Nigeria: Atiku Takes Case to Supreme Court,” This Day, March 15, 2008, http://allafrica.com/stories/ 200803150009.html.

4

Democracy on Sale: The 2007 Nigerian Elections and the Future of the Democratic Movement in Africa Nkolika Ebele Obianyo

At the core of liberal democracy is the sanctity of the rule of law, citizen participation, and periodic renewal of the mandate of those charged with the affairs of state. Thus periodic free and fair elections are part of the cornerstone of liberal democracy. When elections are neither free nor fair, or when they are conducted with utter disregard for the rule of law and under circumstances in which citizens are barred from deciding who makes it in this renewal, one wonders what the outcome of such a process should be termed. In most of Africa, especially Nigeria, electoral contests are best known as battles in which every strategy is considered expedient insofar as it ensures access to control of state power. The consequence is obvious: abuse of the electoral process and electoral outcomes lacking in credibility and legitimacy. The 2007 Nigerian election is not only an example of such elections but marks the second phase in the entrenchment of the low-level depravity and fraud that have come to characterize Nigeria’s present electoral process. This chapter thus argues that the current democratization experiment in Nigeria and its associated market reforms have turned the electoral process into a commodity to be sold not just to the incumbent ruling elite but—like every other thing—to the highest bidder. This chapter locates the problem in the current market-oriented democracy in place in Nigeria and in its associated impoverishment/ disempowerment policies that leave the people beaten into a culture of complacency and utter resignation. These conditions have immense implications for sustenance of the democratic movement in Africa.

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INTRODUCTION The third wave democratization that hit the African continent in the early 1990s raised high hopes for a new dawn of democratic governance, yet by the end of the decade only a few countries could claim to be genuine democracies.1 This has raised doubts as to the sincerity of these states in embracing the democratic option or even in the character of democracy embraced. In the view of some scholars, the present wave of democratization in Africa is nothing but a smokescreen, a deceitful ploy to gain international legitimacy and the associated benefits of Western aid and financial support.2 Thus, as Claude Ake notes, for the African political class embracing liberal democracy was not only the wise thing to do, sensing that the democratic tide is irresistible, but it was also a question of political expediency because it offers the opposition the opportunity to recapture political power and gives the incumbent immense room for political maneuver, given the enormous advantage of incumbency in statist Africa.3 In effect, the third- or fourth-wave democratization saw to the collapse of many military and civilian authoritarian regimes, replaced by caricatures of market-driven and IMFinspired democratic transitions, which unfortunately are mostly illiberal, not desirably participatory, barely representative, and constrained by lack of accountability and bad governance.4 In fact, what has happened in Africa in the past few years is a deconstruction of democracy and an ascendancy of the market even in the political process of choosing. Indeed, democracy in Africa has been so devalued that voting has become a metaphor for powerlessness as people are forced to vote without choosing.5 Elections are now a charade, employed solely for bestowing legality on those selected by the power cabals. In Nigeria the level of depravity, fraud, and highbrow corruption that characterize elections make the earlier description of elections in Africa as “battles” or “warfare” an understatement. The voters and the opposition are no longer even allowed to see the election materials, much less fight over them. Violence is exhibited not in contest for the ballot papers and boxes, but in frustration of not seeing them at all. Electoral contest in Nigeria has degenerated to the level where party campaigns are assessed by the amount of money contestants have earmarked for distribution and the kind of commodities to be shared to potential electors rather than by the party program and services to be rendered if elected. When this is added to the monetization of party primaries in which candidates are not only made to pay exorbitant fees to contest but are also expected to “settle” all power brokers within the party if their nomination, or better put, selection, is to be sustained, then we can begin to appreciate the level of commercialization that today characterizes elections in Nigeria. Hence, this chapter contends that the present democratization effort in Nigeria is not only a deconstruction and devaluation of democracy but apparently a democracy for sale to the highest bidder. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first section examines the concept of democracy against the background of market reforms. The second section examines the relationship between

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the character of the Nigerian state, market reforms, and the malpractices in the 2007 elections. The third section shall examine the implications of the 2007 election for the future of democratic movements in Africa.

DEMOCRACY AND MARKET REFORMS: CONCEPTUAL ISSUES Democracy is perhaps the most promiscuous word in the world of public affairs. She is everybody’s mistress and yet somehow retains her magic even when her lover sees that her favours are being, in his light, illicitly shared by many another. Indeed even amid our pain at being denied her exclusive fidelity, we are proud of her adaptability to all sorts of circumstances, and to all sorts of company.6

The preceding observation of Bernard Crick aptly captures the crisis of meaning and practice that characterizes the concept of democracy. In fact, no concept has been so subjected to varying definitions, interpretations, and practices as the concept of democracy. The interpretation given to the concept sometimes derives from the perception of the scholar and sometimes from experiences of historical specificities of social formations.7 This crisis of meanings can also be attributed to the tendency by most Africanist scholars to see democracy “more as a prescription to be arbitrarily forced on the object of analysis than an outcome of a concrete analysis of actual social struggles.”8 Historically, the notion of democracy originates from the Greek political system, thus the word democracy was crafted from the Greek words demos, meaning “the people” and Kratein meaning “to rule.”9 In other words, the Greek democracy, otherwise known as “direct democracy,” was the oldest form of democracy, from which other varieties were derived. Direct democracy had as its key feature the direct and immediate participation of the citizens in deliberations and decisions on public matters in the citizens’ assembly. It was premised on the assumption that, in order for democratic rule to uphold the common good of the political community, the citizen body had to be highly homogenous because high levels of economic inequality or religious, cultural, or racial diversity would tend to produce political conflict and disagreement over the common good. Thus homogeneity and uniformity of interests and opinions were the prerequisites of democracy; democracy was conceived not as an institutional arrangement that would create harmony out of diversity but as the “rule” of the many sharing an understanding of the common weal.10 This view of democracy not only stands in contradiction to the popular liberal variant, which sees democracy as best suited for plural societies if not for all societies, but also characterizes it as the interplay of interests in which the dominant interests, not necessarily the most popular interests, prevail. It also raises the question of ownership of democracy. Is it a government of the people? Or is it a government of the citizens? The obvious importance of these questions rests on the fact that Athenian or Greek democracy is exclusive of certain classes, notably slaves and women. In Athens, franchise was limited to only native born citizens.11

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The definition that forms the bedrock of classical liberal democratic ethics today is the one given by Abraham Lincoln. He defined democracy as a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” This definition makes the people the subject and object of democracy, the raison d’être of governance. One problem beclouds this definition, and that is the lack of clarity that surrounds the word “people.” Does “people” refer to the aggregate of the population residing within a territory? Or does it mean a chosen few making decisions on behalf of others?12 Roland Axtmann observed that as a result of political struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the concept of democracy came to be linked to the nation-state through the institution of citizenship for members of the national community. Thus the concept of citizenship derives from the liberal concept of democracy. This is because citizenship presupposes the enjoyment and exercise of certain rights within a nation-state—rights denied to noncitizens. Deductively, the term “people” as it pertains to liberal democracy does not refer to the totality of humankind found within a defined territory. This probably informed the notion of democracy as “majority rule.” According to Lord Bryce, it is a “government in which the will of the majority of qualified citizens rules.”13 However, for the elite theorists the notion of majority rule is an illusion. They argue that the idea of organization already precludes majoritarian control of power. They contend that “whatever the formal structure, power is always wielded by a small minority, a ruling group making the most important decisions and beyond the control of the majority.’14 Robert Michels puts it thus: Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy. If laws are passed to control the dominion of the leaders, it is the laws which gradually weaken, and not the leaders.15

If majority rule is illusionary then, the notion of representative democracy is mere rhetoric or bordering on fantasy. As Weber surmised, “The sovereign electorate will choose its leaders from those acceptable to the elite. In such ways the dominant minority escapes the control of the majority.”16 Weber further explains that once elected the leader would not rule as the executor of the will of the electorate, but exclusively by virtue of his or her personal responsibility and by virtue of personal authority that derives from consensus of the ruled. In other words, for Weber, the principle of free leadership selection is the essence of democracy.17 In this light, Joseph Schumpeter defined democracy not as a government of the people but as a “government approved by the people,” noting that “democracy was the rule of the politician.”18 The electorate, in a democracy, plays a periodic and marginal role of selection or approving those selected. The elitist conception of democracy no doubt unmasks the real kernel of the liberal conception of democracy as popular rule. Thus the values of liberal democracy—notably, equality, the rule of law, periodic elections, pluralism/ multipartism—are ensembles not of popular democracy but of a market democracy suitable only for the West. Ake thus argued that liberal democracy is unsuitable for

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the African conditions because it offers the people rights that they cannot exercise, voting that never amounts to choosing, freedom which is patently spurious, and political equality that disguises highly unequal relations. He criticized liberal democracy for being the least emancipatory of the poor.19 Its tenets are antithetical to the undemocratic state structure that would midwife it. This accounts largely for its failure in Africa. Okwudiba Nnoli explained it better in the following words: The African state is still quite undemocratic. As far as the vast majority of the Africans are concerned, the coercive arms of the state are still above the law, the judiciary is still dissociated from justice, while the rule of law, transparency and accountability have remained the ideal rather than the reality of policy making. The state remains partisan and prone to abuse. The undemocratic nature of the state leads to arbitrary projection of power by those who control the state. Policy making and implementation take place without discursive engagements with beneficiaries and victims of policy in what amounts to coercive unilateralism.20

He advocated for restructuring of the state system in a way that will make it more inclusive and reflective of popular will and empowerment. This restructuring did take place, but in the direction of the neoliberal theory of the ascendancy of the market. The ideology of neoliberalism simply referred to as “market reforms” was exported to Africa in the wake of the economic crisis and associated social and political instabilities that characterized the postindependence “developmental State” by the International Financial Institutions (IFIS), notably the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and their alter ego, the G-8 countries. The philosophy behind market reforms is that economic growth will be rapidly attained when the movement of goods and services, as well as capital is uninterrupted, unimpeded, and unregulated by government.21 The core of the argument of neoliberalism is that the state has no hands but the “invisible hands” of the market forces. It entails the engineering of social and political decisions in accordance with the dictates of free market interplay.22 The state, by this logic, is left with the role of the enabler, the facilitator, and the regulator, while the private sector takes over the role of the executor, the direct investor, and the manager of business.23 To realize this “noble ideal,” the “failed” states of Africa were instructed to deregulate and liberalize their economies and allow for free movement of goods and services. Deregulation, in this wise, implies currency devaluation, privatization, and downsizing of the “over bloated” bureaucracy. These measures, otherwise known as a structural adjustment program (SAP), were rejected by the Nigerian people during a rigorous debate in which both government and civil society participated. The government, despite the feelings of the people toward this exogenous policy, went ahead and embraced it. The worsening economic downturn, social decay, and political instabilities that accompanied SAP led international capital to reconsider; lacking the courage to accept the unsuitability of SAP to the African condition, they blamed African

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states or, better still, their regimes and bad governance for the failure of SAP. This earned the states derogatory names such as “the parasitical state,” “the predatory state,” “the kleptocratic state,” “the prebendal state,” “the lame leviathan,” “the rentier state,” “the overextended state,” and so forth.24 To make the lame state walk again, international capital, notably the World Bank, repackaged SAP in another garb, called “good governance.” Good governance was to be everything SAP was not. Its essential ensembles are democracy, transparency, accountability, peace, human rights, and sustainable development. Good governance will free up social capital to tackle poverty and bring about the realization of the millennium development goals. However, good governance cannot be realized without a “capable,” “effective,” and “efficient” state. The “capable state” “builds an enabling environment for private capital to generate economic growth, jobs and income.”25 To be capable, the African states were advised to “roll back,” a state policy that involves, among other things, the downsizing of the state bureaucracy, cuts in social expenditure, the privatization of all key sectors of the economy, increased foreign direct investment, removal of subsidies—in fact, the leading role of the private sector in economic and social development. The contradictions between the World Bank’s good governance thesis and democracy have been a subject of discourse among scholars. At the core of this discourse is the external character of policy decisions and the pattern of policy implementation in Africa. How can democracy be realized in an environment in which the people are disregarded in the deciding policies that affect their lives? First, it has been argued that the current market reforms in place in most of Africa are externally imposed and, therefore, have an authoritarian logic antithetical to the democratic logic of popular sovereignty and consent of the governed.26 Second, democracy is the predominance of the welfare of the collective (the community), which must be valued over any individual benefits.27 In contrast, market reforms represent the predominance of private and individual interests over those of the collective. They breed the concentration of the wealth of the community in a few hands, thereby marginalizing the happiness of the many in favor of the happiness of the few. Third, market reforms, through the cut in social expenditures, removal of subsidies, and downsizing of state bureaucracy, inflict pain and hardship contrary to democratic aspirations of improving the welfare and social well-being of the people. The paradox of market reforms is clearly exhibited in the downsizing policy that leaves many without jobs while still being committed to poverty alleviation and job creation, or in the open gate policy for foreign direct investment and the quest for the survival of local ones. Thus, good governance as canvassed by the World Bank and their allies not only opposes democracy and democratization but is another exercise in political and economic hypocrisy. Burhan Ghalioun, quoting Hans Peter Martin and Harald Schumann, captured the scenario better in the following words: Globalization constitutes the largest threat to democratic systems, not only for the developing nations but also for nations with a long tradition of democracy . . . , as . . . the total search for the greatest profit . . . spreads through society, the principle of

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political sovereignty loses its essence and its capacity to act. Political sovereignty is then reduced, . . . to a mere stage upon which stands a crowd of alienated people as the state, caught in the trap of globalization, capitulates its democratic legitimacy. Authority is then held by a minority, consisting of international speculators, business men, international mafias and multinational corporations, who in turn monopolize international markets and impose their policies on national governments.28

Julius Nyerere, on his part, likened the current call for good governance by the World Bank to a form of neocolonialism and advocated for the strengthening of the African state, as opposed to its weakening as prescribed by the IFIS.29 The point here is that good governance and the associated policy of market reforms shrank the democratic space with disempowerment and pauperization policies that placed the wealth of the nation in a few hands through the externalization of decision making and the protection of foreign interests that stands in contradiction to the interests of the domestic populace. This largely determined the character of the political process that emerged and the behavior of the political class (both those inside and outside state power) in it. In this light, many scholars agree with Ake that the character of the state in Africa has immense implications for the democratization process. A repressive and undemocratic state cannot midwife democracy; in addition, market reforms need such a state to force undemocratic policies down the throat of the resisting populace. In effect, the logical outcome is authoritarianism that knows no bounds, reproduced in the political process by the ruling clique’s obsession to have a firm grip of power as depicted in their complete disregard for the rule of law, tenure elongation bid, abuse of the electoral process, and choice of campaign language—for example, “need for continuity” and the characterization of elections as “do or die affair[s].”30 On this premise, this chapter argues that democracy becomes meaningful when conceived in terms of power located in the people through popular participation in economic and political decisions that affect their lives. General Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime was inherently antidemocratic and largely contributed to the malfeasances in the 2007 elections. It led to monopoly capitalism, personalization of state apparatuses, and, invariably, the monopolization of the electoral process by the hegemonic ruling classes and their cohorts as the subsequent discussion will show.

THE NIGERIAN STATE, MARKET REFORMS, AND THE 2007 ELECTIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF A DEMOCRACY ON SALE The success of constitutional democracy is tied to the integrity of the electoral process. The quality of representative governance is also linked to the capacity of a state to evolve a viable [and] transparent electoral system that inspires the confidence of [the] broad spectrum of civil society and contending fractions of the political elite.31

If the observation of Dele Seteolu is anything to go by, then Nigeria shall be adjudged a failure in democratic experiment. This is because the ascendancy of

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liberal democracy in Nigeria has seen an increasing reduction in democratization and restriction of the democratic space if the electoral process is used as a parameter. Thus, the relationship between elections, democracy, and good governance is a debatable one. On the one hand, credible elections can produce and promote popular democracy and good governance because people will have confidence in their ability to remove elected representatives through elections in the event of nonperformance, just as the representatives will strive to please their constituents to gain support for re-election. On the other hand, Assisi Asobie has argued that good governance is not necessarily a democratic principle because even benevolent autocracy can practice good governance.32 In addition, the experience of Anambra state of Nigeria in the 2003 governorship election negates the relationship attributed to credible elections and democracy/good governance. In this election the choice of the people was overturned by declaring the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Chris Ngige, as winner against the real winner of the election, Mr. Peter Obi. Dr. Ngige later secured the confidence and support of the people through what appeared as his good governance approach. Wale Olaitan, on his part, has posited that in the light of the reality that democratic systems do collapse in spite of the holding of elections, the ritual of elections is not enough to sustain democratic practice.33 However, this argument will appear a lame one if the meaning of democracy is expanded to go beyond good governance and provision of welfare services to include involvement of the people in decision making, especially in deciding those to superintend over their affairs. To this end, the inevitability of credible elections and electoral processes becomes imperative. Whereas elections may not be a guarantee of democratic rule, they are at the heart of the modern conception of democracy, following from the inability of modern society to accommodate the classical democratic notion of involving every citizen in decision making.34 Thus an assessment of any democracy starts with the electoral process and the credibility— or lack of it—of its elections. The bane of democratic rule in Nigeria has been the ineffectiveness of the electoral process. The first republic was truncated by myriads of problems, all emanating from or stimulated by electoral issues or disputes, namely the census figure crisis, the 1964 general election crisis, and the 1965 Western Regional crisis. The second republic did not fare better, with a violent crisis arising from the 1983 election bringing back military rule. The 1993 election, adjudged the fairest and freest in the nation’s history and which could have jump-started a true democratic government in Nigeria, was cancelled by the ruling military junta under General Ibrahim Babangida, bringing with it a series of crises and, inevitably, the country’s worst military autocracy, led by the late general Sanni Abacha. The demise of General Abacha brought in the administration of General Abdusalami Abubakar. General Abubakar, in a bid to redeem the image of the military, which was tarnished during the reign of Abacha, and, more importantly, yielding to the aspirations of the people and the international community for democratic rule, organized a transition election. There is still a debate among scholars as to

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whether the election that brought in the nascent democratic rule in Nigeria could be judged democratic, in view of the undemocratic character of the state that midwifed it and the selective character of the process—a process that could be called “military selectocracy” for want of a better term. It is public knowledge that the PDP and General Olusegun Obasanjo were the preference of the military cabal in control of the state and in charge of the transition process. The point is that what happened in 1999 was a transition to a selected civilian government and not to a democratically elected government. The result of the 1999 election attracted less controversy because of the eagerness of the people and the political class in particular to ease the military from governance. The civility that attended the 1999 election was not present in the 2003 election, in which the level of electoral fraud reached an unprecedented height, though it is nothing compared to the impunity that attended the 2007 elections. Obviously, Nigeria’s electoral history is at best an experience in progressive political underdevelopment. How else should one describe the culture of impunity that presently characterizes the country’s electoral process? This underscores the need to seek an explanation not only in the deficiencies of the electoral process but in the character of the state that organized these elections. As Ake observed, in order to understand the character of democracy in Africa, scholars cannot afford to be indifferent to the character of the state, which largely accounts for the nature of politicking and the behavior of the political class, especially the hegemonic ruling classes.35 The Nigerian state as presently constituted is a capitalist state. It ended its romance with welfarism or “state developmentalism” when it was presented with the “no other option policy” of SAP by the IFIS. Ever since, it has been rolling back from the interventionist posture of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. The climax of this rollback policy came at the inception of General Obasanjo’s civilian regime in 1999. A remarkable feature of Obasanjo’s regime was its open and undisguised romance with market reforms. The first phase started with a privatization policy in which certain key sectors of the economy were sold to private capital—or to use the more popular aphorism, private investors. This exercise was backed up first by Decree No. 28 of 1999 and later by the Public Enterprises Act of 1999. In accordance with this law, the federal government was to divest its interests in 90 percent of public enterprises in which it held interests.36 This led to the deregulation policy that characterized that regime, especially in the telecommunication and oil sectors. Nigerians were not so much against the privatization policy as against the manner in which it was carried out—lacking in transparency and accountability and, sometimes, in contravention of the basic law of the land, the constitution. The privatization exercise created another opportunity for primitive accumulation using the state machinery. Thus many of the privatized firms were sold to cronies of the governing class or their fronts. For instance, the federal government shares in Nal Bank were sold to the Kano state government, which in turn transferred them to Dantata Investment Company, thus making Dantata the single largest shareholder in Nal Bank. Similar patterns of accumulation took place in different

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states of the federation. The state would buy out these shares and later sell them to friends, party loyalists, and family members, or the enterprise would be sold to favored investors without regard to due process. Such was the case with Transnational Corporation Company (Transcorp), in which President Obasanjo was a major shareholder, with an equity share put at about $200 million held in a blind trust. Is it any wonder that Transcorp got many privileges and presidential waivers in the sale of public enterprises in Nigeria? The privatization exercise became a gateway to monopoly capitalism in which state wealth was concentrated in a few hands in utter violation of section 16, subsection 2(c) of the 1999 constitution of Nigeria, which stipulates that, The state shall direct its policy towards ensuring that the economic system is not operated in such manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group. 37

Transcorp, for instance, bought 51 percent of the shares in Hilton Hotel, now Transcorp Hotel Abuja. In addition, it bought 75 percent of the shares in Nigerian Telecommunication Limited, despite the fact that only 51 percent of the company’s shares were advertised. Through Bluestar Oil Service Limited Consortium, Transcorp acquired 51 percent of Port Harcourt Refinery Company and Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company on the payment of $561 million (N71.808b) and $160 million (N20.48b), respectively. One of the members of this consortium is Dangote Industries Limited, a company that acquired the privatized Benue Cement Company in 1998.38 It is important to point out that until Alhaji Umaru MusaYar’Adua took office as president, Dangote enjoyed the monopoly control of cement importation and distribution in Nigeria. The public outcry that greeted the sale of the refineries led to the current reversal of policy by President Yar’Adua. Observers note that the deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry was another strategy in rent seeking and primitive accumulation by the hegemonic ruling class and those they wish to favor. Throughout Obasanjo’s regime, the petroleum ministry was domiciled in the presidency, with the president or his designee at any point in time serving as the minister. This afforded the president an opportunity to reward his cronies with oil importation licenses and control of oil blocs, while opponents were punished by denial of these opportunities. Those so rewarded were morally obliged to support private endeavors of the president and to finance election campaigns. The list of those that donated whopping sums of money to the presidential library fund attests to this. In 2003 Aliko Dangote donated the sum of N250m to the Obasanjo/Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign fund. Mr. Emeka Offor, a beneficiary of the oil bloc, donated N30m, while another group called “Corporate Nigeria” pledged N2 billion.39 The same cabal funded the 2007 presidential election and, as widely alleged, the Andy Uba gubernatorial election, which took in over N2 billion. Also worthy of mention is the scandalous allocation of federal government houses in Lagos to top ranking state officials and

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their family members for purchase.40 The privatization policy, especially of the oil sector, became a disempowerment and impoverishment policy as prices of motor fuel, gas, and kerosene continued to be increased with adverse economic consequences on the standard of living of average Nigerians. As the few favored Nigerians were busy smiling on the way to the bank, the teeming majority found themselves trapped in the poverty net and job insecurity, as many Nigerians lost their jobs to the privatization and downsizing policies of the government, thereby increasing the army of unemployed roaming the streets. Thus, the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), the philosophical and ideological blueprint of Obasanjo’s second phase of market reforms, centered on the liberalization/privatization and state shrinkage aspects of the reform, with little or no attention paid to the asymmetries of poverty alleviation and job creation or to the much professed millennium development goals. Market reforms and the pattern of their implementation further polarized the already fractious hegemonic ruling class as competition for state power became intense and the need for its consolidation rose to feverish levels, but more importantly, it widened the gap between the rich and the poor. The stakes were very high. Those in control of state power, especially its coercive apparatuses, used it with impunity to suppress, oppress, intimidate, and emasculate opponents and sustain and consolidate their control; the opposition sought solace in court processes and mass support to contend with the assault. As Ake noted, poverty disempowers and negates democracy. Preoccupied with the search for livelihood and survival in the face of the menacing and predatory force of the state, the people could not confront this assault on their rights and sensibilities. The stage was thus set for the fraud organized as elections in April 2007.

THE 2007 ELECTION AND THE SALE OF DEMOCRACY The 2007 election was a battle of hegemony between the president, General Obasanjo, and his vice president, Atiku Abubakar. The rift, which became manifest after the 2003 election, revolved around each man’s ambition to control the state machinery. Although Atiku Abubakar was interested in succeeding his boss, an ambition that he nurtured before the 2003 election, Obasanjo was in no hurry to quit his position, and he aimed for a third term. The clash of the ambitions of these two men engulfed many others around them. This battle for supremacy manifested itself in various forms: the reorganization and membership reregistration exercise of PDP designed to oust Atiku Abubakar and his loyalists from dominant positions in the party; the change in the executive to bring in men loyal to President Obasanjo; the smearing of the vice president and many of his loyalists—governors and wealthy businessmen—with corruption charges and their harassment by the anticorruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC); and Abubakar and his supporters suspension from the party for antiparty activities, to which Abubakar and his allies responded by floating another political party, Action Congress (AC).

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The vice president, on his part, allied with other presidential aspirants to kill the third-term ambition of President Obasanjo. The massive press publicity given to the debate neutralized the intimidating sums of money allegedly taken to the National Assembly to convince the legislators to vote in favor of tenure elongation. A legislator in the lower chamber affirmed that legislators were offered as much as 50 million naira (N50m) to vote in favor of the third-term project. Many PDP governors were compelled to roll out money and also convince the legislators from their states to vote in favor of a third tenure. The governors were also promised a smooth ride back to the state House if they supported the president’s third-term project. From all indications, the president was applying the rule of the market rather than rational reasoning to pressure the legislators to support the constitutional changes. Many backed out of the deal, seeing the direction of public opinion, which was massively against a third term, and the outpour of rage from legislators who had already sided with the president by their constituents. The failure of the third-term plan set the stage for a new plan by its sponsors to control the state machinery. The president had to name a successor. His indication that the successor would be chosen from among the governors made almost all the PDP governors, especially those of the northern and south-south zones, see themselves as possible successors. The news media were awash with the campaign efforts of these governors. Millions of state funds were spent in this effort. Initially the president gave the green light that the “chosen” would come from the south, which made some governors of the south-south confident that they would stand a chance. But in a twist of events, a few days before the PDP convention, breaking news came that the anointed was Umar Musa Yar’Adua. One of the strong aspirants from the south-south zone—who not only had come up with intimidating sums of money to buy the delegates at the Abuja convention of PDP, but who also had campaigned vigorously for the primaries—was intimidated out of the venue by the agents of EFCC, who confronted him with corruption charges. According to one of the delegates, the supporters of that aspirant did not know when he left the venue of the convention. His men with bags of money were arrested by EFCC officials. The federal might on Yar’Adua’s side turned the tide in his favor. A PDP delegate to the convention from Anambra state confirmed that delegates from Anambra state were “settled” with as much as 250 thousand naira (N250,000), termed transport money to Abuja. Similar settlements took place in other states. Other aspirants to the post also distributed money, but an insignificant amount compared to the handouts of the president’s men.41 It was not surprising that many aspirants in the contest withdrew from the race, leaving the coast clear for Umar Musa Yar’Adua. In addition to monetary handouts, the delegates, many of whom were also aspirants for various state positions, were also promised smooth sailing if they gave unalloyed support to Obasanjo’s anointed. It is obvious that the choice of Yar’Adua by Obasanjo was predicated on his battle for supremacy with his vice president, Atiku Abubakar, whose political strength rested in his control of the political machinery of the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua—the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM). The choice of

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Yar’Adua, the younger brother of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, would not only divide that machinery, but would also sway the support of the northern aristocratic group (who were already rallying around Atiku Abubakar) to the side of Umar Musa Yar’Adua. With the nomination of Yar’Adua as the presidential candidate and Jonathan Goodluck as his running mate, a move made to neutralize the antagonistic and destabilizing activities of militants in the Niger Delta, President Obasanjo declared the war status of the 2007 election, noting that it would be a “do or die affair.” That statement set the stage for the monumental fraud that characterized that election. Aside from these issues, the democratic principle of using party primary elections as a building block for the general election was negated by the market character of the organization of the primary elections and the oligarchic control of decision making within the parties. For instance, for the 2007 election, aspirants to various positions in the PDP were made to pay into the coffers of the party the following sums of money: president—5 million naira (N5m); governor—3 million naira (N3m); Senate—1 million (N1m); House of Representatives—500,000 naira (N500,000); House of Assembly—100,000 naira (N100,000). An additional 10,000 naira (N10,000) was required for picking the form.42 The situation was not different in other parties. For example, AC candidates paid the following as official fees for picking nomination forms: president—3 million naira (N3m); governor—1.5 million naira (N1.5m); Senate—250,000 naira (N250,000); House of Representatives—100,000 naira (N100,000); and House of Assembly—50,000 naira (N50,000). Aside from the official fees, aspirants were expected to make a “nonvoluntary donation” to the party. For example, senatorial aspirants donated the sum of 200,000 naira (N200,000), and House of Representative aspirants donated 50,000 naira (N50,000), making the cost a total of 450,000 naira and 150,000 naira, respectively, for senatorial and house of representatives aspirants.43 Obviously, only the rich and the powerful could vie for positions under such arrangements. The highest fees were set by PDP, being not just an elite-based party but the ruling party whose power of incumbency would be put to use in ensuring victory for candidates in the election. Candidates vying under PDP were more likely to secure their posts than candidates of other parties, as the 2007 election results eventually proved. In addition, AC is more mass based, drawing its strength from the masses’ disenchantment with the Obasanjo reform policies and abuse of the rule of law. Their strategy was to use credible candidates likely to pull votes from the incumbent ruling party. All the same, the fees were very high given the poverty in the country and a minimum monthly wage of 7,500 naira (N7,500) for the lowest paid worker in the federal service. No well-meaning Nigerian with a considerable income could run for an elective position. These expenses did not include the money to be distributed to delegates at primaries and general campaign expenses. For example, the campaign expenses of a PDP Anambra Central senatorial aspirant were estimated to be 52 million naira (N52m), a conservative estimate. For example, in the PDP primaries, the said aspirant had the highest cost of

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7,000 naira per ward delegate to the party primary. When this amount is multiplied by 40 delegates in 109 wards in the Anambra central senatorial district, the amount came to a whopping sum of 30,520,000 naira (N30,520,000). This is in addition to the 109 brand-new motorcycles given to ward leaders and other undisclosed sums of money—running into millions of naira—used to buy the favor of the party executives at the state and central levels. In a similar vein, a PDP aspirant for the House of Representative in Idemili Federal Constituency of Anambra state, who distributed the largest sum of money to delegates for the primary election, gave out 15,000 naira per delegate. When this is multiplied by forty delegates in twenty-four wards in the constituency, it comes to a total of 14,400,000 naira (N14,400,000). A House of Assembly aspirant of the PDP in Idemili South constituency gave out 6,000 naira (N6,000) to each of 40 delegates in twelve wards in the constituency, a sum of 2,880,000 naira (N2,880,000). In addition to these examples, the aspirants also “settled” the party stalwarts with undisclosed huge sums of money to gain their support.44 This scenario replicates itself in all the states of the federation. The huge sum expended to buy up support was not an assurance for retaining the candidacy of the party. The PDP made aspirants sign a regulation noting that the party reserved the final say as to which candidate to present for any elective position. In this vein, some aspirants who had jumped the hurdle of party primaries still lost to favorites of the party machine. The case of the PDP gubernatorial aspirant in Imo state, Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, who was replaced by Engineer Charles Ugwu, a former president of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria—and a favorite of President Obasanjo—is a celebrated one. Araraume’s effort to retain his candidacy through court action earned him expulsion from the party. Following a Supreme Court decision in Araraume favor, the leadership of PDP decided to support the candidate of another party rather than allow Senator Araraume to remain the party’s gubernatorial flag bearer in Imo state. If many candidates distributed money to gain their positions, their efforts paled in comparison to what Chief Andy Uba, the PDP governorship aspirant, spent in his effort to become the governor of Anambra state in 2007. The party machinery in the state was at Uba’s disposal after dislodging his estranged brother and godfather of Anambra state politics, Chief Chris Uba. The campaign largesse of the aspirant was more or less a bazaar for all classes of people. There was a widespread allegation that many traditional rulers and influential figures in the state were settled with brand new jeeps, Peugeot 406 cars, and 10 million naira. The lesser mortals went away with lesser sums. Motorcycles were shared out in different local governments to party supporters. On the part of the general public, cartons of biscuits, bags of rice, textiles, face caps, T-shirts, and the like were handed out to as many persons as were interested in collecting them. At one point, it was a contest of supremacy between the PDP aspirant and the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) gubernatorial aspirant over who would give out the largest number of motorcycles to party supporters and potential electorates in the state.45 One may wonder about the reason for the choice of motorcycles in this contest. Motorcycles became important in the economic lives of the citizens because they

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provide employment for the teeming mass of unemployed in the states, and because they serve as a major means of transportation in Nigerian cities and rural areas where the dilapidated state of the roads does not allow for the use of motor vehicles. In fact, the campaign expenses of Chief Andy Uba are conservatively estimated to have run into billions of naira. Is it any wonder, then, that the stakes involved were quite high? These scenarios were replicated in various states of the federation. Such is the level of crude market norms that have become associated with politics and democratic practice in Nigeria, creating a situation in which many Nigerians are excluded not only from contesting but also from the voting process. Ake was, of course, right when he wrote that “Nigeria is reeling from the antics of a political elite which is as allergic to democracy as it is neurotic in the pursuit of power.”46 The 2007 election proper revealed the level of the antidemocratic behavior present in the Nigerian political class, especially the hegemonic ruling class, in their battle for consolidation. The PDP-controlled federal government made it clear that it was a “do or die affair” and therefore employed all the weight of the state machinery to secure victory. These instruments included the police, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the EFCC, and the army. The battle started with impeachment of state governors who posed a threat to PDP’s capture of such states by virtue of their performances or other political considerations. The illegal impeachment of the governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi, belongs in this category. Then there were trumped-up corruption charges used to disqualify candidates perceived to pose serious threats to PDP candidates in the event of a proper election by INEC. These include the disqualification of the AC presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and strong gubernatorial candidates of other parties in Anambra state, namely Chris Ngige of AC, Chief Nicholas Ukachukwu of ANPP, and Peter Obi of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA). When it became obvious that the disqualification exercise, despite court rulings against it, would not change the direction of public opinion against PDP, INEC employed a structural rigging process to aid the ruling party. “Structural” rigging implies the use of state structures and agencies to carry out malfeasances in the electoral process. For example, the register of voters was not published in several states, in contravention of the electoral law. On polling day, result sheets were not supplied at polling centers in various states of the federation. In many states, such as Anambra state, polling materials were not supplied at all, and where they were sent, they came very late, sometimes one or two hours before the end of voting. This scenario repeated itself in all the elections. There was ample evidence to show that thumb printing took place in the houses of various PDP chieftains. The governor’s outcry that there was no voting in Anambra state was dismissed with a wave of the hand by the INEC boss, Professor Maurice Iwu, and his national commissioner for information, Mr. Phillip Umeadi.47 The AIT news report on the election days showed that no voting took place in many parts of the federation, as well as very late arrival of election materials in many states. In the case of Anambra state, irate youths burned polling boxes and ballots

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cast at different centers in the capital city of Awka because of the absence of result sheets. Polling officers interviewed in a voting centre at Esther Obiakor estate Agu Awka GRA of Anambra state indicated that they were instructed to take the ballot boxes to the INEC office, where counting and recording of results would take place. The ballots cast were later burned by the angry youths who visited the polling center. In Enugu state a group of electorates who besieged the INEC’s office and demanded that the result sheet be supplied before voting took place were reportedly beaten by military men allegedly drafted by the federal government to check resistance by the electorate and opposition parties to the fraud. In many states, men of the armed forces were reportedly used to intimidate people into submission, in the name of maintaining law and order. In the midst of this outright fraud, PDP recorded landslide—or what many now refer to as “tsunami”—victories in all the elections. The case of Delta state is a clear evidence of the fraudulent manner in which votes were awarded. INEC announced the results while voting and counting were yet to be concluded. In many states, violence broke out between the opposition parties and the ruling PDP, sometimes as a result of resistance to the fraud. For instance, during the House of Assembly and gubernatorial election, violence that resulted in many fatalities was witnessed in Ibadan South West of Oyo state, Port Harcourt in Rivers state, Asaba in Delta state, Babalola in Kwara state, and Benin City in Edo state.48 In Onitsha in Anambra state, INEC offices in the two local government areas were burned down by angry electors. This confirms the notion that a nondemocratic state cannot conduct a democratic election. Election in this vein becomes a method of disempowerment and voting a metaphor for powerlessness and exploitation.49 The market character of elections in Nigeria since 1999, especially the 2007 elections, is already evident in the scandalous sum allocated for the renovation of the official residences of leaders of the National Assembly. Otherwise how can one explain that in a country where millions of people still live on less than $1 per day, the residences of two key representatives, namely the Senate president and the speaker of the House of Representatives, received face lifts costing a whopping 450 million naira (N450m) and 628 million naira (N628m), respectively. Ake was probably right when he opined that if the Nigerian experience is any guide, Africa appears to be spawning a unique historical experience, a self-absorbed political elite with no national project whatsoever, not even an inadequate one. They are totally absorbed in the quest for absolute and eternal power. They know only their interests. It is the only morality they have and their only religion. They hear only echoes of their own voices and see only images of themselves looming to fill every space and every consciousness.50

After the 2003 election, the Nigerian people argued that their votes did not count; in 2007, they were not even allowed to vote. If in 2003 the people lamented that their choices were not reflected; in 2007 they were not even allowed to make a choice. In 2003 they argued that democracy was devalued and derogated; in

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2007 it was decimated and buried. These few lines represent the feelings of the average Nigerian electorate after the 2007 election. However, that does not mean that all hope is lost and the future bleak; on the contrary, the future is bright and promising for a great number of reasons.

THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENTS IN AFRICA Nigeria occupies an important place not only as the most populous and wealthy country in Africa, or for providing assistance to fellow African countries in need, but also as one of the most promising in terms of economic, social, and political development. In spite of her Big Brother status on the continent, Nigeria has found it difficult to manage her huge resources and bring stability and progress to the political process. The experiences of the 2007 election have immense negative implications for the future of democracy in Africa. The 2007 election gives the impression that Africa is incapable of organizing a credible election, that electoral malfeasance is the norm rather than the exception in Africa, and that might is right and only might matters. These impressions promote tendencies that negate democracy, such as voter apathy, a culture of impunity, money politics, militarization of the democratic space, and worst of all, devaluation of democratic principles. However, one thing is obvious: no matter how flawed elections in Nigeria may be, no matter the level of corruption of the political and ruling classes, the democratic aspirations of the people have never waned. That explains why it is difficult for dictators to last in Nigeria. It is this democratic spirit that finds expression in the various efforts to resist imposition and exploitation and openly criticize the activities of the governing class. It is this democratic spirit that swept away military rule in Nigeria and, more recently, thwarted the effort of the incumbent president to prolong his rule. In many other societies, what happened in Nigeria might have triggered off a war, but the Nigerian people decided on a peaceful resolution of the crisis, using legal processes. That is a no mean feat. The masses may appear docile, but they are not as stupid as the elite may assume. The behavior of the people of Anambra state in the 2007 election affirms this. In spite of the vote buying that took place, the people were sure of the candidates they wanted. In fact, it is the democratic spirit of the people that differentiates truth from falsehood and distinguishes credible candidates from the charlatans that panicked the hegemonic ruling class into disallowing the voting process. In fact, the strike action by workers that greeted President Yar’Adua less than one month into his term in office is a big plus for democracy in Nigeria. In this case labor was able to secure more than half of its demands, namely the reversal of the increase in the value added tax (VAT) and reduction of the prices of petroleum products that had increased at the end of President Obasanjo’s tenure. The monumental fraud in the 2007 elections has led to a widespread cry for electoral reforms in Nigeria and real independence for the election management

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body, INEC, a feat which if achieved will go a long way in shoring up the credibility of elections in Nigeria. The lack of legitimacy suffered by the incumbent governments appears to have made some of them more responsive to the aspirations of the people, even if the purpose is to gain the desired respect from the domestic populace and the international community. Niger Delta, for instance, is receiving the desired attention, and the sale of the country’s oil refineries has been reversed. These are pluses for democracy. The malfeasances in Nigerian elections have led to a rise in the number of civil society organizations interested in monitoring elections and informing the world about their results, in addition to monitoring governance and fighting corruption and abuse of due process in Nigeria. For instance the strike action of the Nigerian Bar Association over the 2007 election irregularities sent a strong signal to the “illegal” governments produced by that election. Today, the president respects court decisions, in contrast to the executive rascality and utter disregard for the rule of law and court decisions that characterized governance under Obasanjo. The 2007 election has raised the people’s faith in using court processes to settle disputes rather than resorting to the law of the jungle. It has raised people’s awareness about taking recourse in the rule of law. It is interesting to see people anxiously await court judgments, rejoicing when a case is decided in their favor and accepting it with fortitude when it is against them. This is a plus for the future of democracy in Nigeria, and in Africa for that matter. It has also increased the responsibility of and respect for the judiciary, which is seen as a beacon of democracy. The Nigerian nation has been spared many problems through the courageous decisions of the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court. The 2007 election heightened the call for the prosecution of corrupt government officials, especially of the former administration. The demonstration carried out in front of the EFCC office by a group of people in Enugu state demanding the prosecution of the former governor Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, no doubt facilitated the prosecution of corrupt governors by the EFCC. The call by several civil society organizations for the prosecution of corrupt government officials has energized the various anticorruption agents in their fight against corruption. It has also increased the quest for transparency and accountability in public governance. Today, the popular cliché is “servant leader,” a concept that depicts leaders as servants. If Nigerian leaders take this philosophy to heart, it will change the character of governance in Africa and will set her on the path of political and economic development. These experiences are not lost to our brothers on the African continent, especially in this era of globalization when information flies across space in a matter of seconds. Sierra Leone recently held an election, and from all indications it was far better than the Nigerian election. No doubt they must have learned a lot from the flaws in the 2007 Nigerian election. That Nigeria, despite flaws in her electoral process, has not degenerated into extreme dictatorship is commendable. As

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Professor Pat Utomi once said in a TV interview,51 the fact that we are free to discuss and question these problems prevalent in our electoral process serves a fundamental goal of democracy, which is freedom of expression and opinion. Democracy is not all about winning elections, though that is very important too; it is also about openness, freedom, and critical evaluation of those things that obstruct the attainment of our national aspirations. In this light, it is better to remain an Afro-optimist and consider the future of democracy in Africa to be very bright. However, one thing still beclouds the future of democracy in Africa and that is the ascendancy of market norms. In this climate every relationship is determined by the rules of the market, the citizens have been assigned a back seat in the decisions that affect their lives, and the state is made almost irrelevant in the lives of the people, existing only as a predatory force that pushes unpalatable policies down their throat. The national community is presently being divided into two fundamentally opposing groups: namely, the rich and the poor. A situation in which leaders prefer to protect the interests of foreign powers rather than the interests of their own people is not good for democracy. We live in a global world where interdependence of nations is the order of the day, but this interdependence and interaction shall not be at the expense of members of the national community, nor their collective aspirations. Democracy is about the governed gaining control over the governors,52 but when these governors are lost in the global space beyond the reach of the governed, the purpose of democracy is defeated. The current global interaction undermines the democratic principle of “popular sovereignty” and the “relevant community” for democratic governance. As decisions made by international organizations, foreign governments, foreign private groups, and international NGOs exert significant impact upon every aspect of social life, the prerequisite of “explicit consent of the people,” a congruent relationship between the ruler and the ruled, as well as policy accountability to citizens, is stalled.53 Africa must be careful not to get immersed in this trap.

NOTES 1. Charles M. Fombad, “Abstract: The African Union and Institutional Framework for Promoting Democracy and Good Governance: Pragmatic, Rhetoric or Realistic Ambition?” OSSREA’s 8th Congress and Silver Jubilee. Abstracts, Theme 2—Democracy and Development, November 14, 2005, http://www.ossrea.net/congress/abstracts.html (accessed August 29, 2007). 2. Attahiru Jega, Democracy, Good Governance and Development in Nigeria (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2007), 19. 3. Claude Ake, Democratization of Disempowerment in Africa, CASS occasional monograph no. 1 (Lagos: Malthouse, 1994), 2–3. 4. Jega, Democracy, Good Governance, 19–20. 5. Claude Ake, Is Africa Democratizing? CASS monograph no. 5 (Lagos: Malthouse, 1996), 10.

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6. Benard Crick, quoted in Alan R. Ball, Modern Politics and Government, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1981), 41. 7. Nkolika E. Obianyo, “The Democratization of Disempowerment in Nigeria: The Experience of Anambra State: Implications for Sustainable Democracy” (paper presented at the 2nd annual conference of Nigerian Political Science Association [NPSA], south east chapter, at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, November 22–25, 2006). 8. Mahmood Mamdani, quoted in Jega, Democracy, Good Governance, 23. 9. Richard M. Pious, “Democracy,” Microsoft Encarta 2006 (CD) (Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2005). 10. Roland Axtmann, “Introduction I: Balancing Democracy in Political Science,” in Balancing Democracy, ed. Roland Axtmann (London and New York: Continuum, 2001), 6. 11. Pious, “Democracy.” 12. Obianyo, “Democratization of Disempowerment,” 4. 13. Roland Axtmann, quoted in Jack Lively, Democracy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980). 14. Lively, Democracy, 57. 15. Gerant Parry, Political Elites: Studies in Political Science (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977), 3. 16. Parry, Political Elites, 31. 17. Axtmann, Democracy, 17. 18. Ibid. 19. Ake, Is Africa Democratizing? 20. Okwudiba Nnoli, National Security in Africa: A Radical Perspective (Enugu: PACREP 2006), 158–159. 21. Authur MacEwan quoted in Mohammed Habu, “Democratization in the Face of Neo Liberal Reforms in Nigeria’s Public Enterprises: A Disempowerment or Fair Dividend?” (paper presented at the 26th Annual National Conference of the Nigerian Political Science Association [NPSA], Kano, Nigeria, August 21–24, 2007), 6. 22. Habu, “Democratization.” 23. Nkolika Obianyo, “Socio-Economic Reforms and the Democratization Process in Nigeria: Rethinking the Umpire Role of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)” (paper presented at the 26th Annual National Conference of the Nigerian Political Science Association [NPSA], Kano, August 21–24, 2007), 3. 24. Thandika Mkandawire, “Thinking About Developmental States in Africa,” May 3, 2007, http://www.unu.edu/hq/academic/Pg_area4/Mkandawire.html. 25. Obianyo, “Socio-Economic Reforms,” 2. 26. Nnoli, National Security, 162; and Azeez O. Olaniyan, “External Pressures, Socio-Economic Reforms and the Democratic Consolidation in Africa” (paper presented at the 26th annual national conference of the Nigerian Political Science Association [NPSA], Kano, August 21–24, 2007), 6. 27. Bamidele A. Ojo, “Africa’s Triple Dilemma: The State, Democratization and the Challenges of Globalization,” Globalization (2004), http://globalization.icaap.org/ content/v4.2/ojo.html (accessed November 22, 2006). 28. Burhan Ghalioun, “Globalization and Democracy,” July 3, 2007, http://www. boell-meo.org/dowload_en/GlobalizationandDemocracy.pdf. 29. Julius Nyerere, “Good Governance for Africa,” 1998, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/ archives/30/083.html (accessed July 12, 2007). 30. Habu, “Democratization,” 8.

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31. Dele Seteolu, “Historical Trajectories of Elections in Nigeria: The State, Political Elite and Electoral Politics,” in Elections and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria, ed. Godwin Onu and Abubakar Momoh (Lagos: NPSA, 2005), 36. 32. Assisi H. Asobie, “Transparency and Accountability: A Conceptual Analysis” (paper presented at the Stakeholders Summit on Transparency and Accountability, Abuja, April 14–15, 2005), 4. 33. Wale A. Olaitan, “Elections and the Making and Unmaking of Democracy in Nigeria,” in Elections and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria, ed. Godwin Onu and Abubakar Momoh (Lagos: NPSA, 2005), 44. 34. Richard Joseph, 1987, quoted in Olaitan, “Elections,” 44. 35. Ake, Is Africa Democratizing? 36. Fatima O Ibrahim, “Privatization of Public Enterprises in Nigeria, 1999–2007: Problems and Prospects” (paper presented at the 26th Annual National Conference of the Nigerian Political Science Association [NPSA], Kano, August 21–24, 2007), 8. 37. Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (Lagos, Federal Government Press, 1999). 38. Habu, “Democratization,” 16. 39. Nuhu Yaqub quoted in Habu, “Democratization,” 16. 40. Nkolika Obianyo, “The War Against Corruption in Nigeria: The Journey So Far” (paper presented at the launching of the Zero Corruption Coalition [ZCC] handbook on ICPC and EFCC, October 3, 2006). 41. Interview with a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) delegate, August 7, 2007. 42. Ibid. 43. Interview with Action Congress (AC) members, August 10, 2007. 44. Interview with a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) delegate, August 6, 2007. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. AIT TV news report, April 15, 2007. 48. “Fall-Out from the 2007 Do-Or-Die Elections,” Sunday Tribune, April 15, 2007, 3–10. 49. Ake, Is Africa Democratizing? 50. Ibid. 51. Pat Utomi, African Journal, interview, “Straight Talk Africa,” a weekly Star TV Tanzania VOA program, 2007. 52. Peter A. Nyong’O, “Political Scientists and the Democratic Experiment in Africa,” Billy Dudley Memorial Lecture Series No.1 (Ibadan, NPSA 2005), 10. 53. Nnoli, National Security, 162.

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Dialectics of Patronage Politics and Representative Democracy: The Case of Anambra State of Nigeria Godwin Onu and Makodi Biereenu-Nnabugwu

INTRODUCTION Shortly after the military handover of power to the civilians in May 1999, the issue of patronage politics arose, and godfatherism became a catchword. Godfatherism became an issue of concern following the disruption of socioeconomic and political processes and delivery of services during the period of Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju as the governor of Anambra state, southeast Nigeria. This chapter attempts to examine this phenomenon, its causes as well as the extent to which it has shaped the texture of politics and governance in Nigeria. In particular, it will endeavor to establish whether patronage politics is a restricted or novel phenomenon. Which theoretical frameworks are useful in explaining the manifestation of patronage politics in Anambra state, Nigeria? What is specific or unique in patronage manifestation in the politics of Nigeria’s Anambra state? What factors account for godfatherism in the context of Anambra state? To what extent did godfatherism affect the political and socioeconomic development of Anambra state? What roles did institutions, processes, and individuals play in the facilitation of the patronage process? In response to these questions, this essay will examine the dialectics of godfatherism and the politics of primitive accumulation, using Nigeria’s Anambra state as a case study. Accordingly, this study is essentially a concrete analysis of the relationship between godfatherism or patronage politics and the political financing process within the context of postcolonial reality. While relying on documentary sources and empirical observations, the chapter identifies and appraises the axial factors of godfatherism, the role of institutions and individuals in the

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process of godfatherism, and the impact of godfatherism on political and socioeconomic development. In doing this, the chapter is divided into five parts. Following this brief introduction of the objects of the study, there is a discourse of salient contextual and conceptual issues in part two. The third part discusses godfatherism’s process, axial factors, and the role of institutions and individuals, and the fourth part focuses on the impact of godfatherism on the politics and socioeconomic development of the state. The fifth part contains our conclusion and some recommendations. CONTEXTUAL AND CONCEPTUAL DISCOURSES The precept and practice of godfatherism are not new. In the Christian concept of the trinity or the idea of three persons in one God, it is generally accepted that God was the father of Jesus Christ. The word God carries the aura of omnipotence, omnipresence, and a monopoly of knowledge and wisdom as well as signifying that God is the creator of wealth and all things. Similarly, in Nigerian politics, godfatherism depicts a benevolent father who has all it takes to promote a successful political career for a candidate while expecting tangible or intangible rewards from the recipient. In Nigerian society, politics is seen more as a means of attaining wealth than as a process of service, and the existence of godfatherism is very real. Godfatherism in politics is, therefore, a kind of political behavior in which economically, politically, and socially well-placed individuals in a society use their power and their connections to influence political and economic processes. This arrangement can be good or bad, depending on the intentions of the godfather. The term is simply a new way of describing political patronage and, by extension, paternalism. In Nigeria, the godfather phenomenon has played historical roles and has, to a large extent, shaped and refocused the practice of politics and governance. According to Nnamani Chimaroke, Nigerians see the godfather as a looming and imperious guardian figure who provides a lifeline and direction for his godson. The godson is perceived to live a life of total submission and subservience to the godfather, and to protect the oracular personality located in the large, material frame of opulence, affluence, and decisiveness, if not ruthlessness.1 According to Nwachukwu Anakwenze, Christian tradition states that a godfather must be named before a child can be baptized.2 The godfather in this case gives Christian guidance to the godson. He gives as a religious responsibility, but he doesn’t take away. The political godfather, however, takes away or expects something to be taken away. According to Anakwenze, political sponsorship or godfatherism is as old as humanity, and when it is applied selflessly, it has helped to advance humankind. Godfathers exist across Nigeria. Among those with Hausa ethnic identities, for instance, they are embedded in the Islamic tradition. The tradition exists equally among the Yorubas. Here the Oba plays a dominant role. Among the

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Igbos, the dowsing impact of traditional institutions is not strong enough to make godfathers be givers to godsons; instead they take away from godsons. The most important examples of benevolent godfathers in Nigeria can be found outside Igboland. Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the late Sarduana of Sokoto, was the political godfather of a lot of young people, mostly from the northern part of Nigeria, largely because he understood the role of politics and the military in an evolving state; he was quick to place his godchildren strategically in both institutions. The rewards are today self-evident. His godsons have continued to eulogize him and indeed now see him as an icon. Chief Obafemi Awolowo was a godfather of sorts to a large number of today’s Yoruba intelligentsia, and there are still Awoists today. Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904–96), popularly called Zik, was also a godfather to many Igbos, many of whom were of Zikist dispensation. There is also the Saraki dynasty; the kingmaker of Kwara politics, Saraki made his money from his medical practice in the early 1960s and used his wealth to benefit his people. In real terms, godfather relationships are known to have existed between Azikiwe and Chief Jim Nwobodo; Sarduana Ahmadu Bello and Alhaji Tafawa Balewa; Mallam Aminu Kano and Alhaji Abubakar Rimi; and Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu and Alhaji Rasheed Ladoja. Interestingly, Jim Nwobodo later became the godfather of Chimaroke Nnamani. It is possible to argue that nothing is actually wrong with godfathering. The practice only becomes a matter of concern when the concept is put in the wrong perspective. There is certainly nothing wrong with knowing people, especially men and women of substance in the society. Political support, which is an expected benefit of the godfather phenomenon, appears to be a universal phenomenon. In other words, the average politician needs the support of key individuals in society. Such backing enables political office seekers to gain solid support without seeking or relying on group endorsements for a candidacy. This is very different from the advanced world in which group influence and endorsement appear more important than those of individuals. However, prominent individual members of society may still influence certain groups in the endorsement process.3 In a true democracy, this makes group support more important than that of single persons of wealth and influence. Another reason for the phenomenon of godfatherism is that most honest people across the world do not have the resources to contest and win elections. They need money. This suggests that reliance on prominent individuals and groups is not only necessary but inevitable for electoral victory. However, groups rarely come back to the candidate seeking financial rewards, individuals often see their support as a business investment that must pay dividends. In this circumstance, groups give their support based on the candidate’s policies and programs, and this support is shown through voting, whereas the support of individuals is often given in the form of money. The need to survive when campaign resources are scarce and the lack of a democratic tradition compel the contestant to enter into various degrees of agreement with godfathers.

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In many Third World societies, state institutions and processes are largely overdeveloped in relation to social forces and structures. This underdeveloped state of the civil society seems to create undeserved space for individuals in the process of political finance. In developed nations, groups seem to matter a lot, largely because of the domestic content or autochthony of state structures and processes as well as adequate development and maturity of civil society and state institutions. In countries where civil society is underdeveloped, individuals have a lot of political space to maneuver for self-interest and to gain possible advantages. Various individuals in Anambra state have capitalized on this gap to unleash and project their own personal interests above those of the community in the political arena. As is often the case in many parts of the Third World, this phenomenon extends beyond politics into the bureaucratic setting and affects the awarding of contracts. Godfatherism becomes an instrument for quick access to economic decision makers.

FRAME OF ANALYSIS Patrimonialism connotes that a patron in a certain social and political order bestows gifts from his own resources on his followers in order to secure their loyalty and support.4 Clients, in turn, obtain material benefits and protection. In his work How Does Neopatrimonialism Affect the African State?, Christian Soest argues that the concept of neopatrimonialism, which is a post-patrimonialism phenomenon, is particularly valuable for explaining Africa’s state weaknesses, democratic deficiencies, and economic crisis.5 Michael Bratton and Nicolas Van de Walle6 believe that the informal particularistic politics of the rulers pervade formal state institutions, especially in Africa, and the separation between the public and private realms, which is the basis for the “modern” conception of the state, is abrogated. Patrimonialism can also be referred to as clientelism, a system in which patrons distribute benefits to strategically placed clients in return for their support, service, and loyalty. The objective of patrimonialism could be the continuous protection of the patrons’ positions. According to Tatiana Majecherkiewicz and Kaja Gadowska, clientelism occurs when individuals or groups with unequal status meet while occupying different positions in a social hierarchy (a perpendicular dyad).7 They point out that when the official methods of realizing specific interests or gaining paths of access to desired resources are recognized as inadequate, then informal paths are activated. The individual occupying the higher position in the social hierarchy (the patron) is capable of offering assistance and protection to people or groups situated lower in the social hierarchy (the clients). The patron extends a protective umbrella around the clients in exchange for specified services. Clientelistic linkages are based on feelings of personal loyalty and obligation, which are associated with an exchange of resources of unequal character.8 The voluntary character of these relations, according to Majecherkiewicz and Gadowska,9 is limited and crucial. The patron–client relationship is an unequal

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one. The patron performs certain services for his client, believing that he will benefit from this relationship in economic and political terms. The client is placed in a subservient position, but through his patron he has access to power and some of the scarce resources of the political system.10 According to J. Waterbury,11 patron–client networks may be seen as strategies for the maintenance or aggrandizement of power on the part of the patrons, and as strategies for coping and survival on the part of the clients. Godfatherism is a kind of elite culture that is at variance with mass culture. Its wealth stems from its control of the state. It is able to control the state because the latter is fragile and weak. The weaknesses exhibited by the state create a comfortable environment and platform for godfathers to protect their wealth and power under both civilian and military rule. The character of clientelism is associated with the Eastonial conceptualization of politics, which is based on the allocation of valued resources, similar to the characterization of Lasswell (1958), namely, “who gets what, how and when.”12 The concept of clientelism under which godfatherism occurs was first elaborated by anthropologists and sociologists to describe the hierarchical social relations that have long marked the countryside in peasant societies. They found that clientelism or the patron–client model of politics permeates contemporary political systems around the world.13 Part of the character of this phenomenon lies in the complex chain of personal bonds between political patrons or bosses and their individual clients or followers and is founded in mutual material advantage. According to Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith,14 the patron furnishes excludable resources (money, jobs) to dependents and accomplices in return for their support and cooperation (votes, attendance at rallies). They write that the patron has disproportionate power and thus enjoys wide latitude about how to distribute the assets under his control. They note that in modern politics most patrons are independent actors but are linked with a larger grid of contacts, and often act as middlemen who arrange exchanges between the local level and the national center.15 Joel Migdal argues that present-day clientelism tends to flourish in insecure political and economic environments, both rural and urban, and is integral to the “politics of survival” for both parties.16 In Africa, the phenomenon of clientelism has become part of the dominant character of political life. As R. H. Jackson and C. G. Rosberg posit, the typical African regime is “a system of patron–client ties that binds leaders and followers in relationships not only of mutual assistance and support, but also of recognized and accepted inequality between big men and lesser men.”17 Soest, while explaining the situation in Zambia, observes the lack of separation in Africa of public and private spheres, and this, he argues, inhibits the state’s capability on the continent.18 Although we call this concept godfatherism in Nigeria, in Mexico during the era of one-party rule, a similar system was called caciquismo;19 in Senegal, it was known as marabouts;20 and in the Philippines, it was called “bossism.”21 The patrons share similar characteristics although variations exist in different cultural settings. Robert Kaufman identified some common characteristics of godfathers. First, a relationship occurs between actors of unequal power and

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status. Second, such a relationship is based on the principle of reciprocity; that is, it is a self-regulating form of interpersonal exchange, the maintenance of which depends on the return that each actor expects to obtain by rendering goods and services to each other and which ceases when the expected rewards fail to materialize. Third, the relationship is particularistic and private, anchored only loosely in public law or community norms.22 Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith argue that the fact that both sides acquire something positive from their instrumental friendships is a large part of the reason patron–client networks appear in so many different political settings although they do not deny the coercive element of these relationships.23 They note that a gangster don or other patron may turn to intimidation or violence to prevent defections among followers. Sometimes the best that a follower can expect is to be left alone (for example, the “protection” racket), which may not be a gain for the client. Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith have tried to distinguish between democratic institutions and clientelist institutions. This is summarized in the following table. Table 5.1: Continuum of Political/Decision-making Systems Clientelistic Systems

Democratic Systems

Authority is personal, resides with individuals. Personal enrichment and aggrandizement are core values. Leaders tend to monopolize power and are unaccountable for their actions. Leaders’ relationship to supporters is opaque and may be unreliable. No regular procedures exist regarding leaders’ replacement. Leaders hold onto power by providing personal favors that secure loyalty of key followers. Policy decisions are made in secret without public discussion or involvement. Political parties are organized around personalities. Civil society is fragmented and characterized by vertical links. Decision-making standards are tacit and procedures are impossible to follow from outside. Supporters’ interests guide decisions. Extensive scope exists for patronage appointments.

Authority is institutional, resides with official roles. Rule of law, fair elections, and majority rule are core values. Leaders share power with others and are accountable for their actions. Leaders’ relationship to supporters is transparent and is predictable. Regular procedures exist regarding leaders’ replacement. Leaders hold onto power by providing collective benefits that earn support of large segments of society. Policy decisions are made in the open after public discussion and review. Political parties are organized around stated programs. Civil society is deep and characterized by horizontal links. Decision-making standards are explicit and procedures are transparent. Public interest guides decisions. Limited scope exists for patronage appointments.

Source: Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith (2002). Courtesy of Abt Associates, Inc.24

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Godfatherism, no matter the name given to it, is not a feature of modern democracy. It is clientelist and patrimonial. It is also a symptom of a state’s failure or, at best, its fragility. Clientelism, patrimonialism, and prebendalism all involve rule bending and ignore institutional procedures. In Nigeria, for instance, institutional procedures exist for rule making, law interpretation, and execution, but these procedures continue to be flouted and rest on the foundations of prebendal rule of the informal sector. Policies are implemented through networks of personal retainers and dependents. The politics of “Ima madu” or “Who knows who” is prevalent. Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith made another distinction between bureaucracies based on patrimonialism and the Weberian mode. In all these ways, bureaucracy and governance negate rationality, hierarchy, merit, and productivity, and service delivery is never the ultimate goal of the Table 5.2: Continuum of Administrative Systems Patrimonial

Rational–Legal Bureaucratic

Administrators are recruited and promoted as reward for personal connections with political leaders. Administrators can be dismissed for no reason. There is an unspoken hierarchy with little specialization or specification of output and uncertain reporting channels.

Administrators are recruited and promoted in competitive processes that judge their merit and expertise. Administrators can only be dismissed with cause. There is an authorized hierarchy with a clear division of labor, specific standards for output, and well-defined reporting channels. Important orders are put in writing. The public and private realms are kept separate. Administrators are prohibited from supplementing their salary. System is centralized with little room for discretion on the job. Administrators’ actions are predictable, based on objective methods, and follow uniform procedures. Rules are applied with neutrality, and all citizens receive equal treatment. Binding legal contracts are used in government procurement and sales. Internal controls are strict. Thorough records are maintained and regularly audited. Citizens have appeal channels if given poor service.

Important orders may be given orally. The public and private realms are blurred. Administrators supplement their salary with bribes and kickbacks. System is decentralized, allowing wide discretion on the job. Administrators’ actions are arbitrary, based on subjective reasoning, and follow ad hoc procedures. Rules are applied with partiality, and some citizens get preferential treatment. Verbal agreements are used in government procurement and sales. Internal controls are lax. Documentation is spotty with sensitive matters left off the books. Subjects have little recourse for poor service.

Source: Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith (2002). Courtesy of Abt Associates, Inc.25

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state—or if it is, there is no serious effort or commitment to accomplish the objectives of state principles. Van de Walle26 noted that national leaders in Africa create personality-based patron–client networks that consolidate power through dispensing and withholding nominally public resources to followers, and identifying the leader as the symbol of the nation. As examples, he pointed to Zaire’s27 Mobutu, Côte d’Ivoire’s Houphouët-Boigny, and Malawi’s Banda. According to Van de Walle, many observers are struck by how few resources trickle down through patronage networks in African countries, and by how many resources remain in the hands of a select minority at the top. His concern may be justified. Considering the level of distortion in the African leadership psyche, the level of development of the state, and the greed and egoism inherent in this culture of disillusionment, it is little wonder that the average African nation is in a state of disrepair. Now that the place of clientelism and godfatherism in political and economic processes have been explained, further examination of the extent to which the place of money in politics is embedded in the theory of political finance can help in understanding the events in Anambra state. This is because they are all consummated in the place of money in politics. The place of money in politics has been a subject of intense discussion.28 According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID),29 without money in politics, competitive multiparty democracy cannot work and governments cannot operate. USAID links political finance to the health and strength of democracy. The report goes on to suggest that politicians need money for successful political careers—for campaigning, to get into office, and to remain there. USAID notes that a significant disparity in monetary resources creates an uneven playing ground in election contests. Large sums of money give certain parties or candidates certain advantages over others. It is equally relevant to note that every political party and politician needs money for advertisement, hiring of offices and staff, policy research, political education, encouraging voters to register, the cost of lobbying, the cost of litigation in politically relevant cases, and for other functions. Many credible politicians cannot afford the monumental costs involved and are, to that extent, constrained to depend even on godfatherism to succeed because the fallout from politics in Nigeria is substantial. Political finance also covers campaign and party finance; use of funds for legitimate, irregular, or illicit political activities; and use of state resources for political purposes and media coverage during the campaign. As such, it encompasses both formal and informal, financial and in-kind political income and expenditures. Further, these transactions may occur inside or outside the campaign period, or they may not be directly related to a campaign at all. The following variations of political finance have been identified. They are identified in Table 5.3. According to Walecki,30 political finance is influenced by and influences relations between parties, politicians, among a party’s membership, and the electorate. As noted previously, money matters in a democracy because much of democratic political activity simply could not occur without it.

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Table 5.3: Variations of Political Finance Types

Actor Group

Description

Illegal expenditures, including vote buying

Voters and election officials

Funding from infamous sources

Candidates and political parties

Selling appointments, honors, or access to information

Public servants and candidates

Abuse of state resources

Public sector

Personal enrichment

Candidates and politicians

Demanding contributions from public servants

Public servants and public sector

A political party or candidates may directly or indirectly bribe voters and election officials. They may alternatively offer the electorate different kinds of incentives (gifts, food, alcohol, or even short-term employment). Besides elections, in some parliaments there is an unofficial market for votes—parliamentarians or councilors might be paid for votes or for joining different caucuses. A political party or candidate may accept money from organized crime (such as drug traffickers), or terrorist groups of foreign governments. These groups might even form their own political parties. Contributors may gain rewards in the form of job selections, appointments (ambassadorial, ministerial, or judicial), decorations, or titles of nobility. Money may also be used to buy a seat in parliament, a place on a party’s national list, or a candidacy. Certain state resources, such as money and infrastructure, which are available to office holders, may be extensively used for electioneering. In addition, through the unauthorized channeling of public funds into controlled companies, organizations, or individuals, the political party or candidate may capture state resources. Candidates are required to contribute significant amounts, much higher than their official income, to party’s election fund and also to pay for their individual campaign. Politics becomes a rich man’s game, and elected representatives accumulate necessary funds to pay for the next elections by taking a percentage on secret commissions and accepting bribes. A political party or candidate in need often imposes excises upon office holders, both public and elected. In some regimes, a political party may also force public servants to become party members and then extort kickbacks for some of its expenditures from their salaries.

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Table 5.3: (Continued) Types

Actor Group

Description

Activities disobeying political finance regulations

Political parties

Political contributions for favors or contractions for policy change

Private sector

Forcing private sector to pay “protection money” Limiting access to funding for opposition parties

Private sector

A political party or candidates may accept donations from prohibited sources or spend more than the legal ceiling permits. Violations of disclosure requirements, such as inaccurate accounting or reporting or lack of transparent funding, are often the cause of political scandals. One of the motives for political contributions to a political party or candidate is the possibility of payoffs in the shape of licenses and government public contracts. Donations may also be given for a governmental policy change or legislation favorable to a specific interest group. Extortion, for instance, blackmail, raiding taxes, and customs inspections may be used to force entrepreneurs to hand over part of the profits to a political party. Authoritarian regimes with a patrimonial economic system and political repression may seriously constrain financial resources available to opposition parties.

Opposition parties and candidates

Source: Marcin Walecki (2003). Courtesy of International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES).31

Narrow definitions of political finance tend to focus on campaign and party funding. In fact, many extra-party actors are involved in political competition with the objective of shaping public policy agendas, influencing legislation, or influencing electoral debates and outcomes. Walecki categorized political finance as corrupt or genuine. He noted that “corrupt” political finance in general involves behavior on the part of a candidate or a party that involves improper or unlawful financial operations for the gain of a political party, interest group, or an individual candidate.32 Illegal political finance is defined as contributions or use of money that contravene existing laws on political financing. The concept is based on legalistic criteria and assumes that a political act is corrupt when it violates formal standards of behavior set down by a political system. Walecki anchored the issue of godfathers to a fragmented and noninstitutionalized party system that makes politics and financing a big-time business, leading godfathers to form client circles and establish their own political parties, set up parliamentary factions, or become media owners. Examples are Ukraine, where informal political actors—financial/industrial groups and political oligarchs—dominate the political spectrum by forming businessoriented parties.

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The situation in Nigeria highlights the private character of political finance and associated corruption. In Anambra state, engaging in politics is often part of a business project run by powerful individuals, often rich businessmen with portfolio investments sponsoring individuals for political office in the hope of reaping multiple benefits. In this circumstance, there is no obvious boundary between individual criminality and systemic corruption of political finance. The Anambra state scenario typifies Walecki’s characterization of corrupt political finance. Having said this, it becomes important to determine the meeting point of clientelism, patrimonialism, neopatrimonialism, and political finance. These concepts or phenomena appear to have an interlocking relationship because at their root they involve using money to achieve a political ambition that a godfather believes grants access to economic goals. The godfathers or patrons in Anambra state see politics as an investment that must be financed and that must yield economic returns. Political parties are financed; individuals are financed with hope of returns. These returns could be monetary, or they could consist of influence in the policy process. As implied earlier, godfatherism is not a recent phenomenon in Nigeria. It has existed in various forms since independence. While T. Callaghy described politics in Nigeria as patrimonial,33 Richard Joseph called it prebendal.34 Scholarly analysis places patrimonialism, clientelism, and prebendalism at the forefront of political activities, and politics is seen as an investment that must yield dividends. According to Joseph, they all center on treatment of state power as congeries of offices that must be competed for, appropriated, and then administered for the benefit of individual occupants and their support groups. Joseph believes that clientelism and prebendalism are two fundamental principles of political organization and behavior in Nigeria. He argues that clientelism is the channel through which one joins the dominant class and that its practice is fundamental to the continued enjoyment of the perquisites of that class.35 According to Joseph: An individual seeks the support and protection of an Oga or a godfather while trying to acquire the basic social and material goods—loans, scholarships, licenses, plots of urban land, employment, promotion—and the main resources of the patron in meeting these requests is quite literally a piece of the state.36

According to Duschinskey,37 Nigeria’s political history since gaining its independence from Great Britain in 1960 has been a cycle of authoritarian military regimes with episodic periods of civilian government. Rentier politics in Nigeria has been characterized over the years by the dominance of “electoral machines” controlled by political entrepreneurs comprised largely of wealthy former military officers and their civilian business cronies. N. Obiora argues that the major political parties in Nigeria today are little more than grand agglomerations of the respective electoral “machines” of the

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leading political financiers.38 Many Nigerian politicians are “sponsored” by local and regional power brokers, political entrepreneurs who finance their campaigns for public office. In this context, the notorious godfather scandals have bedeviled governance since 1999 in Anambra state in southeastern Nigeria, vividly illustrating the deleterious impact of unregulated political finance in that state. The paradox, however, is that in Nigeria, money in politics has not been fully recognized as an issue worthy of public debate or legislative review; hence, there is an unsurprising dearth of academic or popular literature on the subject.39 The literature that has been examined and its theoretic framework help to prove that godfatherism is antithetical to good governance and adversely affects service delivery. It offers an explanation for how two institutional processes govern the politics, economy, and social relations of a society, particularly of Anambra state. One part of this dualism falls within the framework of the informal sector, whereas the other is propelled by the legal rational propositions of Max Weber, which falls within the formal sector. The informal sector accommodates the phenomena of godfatherism, clientelism, and neopatrimonialism, whereas the formal sector accommodates rationality, due process, and strong institutionalization of state structures. The latter is mentioned because existence of strong institutions in a vibrant civil society could act as a counterpoint to the prevalence of the godfather syndrome. According to Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith,40 no human society is so “advanced” that it relies exclusively on formal de jure institutions to run its common affairs. Informal de facto traditions and practices are constantly evolving and being adapted to new circumstances. Societies that use these informal practices usually do so because they provide some value to people. The existence of this informal sector is indisputable, but what goes on behind the scenes within that sector, especially in some parts of Nigeria, is of utmost concern. .

GODFATHERISM AND POLITICS IN ANAMBRA STATE To what extent has godfatherism attempted to shape the politics and governance of Anambra state? Anambra state of Nigeria was created from the old Anambra state on August 27, 1991. It derived its name from the Anambra River, a tributary of the River Niger. The 1991 census puts the state’s population at 2,767,903. Its capital is Awka, and its land area is 4,416 square kilometers. The state shares boundaries with Abia, Delta, Enugu, Imo, and Kogi states. It is a predominantly Igbo-speaking area with a widespread knowledge of English (especially pidgin English). Since its creation, Anambra has been governed by the following: Navy Captain Joseph Abulu (August 27, 1991–January 2, 1992); Dabo Aliyu (November–December 1993); Colonel Mike Attah (December 1993–August 1996); Captain Rufai Garba (August 21, 1996–August 6, 1998); Wing Commander Emmanuel Ukegbu (August 6, 1998–May 28, 1999); Chinwoke Mbadinuju

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(May 29, 1999–May 29, 2003); Chris Ngige (May 29, 1999–2006); Peter Obi (March 17, 2006 to November 2, 2006 & February 9, 2007 to May 29, 2007; Virgy D. Etiaba (November 2006 to February 2007); and, at present, Governor Peter Obi. As argued earlier in this chapter, the politics of godfatherism is not just a recent phenomenon; it has been with the state from its creation. Some scholars think it is a recent phenomenon because of the violent dimension the issue took during Ngige’s administration in Anambra state. Those who are socially, economically, and politically well placed have always been at the forefront of influencing governance in Anambra state, including the appointments or election of occupants of power. This phenomenon occurs in both military and civilian life. In trying to accomplish their ambitions, godfathers sometimes spend huge sums of money to influence the “center” (federal government), including the central institutions of governance as well as state apparatuses. Sometimes the clients approach the patrons for sponsorship. In other cases, the patrons look for someone to sponsor. In these cases, the godfather and client or godson enter into agreements that the godson must obey. Only when this agreement is breached does the relationship become public knowledge, and a crisis usually ensues. The contents of these agreements are often not brought to public scrutiny except at the point where the agreement is breached. In this patron–client relationship, godfathers can go to any length to ensure that agreements that are entered into are adhered to. In the case of Anambra state, Chris Ngige was taken to a shrine to swear an oath of obedience. Second, members of the legislature sponsored by the same patron were also made to swear an oath at Enugu. One major characteristic of these clients is that they never complain in public for fear of the oath and public criticism. Instead, they thrive in non-performance because much of the funds for development projects are used to service the agreement that has been entered into. The Anambra situation is like a spiderweb that entangles every branch in its domain. It is complicated by the family-affairs approach to Nigerian public affairs, the position of in-laws, the exploitation of human beings for sacrifices to lesser gods, the existence and role of godfatherism, personalizing of the public service, the greed of the public and private individuals, the substandard ravenousness of professionals such as medical doctors who can make millions in seconds from their profession, the disappointing colossal incursion of all sorts of “professionals” into Nigerian politics, the corrupt law enforcement agents of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the police, and the unsatisfactory approach of Nigerians in diaspora to the events in Anambra.41 Anakwenze argues that in Anambra state godfatherism is becoming a cocoon for sheltering the weakest link that has the highest connection. In the workforce, it has parachuted dysfunctional and inefficient cronies above their efficient but less fortunately connected colleagues. To receive a federal contract, a person has to be connected with someone at the top (sometimes from another ethnic group).42 Femi Ajayi wrote that Chris Uba, who was at the center of the Anambra state crisis concerning godfatherism, was supercilious, gluttonous, and very narcissistic in his understanding of the phenomenon.43 According to Ajayi, the Ubas do not

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have the interest of Anambra state at heart as do other godfathers in their respective realms. He notes that some godfathers are very genuine about their interests in their communities.44 Observers of events in the state of Anambra would agree that from its creation, the state has been in bondage to godfathers. Even the army with its selfacclaimed corrective character and no-nonsense approach to issues of government, could not escape from the tutelage of godfathers. While lobbying for appointment as military governors and administrators, the services of godfathers were used. That influence perhaps accounted for the iron fist with which godfathers like Arthur Eze ruled Anambra state throughout the period of military rule. Persons who needed major political appointments had to pass Eze’s screening tests, and the ability to pass such a screening depended on the extent to which the prospective appointee was ready to accept the accompanying financial, contractual, and material obligations. It was also true that Chief Chris Uba was a graduate of Eze’s school of godfatherism. As an errand boy for Eze, Uba took over from the master and outclassed his “Oga.” However, later excesses gathered momentum during the administration of Nwabueze Ngige. Prior to Ngige’s administration, which lasted from 2003 to 2006, Chinwoke Mbadinuju was the governor of Anambra state. Mbadinuju’s administration was held hostage not only by Chief Emeka Offor, an oil magnate, but in a “subterranean” manner by Orjiakor and Uba. The major godfather was Chief Emeka Offor. At this point, the influence of Arthur Eze had died down because of his dwindling wealth. Mbadinuju’s godfathers held him by the throat and made him remit state resources to them to the detriment of the people who purportedly voted him into office. For the most part, roads could not be constructed. Those roads that were constructed were so poorly done that they did not outlive his administration. Secondary schools were closed for more than one year because teachers were not paid their salaries. State government stalled, and insecurity was the order of the day. Children born during and after Mbadinuju’s administration are unfamiliar with “pipeborne water.” The environment was neglected, and the economy of the state ground to a halt. Even at that, the godfathers were still not fulfilled, and they rallied to ensure that Mbadinuju did not secure nomination for a second term. Mbadinuju left office in ignominy after failing to be elected for a second term without satisfying his godfathers or the people. At this point, Chris Ngige used godfathers to secure nomination as a governorship candidate under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). At the end of the 2003 governorship election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared him the winner. His victory was protested by the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), which claimed that its candidate, Peter Obi, had won the election. As soon as Ngige assumed office, his godfather swooped down on him like a hawk with the aim of dictating the direction of governance. He submitted lists of those to be appointed commissioners and special advisers. His house became the de facto center of government where patronage was shared and state resources

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allocated. He stood behind Ngige at every public event, showing the people that he was the actual governor. In a similar manner, the godfather publicly admitted having sponsored almost all members of the House of Assembly and National Assembly from the southeast in hopes that they would all be making returns to him. To ensure compliance, he led his primary client (the state governor) to a shrine at Okija, a small community in Anambra state, and allegedly made him swear an oath of compliance to the terms of the agreement. For members of legislative houses, the shrines were brought to Enugu where the godfather resided, and the oath was administered there. This event was widely reported in Nigerian newspapers, and Ngige was also reported to have admitted going to the shrine. A shrine in Igbo land is a means of conflict resolution, and for centuries aggrieved parties have visited it to obtain justice.

THE GODFATHERISM PROCESS, AXIAL FACTORS, AND THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS AND PROCESSES One major factor that has given a boost to godfatherism in Anambra state is poverty and the lack of sufficient resources to conduct political campaigns. All the political aspirants during the period under discussion had this in common. None of the aspirants had enough resources. And the lack of adequate resources to run an election led directly to bondage. Any attempt to break free of such bondage often created problems of trust, and in Anambra state, it led to a major crisis. Scholars contend that democratic elections across the world involve a mixture of high ideals and dubious or even sordid practices. In a similar manner, money for election campaigns, political party organizations, lobbying and advertising, and all forms of mobilization must be found somewhere. The financing of political life is a necessity and a problem.45 If the costs of campaigning are prohibitive, citizens without private wealth may be prevented from running for public office. Moreover, election campaigns arguably are unfair when rich candidates or parties with wealthy supporters are able to spend far more than their opponents.46 In such circumstances, candidates aspiring to political office are forced to seek sponsorship to be on an equal playing field with their opponents. A dominant characteristic that Mbadinuju, Ngige, and other members of the state and national assemblies shared was a lack of sufficient resources for an election campaign. Considering the machine nature of Nigerian politics, they had little recourse other than depending on a patron to achieve their ambitions. As Ilo rightly pointed out, when funds are raised from questionable sources, a candidate tends to owe allegiance to the forces that put him in power. In most circumstances, the patron capitalizes on the loopholes provided by the electoral laws, which place no limits on the amount that an individual or corporation can contribute to a political party. This practice allows patrons the opportunity to

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hijack not only party structures but also to corrupt the whole electioneering process with money, making it difficult for candidates to compete on an equal footing. According to Ilo, this makes the process very expensive, putting candidates in moral jeopardy. Such candidates have no option other than procuring funds from godfathers to fund campaigns. It is a vicious cycle that perpetuates corruption and bad governance.47 Another major factor that encourages godfathers to remain patrons is the perception of politics as a form of business worthy of investment. In Anambra state, it was the inability of the godfathers to reap sufficient returns that often created conflicts between the patrons and their clients. According to Obiora: The “sponsorship” is effectively a business transaction in which the patron recovers the “investment” in the form of public works and procurement contracts, prebendal appointments of cronies to public offices and other forms of prebendal activity by the “client” politician on assuming public office. In some cases where the patron and client failed to define with sufficient precision the dimensions of the return on investment or the client balks at delivering per the agreed terms, the fallout has led to mass violence and political destabilization.48

The third factor is the pride of being a kingmaker. In Igbo society, as in many parts of Nigeria, a kingmaker is often involved in all public consultations ranging from appointments to visits from prominent political leaders, and he is often in the know regarding all important events in his community. The aura around him creates an air of importance. This recognition is desired by many. It should also be noted that some people assume the status of godfathers as a last resort because they lack the academic credentials required to contest for an elective position. And, even when some godfathers become too weak as a result of old age, are displaced in the mainstream political process, or have retired from public life, they may still want to remain relevant in the political process. The final factor seems to be a postwar development in Anambra state and in Igbo-dominated parts of Nigeria. Post-conflict culture and behavior are often not the same in a society that fought a war. The effects were more devastating following the proclaimed loss of everything valuable during and after the civil war. There are many ways in which the war changed the character of Igbos and the way they related to government and politics. Some have adopted a Machiavellian approach to life and survival, and as far as politics is concerned, the end justifies the means. When a people feels economically deprived and politically ostracized, any means of survival is justified. The postconflict culture also witnessed the collapse of a value system of honesty, hard work, self-reliance, confidence, and trust. Prior to the civil war, the politics of the First Republic were mainly sponsored through party contributions, and godfatherism was not as predominant. The three dominant branches of government are the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary. What roles did these branches of government play in the increased role of godfathers in politics?

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The role of these institutions in the Anambra imbroglio was not too glaring until 2003 when Ngige was sworn in as the executive governor. Prior to his administration, state institutions did little apart from providing police protection to such godfathers as Arthur Eze and Emeka Offor. Second, the mode of godfathering then had a different character that was not as violent and open. Godfathers indulged in their rapacious activities behind the scene, capitalizing on the structural and institutional weaknesses and deficiencies of the state. However, by 2003, godfatherism had become institutionalized; it was a way of life and a business enterprise. The juicy attractions of godfatherism were irresistible even to the occupants and major stakeholders in the institutions of regulation, adjudication, and policy implementation. In order to make the most of this situation, former Assistant Inspector General of Police Raphael Ige, now deceased, championed the abduction of former Governor Ngige on July 10, 2003, and, with a full detachment of police, he allegedly forced his resignation. This development was upheld by the Anambra state House of Assembly, whose members had been assisted in achieving office by the same godfathers who championed the forced resignation. Ige’s erstwhile deputy, Okey Ude, was then sworn in as governor. The reactions of the presidency to events in the state were highly suggestive of the godfathers’ clandestine involvement in this ugly development. When Ngige appeared to be victorious, the Supreme Court was asked on March 28, 2004, to declare Ngige’s arrival at the Government House illegal, null, and void. The security details of the governor were withdrawn, challenging the credibility of the chief judge who swore the governor in.49 On May 13, 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the governor, stating that his forced resignation was not valid. The highest court declared that the document allegedly signed by Ngige as a resignation letter dated July 9, 2003, was a false document.50 Paul Thovoethin argues that stripping Governor Ngige of his security apparatuses while private police protection was provided to Chris Uba gives credence to the perception that the president was operating behind the scenes in the Anambra episode.51 The godfathers and their supporters hunted Ngige like a wild animal with the intention of either maiming or killing him. According to Paul Mamza, on December 12, 2003, the supporters of Chief Chris Uba engaged the security details of the governor in a shootout at both Michael Okpara Square and at a PDP Southeast Zonal Congress meeting at Enugu, in which the governor was humiliated. On November 29, 2004, an assassination attempt was made on the life of the governor. Ngige was reported to have another shock when his convoy was involved in a ghastly motor accident along Adazi Ani-Nnobi-Nnewi road with the governor narrowly escaping death. On November 14, 2004, and December 4, 2004, Uba’s convoy challenged the governor’s pathways, and the governor again escaped another assassination attempt. Uba was also alleged to have used thugs to set the Government House on fire along with other government edifices. The latest attempt was so devastating that the colossal losses in property and valuables were unquantifiable.

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As these events were happening, the federal government and its law enforcement agencies turned a blind eye. They failed to arrest or prosecute anybody, even when the arson was covered by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). The NTA showed pictures of mobile policemen watching government buildings being razed without taking any action. Instead, the police supervised the destruction of government properties. Ajayi also captured the ugly participation of the Nigerian police: Another shocking part of this development was the role of the Nigerian Police in the botched attempt to remove the elected Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige. In the first place, the Police “arrest” of Dr. Ngige on that fateful morning is ridiculous to say the least. Tafa Balogun’s denial of the fact that late AIG Ige acted on his own is left for history to judge.52

According to the Transitional Monitoring Group (TMG), the manner in which the Nigerian police force behaved in the Anambra crisis under the leadership of Inspector General Tafa Balogun was contemptible. It also gave the impression that the police force had become a political tool that was externally guided as to which court orders to obey rather than an operationally independent force that derived its powers and legitimacy from the rule of law and due process. The peculiar character of godfathers in Nigeria affects the institutions of government. In the case of Anambra state, godfathers seem to have super fathers in the presidency and National Assembly. The adage holds true, “When a rat buffs the rat, there must definitely be a hole beside the rat.” The presidency was clearly involved in these events. The provision of police orderlies to Offor and Uba and the removal of police protection from Ngige, the elected governor of Anambra state, is clear evidence. If ex-President Obasanjo was not connected to the Anambra crisis, why did he provide private police protection to Emeka Ofor and Chris Uba (the two political godfathers in Anambra)? It was even reported that the police were guarding the properties of Chief Chris Uba while the people of Anambra were without adequate police protection. Even Chinua Achebe testified to these occurrences when he refused a national honor to protest the orchestrated involvement of the presidency in Anambra state. According to Achebe, “I have watched particularly the chaos in my own state of Anambra where a small clique of renegades, openly boasting its connections in high places, seems determined to turn my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom. I am appalled by the brazenness of this clique and the silence, if not connivance, of the Presidency.” Through these patrons in the state, it was possible for the presidency to use state apparatuses such as the police and courts to shape public policy and the political process. The institution of the police force was abused and bastardized, lending credence to the call for state police. The state assembly was up for the highest bidder. The stability of the governor of Anambra state depended on the extent to which it was possible for him to dance to the tune of the legislature and

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meet their unending demands. The impeachment clause could be dangled before any governor and, in the case of Peter Obi, it was used. The judiciary was not spared in this process. According to the TMG, the judiciary allowed itself to be used as a pawn in the well-orchestrated and scripted plan to undermine democracy. Dubious assumptions of jurisdiction, manifestly illegal orders, and lack of respect or regard for due process for the sole purpose of satisfying the selfish political interests of individuals and groups assumed a dangerous dimension in the country. When Governor Chris Ngige was abducted on July 10, 2003, the law ignored the event, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) called it a family affair. The unprecedented delay in the legal process between Ngige and Peter Obi also left much to be desired in the behavior of the judiciary. According to TMG, the greatest irony in the whole process of resolving the electoral dispute was that, despite the obscene haste with which the federal government and its law enforcement agencies moved to enforce the illegal and unconstitutional order of the Enugu State High Court in removing the governor of Anambra State, Chris Ngige, the same government, and its law enforcement agencies turned a blind eye to scores of cases of federal and state legislators whose elections were voided for several months by various election petitions tribunals.

THE IMPACT OF GODFATHERISM ON THE POLITICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF ANAMBRA STATE A major political impact of the godfather phenomenon is the obstructive effect it has on freedom of choice among voters. Democratic politics makes it possible for the voter to feel free to elect a candidate of his choice. This freedom is denied by imposition of candidates chosen by godfathers. It also shows that allegiance and responsibility are never to the electorate but to the patrons. It defeats the sanctity of voting and democratic systems, as in the case with Anambra state. Because the purportedly elected officers are selected, their primary concern is often to satisfy their patrons and themselves and pay secondary attention to issues that concern their constituencies. Walecki argued that corrupt political funding undermines the democratic system. Together with other forms of political corruption, it leads to a compromising of democratic ideals, the growth of political apathy among voters, and mistrust of the authorities, as well as the consolidation of authoritarian tendencies in the state. The public interprets irregularities in party and campaign finance in a broader context, leading to a distrust of the institutions and processes of politics.53 The type of situation that occurred in Anambra state poses grave threats to the stability of the country and the democratic system of government. The main lesson to be learned from the Anambra crisis is that when free and fair elections are sacrificed and the voice of the people is trampled on in the electoral process, people pay a price in a lack of peace, development, and justice. Democratic

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societies cannot afford this macabre demand for “settlement” by anti-democratic forces and interests. Funding of elections by godfathers has scared credible people away from participation in the political process and further demonized and criminalized the state. It also leads to a lack of trust not only in the politicians but also in the government institutions. Finally, this diversion of funds to service loyalty creates economic problems. Under the godfather system, funds are allocated more toward what cannot be seen. Little is left for economic development, establishment of infrastructure, and an enabling environment for industrial growth. The closure of schools serves in the long run to obstruct the development of human capital. Until Chris Ngige assumed office, 95 percent of state roads had been left in a state of disrepair; hospitals lacked drugs; water taps had gone dry; and all state-owned enterprises had closed down. The unhappy results are gruesome poverty, disease, insecurity, and food insecurity.

CONCLUDING ANALYSIS Democracy cannot thrive in an environment in which the privileged hijack the political process and translate politics into a business environment so that they can reap dividends. Admittedly, money is essential for the successful prosecution of electoral campaigns, and the support of prominent persons can be necessary to sway public opinion in favor of a contestant, but the character of godfatherism in present-day Nigeria and particularly in Anambra state is abhorrent. This model is possible not only because of the weaknesses of the state and its institutions, but because of the incoherent and underdeveloped nature of the civil society. It also signals the failure of social and political mobilization and the institutions through which socialization takes place. Although poverty and the inability to mobilize resources appear to be firmly at the root of this economic and political slavery, if the Nigerian state had not been broken in terms of the institutionalization of its political structures, it would have been possible for political practice to be an exercise in ideas, principles, and programs. It would also have been possible to enforce regulations on the types of donations made, spending limits for political parties and candidates, comprehensive disclosure, and reporting regulations and penalties for violation. Disclosure, for instance, provides the electorate with information about where political campaign money comes from and how it is spent by candidates in order to aid the voters in evaluating those who seek political offices. It also allows voters to understand more clearly the candidate’s positions—more so than is often possible solely on the basis of party labels and campaign speeches. Exposure of the sources of a candidate’s finances finally could facilitate predictions of future performance in office. It is important to know the sources or means through which political activities are sponsored.54 Simply stated, a

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number of interactive actions need to be taken. Accordingly, we recommend the following steps. • A bill to regulate campaign contributions and expenses should be enacted. • A coordinated campaign for the reorientation of political values should be mounted. • There should be greater autonomy for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). • Election administration in Nigeria should be decentralized. (For instance, it is illogical to make INEC—a federal agency—the sole authority for organizing both federal and state executive and legislative elections.) • Law enforcement and administration should be made to reflect the federal character principle. • Extra efforts and mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that due process is upheld at all times. There is no doubt that these recommendations represent some of sure ways to move Nigeria forward. The time to act is now.

NOTES 1. Nnamani Chimaroke, “Godfather Phenomenon,” http://www.dawodu.com/ nnamani3.htm (accessed July 15, 2007). 2. Nwachukwu Anakwenze, “Godfatherism,” (paper presented on behalf of Enyimba, a Pan-Igbo think tank, during the convention of Anambra State Association, USA, October 31, 2004), 1. 3. Femi Ajayi, “Chris Uba, the Anambra tsunami epicenter of election: 2005,” http://www.Nigerianworld.com (accessed on 12 February, 2007). 4. Christian Von Soest, “How does neopatrimonialism affect the African state? The case of tax collection in Zambia,” German Institute of Global and African Studies: Working papers 32 (2006): 133–136. 5. Von Soest, “How Does Neopatrimonialism Affect the African State,” 7. 6. Michael Bratton and Nicolas Van de Walle, “Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa,” World Politics 46(4) (July, 1994): 277. 7. Tatiana Majecherkiewicz and Kala Gadowska, “Political clientelism in public administration. A case study of institutional changes in the post-communist state of Poland” (2002). 8. A. Zuckerman, “Clientelist politics in Italy,” in E. Gellner and J. Waterbury, eds., Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies (Duckworth, 1977); E. Gellner, “Against patron-client relations” in E. Gellner, ed., Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean societies (Duckworth, 1977); and S. N. Eisenstadt and L. Roniger, Patrons, Clients and Friends: Interpersonal Relations and the Structure of Trust in Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 9. See note 7 above. 10. H. Ekiyor, “The contradiction of paternalism and democracy in Nigeria,” Philosophy, Science and Society 1(1) (2004): 1

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11. J. Waterbury, “An attempt to put patrons and clients in their place,” in E. Gellner and J. Waterbury, eds., Patrons and clients in Mediterranean Societies (London: Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd, 1977), 333. 12. Derick W. Brinkerhoff and Arthur A. Goldsmith, Clientelism, Patrimonialism and Democratic Governance: An Overview and Framework for Assessment and Programming (Bethesda: USID, 2002), 3. 13. Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith, Clientelism, Patrimonialism and Democratic Governance, 3. 14. See note 12 above. 15. Sharon Kettering, “The Historical Development of Political Clientelism,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18(3) (1988): 419–447. 16. Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). 17. R. H. Jackson and C. G. Rosberg, “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist: the Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood,” World Politics 35(1) (October, 1982): 39. 18. Soest, “How Does Neopatrimonialism Affect the African State,” 5. 19. Jonathan Fox, “The Difficult Transition from Clientelism to Citizenship: Lessons from Mexico,” World Politics 46(2) (1994): 151–184. 20. Robert Fatton, Jr, “Clientelism and Patronage in Senegal,” African Studies Review 29(4) (1986): 61–78. 21. J. T. Sidel, Capital, Coercion, and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999). 22. Robert R. Kaufman, “The Patron-Client Concept and Macro-Politics: Prospects and Problems,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 16(4) (1974): 285. 23. Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith, Clientelism, Patrimonialism and Democratic Governance, 5. 24. See note 12 above. 25. See note 12 above. 26. See note 6 above. 27. The Central African country known as Zaire has since changed its name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 28. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky, “Financing Politics: A Global View,” Journal of Democracy 13(4) (October 2002); Keith D. Ewing, Money, Politics and Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 29. United States Agency for International Development (USID), Money in politics handbook: A guide to increasing transparency in emerging democracies (Washington, DC: Technical publication series, 2003), 8. 30. Marcin Walecki, Political Money and Corruption, IFES Political Finance White Paper Series, http://www.Moneyandpolitics.net/research pubs/pdf/money_corruption.pdf. 31. Walecki, Political Money and Corruption. 32. Ibid. 33. T. Callaghy, “The State as Lame Leviathan: the Patrimonial Administrative State in Africa,” in E. Zaki, ed., The African State in Transition (London: Macmillan, 1987), 109. 34. Richard Joseph, “Nigeria: Inside the Dismal Tunnel,” Current History 95 (1996): 193–200. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Pinto-Duschinsky, “Financing Politics,”1.

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38. N. Obiora, ed., Political Finance and democracy in Nigeria: Prospects and strategies for reform (Lagos: Center for Law and Social Action, 2004). 39. Uche Emelonye, “Political Finance in Nigeria: A Policy Agenda for Reform,” October 15, 2006, http://www.dawodu.com/toc.htm. 40. Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith, Clientelism, Patrimonialism and Democratic Governance, 2. 41. See note 3 above. 42. See note 2 above. 43. See note 3 above. 44. Ibid. 45. Obiora, ed., Political Finance, 12. 46. Ibid., 13. 47. Ibid., 36. 48. Ibid., VI. 49. Paul Manza, “Chris Ngige: the Hero of the Fourth Republic Court of Appeal Judgment,” October 15, 2006, http://www.dwodu.com/toc.htm. 50. Ibid. 51. Paul Thovoethin, “Godfatherism and democratic consolidation in Nigeria: Issues and perspectives,” Philosophy, Science and Society 1(1) (2004): 7. 52. See note 3 above. 53. Walecki, Political Money and Corruption, 8. 54. See note 33 above.

6

Is Electronic Voting an Answer to Nigeria’s Electoral Problems? Godwin Onu

INTRODUCTION The creation and spread of the Internet and other computer networks have generated controversy about electronic democracy in general and electronic voting in particular. These concerns followed a revolution in the field of information and communication technology (ICT), which led to the adaptation of technology to improve voting procedures in order to minimize the corruption associated with elections and to ensure that the votes cast by the electorate reflect the wishes of the voters. This development has sparked controversy among both media pundits and students of political science who debate the possibility of fostering democratic development with the help of communication technology.1 However, experiences of democratic states across the world have demonstrated ample evidence that digital voting makes possible a more accurate reflection of the wishes of the people, including an accompanying mandate. This is what Michael Alvarez and Erik K. Antonsson called the DNA of democracy, which reflects a process of using an interrelated system of equipment, people, media, laws, and regulations to determine the chosen representatives of the people.2 Although dreams of better voting systems date back to the early twentieth century as a result of rising numbers of voters, multiple elections failings, sameday and second runoffs, the adoption of the digital process is a more recent phenomenon. An increase in the number of voters and the complexity associated with voting ecology have necessitated the replacement of ballot boxes with voting machines.3

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Second, it is understood that the manner in which elections and voting are conducted could have a profound impact on the understanding, conduct, and credibility of elections, and could also positively or negatively impact the stability of the state and consequent political and economic developments. Credible elections confer legitimacy, trust, and integrity on the political process and, by extension, they could be a healing ground for social exclusion and poverty. The move to introduce an electronic voting system is an acknowledgment and admission that all has not been well with the manual voting method. For the manual voting process to reflect the will of the people, the following necessary conditions must be in place. David Baltimore and Charles Vest have called voting a “system.” For this system to work, according to them, many steps are necessary. These steps include registering to vote, getting to the polls, casting a ballot, counting ballots, and certifying the vote. All of these steps must be accomplished without failure in order for a vote to count.4 All parts of the system must work well in order for the election result to reflect the will of the voters. The challenge is to make voting less prone to error and more secure. To vote, people either go to public polling places on an appointed day and record their preferences on paper ballots or voting machines, or people request an absentee ballot well before the appointed day. Americans, according to Baltimore and Vest, vote using a wide range of technologies, from paper ballots to touch-screen computers, with the choice of method varying with local governments.5 But, in using an electronic device, Jordi Esteve sounded a note of caution, warning that the tools could become a goal in themselves and should not be considered as an advantage for the electoral system. According to him, the only reason to accept these innovations is to prove that they will be useful for citizen participation and, in a more specific way, for vote casting.6 This chapter, therefore, is an attempt to examine how the electronic method of conducting elections would have fared in the 2007 general elections in Nigeria with a view to finding out if such a method represents a road map for future credible elections in Nigeria and a solution to all the problems surrounding the conduct of elections. In doing this, the paper attempts to investigate the electronic method of voting partially used in Nigeria and later abandoned. Second, it suggests the best way to conduct credible elections that accords with good practices in the comity of nations.

VOTING EXPERIENCE IN NIGERIA In Nigeria, democratic elections began with the introduction of a constitution in 1922 by Sir Hugh Clifford. That constitution provided for four seats to be contested by Nigerians. The seats were divided as follows: three for Lagos and one for Calabar. Since then, relentless attempts have been made to conduct credible democratic elections, but each time the outcomes have been controversial because of poor administration and contested results, following allegations of

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fraud and irregularities. Various electoral institutions have also been set up each time to demonstrate a renewed vigor and commitment to changing electoral outcomes to conform with acceptable international standards. Unfortunately, these efforts have not helped matters, probably because of a lack of sincerity on the part of the institutions that pay the piper, which continue to dictate the tune. The executive, which has always wanted to succeed itself or to substitute surrogates, has always been constitutionally empowered to set up electoral bodies. Even during the military administration, there were continuous efforts at installing a civilian administration that agreed with its terms to ensure that the army still retained some degree of influence even after handing over power. Succession in Nigeria has always had a class character, with one class continuing to succeed itself. For these reasons, the image of Nigeria in the eyes of the international community has been discredited. Against this backdrop speculations began concerning the best ways to investigate the problems of electoral governance and administration in Nigeria. This led to a clamor for electronic voting methods as a panacea to the problems Nigeria was experiencing. It also led to a partial introduction of an electronic method during the 2007 general elections. The electronic machines (touch-screen computers) were used during the voters’ registration exercise, but criticism and lack of understanding of the way the machines worked prevented their use during the actual voting process. Although that election was adjudged by both local and international observers to have failed to conform with even subregional standards, the credibility problems associated with the election cannot really be attributed to the absence of electronic voting or the failure of the secret manual method of voting. Many other factors not associated with machines appear to have contributed to the failure of the process. The response of Yar’Adua’s administration to this problem is an acknowledgment that the 2007 general elections in Nigeria lacked credibility. For this reason, an electoral reform committee made up supposedly of eminent Nigerians was formed. The mandate of the committee is to review elections in Nigeria and recommend the best method of conducting credible elections in the future.

ELECTRONIC VOTING IN NIGERIA The success or failure of democracy depends first on how well elections are conducted and the extent of citizen participation in the electoral process. The former can determine the latter. If elections are conducted in a manner that is transparent, devoid of suspicion, and according to rules, it can enhance citizen participation. If it is done the other way round, the adverse consequences on the body polity are often enormous. As Adam Stubblefield, Aviel D. Rubin, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Dan S. Wallachs said, the integrity of the electoral process is fundamental to the integrity of the democracy itself. According to them, the election system must be sufficiently robust to withstand a variety of fraudulent behaviors

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and must be sufficiently transparent and comprehensible that voters and candidates can accept the results of an election.7 They argued that the design of a “good” voting system, whether electronic or a system that uses traditional paper ballots or mechanical devices, must satisfy a number of sometimes competing criteria. They maintain that the anonymity of a voter’s ballot must be preserved, both to guarantee the voter’s safety when voting against a malevolent candidate, and to guarantee that there is no evidence that links a particular candidate to a particular voter. The existence of such evidence, they argued, means that votes could not be purchased by a candidate. The voting system must also be tamperresistant to thwart a wide range of attacks, including ballot stuffing by voters and incorrect tallying by insiders. The human factor must also be considered. A voting system must be comprehensible to and usable by the entire voting population, regardless of age, infirmity, or disability. Providing accessibility to such a diverse population, they argue, is an important engineering problem. If security matters are handled well, electronic voting could be a great improvement over current paper systems. Flaws in any of these aspects of a voting system, however, can lead to indecisive or incorrect election results. Against this background the issues that surround electronic voting can be understood. Over the years, elections in Nigeria have been marred by fraud, which has manifested itself in many dimensions, ranging from bribery and corruption to abuse of the electoral process. Therefore, the checkered history of elections made it imperative to explore new ways of improving the situation and restoring public confidence and trust not only in the institutions but also in the stakeholders involved in electoral governance because the latter involves people, processes, and machines. The introduction of electronic devices ordinarily would have meant genuine efforts to ensure that every vote cast would be accurately counted and reported without errors or any form of manipulation, but this seems not to be the case in all instances in which it has been attempted. The Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (INEC) wanted to introduce electronic voting during the 2007 elections to improve the credibility and integrity of the voting process and to guarantee the outcomes of elections. As Esteve points out,8 modernizing how people vote may not per se improve democratic participation, but failure to do so is likely to weaken the credibility and legitimacy of democratic institutions. It is also argued that electronic voting can be of tremendous assistance to certain categories of citizens (for example, disabled citizens and absentee residents). These groups, according to Esteve,9 often encounter many problems when it comes to exercising their right to vote, and new technologies, if designed correctly, could facilitate their participation considerably. Electronic voting would make it possible for both groups to vote remotely and, in the case of the blind, electronic tools could even allow for autonomous polling-station voting. In addition, it is possible for many people living outside their countries to cast their votes on the Internet, depending on the type of electronic device used for elections.

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Many believe that electronic voting systems are more versatile and flexible than any system previously known. Today the logistics surrounding elections involve economic, time, and human costs that make it difficult for elections to be conducted frequently. Some electronic voting models—not all—simplify this process and make it possible to imagine a future in which more participation tools could be made available to citizens.10 Perhaps some of these benefits again propelled Nigeria to attempt to introduce an electronic voting system. According to the chairman of INEC, introducing the electronic voting system (EVS) into the country’s electoral process was meant to remove all the elements of subjectivity that had bedeviled elections in the past seventy-three years of voting experience in Nigeria. He added that the introduction of an EVS would ensure the principle of one person, one vote. The INEC chairman believed that electronic voting was a means by which the country could return its electoral process to the people for their effective contribution and participation. He argued that the voting methods used during Nigeria’s seventy-three years of voting experience had led to rigging of elections, the manipulation of election results, and vandalization of ballot boxes during elections. He further contended that the electronic voting system is simple to operate, guarantees one person one vote, disallows ghost voters, and ensures the quick and uninterrupted simultaneous transmission of election results to the center. He also said that the system is simple and does not require any academic qualifications to operate, adding that all a voter needed to do was to walk to the voting center and press the button of the political party of his choice, which cannot be done more than once by each voter. It now becomes necessary to examine the conditions for successful electronic voting to determine if it is as simple as the chairman of INEC has stated. From the chairman’s understanding, if electronic voting is adopted, all the problems that have bedeviled voting and Nigeria’s attempts at legitimizing democracy will be addressed. From the chairman’s perspective, electronic voting is the answer to the nation’s electoral problems. It is important to realize that more is involved in voting than just voting and leaving as the chairman seemed to have oversimplified. What is more important is the outcome of a citizen’s vote. For this outcome to reflect the wishes of the voters, some preconditions must be fulfilled, and many issues that have been problematical for the state in the past must be addressed if electronic voting machines are to deliver as the hope of Nigerian democracy. Although empirical studies on elections in Nigeria have not been carried out, common observation and experience prove that no election in Nigeria has been value-, ethnic-, and ego-neutral. The collapse of the first republic of Nigeria was attributed to electoral outcomes tainted by many factors, including avarice among politicians, lack of knowledge among voters, the inability of voters to participate in counting or guarding of their votes, incidences of thuggery often unleashed by politicians or what could be called electoral violence, the official rigging and manipulation of results to favor particular candidates, machine politics, loading or

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stuffing of ballot boxes, and an atmosphere of insecurity that tended to scare many people away from voting centers. If a voter cannot protect his vote, his involvement in voting is good for nothing. Democratic elections require that the average voter must feel free either to vote from his residence electronically, or to vote without fear of losing his life when he visits the polling station. He must harbor a reasonable degree of confidence that if he goes out to vote, he will come back alive, that his vote will count in choosing candidates for elective offices, and that he can repose some trust in the electoral institutions and processes. Over and above all, he must see himself as a stakeholder in the process of nation building. Using electronic devices to achieve these objectives requires the following pre-conditions.

Access The democratic potential of information and communication technologies has been widely discussed in the literature since the 1970s and dominated the discourse of policy makers in developed countries in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly with the explosion of the Internet in the mid-1990s. The initial public discourse around the “Information Highway” in Canada and the United States began with national discussions about how to define access, and whether access to the Internet should be seen as a public good or public utility. It did not take long for the market to persuade governments that all that was needed were narrow definitions of “access,” focused on mere technological access rather than considerations of literacy and other factors.11 Access to information networks and tools is, therefore, a sine qua non for a successful electronic voting system. An empirical study carried out by Nadja Braun and Daniel Brändli in Switzerland where electronic voting has a history reveals that two-thirds of the eligible voters studied have access to the Internet.12 The percentage is said to be even higher for younger voters and those who are better educated. The survey revealed that 54 percent of those asked could imagine using e-voting. The most common reason given for readiness to use e-voting was its user-friendliness. Fears about data security were expressed most strongly by people who probably would not be using e-voting. The survey also showed that e-voting has a great potential to increase voter turnout. It is argued that certain groups—young people, because of their increased use of the Internet; older people, because of their limited mobility; Swiss citizens living abroad, because of lengthy international mail-delivery times; and blind or partially sighted persons—would make more frequent use of their voting rights if e-voting were allowed.13 In Nigeria, most eligible voters have no access to information and communication technology (ICT) facilities. Many university professors even lack sufficient knowledge about this technology. The situation down the literacy line could only be imagined. It is also relevant to note that e-voting cannot only depend on a person’s having available access to the Internet, but also on a regular use of this medium

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for his or her professional and/or private affairs. Well-educated young males living in urban areas in Switzerland showed the greatest level of interest in e-voting. But the potential is greater than 50 percent in the forty to sixty-five age group of voters and for people from the middle classes. Accessibility also requires the availability of skilled and trained manpower, especially poll workers, and the availability of machines, such as computers and an Internet connection. Voters who are physically challenged, either through movement or vision, and those who are illiterate must have access to voting technology. Even in developed countries such as Canada, the digital divide persists, keeping vulnerable communities such as indigenous peoples and African Nova Scotians at the margins of the “Knowledge Society” and maintaining the historic economic marginalization of communities in remote or peripheral regions such as Atlantic Canada or Nunavut. In Nigeria, the digital divide exists between rural and urban areas but has not rigidly toed educational lines. The reason is that ICT knowledge seems to be generational. Although the older generation (thirty years and above) that is supposed to constitute the greatest percentage of the voting population, seems not to be interested in computers and the Internet, the younger generation of thirty years and younger dominates the cyber cafes and computer usage. The reason is not because of its voting potential; rather, the younger generation constitutes the dominant portion of the unemployed of society. According to our investigations of cyber cafes in urban centers of southeastern Nigeria, these unemployed young people spend their time there scamming, looking for opportunities to earn a living, and chatting with friends abroad. Unfortunately, this knowledge does not provide an advantage in terms of positive usage of ICT. It merely suggests that a lot still needs to be done in terms of understanding the usefulness of electronic voting because accessibility is not only limited but generational. When the issue of computer use during the 2007 elections was brought before the National Assembly, members rejected it basically because they lacked understanding of the system, and many of their constituencies lacked accessibility to computers and the Internet. Many public commentators and political scientists also felt that such a situation involving the sovereign will of the people needed to be fully studied, analyzed, understood, and compared with good practices in developed and developing societies. The results of these studies will determine if electronic voting will, in the final analysis, be cheaper than paper balloting, cost–effective, and can deliver an actual mandate. Certain studies had cautioned against the risks of moving too quickly to adopt electronic voting machines because of software engineering challenges, insider threats, network vulnerabilities, and the challenges of auditing.14 The most fundamental problem with such a voting system is that the success of the entire exercise hinges on the correctness, robustness, and security of the software within the voting terminal. Should that code have security-related flaws, it might be exploitable either by unscrupulous voters or by malicious insiders. Such insiders include election officials, the developers of the voting system, and

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the developers of the embedded operating system on which the voting system runs. If any party introduces flaws into the voting system’s software or takes advantage of pre-existing flaws, the results of the election cannot be assured to accurately reflect the votes legally cast by the voters.15 Unfortunately, Nigeria is still largely a consumer nation as far as information and communication technology is concerned, and the country lacks sufficient software engineering manpower and large-scale knowledge as well as an understanding of this technology. There were fears that the incumbent government wanted to introduce an electronic voting system in order to make rigging easier without being detected by the voters, opposition candidates, and the courts in the event of electoral litigations; hence, its use was openly rejected. The Nigerian electoral system lacks a trustworthy political culture. Although that is true, the literature shows that countries with strong democratic traditions are not yet using electronic voting systems intensively, given citizens’ and policy makers’ concerns about the security of such systems.16 Rodrigues-Filho, Alexander, and Batista note that despite Brazil’s technological standards, e-voting technology does not yet provide a completely “secure e-transaction environment.”17

Voter Education Another condition for successful use of electronic voting machines is voter education. Voters need to be educated on the electoral process, how to use the machines, and how to cast their votes. In Nigeria, many of the voters are illiterate. This situation is compounded by poverty; many do not have access to even small transistor radios, let alone television sets. Newspapers and magazines are very costly and are unaffordable on a regular basis to even the average Nigerian. Unfortunately, these media are the dominant means of voter education in Nigeria. Before e-voting is introduced, the voters should have the opportunity to participate in an open and public debate on what e-voting is all about. The federal government should have also commissioned high-level research on the matter, considering its intended use to determine the fate and future of Nigeria. Unfortunately, little or no efforts were made in this regard. Most Nigerians have not even been properly educated on the ballot method of voting; how much more understanding would the intricacies associated with e-voting and the accompanying democratic imperatives involve? The INEC chairman in Nigeria did little to tell his countrymen how their votes would be counted, audited, and secured so as to generate confidence in the voting system. An experiment with e-technology was attempted during a voters’ registration exercise prior to the elections. In that circumstance, eligible voters were asked to register through laptops and touch-screen machines. The experiment showed that most voters were not able to either renew their registration or register for the first time. The reason was that they lacked proper education and even information about registration venues, and because of non-regularity of registration officials

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at the registration centers. The registration machines had no way to counter the cultural practice of political parties hijacking the registration exercise to favor their parties, the loss of voting machines, and connivance of ad hoc staff hired by INEC. Even at the level of voter registration, electronic registration machines were not a positive response to electoral problems at that level. Rodrigues-Filho, Alexander, and Batista noted that democracy depends on a healthy and educated citizenry. According to them, if technology can further policy objectives around education, health, and well-being, then investment in this innovation can be defended in a less developed country. However, when a market-driven approach dominates, the adoption of technology for technology’s sake, without due consideration and strategic efforts to mitigate the foreseen and unintended side effects of technological adoption, there is an obligation to question the motivation for such an initiative, to assess the implications of the adoption of technology, and to push for public dialogue about the relevance and appropriateness of the current course of action.18

e-Infrastructure Basic infrastructure for successful e-voting is a necessary condition for free and fair elections. During the registration exercise in Nigeria just before the 2007 general elections, most of the computers used ran out of batteries, and in many places there was no electricity to charge and recharge the computers. To compound the situation, electricity generators were not made available. Electoral officers were compelled to ask communities to provide generators to power the computers used in the registration exercise. Many parts of Nigeria, especially the remote rural areas, lack access roads and have difficult terrains. In some of these areas, election monitoring has been very difficult, creating the opportunity for all sorts of corrupt practices. Successful e-voting cannot take place in the absence of regular electricity, a good road network, and manpower that understands how computers work.

Security There were reports among poll registration officers that many of the computers fell into the hands of armed robbers, suggesting that adequate security is necessary for use of such sophisticated instruments. In addition to police security, the security of the system’s software is vital. Some of the computers used during voter registration broke down, even when they were still new. In many of the remote areas and even the urban centers, adequate technical manpower was not available to maintain the system’s software. Second, there were no guarantees that, in the process of maintenance, the figures entered could not be tampered with in favor of particular interests.

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IS ELECTRONIC VOTING THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA’S ELECTIONS? A report on the 2003 general elections in Nigeria cited by Festus Iyayi notes that elections are a complex set of activities with different variables that act and feed on one another.19 An election was defined as a “formal act of collective decision [making] that occurs in a stream of connected antecedent and subsequent behaviors.” They involve the participation of people in the act of electing their leaders and their own participation in governance. As the report noted, elections are not necessarily about election-day activities, although they do form an important component. An election encompasses activities before, during, and after the actual voting. Considerations include the legal and constitutional framework of elections, the registration of political parties, party campaigns, and the activities of electronic and print media in terms of access; they include campaign financing and the activities of the security agencies and the government in power; they include the authenticity and genuineness of the voters’ registration; they include the independence or lack thereof of the electoral agencies and organs; and they include the degree of liberalism of the political process in the country and the independence of the adjudicating bodies of elections. The report suggests that the problems occurring in elections in Nigeria span across mere voting and being voted for. Neither is it just the problem of the process or method of voting. The problems are economic, political, historical, religious, ethnic, and some elements of class character. In addition, Nigeria’s electoral problems have something to do with the geography and population of the country, as well as the institutional character of its governance systems. For instance, Nigeria’s economy in the past decade has been on the downward trend. Although official statistics are often tailored to satisfying and justifying the introduction of the market economy and making citizens feel that government has not made any mistakes in embracing the dictates of international governance structures, the reality on the ground proves otherwise. In 2003, the federal Office of Statistics revealed that over 80 percent of Nigerians live on less than $1 a day. This situation has even worsened in the year 2007, following varying degrees of degeneration in economic activities. Although current statistics from the World Bank put the figure at about 50 percent, such a figure cannot, in all honesty, be said to reflect the situation on the ground.20 The figure was quoted to justify the introduction of the market economy in Nigeria and its progress. The nosedive that the economy has taken and the consequences on economic disempowerment have led to abject poverty. Over the years, the government has been lumping the success made within the informal sector of the economy in with the formal sector because little or no disaggregated data exists on the two. Most Nigerians exist and live in the informal sector. This misleads economic managers who have not bothered to study the contributions of that sector to Nigeria’s economic well-being. Unfortunately, the success of the informal sector at the microeconomic level is used to measure the success of the IMF and the World Bank-superintended economic policy agenda.

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Having said this, it is imperative to assert that poverty is antithetical to democracy and the holding of elections. Poverty is one of the major reasons that Nigerian elections are truncated. It also creates an amazing backdrop for machine politics and for the phenomenon of godfatherism in Nigeria. It is not only the voters that are poor; many contestants for public offices emerge from poor backgrounds and are unemployed. They understand politics not just as a business but also as a means of livelihood and opportunity for employment. Most people who are gainfully employed and live a happy life are not likely to adopt politics as way of life. On the other hand, most polling officials, who are often employed on an ad hoc basis, are not only poorly educated but are haunted by abject poverty. This creates room for the mindset that participation in electoral activities is a means of making money, alleviating poverty, and taking one’s share of the national wealth. The mindset is not just to discharge their patriotic duties of conducting free and fair elections but to take their pound of flesh from politicians who are seen, rightly or wrongly, as having conserved a lot of money for the elections. The ad hoc officials are often not happy with contestants who fail to visit the polls in person or with agents who want their palms greased as a major supplement to the official stipend for working an election. On the other hand, the contestants often hire thugs and assassins to intimidate their opponents. Some patronize deities, shrines, and native doctors for various rituals, and spend money on posters, media campaigns, and a lot of nocturnal meetings. All these things cost a lot of money. When these factors are weighed against the fact that most of the contestants have been unemployed for many years, it is easy to understand why they fall victim to patrons and godfathers whose business is to dole out a lot of money and set conditions on how government should be run should their clients win the elections. Such conditions must favor the recovery of their fund, which they see as an investment. Any environment haunted by extreme poverty and godfatherism is likely to constitute a major obstacle to the success of electoral democracy and the conduct of elections. The voting machine cannot solve this problem. The solution to this lies in a political and cultural reorientation, an honest management of national institutions, an efficient and independent judiciary, and law enforcement agencies that respond swiftly to legal breaches and abuse of human rights.

INSTITUTIONS Political institutions, both public and in civil society, are instruments through which the state implements policies. They are the means by which citizens and public agencies communicate as well as a channel to ensure that the rules of the game and constitutional norms are followed.21 These institutions reflect the image and structure of the state. Further, when civil society interacts with the state, it always does so through state or civil institutions. Thus, when we study or evaluate the performance of “democracy” or of the state, we are really evaluating the performance of its political institutions. Institutions that oversee elections are

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expected to serve as umpires in the game of politics. Among the important institutions that must play umpire roles are the Electoral Commission, the police, the judiciary, and other monitoring agencies. In Nigeria, the roles of the police and the judiciary have come under suspect and contestations. Ordinarily, the police are expected to be the arm of the executive with the mandate of protecting lives and property and ensuring the effective implementation of the laws of the state. During elections, the police are expected to provide adequate security not just for the electoral officials, but for the contestants, and for electoral materials until elections are over. Adequate security protection in this regard is a major way of improving the integrity of the electoral process. As a former Inspector General of Police in Nigeria stated, “A secure electoral process which naturally paves the way for a free and fair election has the potential of opening up new opportunities for [an] improved democratic process.”22 He argued further that if elections are to be free and fair, laws designed toward that end must not just exist, they must be operated in practice and be enforced. There must be freedom of speech so that voters can be told about the issues and the choices they face. Political parties must be capable of getting their messages across and winning the minds of the electorate; the media must be able to channel positions and policies and clarify issues; voters must understand their duties and responsibilities and the advantages for them of an accountable democratic system; and observers must be able to organize freely.23 The Inspector General admitted that political violence has been a part of Nigeria’s political culture since the First Republic. This led to tagging the events in the western region of Nigeria as “the wild, wild West.” The Second Republic was also tainted by political violence. Politicians go on campaign tours with busloads of thugs armed with machetes and guns in order to intimidate opponents. But the abiding consequence is sending jitters and fears through the population and discouraging voters from electoral participation. The 2007 elections did not fare better in terms of electoral violence. At the root of this matter is also a lack of trust in the integrity of the electoral system. Each political party and opponents operate with the belief that the other must have perfected methods to rig elections, that the electoral institution must have been designed to favor some candidates or parties, and that there is no honesty in the electoral process. Whatever promises have been made by the body or institution, free and fair elections are seen as deceitful and an exercise in futility. It is, therefore, believed that the only way to guard votes and secure victory is through thuggery and violence and by not giving the opponent any chance to rig elections. Part of not giving the opponent the chance is by using pre-emptive strikes, which are manifested in the snatching of ballot boxes, and preparing election results before they are announced. In this process, many lives are lost. It is also in this regard that the police and other paramilitary agencies deployed during election periods are expected to play major roles. Unfortunately, all the elections in Nigeria, and especially the 2007 elections, subjected the Nigerian police to a lot of questions apparently anchored on lack of trust, especially when available evidence and reports of monitoring agencies

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indicate that the police and the Independent National Electoral Commission were accomplices in masterminding electoral fraud across the country. During the 2007 elections, which were adjudged the worst in Nigeria’s history, results were written before the elections were conducted. In many cases, results announced from the polls reflected more than the registered number of voters within such constituencies. Mountains of exhibits tendered before electoral tribunals set up to try electoral offenses evidenced this claim. According to Human Rights Watch, “instead of guaranteeing citizens’ basic right to vote freely, Nigerian government and electoral officials actively colluded in the fraud and violence that marred the presidential polls in some areas.”24 This lamentation came from Mr. Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “In other areas, officials closed their eyes to human rights abuses committed by supporters of the ruling party and others.”25 In some cases, the police were part of the thumbprinting exercise. The Nigerian Political Science Association, southeast chapter, after monitoring the 2007 elections, issued a release that contained the following statement, “No elections were held across the federation, particularly in the southeastern part of Nigeria, due to the fact that electoral materials were either not supplied at all or were not accompanied with result sheets.”26 They added that “the results announced by INEC did not have any bearing with reality” in that “there were strong indications that electoral results were written before the date of the election [and that] the results, as announced, were written to favor candidates of the ruling party [PDP] . . . using the state security agencies, including the military and the police, to intimidate the electorate.”27 The international crisis group report of May 30, 2007, stated that Nigeria’s democracy was in a state of crisis. The report noted further that the April 2007 elections were supposed to move the country to a higher rung on the democratization ladder, create a more conducive environment to resolve its many internal conflicts, and strengthen its credentials as a leading peacemaker, but instead they generated serious new problems that may be pushing it further toward the status of a failed state.28 The elections, in the view of Nigerians and many international observers alike, were the most poorly organized and massively rigged in the country’s history. It adds that in a bitterly contentious environment, outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) acted with unbridled desperation to ensure sweeping, winner-take-all victories, not only in the presidency and federal legislature, but also in state governorships and assemblies. Characterized as a “do or die” battle by Obasanjo, the campaigns and elections also witnessed extensive violence, including the killing of over 200 people. Widespread electoral malpractice and the staggering scale of falsified results were possible because of serious shortcomings within the regulatory agencies, most notably INEC. Vigorously manipulated by the presidency, INEC virtually abdicated its responsibility as an impartial umpire. Inefficient and nontransparent in its operations, it became an accessory to active rigging. Furthermore, the police and other security services that were deployed to help curb violence largely turned blind eyes to and, in some cases, helped in the brazen falsification of results.29

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The crisis group also noted the controversy that surrounded the outcomes of the elections. According to this group, the victory was bitterly disputed by many Nigerians, including broad-based labor, religious, and civil society groups. The election, it noted further, had pushed the country steadily toward a one-party state and diminished citizen confidence in electoral institutions and processes. Most ominously, it had undermined Nigeria’s capacity to manage its internal conflicts, deepening already violent tensions in the Niger Delta and refueling Biafran separatism in the ethnically Ibo southeast. It has also badly damaged the country’s international image and Obasanjo’s legacy as a statesman, thus diminishing their credibility to serve as leading forces for peace and democracy throughout West Africa. These reports aptly establish that the problem is not the voting machine or voting method but one created by institutions of the state, namely, the executive represented by INEC, the police, and the presidency.

THE JUDICIARY For any democracy to be sustainable, the basic principles of the rule of law must be respected and protected. These principles include supremacy of the constitution, equality before the law, and civil liberties. The judiciary, as an institution, has a major role to play in this regard and in guaranteeing free and fair elections. However, this role is contingent upon the extent that it breathes the air of freedom and perceives its role correctly. In Nigeria, over the years, citizens have had mixed feelings about the judiciary, especially when its activities with regard to election petition matters and governance issues are reviewed. The muscling out of that institution and its consequent disenfranchisement by the military dovetailed into Obasanjo’s administration and nearly truncated the democratic thrust, especially when even nonjurists believed that many judgments regarding some prominent Nigerians, particularly those backed up by the federal government, were skewed to satisfy the establishment. The case of Justice Wilson Egbo-Egbo on Ngige vs. Peter Obi in Anambra state of Nigeria explains this anomaly perfectly. The trust Nigerians had in the judiciary was almost eroded until some landmark judgments were delivered, particularly toward the tail end of Obasanjo’s administration. The Nigerian judiciary appeared to have realized this itself, perhaps because Obasanjo, who had had a firm grip on that institution, was about to vacate office. During the height of his administration, the judiciary was in doldrums and always constrained by the institutional terrorism of the presidency. Aided by the police, which were a national and international embarrassment, court judgments were always dictated technically by the executive branch. Their judgments were, in most cases, designed to favor the interests of the establishment. Rahaman Onike, in an appraisal of the role of the judiciary in the electoral process, lamented that some judges allowed themselves to be used in an attempt to sabotage democracy. According to him, this accounted for the suspension of some highly placed judicial officers by the national judicial council.30 In particular,

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the council suspended Justice Chuks Okoli (Anambra state), Yau Dakwang (Plateau state), Justice Kayode Bamishile, the substantive chief judge of Ekiti state and a former acting chief judge of Ekiti state, and Justice Alade Jana. Justice Okoli was suspended for his role in the removal of Peter Obi (the elected governor of Anambra state), whereas Justice Bamishile was suspended for his official conduct during impeachment proceedings against Ayo Fayose, the elected governor of Ekiti state. Justice Dakwang was also suspended for the way he handled the impeachment of Chief Joshua Dariye, the elected governor of Plateau state. However, there are other justices whose names have been written in gold for their boldness: Justices Umaru Abdulahi, Inumidun Akande, M.N. Oniyangi, Anwuri Chikere, Idris Kutigi (before he even became chief justice of Nigeria), Rose Ukeje, and the immediate past chief justice of Nigeria, Justice Alfa Belgore.31 In spite of significant achievements, there remain signs that the judiciary still suffers from executive interference, reckless disobedience to court orders, and flouting of the rule of law. All of these problems have dealt severe blows to the survival of democracy in Nigeria. Additionally, perennial poor funding, congestion of cases, infrastructural decay, and corruption of judges have continued to plague the Nigerian legal process. The judgment of an Anambra state high court that nullified Governor Peter Obi’s impeachment represents further consolidation of Nigerian democracy. In nullifying the impeachment of the governor, Justice J. Nri-Ezedi held that the legislators acted in a flagrant abuse of section 188 (1)–(9) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, which prescribes the mode of impeachment. The verdict has a significant relationship with the landmark decision of the Federal Court of Appeals in the celebrated case of Adeleke vs. Oyo State House of Assembly (2006) 16 NWLR (Pt. 1006) (608). The judiciary also played a vital role in determining whether INEC has the power to screen, disqualify, or verify claims of the party flag bearers. An interim order was granted by Justice Babs Kuewunmi of a federal high court sitting in Abuja, following a motion filed by the Action Congress (AC) on January 22, 2007.32 The other landmark judgment was delivered by an Abuja high court, which quashed the expulsion of the Nigerian vice president, Atiku Abubakar, from the Peoples Democratic Party. The feud was between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar in respect of the vice president’s defection to the Action Congress and the consequent declaration that his position was vacant by the PDP and Obasanjo himself.

POLITICAL CULTURE In a five-nation comparative study, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba attempted to show that “the development of a stable and effective democratic government . . . depends upon the orientations that people have to the political process—upon the political culture.”33 More specifically, they found that the citizenry in the more stable democracies of Great Britain and the United States have

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a more developed “civic culture”—in particular, stronger feelings of citizen competence and higher levels of political participation at the local level—than the people of the younger and more fragile democracies of Germany, Mexico, and Italy.34 Almond and Verba also found that Americans and Britons displayed higher levels of interpersonal trust, cooperativeness, and memberships in voluntary associations than Germans, Mexicans, and Italians.35 Echoing this finding, Putnam found that what made “democracy work” today in twenty regions of Italy were the varying stocks of “social capital”—“features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and networks”—that they had accumulated over the centuries. Inglehart also found that both the inauguration and stability of democracy are promoted by certain traits of political culture among the citizenry. Although we acknowledge the controversy surrounding the directional effect of political culture, that is, whether it (political culture) promotes democracy or whether democracy promotes political culture, we cannot discuss this now. Nigeria’s democracy was authored by military autocracy and produced a militarized society that has confronted the subsequent decades, including the current millennium. Victor Okafor adopted Claude Ake’s definition of political culture as “the system of empirical beliefs, expressive symbols and values which defines the situation in which political action takes place.”36 “If the political culture,” as Okafor argued about Nigeria, “is characterized by a behavioral pattern among the political elite that tends to disrespect the electoral law with impunity (and even allows political fraud stars to boastfully parade themselves as celebrities), can that pattern of behavior be checkmated by the substitution of one voting instrument for another?”37 Continuing, Okafor pointed out that When a so-called godfather boasts openly that he was the one that foisted a governor in office, rather than the electorate (in other words, he is saying to the world that he flouted the electoral law of the land), and he goes about a free and boastful man, the political culture has been ridiculed and debased. Inaction, when action is needed on the part of those charged with law enforcement in the land, is bound to further erode trust in government on the part of the bewildered watching public. Such inaction in the face of a situation that calls for swift action to show that the law is no respecter of persons in Nigeria is bound to make the citizenry cynical about the efficacy of the electoral process. Election malfeasance, as a variant of public corruption, is symptomatic of the country’s defective political culture.38

So the problem is not the electronic voting method.

CIVIL SOCIETY Civil society is the sphere of institutions, organizations, and individuals located between the family, the state, and the market, in which people associate voluntarily to advance common interests.39 Consequently, civil society has the power of oversight responsibilities over democratic governments, checking their

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potential for abuse and violation of the law and subjecting them to public scrutiny. In developed societies of the world, civil societies have played critical roles in the sustenance of democracy by performing oversight functions over the institutions of governance. In Nigeria, the civil society organizations, as well as nonorganizational members, are still highly underdeveloped. Although many of them depend on foreign assistance for survival, others scramble for government patronage. This status of the civil society organizations (CSOs) constrains their independence and gives them hardly any leeway for critical assessment of government policies. This is a major obstacle to democratic consolidation. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s level of development could have been a breeding ground for civil society activism, given the level of common frustration experienced by members of civil society, especially in the urban centers. For instance, of its twenty-one large towns and cities, Lagos, the most populated city in Africa, has a population of twelve million, and Abuja, the newest city and the legislative capital, two million. These cities are melting pots for all the different ethnic and religious groups. The large majority of this urban proletariat is crowded together in slums, where ethnic and religious boundaries tend to become blurred due to the vital necessity of helping each other in order to survive. This situation could constitute a fertile ground, allowing the poor masses to unite against these rival politicians representing the privileged elite, who have no qualms about building their careers on the blood of the poor while trying to push them back hundreds of years into the past. Unfortunately, the civil society is highly disorganized. The problem here is the inability of the civil society to play its historical roles and not the electronic voting machine.

CONCLUSION Having examined all the issues concerning institutions, political culture, civil society, the judiciary, and the rule of law, it is possible to conclude that the problems of elections in Nigeria, and the 2007 elections in particular, are not those of the machinery of voting. It may be part of the problem but not a major one. Lord Acton noted, “For forms of government, let fools contend, whichever is the best is the best administered.” The issue is not the electronic voting machine. Nigeria’s problems, as examined above, range from a culture of corruption, a lack of response to breaches of the law, a lack of supervision of supervisors, to issues of the institutions of the judiciary, the police, and executive interference in electoral institutions. The problem is not actually the voting system but where the voting system finds itself.

NOTES 1. See Dale A. Bertelsen, “Media Form and Government: Democracy as an Archetypal Image in the Electronic Age,” Communication Quarterly 40(4) (Fall 1992): 325–337; A Calabrese and M. Borchest, “Prospects for Electronic Democracy in the

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United States: Re-thinking Communication and Social Policy,” Media, Culture and Society 18 (1996): 249–268; Lewis Friedman, “Electronic Democracy and the New Citizenship,” Media, Culture & Society 18(2) (1996): 185–212; and Michael R. Odgen, “Politics in the Parallel Universe: Is there a Future for Cyberdemocracy?” Futures 26(7) (1994): 713–729. 2. Michael Alvarez and Erik K. Antonsson, “Bridging Science, Technology, and Politics in Election Systems,” Voting Technologies 32(2) (Summer 2007). 3. Lawrence Monnoyer-Smith, “How e-voting technology challenges traditional concepts of citizenship: an analysis of French voting rituals, 2006,” (paper presented at conference on electronic voting in Budapest, 2006), http://www.e-voting.cc/static/ evoting/files/Voting_Rituals.pdf (accessed August 10, 2007). 4. David Baltimore and Charles M. Vest, “Voting, What is? What could be? Caltech, VTD and MIT Voting Technology Project,” July 2001, http://www.vote.caltech.edu/media/ documents/july01/July01_VTP_Voting_Report_Entire.pdf. 5. Ibid. 6. Jordi B. Esteve, “A preliminary question: Is e-voting actually useful for our democratic institutions? What do we need it for?” Electronic Voting (2nd International Workshop Co-organized by Council of Europe, ESF TED, IFIP WG 8.5 and E-Voting.CC in Castle Hofen, Bregenz, Austria, August, 2–4, 2006): 4–7. 7. Adam Stubblefield, Aviel D. Rubin, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Dan S. Wallachs, “Analysis of an Electronic Voting System,” IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (2004): 3. 8. See note 6 above. 9. See Ibid. 10. See Ibid. 11. José Rodrigues-Filho, Cynthia J. Alexander, and Luciano C. Batista, “E-Voting in Brazil - The Risks to Democracy” (paper presented at a conference on electronic voting in Budapest, 2006), http://www.e-voting.cc/static/evoting/files/rodrigues_e-voting_in_Brazil_ p85_94.pdf (accessed August 10, 2007). 12. Nadja Braun and Daniel Brändli, “Swiss E-Voting Pilot Projects: Evaluation, Situation Analysis and How to Proceed,” Electronic Voting (2nd International Workshop Coorganized by Council of Europe, ESF TED, IFIP WG 8.5 and E-Voting.CC in Castle Hofen, Bregenz, Austria, August 2–4, 2006): 5–6. 13. Ibid., 6. 14. Stubblefield, Rubin, Kohno, and Wallachs, “Analysis of,” 4. 15. Ibid., 3. 16. See note 11 above. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Festus Iyayi, Nigeria’s 2007 general elections: Proceedings and communiqué of the INEC National forum (Ladi Kwali Sheraton and Towers, August, 29–31 2006): 10. 20. World Bank, “Country brief: The world Bank,” http://web.worldbank.org/ WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/NIGERIAEXTN/0,,menuPK:368902 ~pagePK:141159~piPK:141110~theSitePK:368896,00.html. 21. Juan Carlos Rodríguez-Raga, Mitchell A. Seligson, Juan Carlos Donoso, Clemente Quiñones, and Vivian Schwarz-Blum, The Political Culture of Democracy in Colombia (USAID 2005): 9. 22. Iyayi, Nigeria’s 2007 general elections, 29. 23. Ibid., 11.

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24. Peter Takirambudde, “Nigerian Elections: What Went Wrong International,” Affairs Journal at Davis (2007), http://davisiaj.com/content/view/364/93/. 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. The international crisis group, “Nigeria: Failed Elections, Failing State?” Africa Report 126 (May 30, 2007). 29. Ibid. 30. Onike Rahaman, “Roles of Judiciary in Sustaining Democracy, 2007,” http://wwwsearchwarp.com/swa131887.htm. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1963), 366. 34. Ibid., 11. 35. Ibid. 36. Victor Okafor, “Nigeria’s electoral challenge: what is to blame, the ballot box or political culture?” Africa Update 4 (Fall 2005), http://www.ccsu.edu/Afstudy/upd124.html#toc. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Maria Isabel Verduzco and Aguirre Reveles, “The CIVICUS Index of Civil Society Project in Mexico,” Civicus Index on Civil Society Occasional Paper Series 1(7) (2007): 6, http://www.civicus.org/new/media/mexico.pdf (accessed November 15, 2007).

7

The Role of Geographical Zoning in Nigeria’s Democracy Abayomi Ferreira

Nigeria is a multinational country that was created by continuous British colonial escapades in West Africa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Anthropological, ethnological, and historical studies currently list 521 clear and distinct languages in Nigeria. Some ethnic groups speak more than one language.1 Anthropologists and ethnologists use different criteria to determine the defining characteristics of a nationality. Emakpor Ajise conducted a study in which he attempted to determine the basis for a credible constitutional configuration for Nigeria (a country that is beset by persistent internal nationality-based feuding)—an effort by which he is fascinated as a political practitioner of the leftist ideology. Ajise has shown that the anthropological or ethnological approach applies excessive distinction to peoples who inhabit contiguous territories, who speak the same language but are not necessarily of the same nationality.2 We use the term nationality in the sense that Ajise uses. Many writers tend to use the term tribe/ethnicity for nationality. One of the examples that Ajise cites is the case of the Olulumo people in the Cross River state whose language is Ejaghan; however, the Olulumo people are not the same nationality as the people who are called Ejaghan and speak Ejaghan. Similarly, in the process of the movements of migrant peoples over time, particularly the nomads of which the Fulani are a prominent example, there are some peoples of the same language who have become permanent inhabitants in strictly definable centers; geographically surrounded by peoples of a different language, they still speak their own language even though they are not in geographical contiguity with their main group that now lives in a large area of the country. The Abore Fulani who have settled around the village of Auddaye in Fika Emirate are an example of such people.3 The

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Fulani are a migrant people with their greatest concentration in Sokoto where there are also Hausa and other nationalities. They are gradually losing their language, Fulfude, as they have adopted the language of the Hausas; meanwhile, the Hausas have adopted Islam, the religion of the Fulani. Ajise concludes that there are much fewer than the 521 nationalities in Nigeria that have been recorded by the colonial and post-colonial scholars. Although, for instance, anthropologists record Olulumo and Olulumo-Ikom as two separate nationalities or dialects in their classification, Ajise recognizes only one Olulumo nationality.4 However, it is very significant to state that the multiplicity of nationalities as such was not the main cause of the concept of geographical zoning as an instrument of political interaction in the state of Nigeria. Most of the various nationalities in the present Federal Republic of Nigeria have been localized for tens of thousands of years.5 Similarly, in respect of the Ijaw nationality: the linguists have, indeed, recognized the Izon language to have been present in the Niger Delta region many millennia before the fifteenth century when the Portuguese visited the Nigerian coast. By current linguistic estimates, the Ijaw language has been established in the Niger Delta from between seven to eight thousand years ago! The Ijaw people, therefore, belong to the Niger Delta in both their geographical spread, and in terms of the length of time over which they have lived within this geographical region.6

In the period before the arrival of the British, these many nationalities that were living within the territory that is now Nigeria had interacted economically and socially with their neighbors as well as with other peoples now resident outside the federation. The concept of geographical zoning as a tool for political stability arose in the historical process of the development of a viable constitution for Nigeria. The real cause of the origin and development of this concept rests on a combination of factors, the main ones being: • the concentration of political influence and power in the three largest nationalities • the internecine and sustained struggle for overall control of power among the politicians who are dedicated to the political interests of these three major nationalities • the emergence of very influential political parties mainly dedicated to the political interests of the three largest nationalities • the nearly total dependence of the articulate members of the smaller nationalities on the three political parties of the three largest nationalities for political expression, thereby shrinking their nationality’s influence on the emerging political and constitutional structures before independence

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• the failure of the dominant political parties to evolve a national program for the overall development of Nigeria • the utilization of political power for personal self-enrichment at the expense of the peoples of Nigeria • the expanding resources of the country in the midst of pervading poverty among the population In this work, the phrase geographical zoning has the same meaning as federal character, which is the term that is used in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, generally called the 1999 Constitution. This constitution is at present in use in Nigeria. The terms are also used to mean quota system, a term that is preferred by a substantial number of commentators. Indeed, this last phrase is used by one of the references made in this work. Section 318 (1) of Part IV, Interpretation, Citation and Commencement of the 1999 Constitution, states: “‘Federal character of Nigeria’ refers to the distinctive desire of the peoples of Nigeria to promote national unity, foster national loyalty and give every citizen of Nigeria a sense of belonging to the nation as expressed in section 14(3) and (4) of this Constitution.”7 Although political party activities started in Nigeria in 1922 with the founding of the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) by Herbert Heelas Macaulay, a surveyor, with the objective of obtaining independence for Nigeria within the British Empire, the internal political dynamics that eventually gave rise to the concept of geographical zoning in politics and its application in the public administration of Nigeria are rooted in the political events of 1950. These occurrences permanently changed the tenor and conduct of politics in Nigeria. Our discussion of these developments constitutes the core of this chapter on geographical zoning in the development of democracy or its failure, as it may be viewed in Nigeria. Between 1922 and 1950, other political parties, apart from the NNDP, came onto the scene in Nigeria: The Lagos Youth Movement (LYM) that was founded in 1934 and became known as the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) in 1936. This party merely provided an alternative platform to the NNDP to contest elections that were restricted by the provisions of the Nigeria (Legislative Council) Order in Council 1922 to only the Colony of Lagos and Calabar. The National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC) was formed in 1944, and with the excision of Southern Cameroon (a territory that was seized from Germany after its defeat in World War II) from the Nigerian administration in 1959, it became the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) in order to keep its very impressionist acronym by which it had made an indelible and significant mark on the electorate in Nigeria. From its inception, the NCNC made a pronounced impact on politics in Nigeria as the first countrywide political organization in the country. Its radical and very progressive objectives included: (1) independence for Nigeria, a purpose that became more clearly expressed with the formation of the Zikist Movement, its radical wing that came out with the slogan, “Self Government Now” (SGN); (2) to achieve socialism for Nigeria; and (3) to raise the standard of living of the people.

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The NCNC was composed of an extended coterie of town unions formed for local politics, individual advancement, and local development, progressive organizations, and labor unions fighting for better service conditions for employees in public service, and the United Africa Company. Because of its membership, it had countrywide influence on political practice. By its nature, it embraced a program for the political and economic development of the entire country. It saw Nigeria as a constitutional creation and indeed promoted the philosophy of a unitary government to ensure the emergence of one strong nation for the wide benefits of all. • The Nigerian Labour Party (NLP), which arose from a combination of militant labor activists and dissident elements from the Zikist Movement (the left wing of the NCNC), on September 17, 1946, created a thoroughly leftist ideological party that wanted “labour to learn to walk with two legs,” a statement that was appropriately pronounced by none other than Michael Imoudu, a fiery trade unionist and the leader of the party. • As a fallout from the Fifth Pan-Africanist Congress held in Manchester in 1945, the Convention Peoples’ Party of Nigeria was formed and led by Amaefuna Ikoro as the general secretary. Like the Communist Party of Nigeria that was formed and led by Bankole Akpata and Gogo Chu Nzeribe in the immediate postwar period, it did not make much imprint on the political map of Nigeria, except that the philosophy and ideology that created these two parties resurfaced in various organizational expressions and forms in subsequent years and are still very relevant today in the theory and practice of politics in Nigeria. It is relevant to state that in 2008, some sixty-four years after the NCNC proclamation of its objectives, including the three quoted above, those objectives have not yet been attained by Nigeria. Truly, there is independence, but strictly speaking, there is no self-government in a country that has turned out to be a neo-colonial state whose affairs are not only controlled by, but are indeed run for, the economic and productive benefits of the Western powers who dominate the economy and dictate the government’s agenda through the direct influence and supervision of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is a consequence of the political trend that the occurrences of 1950 rancorously created even after geographical zoning has become a constitutional provision in the Nigerian polity.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE PRECURSOR TO GEOGRAPHICAL ZONING The causes of the internal political tensions in Nigeria will now be shown in greater detail to give us the correct perception of the context in which geographical zoning occurs in the country. First, Obafemi Awolowo was an activist in both

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the labor movement and the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) before he traveled to Britain in 1944 to study law.8 In 1944 he obtained a bachelor of commerce degree through correspondence studies in Nigeria. He was a journalist and the editor of the Nigerian Worker, the founder and general secretary of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUCN), and the secretary of the Nigerian Motor Transport Union (NMTU). A man of high devotion to intellect and voracious in his search for knowledge, Awolowo returned to Nigeria in 1949, having published his book Path to Nigerian Freedom. The book gave a detailed program for the constitutional, political, and economic development of Nigeria, the first such published treatise by a Nigerian politician. Its philosophical foundation was based on an analysis and dissection of the three largest nationalities that occupy and live in the territory that the British colonialists had earlier created as the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria on January 1, 1914. Awolowo was the general secretary of Egbe Omo Oduduwa, which he founded in 1945 in London. He returned to Nigeria in 1949. Although the Egbe was publicly promoted as a cultural organization of the Yoruba people of Nigeria, Awolowo used the organization as the corporate progenitor of the political party that he eventually created with seven other Yoruba politicians in 1950. A detailed study of the events of political importance in Nigeria from 1950 onward, particularly the role and influence of Awolowo and his colleagues, shows that Awolowo’s very strong belief in federalism as the constitutional foundation for Nigeria arose from his strong dedication and aspiration for freedom to develop the Yoruba nation-state. However, because the historical necessity of developing the Yoruba nation was antedated by the British creation of the country Nigeria, Yoruba nationalism had to be pursued in tandem with the struggle for political power in the Nigerian context. The political vehicle that Awolowo needed in order to pursue his ambition was created in 1950 with the founding of the Action Group of Nigeria (AG). It was, in all of its origin, nature, orientation, and programs, a child of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa. Also in 1950, another cultural organization of a separate and limited geographical scope, interest, and influence gave birth to its own political party as the answer to the political upsurge of Yoruba nationalism in the emergence of the AG.9 The Jami’ yar Mutaren Arewa was a literary discussion society of the leading educated persons in the northern provinces of Nigeria. This area of Nigeria had been the colonial protectorate of northern provinces before the 1914 amalgamation. The British colonial strategy of indirect rule, that is, administrative and judicial management of the people and territory by the imperial control of paramount rulers, was practiced to its fullest effects in the northern provinces. It is a multinational area, inhabited by over 400 nationalities. The Hausa nation is the largest, but the Fulani are the native and traditional rulers. The Kanuri is another rather large nationality, although smaller in size in territory and population than the Hausa-Fulani. The Kanuri ruling class is different from the Fulani’s, although both are similar in their cultural settings, which are deeply Islamic in their origin and contents. The emirate system provides a uniformity of native rule that is unique to the northern provinces and different from the various traditional ruling

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systems found in the southern provinces of the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. The members of the Jami’ yar Mutaren Arewa who emerged onto the political scene as leaders of the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) included Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and a teacher as the president of the new party, and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, also a schoolteacher. The NPC was more forthcoming with its program and interests in comparison with the AG. Its motto was “One North, One People.” Although the northern provinces were home to approximately 400 of Nigeria’s 521 nationalities, the political strategy of the party was to present these peoples as having an identical political interest in the context of a parochial ideology. The relative scarcity in these provinces of personnel qualified in Western education for competitive entry into the emerging public services was to be countered with a political force that was sufficiently large, extensive, and in control of so much of the population that it constituted the biggest power base in the power configuration, conflict, and control of Nigeria. With parochially based political forces duly created in the western and northern provinces by the creation of AG and NPC, the basic elements of the internecine parochial polity that would dictate the nature, contents, and tenor of political activities in Nigeria for the next sixty-some years, up to the present time, were put in place. The stakes at issue for political power at the center were vigorously canvassed at the serial constitutional conferences that were held with the colonial power at Lancaster House in London in 1953–1954, 1956, 1957, and 1958. The series of conferences was concluded in Lagos in 1958 with the production of the Independence Constitution for Nigeria. The constitutional development was accompanied by increasing responsibilities in government for the three dominant political parties. During these conferences and the concomitant political activities and campaign in the country, the inevitable response of the NCNC, which originally had a pan-Nigerian agenda and program, was to degenerate to the level of the regionalist rivals by becoming the speaking party for the eastern region, home to many nationalities, the largest being the Igbo. This process of degeneration in the NCNC was emphasized and hastened by the outcome of the 1951 elections in the western region. In that region, with the support of its local town union ally, the Ibadan Mabolaje Alliance, NCNC president Nnamdi Azikiwe contested a Yaba seat on Lagos mainland in the Western House of Assembly and appeared (to the party) to have won for the NCNC the largest number of seats in the House. However, overnight, the NCNC claimed, some members of the Mabolaje Alliance crossed over to the AG on the grounds of Yoruba nationalism to give that party the muscle to form the first regional government of the western region. On the other hand, the claim of the AG leaders was that in the 1951 elections, the members of the assembly were elected on the platforms of the various town unions.10 The elected members only aggregated into the AG and NCNC after the elections, and they were free to join either of the two parties. However, as a consequence of the various local and parochial political maneuvering, Azikiwe found himself as the leader of the opposition in the west rather than as the leader of government business. Azikiwe eventually moved his

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political base from Lagos to his own hometown in Onitsha and, following a bye election, he became the leader of government business of the eastern region. He displaced Eyo Ita in that position. This displacement of Ita by Azikiwe, like Azikiwe’s failure to rule in the western region, had its own impact on the developing political process that eventually led to the emergence of the concept of geographical zoning as a tool in the development of the Nigerian democratic process. Thus, the Nigerian polity was transformed into a tripartite configuration with three political parties being dominant in three constitutional regions in a Federation of Nigeria. This federation had originally been created by the McPherson Constitution from the erstwhile northern and southern provinces, which were merged by Colonial Governor Frederick Lord Lugard in 1914 to bring the colony and protectorate of Nigeria into the British empire. The main issues contested at the serial constitutional conferences were as follows: 1. The choice between a unitary constitution that was profoundly favored by the NCNC and a federal system that was fiercely promoted by the AG and was promoted less but supported and considered to be favorable by the Northern Peoples’ Congress. 2. The locus of residual powers in the country, federal or regional. Indeed, while the parties with the original parochial programs, the AG and the NPC, fought for regional constitutional powers of the deepest hue and widest extent, the NCNC, unable initially to overcome its original objective of a unitary constitution with one government, campaigned for a federal government with the widest residual responsibilities. This was the nearest to the original unitary constitution that the party advocated for the emerging country. 3. Whether the central government should control the entire national economy or whether each regional government should control the economic activities of its region and make some contribution to the center. 4. Whether the federally distributable revenue should be shared on the basis of derivation or need. 5. There was even a disagreement on the date for national independence. This conflict was eventually resolved by the colonial power granting selfgovernment (a status of self-rule regarded as less than independence because the center did not have it). It was given piecemeal to the different regions, while the country as a political and constitutional entity remained under direct British rule until the date for independence was agreed on at the 1958 Constitutional Conference in London. 6. The argument and desire for strong regional governments were so profoundly expressed that it was agreed that each regional government would establish its own foreign missions abroad. In fact, such missions were established by the various regional governments in London. The western regional government also had a mission in Bonn, West Germany. In spite of the enormous constitutional authorities and responsibilities that were

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allotted to the regions and expressed in the three regional constitutions with their own mottoes, flags, and foreign missions as well as in the federal constitution, the struggle for the control of federal power remained severely divisive, internecine, and rancorous. Indeed, there was a mutual and sustained struggle to weaken the political influence of rival political parties in the different regions where the rival party was in power. Rival localized agitations were mutually promoted with the proliferation of subtribal parties searching for increased political influence. Within a region, such subtribal parties called for the splitting of the region; they were supported by a main party in control of power in a separate region, but were strongly opposed by the main party in their own region. Thus, the NCNC that was ruling in the eastern region supported the splitting of the western region but was opposed by the AG, while the latter campaigned for the splitting of the eastern region, which was opposed by the NCNC. Thus arose various local political parties with localized interests for the access of the smaller nationalities to power. Among them were: a. Out Edo Union and the Mid-West State Movement (MSM) agitating for the creation of a midwest region from the western state. The new region was to be created by removing from it the nationalities that were not of the majority stock. The campaign was supported and promoted by the NCNC but was opposed by the AG. b. The Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers State Movement (CORSM) campaigned with the full backing of the AG for splitting the eastern region by creating a Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers (COR) state to cover Calabar, Ogoja, and Rivers provinces of the eastern region. There were also a Rivers Peoples’ Congress (RPC) and Conference of Rivers’ Chiefs and Peoples (CRCP) that wanted the Rivers province, home of the Ijaw nation, to be proclaimed as Rivers state. Like the campaign in the western region, the eastern agitations were to remove the minority nationalities from the region into new constitutional units. They were all opposed by the ruling NCNC but fully backed by the AG. 7. Although the internecine parochial political agitations were fiercely concentrated between the AG and the NCNC and the rulers of the West and East, respectively, and with no initial involvement of the NPC, the AG’s deep Yoruba agenda encouraged it to make a foray into the northern region. This was to be done initially by promoting the agitation of the Ilorin Talaka Parapo (ITPP) and Kabba Peoples’ Party (KPP), respectively, for the excision of Ilorin and Kabba provinces from the northern region to either merge the provinces with the West or make the two provinces into a Kwara state. The two provinces were populated mainly by the Yoruba. Later the AG extended its area of agitation in the northern region to the areas where the ruling Hausa-Fulani hegemony could be challenged on a nationality basis as a part of the internecine political

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bickering in the country. The result was the creation of the Middle-Belt Peoples’ Party (MBPP), United Middle-Belt Congress (UMBC), Idoma State Union (ISU), Borno State Movement, and some other smaller groups. These groups were agitating for various new states in the North to take them out of the government dominated by the Hausa-Fulani stock.11 These events were the basis of the politics in Nigeria that is designed to fight for power and control in the interests of the politicians from the three dominant nationalities. The stakes for personal enrichment were very high because political focus avoided development programs but highlighted the base emotions of ethnicity, region, and religion for the service of self. The utilization of the divide-andrule technique as a tactic for political power and domination was thus shown not only to be confined to the colonialists, but also to be effectively applied by Nigerian politicians at the expense of national development. The three main political parties were used to promote parochial programs that derived their existence from the tribal temples of the three ruling political parties. Their respective tribal temples were the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, from which the AG was created, the Ibo State Union that acquired the converted NCNC from 1951, and the Jami’ Yar Mutaren Arewa, the source of the NPC. The parties of the smaller nationalities rode on the backs of the AG and NCNC, and their interests were little addressed at the constitutional conferences. However, on the recommendation of the Minorities Commission in 1958, a guarantee of fundamental rights was incorporated into the constitution in that year and was retained in both the 1960 and 1963 constitutions.12 The internal fissures and struggles continued through the attainment of independence on October 1, 1960, the conversion to a republican constitution in October 1963 (a republican expression that still recognized the many traditional royalties that sustain the parochial political orientation across the country), to the intrusion of military dictatorships from 1966 to 1999,13 when the concept of geographical zoning acquired constitutional recognition.

MILITARY DICTATORSHIP AND THE CONTINUING UPSURGE OF THE CONCEPT OF GEOGRAPHICAL ZONING AS A POLITICAL TOOL The political cauldron in Nigeria suddenly simmered down, even if only temporarily, with the sudden emergence of military dictatorship on January 15, 1966. At the same time, the Independence Constitution was desecrated and replaced with decrees and enactments in place of a democratic enunciation of legislation and executive practice. While the initial and several subsequent military coups d’etat proclaimed an objective of advancing a democratic type of politics and governance, over a period of thirty-nine years that grudgingly accommodated some four years of constitutional rule, the military dictators in practice became an active part of the boiling political conundrum and the attendant constitutional confusion.

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In this period, the military dictators governed the country in ready alliance and consonance with the same politicians whose political parties they had booted out of existence with guns and banned from politics by decree. Three attempts were made in the period of military dictatorship to rewrite Nigeria’s constitution. Although the dictators used the same politics as the regional politicians, the regimes ensured cohesion by emphasizing the concept of a “federal character” in their distribution of political offices, with federal appointments at the center and corresponding geographical spread in the states. Of course, the state military governments existed wholly at the pleasure of the federal power. The military dictators were unable to produce an acceptable constitution and an enduring program of governance in the environment of an unstable dictatorship. On May 24, 1966 Major General Thomas Umunakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi decreed a pseudo unitary arrangement by replacing “regions” with “provinces” in the official nomenclature of the four federating units. He also replaced the independence federal but strong regionalist constitutional arrangement with a unitary arrangement that still had regional governments. Before the January 15, 1966, putsch, the combined federal government of the NPC and NCNC had split the western region in 1963 by creating the midwestern region. The NCNC had always wanted to do this and accomplished it during a period of intra-party imbroglio in the western region. The AG had split in two with the emergence of the United Peoples Party (UPP), later renamed the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), which controlled the regional government in alliance with the NCNC. Peter Ekeh described the process that led to the creation of the midwest region as follows: The Midwest Region was eventually created in 1963 following several constitutional steps demanded by the enabling constitutional law. These included (i) consenting legislation by the House of Assembly of the Western Region, of which the Midwest was then a part, and by the Federal House of Representatives and (ii) a referendum in the Midwest Region for its citizens to give the required approval. But the creation of the Midwest Region was also notable for the prolonged negotiations among its various ethnic groups for the distribution of key offices and benefits associated with the creation of a new state and its government. Thus, the office of Premier was allocated to Western Ibo while the Urhobos had that of the Governor of the Region. The headquarters of the new state was allocated to Benin City. There was also a special provision guaranteeing the status of the minority Itsekiri in Warri Local Government. By way of contrast to these constitutional but tedious arrangements, the military rulers of Nigeria have [made] several decisions on this region without consultation with the people and outside constitutional requirements. The name of Midwest Region was changed by military decree to Midwest State in 1975. In 1990, the military Head of State, Ibrahim Babangida, split up Bendel State into two: Edo State and Delta State. The citing of the headquarters of the new state at Asaba was said to be a reward for his wife who hails from that area.14

The purpose of this quotation is to demonstrate the nature of geopolitical accommodation that was exhibited by politicians by the time the consequences of

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parochial politics had gained entry into the national constitution. Similarly, E. J. Alagoa says of Bayelsa state: The NPC of the north was rooted in Hausa-Fulani ethnic identity, the NCNC drew its being from Igbo ethnic solidarity and the Action Group from [its] Yoruba affiliation. The Ijaw learnt the lesson quickly, along with many other groups. Ijaw solidarity crystallized in political movements fighting for degrees of autonomy for Niger Delta peoples within the colonial and post-colonial period, leading to the creation of Rivers State in 1967 and Bayelsa State in 1996.15

Obviously, the spread of the nation-based parochial interests and the objectives of some of the other nationalities besides the big three sustained the countrywide agitations for new regions or states as they came to be known in political discourse. In the spring of 1967, Yakubu Gowon split up the three major regions by decree into eleven states, mainly along the lines of premilitary agitations for new states. The midwestern region, renamed the Midwest state, became the twelfth state. In the process, he transferred full control of the national economy to the center. The center thereafter would distribute funds from the national pool to the increasing number of states, the number of which had become economically unsustainable. These steps enhanced the stakes for political control at the center. The instability in the country attained its height with the massacre of Igbos living in the northern region in late 1966, regionalization of the military forces, and the eventual outbreak of civil war in July 1967. The war ended in January 1970, but the central control of the economy remained. The military dictators and the politicians ruled the country in this manner until the first attempt by the dictators, now led by Olusegun Obasanjo, to restore constitutional rule in 1979. The 1979 constitution was the consequence of a constitutional conference that relived the usual controversies of parochial interests and conflicting approaches in Nigerian political discourse. Such issues included: • use of the American presidential political system or the parliamentary system • the creation of more states in the federation • the creation of more local government areas so that fatter shares of the distributable federal accounts could be allocated to the states • the location of state capitals in the new states • the ratio of the distributable accounts that will accrue to the state governments • the criteria for determining such ratios for distribution • the issue of state police organization • incorporation of the Islamic Sharia into the criminal judicial system • the use of federal character in the distribution of political and public service posts

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Public debates on the construction of the constitution were very loud in the press. One of the heavily canvassed issues was the concept of federal character in the appointments to executive, judicial, civil, and military offices. Indeed, recruitment into the armed forces was thereafter based on numerical allotments of places to the states of the federation. The same concept and practice were applied with minor modifications in admitting children into federally funded schools. The concept of “federal character” was incorporated into the 1979 constitution that formed the basis for the only civil interregnum that government experienced in nearly four decades of military dictatorship. Because the constitutional provisions regarding federal character or geographical zoning in the government of Nigeria were copied by Abdulsalaam Abubakar’s constitutional debate coordinating committee from the 1979 constitution into the 1999 constitution, which is the current basic law in Nigeria, these provisions will be discussed later in this work. Geographical zoning to determine legislative composition has been in practice from the beginning of constitutional experience in Nigeria. Usually the country, region, or state or local government area is divided into constituencies for the purpose of equitable representation in the legislature. The trifoliate emphasis on the locus and exercise of political power in Nigeria deliberately extended this concept as much and as widely as was practicable into other arms of government: executive, judicial, civil, and military services. It was also emphasized to the political parties that a candidate for chief executive must choose a candidate for the post of deputy from another part of the country. This injunction to political parties was not specifically provided for in the 1979 constitution. Indeed, the presidential candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in 1979 was unable to secure a vice presidential candidate from the northern part of the country. His choice was Oyibo Odinamadu from the southeastern zone. In practice, the candidates for president and deputy president are encouraged to come from either the North and South or vice versa. In the states, the candidates for the two posts of governor and deputy governor should come from different senatorial districts of the state. At the local government level, the chairman and deputy chairman would come from different districts of the local government area. Indeed, the largest political party of the period, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), went further to enshrine the concept of rotating candidates based on the agreed geographical definitions in subsequent elections. Since the 1979 constitution survived only for a limited period, the current clone of the NPN, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued the geographical zoning of offices on that basis. Because the politicians were eager to complete a cycle of rotation in their own lifetime, the original six zonal rotations for the posts of president and deputy president were modified from a west, northwest, northeast, middle belt, east, and south-south rotation to a north to south and back rotation. Of course, there was controversy on where to start. The ruling party resolved the issue by drafting Olusegun Obasanjo (an unwilling former military dictator who clearly stated that he had nothing new to contribute beyond the

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military leadership he ran in 1976 to 1979) as the presidential candidate of the PDP. This was ostensibly done to “console the Yoruba people” who were denied the presidency when Babangida annulled the election of 1993 that Abiola had won on the platform of the military constructed Social Democratic Party (SDP). The 1979 and 1999 constitutions also provided for a two-term limitation. In spite of the collaboration between the military politicians and the civilian collaborators that sustained the rather uncharted process in Nigeria from 1966 to 1999, the eventual outcome failed to effectively address the original conflicts and mutual distrust that arose from the polity that emerged in 1950. Ekeh described the outcome in this way: The negative consequences of military rule extend to a fifth area of Nigeria’s public affairs that is perhaps the most monumental. Military dictatorship has deliberately sought to undermine the principle of federalism that has been entrenched in Nigerian political history. The evidence for this goes back to the first military regime that attempted to abolish federalism in 1966. Although Nigeria has since then continued to bear this title, under the military, federalism has been weakened in major ways. Most of our efforts in this project will be aimed at highlighting these failures and at suggesting ways for restoring and improving our federal system of governments after military rule.16

THE 1999 CONSTITUTION AND THE CONSOLIDATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL ZONING The present constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a combination of the 1979 Constitution and a document that was imposed by the departing military dictatorship. It makes specific provisions for the geographical distributions of posts and offices at the federal, state, and local levels of government. It states, “Appointments into the executive cabinet and into various executive bodies generally are required by the constitution to reflect the Federal character.”17 A critical look into the various sections of the constitution that make appropriate provisions for the practice of this concept follows. 1. Section 14 (3). The composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that Government or in any of its agencies. Section 14 (4). The composition of the Government of a State, a local government council, or any of the agencies of such Government or council, and the conduct of the affairs of the Government or council or such agencies shall be carried out in such a manner as to recognize the diver-

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sity of the people within its area of authority and the need to promote a sense of belonging and loyalty among all the peoples of the Federation.18 The definition of federal character as given in the constitution, a phrase meant to have the same meaning as geographical zoning in this work, shows very clearly that the creators of the constitution wanted to overcome the internecine factors that dominated the constitutional process and the political conflicts that dominated national events from 1950 and before the construction of the 1979 constitution. Of course, the fact that it has to be repeated in the 1999 constitution is possible for one of two reasons: • The provision had been working excellently since 1979, when it was first enunciated, until 1999 and therefore was worthy of being retained, or • It was not effective, but there was no better concept to put in its place. This chapter will attempt to answer this question in a discussion of the effects all the constitutional provisions regarding the geographical zoning of posts and offices have had on the political and economic development of Nigeria. For now, the remaining constitutional provisions for geographical zoning in the document will be identified. Section 147 (1). There shall be such offices of Ministers of the Government of the Federation as may be established by the President. Section 147 (2). Any appointment to the office of Minister of the Government of the Federation, if the nomination of any person to such office is confirmed by the Senate, shall be made by the President. (3) Any appointment under sub-section (2) of this section by the President shall be in conformity with the provisions of section 14 (3) of this constitution: provided that in giving effect to the provision aforesaid, the President shall appoint at least one Minister from each state, who shall be an indigene of such State.19 This provision effectively extends presence on the executive council to every state in the country. By virtue of the provisions of sections 192 (2), State Executive Councils are expected to be similarly constituted. Section 171 (5). In exercising his powers of appointment under this section, the President shall have regard to the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity. The appointments under consideration here are listed in subsection (2) of the section and are: • Secretary to the Government of the Federation • Head of the Civil Service of the Federation • Ambassador, High Commissioner or other Principal Representative of Nigeria abroad

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• Permanent Secretary in any Ministry or Head of any Extra-Ministerial Department of the Government of the Federation howsoever designated; and • Any office on the personal staff of the President.20 In the process of assembling the new government of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the Nigerian press has reported that the appointment of the new head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Ebele O. Okeke, was made to placate the easterners who are regarded as having been inadequately rewarded in the distribution of high political positions in the federal establishment after the 2007 general elections. More discussion will follow when the effects of federal character on the democratic development of Nigeria are examined. I. O. Smith gives this detailed elaboration of the “public service of the Federation”: The service of the Federation in any capacity in respect of the Government of the Federation includes such service as: • Clerk or other staff of the National Assembly or of each House of the National Assembly; • Member of staff of Courts established for the Federation by the Constitution or by an act of the National Assembly; • Member of staff of any commission or authority established for the Federation by the Constitution or an act of the National Assembly; • Staff of any area council; • Staff of any statutory corporation established by an act of the National Assembly; • Staff of any educational institution established or financed principally by the Government of the Federation; • Staff of any company or enterprise in which the Government of the Federation or its agency owns controlling shares or interest; and • Members or officers of the armed forces of the Federation or the Nigeria Police Force or other Government security agencies established by law.21 More details are given in Section 318 of Part IV, “Interpretation, Citation and Commencement of the Constitution,” which is certainly the source of the elaboration. He further elaborated on the interpretation of the phrase “public service of a state” to mean the service of the state in any capacity in respect of the government of the state and includes such service as: (a) clerk or other staff of the House of Assembly; (b) member of staff of courts established for a state by the Constitution or by a Law of House of Assembly; (c) member or staff of any commission or authority established for the state by the Constitution or a Law of a House of Assembly;

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(d) staff of any local government council; (e) staff of any statutory corporation established by a Law of a House of Assembly; (f) staff of any educational institution established or financed principally by a government of a state; and (g) a staff of any company or enterprise in which the government of a state or its agency holds controlling shares or interest.22 Section 318 (1) of the constitution goes on to define: (h) “civil service of the Federation” to mean “service of the Federation in a civil capacity as staff of the office of the President, a ministry or department of the Government of the Federation assigned with the responsibility for any business of the Government of the Federation;”23 (i) “civil service of the State” means service of the Government of a State in a civil capacity as staff of the office of the Governor, Deputy Governor or a ministry or department of the Government of the State assigned with the responsibility for any business of the Government of the State;24 1. Section 153 (1) (c) goes further to create the Federal Character Commission, with the details in the Third Schedule, Part I, C of the constitution. Its composition is made up of a member from each state of the Federation and a Chairman appointed by the President. The constitution gives powers to the Commission as follows: (a) work out an equitable formula subject to the approval of the National Assembly for the distribution of all cadres of posts in the public service of the Federation and of the States, the armed forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force and other government security agencies, government owned companies, and parastatals of the States; (b) promote, monitor, and enforce compliance with the principles of proportional sharing of all bureaucratic, economic, media and political posts at all levels of government; (c) take such legal measures, including the prosecution of the head or staff of any Ministry or government body or agency which fails to comply with any federal character principle or formula prescribed or adopted by the Commission; and, (d) carry out such other functions as may be conferred upon it by an Act of the National Assembly.25 This certainly puts teeth in the policy to give consistent effects to the practice of geographical zoning, enabling the direct participation of peoples from the various states of the country in the activities of the government of the country. Section 318 clearly states that “government” includes the Government of the

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Federation, or of any State, or of a local government council or any person who exercises power or authority on its behalf. The federal character commission set up an administrative system for monitoring every department of the public service, including recruitment, promotion, and replacement of staff, to satisfy the federal character provision of the constitution. Pro formas are completed by departmental authorities and delivered to the commission to show the states of origin of staff in employment. At staff recruitment exercises, representatives of the commission sit on recruitment committees to monitor the distribution of new staff by states. Whenever a state’s quota is full, no new people from that state are employable no matter how qualified the applicants show themselves to be at the recruitment exercise. When there is no qualified candidate from a state that has not filled its quota, the post is left vacant until someone comes up from that state. Although the practice has decreased the number of open complaints from those in support of the concept, it has had the effect of promoting the recruitment of persons with inadequate qualifications into all departments of the public service. This continues to manifest itself as a continuing fall in standards, particularly in professions where it is foolhardy to compromise standards. The practice has adversely affected personnel in such fields as health, engineering, and finance. Section 223 (b) of the constitution contains the final specification in the document that applies to the concept of geographical zoning in the politics and government of the country. It specifies that the constitution and rules of a political party shall ensure that the members of the executive committee or other governing body of the political party reflect the federal character of Nigeria. The ruling political parties and many of the other parties have succeeded in fulfilling this provision of the constitution. Indeed, it is one of the key features that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deems fulfilled by organizations that apply for registration and are registered as political parties. Most of the organizations, however, make very determined efforts to meet the criteria to achieve registration rather than meeting quality political party practices. Equally, nominations of candidates for elections are conducted with the objective of fulfilling this provision, although they are not always successful. This aspect will be discussed further when the effects of geographical zoning for filling positions in Nigeria are considered. The current constitution no doubt goes to great lengths to consolidate the concept of geographical zoning, or federal character, in the government of the country. As mentioned, the concept took root before the period of military dictatorship, and the military politicians enshrined it in the constitution. The big question is whether it solves the problem that it was set out to solve. Couldn’t that issue be more effectively addressed by a more democratic and less compulsory method? Historically, the politics of Nigeria has been concerned with the many nationalities “sharing the cake” that constitutes the national resources of the country. But, in practice, individuals belonging to some of the nationalities are the ones who actually eat the cake, not the peoples of the nationalities. Indeed, the original prob-

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lem was created because sharing was initially mainly restricted to the three largest nationalities in the country, and only a few of the remaining hundreds of nationalities were able to climb onto the backs of the big three for any expression of their democratic rights. The minorities in Nigeria many of whom had enjoyed independent existence before 1885 and who had endured their progressive loss of identity and administrative authorities under the umbrella of British colonial protection, feared the looming prospects of “independence.” They complained vigorously that “independence” may replace the relative justice and fair play of British colonialism with big ethnic group hegemonies, nepotism, and corruption.26 Military dictatorship and the consequent liaison between military and civil politicians have spread the sharing by decreeing many more units in secondary and tertiary level governments. Thirty-six state governments have replaced four regional governments, and local governments have blossomed across the country. Simultaneously, most of the vast resources of the country have been put under the control of the central government. Control of power at the center before the advent of military politicians was the very issue that arose in 1950 as a particular problem in Nigeria’s internecine and contending parochial politics. It is informative that the only attempt by the Nigerian peoples to write a constitution by themselves in 2006 produced a draft constitution without any specific provisions for geographical zoning or federal character. A thoroughly democratic polity would not have to expend such intellectual, human, logistical, and financial resources to ensure acceptable democratic participation by people across the country in the governance of the country. The common desire of ordinary Nigerians, regardless of nationality, region, ethnic group, or religion, is to have equal access to the benefits of the country’s national resources. The breed of politicians that has misshapen the Nigerian polity wants to meet their conflicting desires by sharing posts and offices. National efforts should be directed at constructing a pathway to a democratic state. A geopolitical structure that truly addresses the issues that have been persistently highlighted since 1950 would be more akin to a constitutional process for economic development than the sustained maintenance of corporate injustice that attempts amelioration by institutionalized office sharing.

WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHICAL ZONING ON THE NIGERIAN DESIRE TO DEVELOP DEMOCRATICALLY? After considering the constitutional and political events that have taken place in Nigeria since the amalgamation of 1914, a fair conclusion is to note that the overall desire among Nigerians is to build a democratic society for economic development and to enhance the quality of life of the peoples who live there. The concept of federal character or geographical zoning that has been applied to

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resolve the conflicts of internecine politics has demonstrated certain effects that must be identified and examined. The first effect is that geographical zoning created an inherent dilemma in the authentic fulfilment of Section 42 of the constitution that gives concreteness to the concept. The section gives Nigerians the right to freedom from discrimination. It states: 1. A citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion shall not, by reason only that he is such a person, (a) be subjected either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any executive or administrative action of the government, to disabilities or restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religious or political opinions are not made subject; or (b) be accorded either expressly by, or in practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any such executive or administrative action, any privilege or advantage that is not accorded to citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religious or political opinions. The section we have just quoted is in accord with Article 13, Section 2, of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which states, “Every citizen shall have the right of equal access to the public service of his country.”27 However, subsection 3 of the Nigerian constitution, in anticipation of the sections that promote geographical zoning in public service appointments, goes further to derogate, although globally, from the expressed right from discrimination by stating, 3. Nothing in subsection (1) of this section shall invalidate any law by reason only that the law imposes restrictions with respect to the appointment of any person to any office under the state or as a member of the armed forces of the Federation or a member of the Nigeria Police Force or to an office in the service of a corporate body established directly by any law in force in Nigeria. The argument could, of course, and indeed will, be presented that the wording of subsection 1 applies equally to all Nigerians and therefore satisfies the equal-access provision in the African Charter. This line of distinction is intellectually very thin. Indeed, it is interesting that Section 25 (1) and (3) of the draft peoples’ constitution is an exact repetition of Section 42 (1) and (3) of the 1999 constitution. This is a correctable hangover from the political history of the country, stemming from the federal character content of the 1999 constitution. The draft peoples’ constitution promotes a democratic and equalopportunity society in Nigeria very effectively without recourse to geographical zoning

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or federal character. Remember the peculiar characteristics of constitution making during Nigeria’s thirty-nine years of military dictatorship. One of these peculiarities is the practice of the dictators in injecting particularities from decrees that had been promulgated earlier into the constitution that was being produced.

The second effect of the federal character process is that it is more concerned with the politics of the people selected for posts than filling the posts for national development and improving the people’s quality of life. An examination of Olusegun Obasanjo’s second coming from 1999 to 2007, when the geographical zoning provisions were religiously applied, shows a tardiness in replacing or reassigning political and civil officers in the face of poor performance. The declining availability of the access of Nigerians to services in the sectors of education, health care, housing, transport, electricity, and agriculture did not stimulate any reshuffling of leadership in the professional sector so as not to rock the boat of geographical zoning and federal character. Further, the recent appointment of the new head of service of the federation was widely reported in the press as having been done to pacify easterners, following the outcome of office sharing after the general elections. This concept derogates the professional dignity of any appointee who otherwise would be qualified on the basis of training, experience, and ability. Indeed, a number of qualified holders of posts such as professorships, vice chancellorships, headships of professional departments in health care, engineering, and the economic development sectors of public service have been derogatorily said to hold the posts by virtue of the federal character provisions in the constitution. It is certainly not tidy. The third effect is that posts are filled regardless of merit. An underdeveloped country, such as Nigeria, cannot afford to ignore merit when filling positions and expect to develop. This limitation is in consonance with the results that the country obtains and manifests itself in the falling standards of living and worsening qualities of service delivery. For quite a number of years, an utter disregard for merit and honor has degenerated to a level in which clansmen and women publicly protest an appropriate response by authority when it has the courage to respond to the irresponsible and despicable behavior of public servants in their official capacities. The press has reported on public demonstrations in which demonstrators call on the authorities not to remove or prosecute officers who have looted the funds and resources of their institutions. People have demanded that such corrupt persons be spared because they were only taking a little of what belongs to them, that their own people also have a right to the national cake, that an officeholder is only being vilified because of his place of birth. For example, after Orji Kalu left office, having served two constitutional terms as governor of Abia state, he was taken to court to answer criminal charges for alleged money laundering to the tune of 3 billion naira and for other alleged offences. Nevertheless, demonstrators filled the streets protesting his arraignment.28 Similarly, Ijaw masses protested the trial of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the deposed governor of Bayelsa state, who was sent to prison on criminal charges of alleged money laundering and other alleged crimes in relation

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to state funds that he committed while he was in office. Democratic societies all over the world make provisions for the criminal investigation and trials of corrupt public officers. Indeed, current examples are known in France, Britain, South Africa, and Pakistan, a country that runs neck and neck with Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. In effect, the message in Nigeria is that these offices are occupied by uncontested right as allotments to particular states, and officeholders are free to use the position to enrich themselves regardless of the correctness of such actions. In such circumstances of public accountability, many of Nigeria’s national institutions simply collapsed, and large infrastructures disappeared without those responsible for the calamities being brought to justice. Examples include the collapse of Nigeria Airways, Nigerian National Shipping Line, Nigerian Railways, all the petroleum refineries in the country, and the generating and transmission installations of the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA); the disappearance of the annual votes for the Ministry of Works over the years without anyone accounting for the fact that no works were carried out; the disappearance of staff welfare votes in the Nigerian police force; and roads that were paid for but not built. Indeed, Nigerians are openly advised to go into government and “take your own share.” The fourth consequence is that geographical zoning is responsible for the rapid turnover rate of trained personnel in public service. Experience becomes irrelevant and the instinct to utilize such experience for national development is severely diminished. The cake will only feed the few. Public service has become the field which many young people enter to make money quickly and leave early to become contractors to the government, regardless of professional training and calling. The privatization program of the post-military era has become a way for such “retired but not tired” persons to use their insider knowledge and contacts to acquire national institutions as private enterprises very cheaply and without the capacity to add any value to the converted service. National off-shore oilfields have been sold at cheap rates to former “public servants” who have resold such acquired national assets to foreigners at exorbitant profits. A former army general, a military politician, sold a small portion of the oilfield he acquired to a Chinese oil firm and made a profit of $2.3 billion!29 Public service is a way to establish these linkages, get out, exploit one’s insider knowledge, and convert a chunk of Nigeria’s national resources to one’s own personal wealth. A report of the economic and financial crimes commission (EFCC) shows that $380 billion have been wasted or stolen since independence; these figures are attributable to records from the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Ministry of Finance.30 Fifth, the practice of achieving federal character in order to maintain interethnic political peace in this environment of self-enrichment is less democratic than a constitutional system that guarantees equal opportunities to public offices on the strength of training and experience. It is a form of discrimination that all silently agree to pretend does not exist. Interethnic peace and satisfaction are never attained. Politicians still quarrel over “key ministries” going to one part of the country. Many of the less numerous nationalities still complain loudly of

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marginalization. The tribal temple of each of the three largest nationalities still accuses the others of taking more than they should have. It takes over a month to constitute the executive council after elections. Restructuring the constitution along the lines of the peoples’ draft constitution would create economically viable federating units. Under this system, the center would possess the democratic quality of equality of the federating units and would open up expansive opportunities for personal, regional, and national development, providing more than enough jobs for everyone without having to wait for turns and the allotments of posts and offices. The sixth effect is that the concept does not work fully in practice. During the public debate that brought the concept of federal character to the fore for inclusion in the 1979 constitutional conference, the main political group that eventually became the largest and the ruling party, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), went beyond the provisions of that constitution. A canvass stated that if the presidential candidate was a northerner, the vice-presidential candidate would be a southerner. Similarly, if one was a Christian, the other would be a Muslim. The promoters of mutual office sharing indeed went beyond geography, ethnicity, region, and religion. It was initially proposed and agreed that the offices of president and ipso facto vice president should be rotated between the six zones of the country after every two maximum terms of election. The six zones, which for an unexpressed reason, could not enter or be described in the 1979 constitution and are still being used for purposes of post sharing by the government, are the northwest, northeast, middle belt, south-south, southeast, and southwest. When the politicians discovered that it would take thirty years for the zones to rotate with respect to the office of president, they reduced it to a north and south rotation after two maximum terms. Although the First Schedule, Part I, of the 1999 constitution describes Nigeria in terms of the local government areas in thirty-six states and does not recognize zones in the political arrangement of the country, public posts are being shared on the basis of six geographical zones when the posts are too few to go around for the thirty-six states. At the 2003 elections, some PDP chieftains, particularly Abubakar Rimi, challenged the adverse effect of rotational nomination for election on the democratic principle. His argument was that, by restricting the nomination of the PDP presidential candidate to the south, the incumbent, Olusegun Obasanjo, would not be challenged for the nomination. Abubakar Rimi was unable to sustain his challenge of the zoning system. In preparation for the 2007 elections, the PDP incumbent second-term governors working with the president mounted a vicious constitutional and manipulative effort in the National Assembly to remove the prescribed two-term limit. In one of the pending EFCC cases, public statements have accused the former governor of Jigawa state, Ibrahim Saminu Turaki, of spending 33 billion naira and $20 million (for which he is being held on a pending criminal charge of money laundering) on efforts to promote the failed third-term project.31 Also, during the 1979 general elections, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), whose presidential candidate was Obafemi Awolowo, could not find a northerner

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to be his running mate. The party had to settle for another southerner and a Christian, Oyibo Odinamadu, to be the vice-presidential candidate. A similar failure to find a northern vice-presidential candidate to run along with the southern presidential candidate of the Democratic Alternative (DA) was experienced in the 2003 general elections.32 The seventh effect is that every time the electoral process that has been riddled over a period of sixty years with corruption in the forms of rigging, violence, and abuse of public institutions of information and security is condemned, particularly by the Western powers that control the Nigerian economy, the politicians stretch the concept of geographical zoning further to accommodate other political parties in what is euphemistically described as a government of national unity. This stretching of representation in government was attempted unsuccessfully in 1964 and is still in use in 2007. It represents a manipulation of a failed electoral process to achieve credibility not only locally but also internationally. The winner usually invites the losers to send representatives into the government. Why should the country be put through the rigor, effort, expense, and process of election only to have the contestants reach an agreement that is not based on programs for development but on a mutual accommodation in the sharing of posts? The eighth effect is more profound than the previous examples. It is the effect of the concept of geographical zoning within the society at large. In Nigeria, and also among the Nigerian population across the world, there are generations— including adult generations—who know no other Nigeria than this country whose values and assessments are strictly made on the basis of geography, ethnicity, nationality, or religion to which another Nigerian belongs. This conceptual limitation is essentially due to the struggle for control of the center that has limited political interaction in the country for six full decades, in fact, since 1950. The reader will remember that our discussion of geographical zoning began with the political problems that descended on the country with the twin births of two parochially dedicated political parties in 1950. These new generations of Nigerians are only familiar with thinking of their countrymen as Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, a northerner, a southerner. They know only labeling by geography, nationality, or ethnicity. When this pattern of thought is examined carefully and in a detached manner, it is found to be a type of discriminatory labeling that can be classified with racism. While this chapter was being written, an intense controversy dominated the Nigerian discussion group sites on the Internet. This controversy provided evidence of one of the effects of federal character or geographical zoning on the psyche of Nigerians, including highly educated Nigerians across the world. There is an international organization that is based mainly in North America and Europe; it is called the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation (NIDO). It promotes, among other activities, the expression of views and opinions on the political process and activities in Nigeria. It has been in the throes of a controversy concerning the membership of its board of trustees. The central point in the controversy concerns what some participants call the board’s quota system of representation. Their central argument is as follows. On quota system, the Hausas, the Igbos and Yoruba should have some-

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one representing them in NIDO. That way, we all represent Nigeria as one. To appreciate the emotionalism that position sharing on the basis of geographical zoning evokes, visit some of these discussion sites on the Internet and read some of the discussion. In all seriousness, positions both in government and in other organizations are best filled on the basis of merit and the ability to perform rather on the basis of origin of the officers and post holders. Benjamin Obiajulu Aduba, in examining use of the concept of federal character, observed: Nigerians and Nigeria should be working towards the day when ethnic or state affiliation will not be important to anyone. Towards the day when to paraphrase the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., our children will not be judged by their ethnic group or by the State of Origin but by their ability to contribute.33

He went further: Finally how would the case of an Enugu man born in Lagos by Ndigbo parents, grew up in Lagos, have lived in Lagos all his life with an occasional trip to Enugu, works in Lagos, votes in Lagos, enumerated in Lagos and has not even a Christmas Home in Enugu under Federal Character rule be recorded? Will he be Enugu or Lagos?34

Indeed, when the dedicated and highly effective Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was appointed minister of finance in 1999 and listed as occupying the executive post allotment of Abia state (her “state of origin” by marriage), PDP members in the state protested and demanded that she should occupy the quota of Delta state, the state of her birth! Finally, it is pertinent to record that most of the offices are still shared among the three largest nationalities who have the largest number of states. Those states are not economically viable and depend on sharing the national revenue that is mainly derived from the sale of crude oil, the industry that is run by foreigners on behalf of foreign companies. There are those who do not accept the use of geographical zoning in promoting Nigeria’s democratic development. They cling to the possibility of a constitutional system that is democratic and popular but does not apply geographical zoning.

A CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE GEOGRAPHICAL ZONING FOR DEMOCRATIC EXPRESSION From the very beginnings of constitution making in Nigeria—beginning with the Clifford Constitution of 1922 through the emergence of the early political parties, the NNDP (1922), the LYM (1934, which became the NYM in 1936), the NCNC (1944), the NLP (1946) up until 1950 before the emergence of the AG and the NPC—the tenor and trend of political discourse in Nigeria did

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not consider it necessary to examine the concept of federal character or geographical zoning for the distribution of posts and offices. Political interactions and discourse were based on the unity of the country’s peoples. Indeed, this was the philosophical basis for the NCNC’s insistence on a unitary type of constitution and government for the country. It is important to stress that the lone voice of the NCNC leadership resonated at campaign meetings across Nigeria, in the halls of Lancaster House, and elsewhere in the process of putting the independence constitution together. This observation does not mean that a unitary government is right for the country; the correct system of government is undoubtedly a federal constitution. The point is that the mode, degree, and structure of federalization must be right. It is the recurrent imposition of the wrong type of federal constitution that is at the root of political instability and mutual distrust among the many nationalities in Nigeria. Mutual distrust and the associated political hustling for central control encourage geographical zoning as a democratic instrument. In the entire period of military dictatorship, the same error of unification that was started by Aguiyi-Ironsi has remained, only modified by Gowon, and sustained by subsequent attempts at constitution making. Today, the final outcome of thirty-nine years of dictatorship is the existence of thirty-six economically unviable state governments and 774 economically worse and poorly performing local governments that take doles voraciously from a center that pulls in the lion’s share of national revenue to its kitty. The national revenue is 95 percent from all sales of crude petroleum abroad, and all levels of government expend a large share of the distributed revenue on administrative and recurrent commitments. In 1991, there was an attempt to hold a peoples’ sovereign national conference to make popular decisions for a democratic peoples’ constitution. However, Ibrahim Babangida used the military to seal up the National Theatre, the venue for the conference. Eventually, a form of that conference convened under the auspices of the Pro-Sovereign National Conference Coalition (PRONACO).35 A draft constitution was adopted for presentation to the Nigerian people. It is relevant to examine the nature of the draft constitution in the context of mutual multinational coexistence and geographical zoning for the allotment of posts in a federal Nigeria. The antithesis to the concept of geographical zoning as a necessity for democratic development will now be discussed. Let us examine some of the resolutions of the peoples’ sovereign national conference. These resolutions constitute the basis for the draft peoples’ constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.36 Be aware that the ruling political parties and the politicians that they have put in government are completely nonreceptive to the draft constitution. They have behaved as if it never existed, although an attempt to overshadow the significance of the peoples’ sovereign conference by staging concurrently a government-sponsored constitutional review conference that the National Assembly refused to fund ended in the usual failure that has historically characterized many such attempts in the past. The draft constitution deals so effectively with the fundamental issues in Nigerian democracy that it

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does not need to provide for a geographical zoning system or a federal character formula. Some of the essential resolutions of the conference that are relevant to this discussion are: • That we believe in the continued existence of Nigeria subject to the fulfilment of the conditions outlined by the Peoples’ Sovereign National Conference with respect to geo-political structure, fiscal arrangement, system of government, defense and security services, citizenship rights, and the economy of the country. • That the geo-political structure of the country shall consist of Regions, States, Local Councils, and a Federal Government in which • The Regions are to create their own states; • The States are to create their own Local Councils; • The Federal Government is a center of equality of the regions; • Ethnic nationalities that so desire, which have the resources and numerical strength to be a region are free to be so granted or recognized; • Ethnic nationalities should be the building blocks of true federalism and therefore could constitute a tier of government either at the level of Local Council, State, or Region as the case may be; • The federating units are the ethnic nationalities or a combination of ethnic nationalities as regions. • The federating units (Regions) shall manage all resources to be found within their respective boundaries, consideration being given to such local, regional, national, and internationally applicable boundary provisions and shall pay taxes as shall be constitutionally prescribed; • Not more than fifteen (15) percent should be paid as taxes to the central government from all revenue derived from all resources from the respective regions; • Not more than thirty-five (35) percent should be designated as distributable pool revenue, managed by a mechanism prescribed by law, constituted by the central and regional governments for the following purposes: 1. fulfilling the constitutional and legally binding requirement of minimum basic socioeconomic rights; 2. provision of common services on a transregional basis, e.g. railways, waterways, trans-regional roads, information and telecommunications, etc.; 3. providing economic development and research programs for overall regional, national, and international objectives; • The constitution will not discriminate against any Nigerian either on the grounds of sex, gender, ethnicity, race, or disability; • Each region will have its own constitution in concurrence with the federal constitution.37

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The resolutions continued with a formula for distribution of national revenue. The conference stipulated that resources that are provided by law for national and regional development would not be used for administrative and recurrent purposes. Self-determination principles would be utilized in the regions for achieving the aims of local interests. The constitutional system is parliamentary at all levels. Every political party would be represented on the National Electoral Commission, which would be responsible for regulating political parties and elections at all levels. It specifies that Option A4 shall be the method for voting at elections. A detailed discussion of Option A4 as the preferred system of voting in Nigeria in particular is discussed in The Struggle to Develop Nigeria.38 There are provisions for independent candidates. Thus, the draft peoples’ constitution emphasizes a truly federal system, in which the federating units are responsible for economic development and control in the regions. The governments are directly accountable to the people through executive presence in parliament, and the center is a democratic focus of equality among the federating units. Each region, the federating unit, will have its own constitution. A democratic system will ensure the preservation of the various societies in the regions and provide many opportunities for jobs in rapidly developing regional economies. The federal level of government will maintain equality and mutual regard among the regions. As indicated previously, the political parties and politicians that dominate Nigeria are not keen on the draft peoples’ constitution. It does not serve their purpose for being in politics. However, among the many registered political parties, there are five political parties with membership and leadership by new politicians who are ideologically distinct from politicians who developed the concept of geographical zoning for access to posts and offices.39 These five organizations are ideologically committed to the rapid economic development of Nigeria. They will promote the presentation, debate, amendments, and eventual adoption of this draft for a new constitution for Nigerian development. These parties should place the promotion of the draft constitution very high on their agenda and urge the peoples of Nigeria to adopt the draft through a thoroughly democratic process.40 In conclusion, this chapter has provided a thorough discussion of the genesis, history, and development of the concept of geographical zoning as a tool for maintaining mutual access to political, executive, administrative, and judicial posts and offices. Initially it sought to serve the three main nationalities, although more than 500 nationalities and dialects exist in the country. This approach to access of the resources of the country by the ruling elite eventually spread to some of the smaller nationalities. There are still many nationalities in the Federal Republic of Nigeria whose people cannot access the posts and offices that are shared on the basis of federal character by the few. And, of course, these smaller nationalities have no access to the vast resources of the country even though most of those resources are in the geographical territory of the deprived peoples. This unfair process was enhanced during thirty-nine years of military dictatorship in collusion with the politicians they booted out of government. Eventually the

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dictators centralized control of the national economy and divided the country into its present thirty-six states and 774 local government areas. These local governments are compelled to expend centrally shared funds on administrative and recurrent items of governance. The conflicts of interests that were addressed by using formulas for post sharing among the states were incorporated into the 1979 constitution, which became the template for the present 1999 constitution. The effects of geographical zoning on the political and economic development of the country have also been discussed. As noted, the popular effort to begin a new approach to a democratic and equitable society has produced a draft peoples’ constitution that does not include a geographical zoning formula. The rejection of this new approach by the ruling elite is expected. A dedicated political process to promote the eventual democratic acceptance of the new draft constitution is warranted. The country must develop its immense natural and human resources under the auspices of an authentic federal constitution that will spread democracy to all the nationalities and all peoples. Every one of the 140 million Nigerians has a lasting stake in this process, for Nigeria must not disintegrate, and it will no longer endure dictatorial rule, whether in the form of governments that arise from coup d’état or by retaining a unitary constitution in the name of a federalism that does not truly exist.

NOTES 1. David Crozier and Roger Blench, An Index of Nigerian Languages, 2nd ed. (Dallas: SIL, 1992). 2. Emakpor B. Ajise, Isoko Centre for Research and Development, National Reformation Party, BS 207-8 Banex Plaza, Plot 750, Aminu Kano Crescent, Wuse 11, Abuja, Nigeria, 2003. 3. Raymond Hickey, “The ethno-linguistic pattern of Fika Emirate,” Annals of Borno (IV) (1987). 4. See note 2 above. 5. Ibid. 6. E. J. Alagoa, “The Historical Perspective: An Outline historical account of the Ijaw of Nigeria’s Niger Delta,” IZON (1) (2002), www.waado.org/NigerDelta/EthnicHistories/ Ijaw/Izon-Alagoa.html. 7. I. O. Smith, The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Annotated (Ecowatch Publications Limited, 1999), 336. 8. Abayomi Ferreira, The Struggle to develop Nigeria, computer printout of book in progress, 2008, 8. 9. Ibid. 10. Alhaji Ganiyu Dawodu, Awo or Zik: Who won the 1951 Western Nigeria Election? (Ibadan, Nigeria: Aike Books, 1998). 11. Abayomi Ferreira, “Savagery in politics, the hindrance to national development” (2006), 61, www.AuthorHouse.com. 12. Ben O. Nwabueze, A Constitutional History of Nigeria (London: C Hurst & Company, 1982), 116–117.

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13. With the exception of a brief interlude of civilian rule from 1979 to 1983. 14. Peter P. Ekeh, “A Case for Dialogue on Nigerian Federalism,” keynote address to the Wilberforce Conference on Nigerian Federalism. Association of Nigerian Scholars for Dialogue held at State University of New York, Buffalo, 1997. 15. See note 6 above. 16. See note 13 above. 17. Smith, The Constitution, xxxi 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., 377–378. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid. 26. M. T. Akobo, National Constitutional Conference, A delegates Handbook (Lagos, Nigeria: PRONACO, 2006), 6–7, www.pronaco.org. 27. Article 13 (2), African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. 28. Olufemi Soneye, “Group protests Orji Kalu’s incarceration,” www.AfricanaNews. com, July 23, 2007, http://www.africananews.com/cover/group_protests_orji_kalu.htm. 29. Staff Writer, “World Report, Interview of T Y Danjuma: Chinese deal will fund exploration, Indigenous oil firm Sapetro plans to spend cash on development of new fields,” World Maritime News, July 29, 2007, http://www.worldreport-ind.com/nigeria2/ interview/04.html. 30. Nuhu Ribadu, “580 Billion Dollars Pillaged from the Nigerian Government Since Independence,” BBC Report, October, 20, 2006, www.bbc.co.uk/worldsrevice/ networkafrica. 31. Godwin Tsa, “Don’t cry for me,” The Sun, July 17, 2007, http://sunnewsonline. com/webpages/news/national/index.html. 32. Tell Magazine, 2007, “Elections 2007, Political Parties,” http://www.tellng. com/elections/parties/default.asp. 33. B. O. Aduba, “Federal character is a good idea gone wrong,” July 1, 2007, [email protected]. 34. Ibid. 35. “Resolutions of the Peoples’ Sovereign National Conference,” Pro-National Conference Organisation (PRONACO), Lagos, Nigeria, 2006, www.pronaco.org. 36. See note 35 above. 37. Ibid. 38. Ferreira, The Struggle, 11–14. 39. See note 38 above. 40. Ibid.

8

Nigeria’s 2007 Elections and the Future of Democracy in Africa: An Optimistic View Sylvester Odion-Akhaine

INTRODUCTION The Nigerian April 2007 election was to a certain extent controversial. The process was evidently marred by electoral malpractices and violence. Even after winners and losers had been declared and the former were sworn into office, there were still reports of postelection fraud. These reports occurred perhaps in preparation for the eventualities of the electoral tribunals sitting in judgment over loads of election petitions before them. For instance, in the midwestern state of Edo, three staff members of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were arrested for alleged thumbprinting of ballot papers in the INEC office at Igarra town in the northern frontier of the state.1 Thus, this chapter focuses on the main deficits of the Nigerian 2007 elections as well as some of the existing theoretical explanations for them. It further highlights transition trends in Africa with a view to delineating the impact of the Nigerian elections on the future of democracy on the continent. It concludes by arguing that the electoral outcomes of the Nigerian 2007 elections detract from the goal of consolidating democracy and reinforce the extant semi-authoritarian pattern of democratic transitions in Africa. However, a caveat is added—that democratic recovery and consolidation in Nigeria may well have a demonstrable effect on the rest of the continent. EXPLAINING THE DEFICITS IN THE 2007 ELECTIONS The Nigerian 2007 elections occurred mainly on April 14 and 21. On April 14, voters who hoped to dramatize the democratic method, by voting in the elections

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and changing leaders who in the last four or eight years had been unable to offer “democracy dividends,” trooped out as early as 6 a.m. to vote, but soon ran into hurdles as they stepped out of their domains. There was no general notification as to where polling booths were located, so prospective voters had to go in search of them. When some managed to find the polling booths, they could not find polling officials from INEC, and as a consequence (and in most cases) voting commenced as late as 1 p.m. The night before, State Security Service (SSS) operatives had caught a state legislative assemblyman in Oyo state with stolen ballot boxes.2 Lack of polling materials, combined with the lateness of officials, compounded the inadequacy of the process. Indeed, where there were materials, the ECA7 form for recording results was evidently missing. In the ballot papers meant for the elections, the photographs of some candidates were missing. For example, in Lagos state, the photo of the governorship candidate of the Democratic Party Alliance (DPA) Jimi Agbaje was missing.3 Also in Niger state, in a most brazen fashion, the party name, logo, names, and pictures of twenty-seven candidates of the Accord Party were omitted from the ballot papers for the legislative elections into the House of Assembly. A candidate for the governorship, Alhaji Isa Mohammed, also was not pictured in the ballot papers for the gubernatorial polls.4 In Imo state, the picture of Chief Charles Ugwu appeared on the ballot papers as the candidate for governor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when, in fact, the actual candidate was Senator Infeanyichukwu Godwin Araraume, and the court had so ruled following the attempt by the central leadership of the party to impose Ugwu on the state.5 In Delta state, the Accord Party’s name was omitted from the ballot papers for the House of Assembly elections.6 In addition to the foregoing foundational inadequacies, violence dogged the process. In Ondo state, about ten people were reported killed; in Kano, a prominent Moslem cleric, Sheik Jafar Adam, was killed on the eve of the elections; in Kwara state, one person was reported killed; seven people were reported dead in Edo state; two people were reported dead in Ekiti state; five persons were reported dead in Osun state; and in Rivers state, seven policemen were killed in a dawn attack on a police station by militants.7 This violence happened as a result of resistance to the following situations: attempts by party thugs to snatch electoral materials, collusion as well as resistance by electoral officials to malpractices, and protest over irregularities, such as the nonavailability of polling materials and the omission of parties’ names and those of their candidates from ballot papers. For example, in Akure, capital of Ondo state, the presiding officer who resisted the attempt to steal ballot boxes at the Sacred Heart Cathedral polling unit was macheted and taken to an unknown destination.8 Violence also helped create an atmosphere of fear, and some people could not even vote. For example, the Senate president, Ken Nnamani, could not vote in his constituency in Enugu. In the midst of these observed shortcomings, elections were suspended in some places and canceled outright in others.9 Nevertheless, the results were announced, and the ruling PDP, which claimed to be the largest party in Africa, won twenty-eight of the thirty-six states in the

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federation. This outcome, dubbed by the opposition as an “award” by the electoral commission to the ruling party, led to devastating post-election violence. The people who felt that the election results did not reflect their choices protested against the results. Of particular interest are Edo and Ondo states where the announcement of results was unduly delayed. Contrary to practice, the results for Ondo state were announced in Abuja, the federal capital, while those of Edo were announced after a presidential stopover in the state with a heavy security presence. So mayhem and consequent killings went on in several states of the federation, leading to the imposition of a dawn-to-dusk curfew in many of the states. For instance, fifteen people were killed in Kogi state, and six people were killed in Nasarawa state.10 Admitting some of the irregularities in the elections, the electoral commission canceled the gubernatorial elections in Imo state while upholding the elections into the House of Assembly. The presidential and National Assembly elections were held on April 21. The run-up to these elections had been characterized by uncertainty. The events of April 14 had reinforced the opposition parties’ belief that elections could not be free and fair. They held a summit to decide whether it was worthwhile to participate in presidential and parliamentary elections. At the last minute, amid general indecision and prodding from the U.S. government that they should not boycott the election, the opposition decided to participate in the elections.11 One thing was predictable: the confidence of the electorate had been upset by the outcome of the April 14 state elections. To begin with, there was a low turnout. The Commonwealth Observers’ mission underlined this point: Our group was particularly struck by the low turnout of voters it witnessed on 21 April. Part of the explanation lies in its delayed opening—and in some cases early closing— of the polls. It is equally likely, however, that voters reacted to the problems they had encountered at the State elections the week before.12

Second, polling materials arrived late again. In both Anambra and Delta states, for instance, materials were still being distributed as late as 2 p.m. Most of the April 14 irregularities occurred again: unnumbered ballot papers, hoarding and snatching of ballot boxes, omission of candidates’ names and party logos, and violence and killings. Of the fifty registered political parties, only twenty-four took part in the presidential polls. In the context of these shortcomings, some elections, mostly parliamentary elections, were postponed in some states. For example, in Akwa Ibom state, House of Representative elections were rescheduled,13 and the Lagos West senatorial election was rescheduled in Lagos state.14 In Rivers state, elections for the East senatorial district and about eight House of Representatives seats were postponed;15 in Oyo state, the election of six House of Representatives seats was postponed; and in Delta state, elections into the Delta North senatorial districts and four federal constituencies were also postponed.16 Intriguingly, these irregularities did not affect the outcome of the

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presidential results. However, at the last count, the ruling PDP had emerged with a dominant majority in the bicameral national legislature (the National Assembly) while simultaneously attaining the presidency. OPPOSITION CRIES OUT As expected, critical reactions from the politicians, as well as local and international observers, followed the polling. Two prominent presidential candidates, namely, General Mohammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Action Congress (AC), rejected the results of the polls. The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), which monitored the elections along with 50,000 other monitors deployed by local NGOs and other groups, stated unequivocally that: Based on the widespread and far-reaching nature of the these lapses, irregularities and electoral malpractices, we have come to the conclusion that on the whole, the elections were a charade and did not meet the minimum standards required for democratic elections. We therefore reject the elections and call for their cancellation.17

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) also did not mince words in qualifying the elections. According to the NDI, “In many ways, and in a number of ways, the electoral process failed the Nigerian people. The cumulative effect of the serious problems the delegation witnessed substantially compromised the integrity of the electoral process.”18 The European Union Observer Mission was also clear in noting that minimum standards for democratic elections were not met.19 The Commonwealth Observer Group’s report went to great lengths to observe: Overall, in organizational terms these elections fell short of the standards Nigeria had achieved in 2003, and certainly well below those to which Nigeria is committed. We have concluded that there were impediments in the ability of voters to express their will fully, freely and fairly.20

These setbacks can perhaps be explained by a structured contingency factor and the absence of what Marina Ottaway has called an embedded elite and others have described as a “democracy without democrats.” The structured contingency has to do with “patterns of institutional regularity which significantly inform progress towards democratic consolidation.”21 This is absent in Nigeria, which for the most part has been ruled by military juntas. Instead, there are “structured impediments to democracy in Africa,”22 which can be summed up as follows: personalized rule, absence of both subjective and objective institutions of democracy, ethno-religious crisis, fragmented civil societies, and absence of government legitimacy. The deficits in the 2007 elections are a continuation of these structural impediments. To be sure, President Obasanjo, who presided over the elections, had declared the elections a do-or-

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die affair. The statement heralded a farewell to fairness and impartial arbitration over the elections. Earlier in 2006, the same president had sought self-perpetuation by trying to lengthen his tenure in spite of a clear constitutional provision on a two-term limit. Accounting for a Nigerian-type scenario, Ottaway talks about the absence of an embedded elite, that is, an elite with constituencies that are not the NGO-type elite, who are embedded in the international system instead of their own society and people.23 The Nigerian political class typifies this. They call on the people only in times of elections; afterward they claim sovereignty belongs to the parliament and not the people. It is, in other words, building a democracy without democrats. However, it is important to note Dankwart Rustow’s disagreement with the theoretical assumption that you have to have democrats to promote democracy. He argues that: Instead we should allow for the possibility that circumstances may force, trick, lure, or cajole non-democrats into democratic behavior and that their beliefs may adjust in due course by some process of rationalisation or adaptation.24

Adaptation to democratic behavior by the political class has so far proven difficult; rather, there is a manifest tilt toward authoritarianism, and this clearly fits into the transition trends on the continent. TRANSITION TRENDS IN AFRICA The modest objective here is to explain the nature of the perversions in the democratic processes in Africa and their implications for future democratic developments on that continent. The democratic developments in Africa have been put in perspective in the mutating third-wave discourse by Crawford Young. He tries to size up Africa in the global tidal wave of democratization in the broad canvas of Huntingtonian waves. For Young, the decolonization process in Africa is the first wave, a period that falls within Huntington’s second wave. According to Young, “The array of constitutional provisions modelled on the colonial metropoles, which defines the institutions through which power transfer occurred during the independence era, was for Africa an initial wave.”25 During Africa’s first wave, democratization was seen as the end of the transition to self-rule. Young advances the reasons that democratization held an initial attraction for African leaders. With the exception of those who came to power through armed struggle, competitive democracy conferred prestige on the new nation-states. Second, the removal of colonial restrictions on political organizations allowed for mass mobilization. African leaders, from Kwame Nkrumah to Julius Nyerere, adopted the mass single party seen as necessary for African development and the negation of neo-colonial designs. As Young puts it, “With independence won, the transcendental doctrinal goal became rapid development and uprooting the neo-colonial control of the economy.”26 The proclivity toward one party again was strengthened at the time by the Soviet and Chinese communist model and, no less, by

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modernization salesmen who saw merit in state-led development efforts. After an interlude of authoritarian backlash, the second wave began in the 1970s, which witnessed the removal of three of Africa’s most bloody dictators, namely, Idi Amin of Uganda, Francisco Marcias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, and Jean Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic. The wave reached its defining moment with elections in Nigeria and Ghana in 1979,27 followed by an authoritarian reversal with the resurgence of state-level militarism. But poor government and its consequences—a legitimacy crisis and an economic depression as Young again rightly observed—set the stage for the third wave of democratization in Africa beginning in 1989. “The serious riots in Algeria in 1988 were an early omen, shredding the revolutionary mystique of Force de Liberation Nationale (FLN) and forcing open the doors of political competition.”28 Despite Young’s optimism, democratic transitions in Africa in the third wave have not been rosy affairs. Regimes wearing the democratic badge have come about through a self-transmutation achieved through a combination of devious manipulation and coercion and ostensibly under multiparty platforms.

NOTES 1. Mike Osunde, “Police Arrest INEC staff thumb-printing in Edo,” October 12, 2007, http://www.oyibosonline.com/cgi-bin/newsscript.pl?record=1988. 2. Muyiwa Adeyemi, Emma Ande, and Iyabo Lawal, “It’s D-Day!” The Guardian, April 14, 2007, 1–2. 3. Alifa Daniel, “Candidates Photos Missing, Iwu Explains,” The Guardian, April 15, 2007, 1 and 6. 4. Jide Orintunsin and Nkechi Onyedika, “Accord Party Wants Cancellation of Election,” The Guardian, April 15, 2007, 7. 5. Charles Ogugbuaja, “Confusion in Imo over ballot papers,” The Guardian, April 15, 2007, 7. 6. Sunny Ogefere, “Voting for One Senatorial Seat, Four Federal Constituencies Postponed,” The Guardian, April 22, 2007, 8. 7. Kelvin Ebiri, “Gunmen Kill Seven Policemen, Injure Soldiers in Rivers,” The Guardian, April 15, 2007, 2. 8. Niyi Bello, “Ten feared Killed,” The Guardian, April 15, 2007, 7. 9. Alifa Daniel and Bridget Onochie, “Nnamani: They Want to Hang Me,” The Guardian, April 15, 2007, 1 and 6. 10. Hendrix Oliomogbe, et al., “Polls: Outrage across the Land,” April 17, 2007, 1–2, 4. 11. “Don’t Boycott Elections—US Tells Opposition,” Breaking News, April 19, 2007, 1–2. 12. Commonwealth Observer Group, “Departure Statement on Nigeria’s Elections of April 2007,” April 27, 2007. 13. Ayoyinka Olagoke, “INEC Postpones House of Reps Election,” The Guardian, April 22, 2007, 7. 14. Kamal Tayo Oropo, “Why Central Lagos Poll Is suspended,” The Guardian, April 22, 2007, 7.

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15. Kelvin Ebiri, “INEC Shifts Senatorial, Reps Polls,” The Guardian, April 22, 2007, 8. 16. Ogefere, “Voting for One Senatorial Seat,” 8. 17. Nigerians United for Democracy, Mirror of a Fraudulent Election (Nigeria: NUD, 2007). 18. Ibid., 60. 19. Ibid., 86. 20. See note 12 above. 21. Jeff Haynes, Democracy in the Developing World (Cambridge: Polity Press and Blackwell publishers, 2001), 6. 22. Haynes, Democracy in the Developing World, 139. 23. Marina Ottaway, “Promoting Democracy—The Next Phase,” July 1, 2007, www.kus.uu.se/democracy2. 24. Dankwart A. Rustow, “Transition to Democracy: Towards a Dynamic Model,” Comparative Politics 2(3) (April 1970): 344–345. 25. Crawford Young, “The Third Wave of Democratisation in Africa: Ambiguities and Contradictions,” in Richard Joseph, ed., Conflict and Democracy in Africa (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998), 16. 26. Young, “The Third Wave of Democratisation,” 17. 27. Crawford Young, “Africa: An Interim Balance Sheet,” Journal of Democracy 7(3) (1996): 55–56. 28. Ibid., 23.

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Nigeria’s 2007 Elections: A Great Danger for the Future of Democracy in Africa Adeyinka O. Banwo

INTRODUCTION Nigeria should be the central question in Africa. No Country’s fate is so decisive for the continent. No other country across a range of issues has the power so thoroughly to shape outcomes elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. If Nigeria works well, so might Africa. If the democratic experiment in Nigeria stalls, and development and government stagnate, the rest of Africa suffers and loses hope. (Robert I. Rotberg, April 4, 2007, citing a Council of Foreign Relations Special Report on Nigeria) If Africa’s vaunted renaissance is to mean anything, Nigeria must point the way. (Economist.com, April 19, 2007)

These statements partly capture the significance and importance of Nigeria in the attainment of democracy in Africa. National elections in Nigeria usually attract a lot of regional and international attention. The common belief within the international community is that however Nigeria goes, the rest of Africa follows. The April 2007 election was, therefore, seen as an election hugely significant for the African continent, a defining moment for political and democratic development in Africa and a moment in which perhaps some of the obstacles that have held back political progress in the African continent would be removed.1 Nigeria is not only seen as the pride of Africa, but as one of the most strategically important states on the African continent, one that others look up to for leadership. The most populated and second richest country in Africa, Nigeria is not only a regional powerhouse, but also a model for the rest of the continent.2

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The new president of Nigeria, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua agrees that an effective democratic consolidation in Nigeria will have positive implications for the African continent, which perhaps informs the international community’s seemingly disproportionate interest in the evolution of Nigeria’s democratic process. Therefore, the April 2007 election had serious implications not just for Nigeria, but the democratic movement in Africa. It was a test case to measure the state of Africa’s preparedness to adopt a democratic culture. The April 2007 elections have come and gone. They have been described by local and international observers as a colossal failure. Chris Albin Lackey and Ben Lawrence of the Human Rights Watch said the elections were not only brazenly rigged but also exceptionally violent, incurring the deaths of about 300 people. Max van den Berg, the chief observer from the European Union’s Observer Mission said, “The April elections breached both international and regional standards; it lacked transparency with evidence of fraud, [and] there was no credibility in the outcome.”3 In fact, the European Union’s report on the elections is said to be the worst ever issued anywhere in the world.4 Richard Cockett of The Economist seemingly agreed with this observation when he described the April elections as “one of the most fraudulent polls ever conducted anywhere in the world.”5 Even the elected president, Umaru Yar’Adua, was forced to admit recently at the inauguration of an electoral reforms panel that the elections lacked transparency. He agrees that the April elections were so heavily marred by vote rigging, that Nigeria’s inability to have internationally acceptable elections has left a credibility problem on the country’s electoral process.

NIGERIAN ELECTIONS AND THE DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT IN AFRICA This study will attempt to highlight the implications of the failed elections in Nigeria for the future of the democratic movement and project in Africa, considering the significant and strategic role Nigeria occupies in the attainment of the democratic agenda in Africa. The outcome of Nigeria’s elections represents a major setback for democracy in Africa at a time when the African people are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the way democracy is practised on the continent. This certainly has serious implications for democratic movements in Africa; therefore, much remains to be done in making democracy attainable there. There should be no doubt that the outcome of recent elections in Nigeria will embolden corrupt and authoritarian governments throughout Africa. Authoritarian and leaders of the status quo, reluctant to accept the pressures to yield to democratic reforms, may now see Nigeria as a model.6 The gains made by insisting on transparent multiparty elections and political competition in several African countries may have been lost. This failure will certainly undermine efforts and struggles towards democratization across the continent.

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Political and economic instability may be aggravated, leading to military coups and civil and religious strife, which may further endanger the process of democratization in Africa. Brian Polley has, in fact, asserted that the failure of the elections in Nigeria will encourage ethnic warlords and Islamists in sub-Saharan Africa to continue vying for power outside of a transparent democratic structure, which could have potentially dire consequences for regional peace and global security.7 He does not contend that a democratically stable and prosperous Nigeria is a certain force for regional and continental security, but he does assert that an unstable and crisis-ridden Nigerian state can engender a ripple effect throughout the continent and beyond.8 Democratic movements in Africa obviously need more grassroots mobilization, education, organization, and networking for voters on democratic norms, methods, and practices. Building structures and a capacity for political movements and parties to be used as forums and agents of democratization is a requirement. Admittedly, the efforts of democratic movements are often frustrated not only by overstretched resources, but also by the undemocratic attitudes and practices of the African political elite. One of the greatest challenges to democracy in Africa, as Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem correctly noted, is trying to develop a democratic society without democrats, whether in government or opposition.9 Nevertheless, more still needs to be done in developing political parties that are truly democratic and representative. Therefore, democratic movements must not only be active, they must become more proactive. They must become main facilitators of democratic development in Africa because the African ruling political elite has failed. They must now move beyond reflecting and analyzing challenges to the democratization project in Africa, to undertaking an actual grassroots mobilization of the populace, encouraging wider political participation and influencing change of undemocratic state policies and practices, while also supporting nascent democratic institutions. In fact, they should begin to contest for political power and provide a genuine democratic alternative to the failed African ruling elite. Democratic movements must also insist on the implementation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights across the African continent. This charter proclaims the indivisibility of civil, political, economic, and social rights. They must continue to apply concerted pressure on African rulers to abide by and implement those sections of the principles and acts of the African Union (AU) that call for the promotion and protection of human rights and respect for democratic principles, the rule of law, and good governance, all of which were violated in the April 2007 elections in Nigeria. African democratic movements should also support the newly established African Court on Human and Peoples Rights and insist on the enforcement of the decisions of such courts.10 Africa can only forge a democratic culture if efforts are channelled toward upholding the rule of law in organized democratic elections. Elections provide a peaceful democratic means for societies to channel competition for political power and for making collective decisions. Credible elections are

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certainly essential to democracy, legitimacy, and good government. The right and opportunity of people to choose and elect candidates and representatives of their choice; freedom of association and movement; freedom of assembly and speech for candidates, voters, the press, and observers; and a political environment free of intimidation are essential ingredients for democracy to thrive. Only under such conditions can there be credible elections.

THE APRIL 2007 ELECTIONS Developments preceding the elections indicated that they would fall far short of fairness and transparency. There was the arm-twisting effort of Olusegun Obasanjo to secure a third term in office, wrangling within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (particularly the deep rift between Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy, Atiku Abubakar), the imposition of candidates, and the widespread use of violence during party primaries. There were also controversial impeachments of elected officials and mysterious political assassinations. All of this was compounded by an open declaration by Olusegun Obasanjo that the elections were going to be “a do-or-die affair.” Such a statement from a sitting president, who wields enormous control over the machinery of government and the resources of state, must certainly be taken as a serious pronouncement. The march toward the elections witnessed a series of lawless acts; court orders were flouted by the electoral commission and the government with impunity, and there were illegal and unconstitutional disqualifications of opposition candidates, such as the vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who was only allowed to contest the election courtesy of a court ruling three days before the presidential elections. However, there were many other unjustly disqualified candidates who never had such clout or privilege. There were also deletions of names and pictures of opposition candidates from the ballot papers and declaration of results in areas where there was no actual voting. In one area, electoral officials were apprehended thumbprinting ballot papers weeks after the result of an election had been announced in a bid to produce evidence of the declared result. These problems were compounded by what seemed like state-sponsored violence and terrorism. Political thugs, police, and soldiers were used to intimidate voters and political opponents and to seize ballot boxes. An electoral officer was openly assaulted physically by leaders of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Murders and killings also occurred, including the deaths of about 300 people. In April 2007, Nigerian elections decisively moved from the stage of “competitive rigging” to “coercive rigging,” in the words of Abdul-Raufu Mustapha—from elections, no matter how flawed, to “brazen selection.” With “competitive rigging,” supporters and thugs intimidated political opponents and stuffed more ballots for their own candidates. In the process, law enforcement agents tried to keep a semblance of public order. Under “coercive rigging,” state-sponsored violence,

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abuse of the electoral process, and deliberate undermining of the court system was brazenly and blatantly exhibited.11 Abdul Raufu Mustapha has correctly classified problems with the April 2007 elections into three broad categories: incompetence and deliberate bungling by the electoral body (INEC); extensive use of violence by political thugs and state security forces against the voting populace; and the flagrant abuse of powers of incumbency against the opposition and the electorate.12 Prior to the elections, observers had predicted a very close contest between the three leading parties, the ruling PDP, the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), and the Action Congress (AC).

THE IMAGE OF NIGERIA The failed elections have no doubt created a negative image for Nigeria. That the country suffered a loss of credibility and moral authority within Africa and the international community is certainly an understatement. This state of affairs is clearly evident in the opinions stated by various influential political commentators on the April 2007 elections. Scott Baker stated that the elections have indeed set back Nigeria’s claim to leadership in Africa,13 and Nii Moi Thompson described Nigeria as a failed giant.14 Alioune Tini called Nigeria a political dwarf,15 and Sabella Abidde described the elections as a colossal embarrassment, making Nigerians look bad, incompetent, and morally impotent.16 Nigeria has lost all moral and legal right to counsel other African countries on how best to conduct elections. The country can no longer sit at the meetings of the African Union, NEPAD, African Peer Review Mechanism, or ECOWAS and talk about democracy or other countries’ elections. African countries that had previously looked up to Nigeria for moral support and political leadership will have to look elsewhere.17 The elections also dented the image and credibility of Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who had been a respected African leader and statesman. He had previously been revered as a promoter of good government and democracy in Africa. The failure of these elections in the twilight of his administration has certainly robbed Obasanjo of part of this credibility. At a time when Africa needs statesmen to help resolve its many conflicts and to promote democracy and development, Obasanjo could have continued to play a greater role, even though out of power, on the continent.18 It is speculated that Obasanjo might lose his membership on the African Panel on Good Governance being organized by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Many diplomats believe that if a permanent African Security Council seat were to be decided now, Nigeria would fall behind South Africa, Egypt, and Algeria.19

THE ROLE OF KEY GOVERNMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS Perhaps what sustains the Nigerian state in this undemocratic attitude is the tacit support it enjoys from some influential governments and institutions around the

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world. Some of these include South Africa, the United States, and the United Nations. South Africa was among the first African countries to congratulate Umaru Yar’Adua on his victory at the polls. His first diplomatic visit was also to South Africa, where he was given a red-carpet reception by President Thambo Mbeki. This may be attributed to the fact that the ruling PDP in Nigeria has facilitated South Africa’s emergence as a major economic player in Nigeria in the last eight years. Also, ballot papers for the Nigerian elections with no counterfoils or serial numbers (which may have made vote rigging very difficult) were reportedly printed in South Africa. Only 40 million ballot papers were printed for an election in which over 65 million people registered to vote. At the end, only 30 percent of the ballot papers got to Nigeria. The rest were left behind at a warehouse in Johannesburg.20 With the influential status of South Africa on the continent, its support for the elections certainly sent signals to other African countries. It is interesting to wonder if South Africa was part of the fraud and conspiracy in the April elections in Nigeria. In the United States, Jendayi E. Frazer, the political officer in charge of African affairs in the State Department, cautioned the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs against taking any drastic action against Nigeria after the April elections because the country remained an important strategic partner and one of the most dependable allies of the United States on issues of security, trade, energy policy, Darfur, peacekeeping, counterterrorism, and HIV/AIDS.21 Nigeria is also the United States’s largest trading partner in Africa and a major source of oil. Also, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon backed out of any critical statement on the Nigerian elections apparently, in my opinion, in order to obtain the country’s support over troop deployment in the Darfur region of the Sudan. The United Nations and the United States wanted a Nigerian military commander to head the U.N. multinational force in order to satisfy the insistence of the Sudanese government that the force must be led by an African army commander.22 If the so-called strategic importance of Nigeria makes certain important segments of the international community accommodate or overlook its democratic failures, the actualization of democracy in Africa could obviously become an illusion.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION This chapter has highlighted the significance and importance of Nigeria in the attainment of democracy in Africa. Reasons for the failed April polls and their implications for Nigeria and the process of democratization in Africa were discussed. The role of governments and international institutions in the failed elections was also mentioned. The failed April election in Nigeria portends a great danger for the future of democracy in Africa. For Africa to move forward, agents of democratic change must restrategize in order to confront and overcome authoritarian rule.

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NOTES 1. Rageh Omar, “The Elections that Africa will be watching,” Newstatesman, April 2, 2007. 2. Chris Albin Lackey and Ben Lawrence, “What’s Next for Nigeria?” Human Rights Watch, May 8, 2007, published in Guardian Unlimited. 3. Ibid. 4. See note 2 above. 5. Richard Cockett, “Africa led Backwards,” Guardian Unlimited, June 1, 2007. 6. One wonders whether Nigeria’s dubious elections of April 2007 exerted an infectious impact upon the political machinery of the East African country of Kenya, given the allegations of rigging that greeted the announcement of the results of the presidential election that that country conducted in December, 2007. 7. Brian Polley, “Hope for Democracy in West Africa: Nigeria, 2007 Elections,” The Forum for International Policy, August 2, 2006. 8. Jessica Pombo, “The Import of Nigeria’s April 2003 Elections,” Strategic Insights 11(6) (June 2003). 9. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, “Sustaining Africa’s Democratic Momentum; Democracy without Democrats,” Pambazuka News, September 3, 2007. 10. Ahmed C. Motola, “Celebrating two decades of the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights,” Pambuzaka News, June 22, 2006. 11. Abdul- Raufu Mustapha, “Nigeria after the April 2007 Elections: What Next?” Pambazuka News, June 28, 2007; also see Weekend Triumph, August 4, 2007. 12. Ibid. 13. Scott Baker, cited in Paschal Fletcher, “Nigeria’s Polls Show Africa’s ‘giant’ has clay feet,” Analysis Reuters.com Online, April 24, 2007. 14. Nii Moi Thompson, cited in Paschal Fletcher, “Nigeria’s Polls show Africa’s ‘giant’ has clay feet,” Analysis Reuters.com Online, April 24, 2007. 15. Alioune Tine, cited in Paschal Fletcher, “Nigeria’s Polls Show Africa’s ‘giant’ has clay feet,” Analysis Reuters.com Online, April 24, 2007. 16. Sabella O. Abidde, “The 2007 Elections in Nigeria: An Embarrassment to the African Continent,” Holler Africa, www.hollerafrica.com. 17. Ibid. 18. “Nigeria: Failed Elections, Failing State?” International Crisis Group-Africa Report 126 (May 30, 2007). 19. Ibid. 20. Shawn Hattingh, “South Africa’s role in Nigeria and the Nigerian Elections,” Pambazuka News, June 28, 2007, http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/4225. 21. Jendayi E. Frazer, “Nigeria at a crossroads: Elections, legitimacy and a way forward,” Testimony to the U.S. House foreign Affairs sub Committee on Africa and Global Health, June 7, 2007. 22. “How President Obasanjo pressured the United Nation’s Ban Ki-moon over the flawed elections,” Report by a special correspondent, Nigerian Election Hotline, June 2, 2007.

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Nigeria’s 2007 Elections in Comparative Perspective: Democratic Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy in Africa Rita Kiki Edozie

INTRODUCTION The introduction and previous chapters of this book on the Nigerian elections of April 14 and 21, 2007, have adequately described and analyzed the intricacies of the electoral crisis. To refresh the reader’s memory, here is a recap of a summary of those disputed elections provided by Wikipedia, a global, people-driven encyclopedia: The April 2007 elections were marred by widespread fraud and violence, largely perpetrated by the country’s ruling party. Only a few of Nigeria’s states experienced peaceful balloting. In much of the country, opposition candidates were intimidated, their supporters were barred from voting and ballot boxes in areas known to favor them stolen by agents of the ruling party.1

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the incumbent party of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, won the elections in a whopping landslide victory to elect the country’s fourth democratically elected president, Umaru Yar’Adua. The PDP controversially also won the most seats in the country’s bicameral National Assembly; and for the gubernatorial and other state government elections, the PDP once again controversially swept the winning seats, electing most governors and other state assemblies. However, rather than be celebrated as a success for democracy—a third election in the Third Wave of Democracy—once again, the Nigerian elections catapulted the country into national and international condemnation. Most described the Nigerian 2007 electoral process as symptomatic of the “crisis and collapse of Nigeria.”

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Nevertheless, this chapter will approach the “issue” of the April 2007 elections in Nigeria very differently from previous chapters and from the political crisis-collapsed state theory that appears to dominate the discussion of Nigerian politics. The goal for this discussion is two-pronged. On the one hand, this chapter will attempt to relate Nigeria’s election debacle to political–economic structures similarly to a previous analysis of Nigeria’s 2003 elections.2 It is necessary to contextualize the Nigerian electoral process and broader trends in democracy in relation to the simultaneous developmental processes occurring among developing and transitional regions. In this regard, it is argued that Nigeria’s electoral crisis of 2007 was in many respects indicative of these deeper economic and democratic institutional dilemmas typical of the country’s developmental trajectory. On the other hand, therefore, a second distinct tone of this chapter perhaps not captured in previous chapters of this book, is the analysis of the Nigerian electoral crisis in a comparative context. Two comparative case studies—South Africa and Kenya—are presented to refute Nigerian exceptionalism and collapsed-states theses. Alternatively, this analysis of the Nigerian electoral scandal will reveal similar structures and features of democratic politics in both African and, by proxy, other Third World and transitional polities. To critically interpret the deeper dimensions of the Nigerian electoral crisis of April 2007, the concepts of democratic capitalism and nurture capitalism used as key theoretical frameworks for the current study are central. Nigeria’s Third Wave transition occurred in 1999, South Africa’s in 1994, and Kenya’s in 2002. Yet, Nigeria, South Africa, and Kenya provide important illustrations of the phenomena of democratic capitalism that inform the roots of Nigeria’s electoral crisis of 2007. This is so because these countries’ experiences shed light on the ways in which certain intrinsic features of liberal democracy as a democratic regime type are contributing to a crisis of democracy in developing world contexts. All three countries, for example, capture this dynamic, which large, developing world countries are currently encountering in their attempts to sustain democratic politics as the “only game in town.”3 South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria all capture this dynamic which large, developing world countries are currently encountering in their attempts to consolidate a Third Wave democratic transition.4 South Africa’s democratic transition occurred in 1994, bringing the African National Congress (ANC) to power, with a second election in 1999 resulting in the electoral victory of Thabo Mbeki who replaced Nelson Mandela as president. Nigeria’s Fourth Republic—its fourth constitutional democratic change and third democratic regime—brought in Olusegun Obasanjo as president on the ticket of the PDP in 1999. Kenya’s rainbow coalition’s democratic victory ousting the stalwart one-party Kenya African National Union (KANU) in 2002, ushered in the leadership of Mwai Kibaki and his National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). Like Nigeria, between 2003 and 2007, both Third Wave democratic regimes had been embroiled in political party fractional disputes that began to manifest themselves in national politics as succession crises between each respective president and vice president. Capturing recent history by peering into the performances of the

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newly democratic regimes of Nigeria’s former president Obasanjo (PDP), South Africa’s Mbeki (ANC), and Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki (NARC), this chapter will broach a comparative examination of the way in which capitalist development is influencing democratic development in Africa. Democratic factionalism in all three cases is integrally linked to each country’s uneven and underdeveloped economic structures. The three countries in question are some of the wealthier African economies by continental standards— in 2006, South Africa had a growth rate of 4.5 percent, Nigeria’s was 5.8 percent, and Kenya’s economy witnessed a growth rate of 5.0 percent. With a gross national product (GNP) of $200 billion, which when distributed among a population of 43 million, produced a per capita income of $13,000, South Africa’s democratic regime presides over Africa’s richest economy. Nigeria bears the image of being an oil-rich rentier economy, but, in reality, it is also relatively poor, with a GNP of only $88 billion and a $17 billion annual budget distributed among a population of 140 million, which produces a per capita income of only $1,400.5 Kenya, while rich in contrast with some of its neighbors, such as Tanzania and Uganda, is poor compared to South Africa and Nigeria and even poorer when compared to the rest of the world. Its GNP is a measly $17 billion, with a per capita income of $1,200, and an annual budget of $4.4 billion to support over 30 million people. To understand the national poverty of these economies, compare each economy to the United States’ $2.1 trillion GNP for 300 million people, which translates into a per capita income of $43,000. The U.S. state of Michigan with 10 million people has an annual budget of $78 billion; moreover, from 2003 to 2007, the United States spent over $800 billion on the Iraq War alone. Compared to advanced industrial democracies, even the richest African democracies are poor. This chapter will link the political factionalism and distributional struggles within these democratic regimes to certain processes and economic scandals in each country that are manifestations of the economic structures described above. Each country’s economic structure is represented by its neoliberal economic policy—for example, the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) in Nigeria, Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) as well as Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA) in South Africa, Economic Recovery Strategy (ERS) in Kenya. It is also represented by processes characterized later as a contemporary manifestation of a national–global “nurture capitalism.” Nurture capitalism is played out in each country’s scandal by specific economic actors, including Globacom in Nigeria, Thompson CSF Holdings/Thales in South Africa, and Anglo Leasing Finance in Kenya. One consequence of the difficult democratic consolidation occurring in these developing world economies, in the context of a global economy whose focus is on aggressive laissez-faire capitalism, is a crisis of democratic legitimacy as democratic politics becomes fused with capitalist production and the reification of class hierarchy. In all three cases, nurture capitalism is pushing democratic politics in each country to the edge of crisis (see Table 10.1).

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Table 10.1: A Comparative Network of Democratic Capitalism Democratic nits/agents Nigeria

Anti-corruption Businessunit corporation/s

PDP EFCC Obasanjo (president) Abubakar (vice president) South Africa ANC Scorpions Mbeki (president) Zuma (deputy president) Kenya NARC ACC Kibaki (president) Odinga (minister/presidential contender)

Economic development program(s)

Globacom iGate Transcorp

NEEDS SEEDS LEEDS PTDF

Thompson-CSF Holdings/Thales Nkobi Holdings African Defense Fund Anglo Leasing Finance

RDP GEAR BEE ASGISA ERS

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS: DEMOCRATIC CAPITALISM AND THE CRISIS OF DEMOCRACY Democratic theorist Philippe Schmitter notes that democracy, despite its appearance of being stable and well entrenched, contains in itself what he terms “intrinsic” difficulties that may not always make it work well.6 Such difficulties, he points out, are democracy’s tendency to be oligarchic, a situation in which politicians and the political elite—governmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—exhibit monopolistic as opposed to pluralistic behavior as a result of their incumbency; in this respect, the democratic class becomes less accountable to its constituents due to a certain organizational default. Schmitter argues as well that all modern pluralist democracies experience the problem of “policy cycling” of the kind illustrated by the Democratic–Republican stalemate over the Iraq War and immigration policy. Policy cycling occurs when politicians, forced to compromise on policies due to lack of a clear majority, end up enacting watered-down policies that displease everyone, especially the electorate. Eventually this leads to a constantly divided government that is perceived by the electorate as a nonperforming democracy. A third intrinsic feature of Schmitter’s pluralist democracy is what he calls the autonomy of some institutions of the modern democratic state—the armed forces, the central bank, business investment, and so forth. Although these institutions directly support a given democracy and are required for the stable

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functioning of a modern nation, there is a tendency to make such institutions impervious to the pressures of its citizens. Democratic elites, however, maintain the right to protect these institutions in the name of national security and the fostering of national economic growth and welfare. Supporting the inclination by democratic governments to protect business and investment interests over citizens’ interests, Fred Block has justified the autonomy that democratic political elites (he calls them state managers) seek for certain business classes in advanced democracies. Block argues that the government’s organizational position within the political system gives it a broader national perspective than most select constituent or corporate interests. However, Block also implies that the paradox involved in the ideal functioning of pluralist democratic politics in advanced industrial democracies gives incumbent politicians the ability to resist pressure from certain segments of the business community while they are dependent on “business confidence” (growth, investment, a buoyant economy) in order to secure economic prosperity as well as re-election.7 Yet, even—and perhaps especially8—in the advanced industrial democracy of the United States—in what Robert Pinkney distinguishes as an “old” democracy,9 there is difficulty in meeting the ideal political–economic equilibrium referred to by Block’s model. Instead, reality demonstrates that distortions of the relationship between democracy, business, and the economy exist, as evidenced in numerous corruption scandals. In 2005, former representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced for having received $600,000 in bribes in exchange for his help in getting a company called ADCS, Inc. more than $800 million in defense contracts. Through the U.S. Congress’s use of legislative earmarks, Cunningham constantly promoted defense contracts for his business clients.10 More recently, the “fall” of the 109th Congress in November 2006 was attributed to the revelation of the rampant acceptance of bribes by U.S. congressmen in return for pushing legislation favorable to the business clients of certain lobbyists.11 In the new democracies of the developing world, analyses of external or extrinsic (sociopolitical, economic, and cultural) problems12 that might influence the performance of democracy are frequent in discussions and debates about consolidation; however, few analyses have considered the ways in which the intrinsic features of democracy described by Schmitter are shaping the performance and future consolidation of democracies of these regions. In light then of Harold Lasswell’s political economic approach to liberal democratic politics—democracy is about who gets what from whom—democratizing countries in Africa make interesting case studies to examine the intrinsic features that are fostering the democratic crises of modern liberal democracies. Nevertheless, in underscoring the differences between developing world contexts and advanced industrial contexts, democratic performance and consolidation in the new democracies of Africa remain much less representative than in the old democracies of the West. This is so because the crisis of governance occurs interactively with both intrinsic factors and extrinsic features playing a part in the Third World or developing world, including such features as multinationalism, capitalist production, uneven development, and security challenges.

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By illustrating the effects of unevenly developed economic structures on Africa’s new democracies (and especially in focusing on the intrinsic paradox having to do with the relationship between the economy and democratic capitalism), and by examining a similar dynamic that is contributing to a democracy crisis in the three selected Third Wave regimes in Africa, this chapter provides some refreshing insights into the contemporary functioning of democracies in these countries. The intrinsic, yet paradoxical dynamic that is contributing to this distortion in the ideal workings of liberal democracies has already been described, but the African developing world is burdened by an extrinsic (external) element that adds to the intrinsic pressures on the performance of democracy. These issues are not dominant problems in old democracies. Sayre Schatz first referred to this problem in 1973 when he posited a classical political–economic framework of Third World development that he coined “nurture capitalism.”13 He observed this phenomenon in Nigeria and other developing world countries; and, in his analysis of Nigerian development, Schatz identified four unique characteristics of these post-colonial developing societies. These features included capitalistic production, as opposed to the socialist and Marxist–Leninist approach; government attempts to attract foreign investment; government attempts to nurture domestic ownership of the economy by nurturing an “indigenous” entrepreneurial class; and the shifting tensions of conflict and uncertainty that arise between foreign business and indigenous business (what he terms universalism versus nationalism).14 Nurture capitalism continues to operate in Nigeria and Kenya (often simplistically reduced to “corruption”) and more recently in South Africa (ideologically legitimated as black empowerment). However, nurture capitalism under one-party or military vanguardist rule differs from its manifestation in democratic politics. Moreover, post–Cold War neoliberal, economic, and corporate globalist environments influence the different character of nurture capitalism in Africa’s Third Wave democratic regimes. Adam Pzreworski and others have thus referred to Third Wave transitions in which economic and democratic reforms occur at the same time as transitions to democratic capitalism rather than mere transitions to democracy.15 Countries such as Russia, Mexico, and Turkey, as well as several other African countries, usually bear out the contradictions and paradoxes of this process. The consequence of this dual movement of political and market forces in a given national territory produces peculiar manifestations in democratic politics for such countries.16

DEMOCRATIC CRISIS, FRACTURED EXECUTIVES, DOMINANT PARTIES, AND CORRUPTION SCANDALS: THE NIGERIAN 2007 ELECTORAL CRISIS AND THE GLOBACOM AFFAIR In Nigeria, battles between the country’s executive branch and its legislature, including a series of impeachment charges and countercharges between the president and key legislators, dominated President Obasanjo’s first term of the Fourth

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Republic. Democratic politics got worse when, in the second term, an internal party dispute within the PDP manifested as a power struggle between the president and the vice president. President Obasanjo was upset about rumors that his once loyal vice president Atiku Abubakar was secretly mobilizing against his second term bid. Throughout that second term Obasanjo allowed the conflict between the presidency and the vice presidency to roll over into the electoral crisis of 2007.17 However, by 2006, Vice President Atiku Abubakar was credited with resisting the subversion of his political rights by President Obasanjo, who had made it clear to the Nigerian public that he would prevent his opponent from succeeding him in the next election. Unlike South Africa, in non-ideological Nigeria, both Obasanjo and Abubakar were pro-reformers, so their dispute was based less on the ideology of economic philosophy and more on personal power politics and the ideology of Nigerian ethno-regionalism—with Obasanjo a southern Christian, and Atiku Abubakar a northern Muslim.18 Of the three cases, the Nigerian and Kenyan crises are probably the most critical as they have both already delivered the greatest assault on democracy, as reflected in Nigeria’s April 2007 elections and in Kenya’s December 2007 elections. In South Africa, Jacob Zuma’s electoral victory in assuming the headship of the ANC, despite continued government prosecutions against him, is something to watch for in that country’s 2009 elections. Notwithstanding, Nigeria is the developing world context from which Schatz first formulated the conceptual framework for nurture capitalism. Thirty years later, nurture capitalism appeared to be at the heart of the democratic crisis within the country’s democratic regime. In that crisis, what began as a power struggle between former president Olusegun Obasanjo and his former vice president Atiku Abubakar ended in a corruption scandal and a test of democracy. Months before the April 2007 elections, Nigerian media news headlines began to report that the president and vice president were no longer on speaking terms, and it was feared that the president was set to abuse the incumbent power of his executive office (the presidency), his party machine (PDP), and his “corruption reduction” machine (EFCC) to forestall the prospect of his vice president succeeding him as president in the upcoming elections.19 This set of actions launched the Globacom affair. By this point, the fracture between the country’s two top democrats went beyond a mere power struggle between personalities; on the contrary, several Third Wave regime democratic institutions became important agents of a deeper impending democratic crisis, including the Obasanjo presidency; the president’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), established to reduce corruption; the Office of the Vice President; the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC); the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF); the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ); and iGate, Conpetro, NDTV, and Globacom. The actors involved included President Obasanjo, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, EFCC Chairman Nuhu Ribadu, Nigerian millionaire business magnate Mike Adenuga, Globacom’s Nigerian executive Otunba Faswe, Alhaji Subair, and Mohammed Babangida. The others

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involved were U.S. Congressman William Jefferson and the Nigerian democratic electorate. The Globacom affair had international connections as it involved the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Congressman William Jefferson, currently under investigation for corruption charges. Through Nigeria’s EFCC, the Nigerian presidency claimed to have been acting on the request of the FBI to investigate the vice president’s involvement in laundering money from the PDTF fund to purchase shares in Globacom and other U.S. “front” companies. The Jefferson indictment opened a discussion of the intended targets in the investigation: U.S. Congressman William Jefferson; Vernon Jackson, a businessman and CEO of iGate—the U.S. telecommunications firm trying to do broadband technology business in Nigeria through NITEL—and the third person on the list, Vice President Atiku Abubakar20 to whom the congressman allegedly said he would pass on a $100,000 bribe. The U.S. investigation also asked for Nigeria’s collaboration in investigating iGate, an American company, and its Nigerian counterpart, Netlink Digital Television (NDTV). NDTV’s chairman, Nigerian businessman Otunba Fasawe, was alleged to have met with Jefferson during a trip to Nigeria. The DOJ also specified interest in bank records relating to any payment or transfer of funds from the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF), among others. The president used the EFCC to investigate and indict Atiku Abubakar on charges of using front companies (Globacom, NDTV, Conpetro) to purchase shares from companies over which the vice president had oversight as part of the country’s privatization program. The vice president, whose office supervised the PTDF, was found guilty by both the EFCC and the government’s administrative panel led by Bayo Ojo of assorted malfeasance and diverting funds meant for nationwide operations to various banks to promote personal interests, including Globacom and NDTV. With this indictment, the former president used INEC (the not-so-independent electoral commission) to bar the vice president from competing in the April elections.21 Former vice president Atiku Abubakar countercharged by alleging corruption on the part of the president, claiming that Olusegun Obasanjo had benefited equally from the shares derived from the privatization sales of such companies as Globacom. Abubakar defended his right to compete in elections in a court case that challenged INEC’s authority to bar him from running on the basis of the alleged investigations and the findings of a presidential body such as the EFCC. The vice president won his case. Finally, the former president also used the power of the presidency to persuade the Senate to impeach the vice president, which the senators refused to do on grounds of unconstitutionality. Then he unilaterally fired Vice President Atiku Abubakar by declaring his office vacant. Again, Nigeria’s appeal court declared the president’s actions unconstitutional.22 The PDP continued to persecute Abubakar, and former president Obasanjo mobilized an alternative candidate, incumbent President Umaru Yar’Adua, to run on the PDP’s presidential ticket. As a result, the former vice president was forced to run on the ticket of a party created by the Action Congress (AC), the displaced PDP faction that he

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led. Naturally, he lost the election. After these events, the Nigerian electorate’s sentiments were reflected in the comments of Femi Kuti, a popular Nigerian Afro-beat artist, on the eve of the elections: “The president says to his VP—you are a thief; his VP replies you are too. This is not Democracy but ‘Demo-crazy.”23 The Globacom affair is intricately linked to Nigeria’s economic development. Both the 1999 and 2003 PDP regimes ran on an economic reform agenda— the National Empowerment and Economic Development Strategy (NEEDS). An important goal of the NEEDS program was to transfer state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to private ownership by returning business to businessmen and creating an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. The vice president’s office, through institutions like the PTDF, was the caretaker of certain aspects of this program. NEEDS sought to restructure the Nigerian democratic state by making it smaller, stronger, better skilled, and capable of providing essential services that promote an effective and efficient market.24 Like earlier phases of Nigerian politics, the NEEDS agenda is capitalistic; in today’s global ideology, it is neoliberal (nurtures the free market as a means of development). With its trickle-down ideology, it tends to discourage state-managed redistribution of resources. For example, neoliberalism recommends reduction in government spending on subsidies, social welfare programs, and state-directed development. With capitalist development, class development, and democratic development occurring at the same time, nurture capitalism underscored the relationship between the institutional behavior of the Obasanjo regime and its economic development policy. New global infusions of foreign capital were manifested through proxy economic organizations such as Globacom, NDTV, iGate, and Transcorp, and a Nigerian business class emerged. This class is still strongly aligned with a state political class in what William Graff once called the fused state.25 For example, the former president and vice president and their cohorts purchased shares while overseeing the privatization of Transcorp and Globacom through the Privatization Trust Development Fund (PTDF). These two gentlemen have been unapologetic in explaining these corruption charges, arguing instead, for example, that the president’s purchase of 200 million shares to buy Transcorp and Transcorp’s subsequent purchase of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), Mobile Telecommunications (MTEL), and the NICON Hilton were mere attempts to ensure that privatization benefits are owned by an indigenous Nigerian class rather than a foreign one.26

KENYA’S ELECTORAL CRISIS AND ANGLO LEASING FINANCE Like Nigeria’s factional crisis, Kenya’s crisis has also resulted in electoral violence and a deterioration of democracy. As a late Third Wave democratizer, Kenya’s crisis began in December 2002 with the historic transition election that brought President Mwai Kibaki, Member of Parliament, Raila Odinga, and the National Rainbow Coalition Party (NARC) to power. Unlike South Africa’s and

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Nigeria’s crises, the Kenyan “democratic crisis” began as a “constitutional crisis.” The dispute in Kenya—even though it did become an intra-party factional fight within NARC—was not internalized in the executive branch; it pitted the executive and Kenya’s legislature against each other, on the one hand, and party coalition leaders—President Mwai Kibaki of the former National Alliance Party (NAP) against Minister of Works and Housing and Member of Parliament Raila Odinga, who had been the head of the Kenyan Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), on the other. Prior to the 2002 electoral victory, both coalition camps were pro-democracy activists. Nevertheless, it was their democratic struggle against the incumbent Kenyan African National Union (KANU) party that set the stage for the later crisis. For example, Minister Odinga claimed that in agreeing to forge a coalition between his party and Kibaki’s party to defeat the then-incumbent “one-party”—KANU—he (Odinga) had agreed to support Kibaki’s 2002 presidential bid as the NARC coalition flag-bearer only because Kibaki promised him that Odinga would be appointed to a future prime ministerial position.27 NARC was victorious and Kibaki became president, but Odinga could not become prime minister then as the post did not yet exist.28 NARC’s campaign promise to the Kenyan people was to deliver a constitutional reform bill that would weaken Kenya’s semi-presidential democratic system in which the presidency was overpowering (the system was created by KANU’s Jomo Kenyatta and Arap Moi). NARC proposed reestablishing the role of prime minister as the head of government, thereby empowering the legislature and putting in place a people’s representative democracy. Kenya’s crisis began in 2003 when the constitutional conference began. With Odinga accusing Kibaki of reneging on his promise and further supporting the role of a strong presidency over a weaker prime minister, the seeds of the party split were crystallized. Odinga’s “orange” faction—opponents of the Constitutional Reform Referendum—formed a new party, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM-Kenya), whereas Kibaki’s “banana” incumbency reconstituted the old NARC as the new NARC-Kenya. Subsequently, NARC-Kenya entered into a 2007 electoral coalition with KANU and other parties—the Party of National Unity (PNU). In the December 2007 presidential elections, this party reportedly won the slim majority that fostered Mwai Kibaki’s second term against longtime collaborator and rival Raila Odinga. In the parliamentary and presidential campaign of December 2007, Kenya’s factional crisis deteriorated into a malicious rivalry between Kibaki and Odinga that lasted through the election. This animosity can be directly linked to the electoral violence that resulted from the disputed results that gave Kibaki and his newly constituted coalition PNU a marginal victory over Odinga and his ODM. Kenya’s experience with nurture capitalism and democratic politics has the same characteristics as Nigeria’s. Kenya’s nurture capitalism, often referred to as the country’s endemic corruption, resembles Nigeria’s own experience. Kenya’s trajectory with capitalism was inscribed as a feature of the country’s political culture under the post-colonial leadership of the country’s first elected president, Jomo Kenyatta of the long-time dominant and one-party KANU. Kenyatta,

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representative of the Kikuyu trading–entrepreneurial tradition, was known to have often aggressively encouraged his new electorates in the 1960s to learn how to build wealth for themselves and their own communities.29 Today Kenya is still a much poorer country with a public debt at 50 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) compared to Nigeria’s 10.4 percent and South Africa’s 4.5 percent; that is why NARC-Kenya’s economic reform program, the Economic Recovery Strategy (ERS) relies more heavily on foreign donor aid than on foreign direct investment. Notwithstanding these differences, the dimensions of the influence of global capital on Kenya’s indigenous capitalism and democratic politics manifested itself in the Anglo Leasing Finance scandal in 2003, exposing corruption similar to that of South Africa and Nigeria. As NARC’s key opponent, Raila Odinga, correctly predicted eight months after Nigeria’s election debacle, Kenya’s national elections in 2007 have been just as chaotic and violent.30 The actors and institutions that dominate Kenya’s Anglo- Leasing Finance scandal include NARC, known presently as NARC-Kenya; President Mwai Kibaki and his key loyal ministers, including the finance minister, David Mwiraria; the vice president, Moody Awori; the energy minister, Kuraitu Murungi; and the transport minister, Chris Murungari. Other central institutions and actors in this controversy include John Gitthongo, hailed by young Kenyan populist youth in the same category as Che Guevara; Gitthongo’s Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission (the equivalent of Nigeria’s EFCC and South Africa’s Scorpions); Anglo-Leasing Finance in Liverpool, United Kingdom; Deepak Kamani, Anglo’s director general; and, finally, Sir Edward Clay, the British ambassador to Kenya. The scandal hit the news headlines in 2002 in a comedy of errors; the British ambassador to Kenya indicted NARC’s involvement in the scandal at a diplomat’s dinner, controversially likening Kenya’s corrupt politicians to vultures and predators. Sir Edward Clay accused Kibaki’s ministers of “arrogance, greed and perhaps a desperate sense of panic,”31 which led them to “eat like gluttons” and “vomit on the shoes” of foreign donors and the Kenyan people.32 The government wanted to replace its passport-printing system and sought bids from a French firm, which quoted the transaction at six million euros, and from a British firm, Anglo Leasing Finance, at $30 million. The contract was awarded to the British firm for $30 million, even though Anglo Leasing Finance in turn subleased the contract to the French firm at $6 million. Much more egregiously, Anglo Leasing Finance was discovered to be a phantom firm with no real address in England. Kenya’s former anti-corruption czar blew the damning whistle on the Anglo Leasing Finance scam, proclaiming that the NARC regime was disbursing the people’s money to companies that did not exist and to those that were deliberately overcharging them. The scam was thought to work in the following way: the government would enter into a contract with finance entities that did not exist, so the government had no legal recourse. Then the government would repay the finance loans before the projects were implemented, but only after it had charged interest on these fictitious loans to itself.33

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Four NARC ministers were implicated, although no charges have been brought against any of them to date. NARC’s finance minister, David Mwiraria, was the first to resign. Although he took responsibility for presiding over the scandal and for not being able to do anything about it, he vehemently denied making any direct profit in the Anglo affair. Other ministers who were implicated— Murungi and Murungaru—were forced to resign in order to make way for an investigation. They claimed that they were innocent. The vice president, who was also implicated, refused to resign despite pro-democracy rallies demanding that he do so or be fired by the president. Deepak Kamani, a wealthy Nairobi businessman, was declared a wanted man by the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission in connection with the Anglo Leasing Finance scandal. Thereafter, John Gitthongo resigned his post as anti-corruption czar and fled the country to England in January 2005 out of fear for his life. The Anglo Leasing Finance affair is intricately related to Kenya’s Third Wave democratic politics. In Gitthongo’s report on his preliminary investigative findings, the former anti-corruption czar claimed that he had taped conversations of NARC ministers. In the recorded conversations, the ministers were said to be pleading with him and saying that the reason NARC had fronted Anglo Leasing Finance was to raise money for the party’s constitutional reform conference and for the scheduled 2007 elections. One minister claimed that Anglo-Leasing Finance is “us”—NARC!34 Other accounts claim that there was an Odinga (ODM opposition candidate) and Gitthongo connection in the whole affair. Once again, like the Nigerian and South African cases—albeit in the reverse order—the Kenyan press reported that John Gitthongo and Raila Odinga, the president’s new opponent after their fallout about the constitutional reform process, had concocted the affair to ensure that the President and his new NARC-Kenya party would lose the election that later took place in December 2007.35 Among Kenyan constituents, rumors abounded, suggesting that John Gitthongo’s exile to the United Kingdom was temporary. At campaign rallies, there were claims that Raila Odinga was boasting that Gitthongo was holding onto one more smoking-gun piece of evidence that implicated the president himself in the Anglo-Leasing affair. It was believed that Gitthongo would release this information during the 2007 elections just in time to deliver a defeat to the president. In an ODM-led democratic regime, presided over by Odinga as president, Gitthongo would be invited back to participate in Kenyan democratic politics in a senior civil service appointment.36

SOUTH AFRICA’S PARTY CRISIS AND THE FRENCH CONNECTION In South Africa, it took a second election in 1999 and the assumption of President Thabo Mbeki to the helm of the party and the nation for the Mandela renaissance era to wear off and make way for democratic realpolitik. At that time,

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like its counterparts—Nigeria’s PDP and Kenya’s NARC—the ANC found itself accused of centralization, dominance, and “talking left while acting right.”37 Midway through President Mbeki’s second term, South African newspapers and analysts were reporting that South Africa’s president and its vice president, Jacob Zuma, were not on speaking terms.38 The crisis began when a national prosecutor, Buleiani Ngcuka, announced that he suspected that Jacob Zuma, the country’s deputy president, had benefited from an illegal under-the-table deal in a multibilliondollar arms contract.39 The event magnified what had become a growing party division between supporters of President Mbeki, who represented the technocratic pro-reform policy stance of the party despite ANC’s radical social democratic roots, and his emergent opponent and deputy president, Jacob Zuma, who was seen to embody the traditional economic values representative of the “left” of the party.40 The partisan faction within the party crystallized when the president fired his deputy for his indictments under the law. Although ideological splits within the party explain the Mbeki–Zuma controversy, personal power and ethnicity also play a role, even though these factors were subordinate. Many perceived the corruption scandal prosecutions and the firing as an attempt by the president to eliminate the opportunity for Zuma to succeed him in an election bid in 2008. In an ANC alliance meeting in 2005, Mbeki wrote, “I am informed that some within our broad movement, who believe that Deputy President Zuma is a victim of a counter-revolutionary capitalist and neoliberal offensive, are convinced that as president of the ANC and the republic, I occupy the leading position in the political onslaught against him.”41 Existing in a wealthier country with more well-entrenched democratic institutions, South Africa’s ANC is almost a century old; Nigeria’s PDP is only ten years old; and Kenya’s NARC is five years old. Nevertheless, South Africa’s crisis may turn out to have less damaging outcomes to democracy than Nigeria’s. The country’s political–economic crisis is certainly causing deep fractures in South Africa’s black majority democratic regime. Moreover, like Nigeria’s crisis, South Africa’s crisis has the same structural characteristics. There is, for example, an international component, although South Africa’s scandal concerns France as opposed to Nigeria’s U.S. connections. The scandal’s sensational name, the French Connection, comes from the French company at the heart of this scandal, Thompson-CSF Holdings, later renamed Thales, also called Thint in South Africa. South Africa’s equivalent of Nigeria’s EFCC is the Directorate of Special Investigations (or the Scorpions, as they are well known).42 The equivalents of Nigeria’s Globacom and Transcorp are South Africa’s Nkobi Holdings and the African Defense Force (ADF), both South African defense front companies for Thales. In addition to President Thabo Mbeki and Deputy President Jacob Zuma representing the South African presidency, other key actors involved in the scandal included Schabir Shaik, Zuma’s former financial partner; Bulelani Ngcuka, head of the Scorpions (appointed by Mbeki); former justice minister Penuell Maduna; and Alan Thetard, a French arms dealer. Originally, South Africa’s party dispute began as a power struggle between Deputy President Zuma and the Scorpion head, Buleani Ngcuka, who was also a senior ANC official. Both men exposed the

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elements of their rivalry when Ngcuka in 2003 accused Zuma of having illegally benefited from under-the-table bribes, along with his financial partner, Schabir Shaik, director of Nkobi Holdings.43 Similar to the William Jefferson/Atiku Abubakar role in the Globacom Affair, Shaik was alleged to have received secret payments of as much as $8,000 a month on behalf of Deputy President Zuma to promote the interests of Thales (Thompson Holdings). The Scorpions alleged that Zuma and Shaik solicited the bribe as early as 1998 from French arms dealer Thetard. Ngcuka requested that the French government extradite Thetard and Perrier; the French refused on the grounds that the Zuma case was really not about solving crimes but about political opportunism.44 Political opportunism set in as soon as Shaik was found guilty of the procurement crime and sentenced to a fifteen-year jail term; in response, President Mbeki fired his deputy president on June 14, 2005, announcing that this decision was, “in the interest of Deputy President Zuma, the government, South Africa’s young democratic system, and the country at large.”45 Mbeki replaced Zuma with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the wife of the Scorpion head, who had begun the prosecution of Zuma in the first place. The Scorpions then proceeded to officially indict the fired deputy president on corruption charges related to his involvement in the French arms deal. A few weeks later, Zuma was indicted on rape charges. Like the Nigerian electorate, the South African electorate responded politically to the corruption indictment against the deputy president. Leftist constituencies within the ANC, such as the African Youth League, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African Communist Party (SACP) all saw the persecution of Zuma as a way for the president’s pro-economic reform wing of the party to oust an opponent and place its candidate, Ngcuka, in a position to succeed the presidency.46 Like Nigeria’s persecuted vice president Atiku Abukakar, Jacob Zuma won all his court cases. He was acquitted of the rape charges, and the corruption charges were dropped for lack of evidence. Zuma was reinstated as deputy president of the ANC. Vindicated of the charges among crowds of supporters who heralded him as a “Mshini” (machine gun) in June 2007, ANC Deputy President Zuma was once again elected to the role of ANC head in party elections conducted in December 2007; his election lends credence to the prediction that Zuma’s likelihood of becoming President Mbeki’s successor in elections scheduled for 2009 is an “unstoppable tsunami.”47 In comparison to Nigeria’s crisis, South Africa’s more entrenched institutions and the ideological attributes of the country’s politics are perhaps the reasons that the relationship between the president and vice president has returned to a status quo. The economic development institutions and policies that foster democratic capitalism in South Africa are much more ideologically nuanced compared to Nigeria’s aggressive neoliberalism. For example, during its almost fifteen-year transition, the ANC established several economic policy agendas, including former president Mandela’s RDP (Reconstruction and Development Program), and President Mbeki’s GEAR (Growth, Employment, and Redistribution), ASGISA (Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative, South Africa), and BEE (Black

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Economic Empowerment). The RDP exhibited the closest economic ideals to the pro-left constituency of the ANC in promising to use the state as a vehicle to embark upon massive economic restructuring and redistribution to achieve socioeconomic development and welfare among the country’s majority poor. However, consistent with Nigeria’s neoliberal orientation in NEEDS, under Mbeki GEAR became the cornerstone of the new democracy’s economic policy. GEAR made macroeconomics and the attraction of foreign domestic capital the cornerstones of its development plan. As was the case with Nigeria, an important feature of nurture capitalism is the contention between foreign capital and an emergent indigenous capital played out between Vice President Abubakar, Nigerian capitalist Mike Adenuga, and U.S. Congressman William Jefferson. South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) program could not have revealed the dimensions of nurture capitalism more clearly. BEE sought to undo the economic harm of apartheid through increased black ownership and control of companies, employment equity, and skills training. RDP, GEAR, and BEE have all stirred up class relations in contemporary South Africa in dynamic ways.48 The largely impoverished black majority rejects GEAR as neoliberal and believes that it is part of a strategy by a small, wealthy white elite to preserve the country’s economic resources in their hands to the exclusion of the mandate of a black democratic majority. Although it was established as a way to redistribute South Africa’s wealth to a black emerging middle class, BEE fosters greater class inequalities among blacks. It is perceived as skewing resources away from the poor black majority who do not have the education, skills, and social capital necessary for access to BEE’s rewards. In this regard, they cite former ANC members such as Cyril Ramaphosa who quickly became a millionaire as a result of this program. Jacob Zuma’s own business travails are not unconnected to the black empowerment program. Nevertheless, Nigeria and South Africa’s differences in the manifestation of democratic capitalism can be explained by the countries’ different sociopolitical structures drawn from their separate histories of nation-state formation. South Africa’s contemporary democratic state is rooted in both apartheid and preapartheid economic structures and political institutions that predate Nigeria’s political parties by almost a century. As a result, ideology is very strong in contemporary democratic politics in South Africa. Unlike former president Olusegun Obasanjo, President Thabo Mbeki, his counterpart, acknowledges the limitations of GEAR and neoliberalism and has presented South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and a new AGISA, known as Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative, South Africa (ASGISA) as alternative economic reform policies. BEE is presented as the equivalent of a much earlier version of Nigerian and Kenyan “indigenization” programs—containing core features of nurture capitalism—where nationalist elites saw the need to transfer a significant share of the foreign capital gains to an indigenous capitalist elite. In the postnationalist era of federalist Nigeria, the indigenization policies implemented in the 1960s and 1970s were being eroded and revoked in the 1990s

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by new international regimes of neoliberalism: variants of NEEDS (the National Empowerment and Economic Development Strategy), such as SEEDS (State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy) and LEEDS (Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy). Yet never did the Obasanjo regime feel the need to examine the “distributional” and poverty-reduction dimensions and effects of the regime’s economic policy despite the Nigerian electorate’s constant demands for positive results. Instead, ethnic, regional, and personal politics disguised the real class realities in the country. This country has a 60 percent poverty rate and a 50.6 Gini inequality coefficient, which is not very different from South Africa’s world-renowned 59.3 rating. However, in South Africa, with its 50 percent poverty rate, President Mbeki reformed GEAR to establish ASGISA as a way to adjust and accommodate leftist and populist criticism of his neoliberal GEAR policies. He implemented a dual-economy approach to economic policy making. ASGISA was intended to extend a redistributional emphasis to GEAR’s neoliberalism in order to target poverty reduction and economic development goals in rural regions.

IMPLICATIONS OF DEMOCRATIC CAPITALISM IN AFRICA The Nigerian, Kenyan, and South African cases may generate important conclusions for understanding the Nigerian electoral process, on the one hand, and for examining the relationship between liberal democracy and capitalism on the other. Conditions in these countries underscore certain intrinsic and extrinsic features of Africa’s democratic politics. For example, the democratic crises experienced by all three countries are linked to national and global economic structures that were negotiated among democratic actors, including elites, electorates, and capitalist interests. Importantly, each case raises questions about the relationship between capital and the democratic state as an important disburser of capital and material resources in ways that are intended to achieve both growth and development. The crises among Nigerian and especially Kenyan democratic elites—both countries that are dependent on foreign capital in different ways (Nigeria–FDI, Kenya–ODA)—illustrate just some of the stark realities of democratic capitalism as new liberal democratic regimes are compelled to use scarce resources to run expensive democratic electoral campaigns. Because such campaigns require the raising of needed capital, class inequalities that determine those who have access to democratic power are difficult to disguise. Moreover, the structures embedded in these liberal democratic institutions (campaigns) make them easily susceptible to the corruption that is occurring. Also, although in each of these cases, institutions had been set up precisely to monitor democratic accountability—South Africa’s Scorpions, Nigeria’s EFCC, and Kenya’s KACC—in developing world contexts, these institutions were highly compromised by the high-stake personal interests of the democratic elites involved. When such elites are the countries’ heads of states and heads of

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government, democratic crisis informs the trajectory of governance in these countries. What is more, the factional disputes and resource grabs among each country’s new democrats should not be dismissed merely as “corruption” or bids for “personal” or “despotic” power, characterized by a return to authoritarianism and neopatrimonialism as much of the mainstream has indicated. Instead, as the new democratic elite in each case attempted to consolidate “representative” power by employing centralization mechanisms, the intrinsic vices of “oligarchyism” began to characterize the countries’ democratic performance. The democratic elite’s justification for oligarchy, characterized by aggressive incumbency seeking and increased vertical decision making, was often proclaimed to be done on behalf of the public good, economic growth, development, national security, and stability. Especially more than in the economically wealthy, advanced industrial democracies, there is a tendency for the much poorer developing democratic governments, such as in the African regimes examined in this chapter, to aggressively seek business investment for the purpose of enhancing economic growth and poverty reduction (that is, to engage in nurture capitalism). For this reason, they rely aggressively on technocrats who are shielded from democratic constituents. Moreover, problems related to policy cycling49 are not unrelated to this trend because, as in most developing countries, each country’s economic policy is ideologically defined by a narrow “pro-reform” versus “no-reform” binary. In this framework, successful executive leaders are those “technocrats” who can implement macroeconomic structural adjustment policies efficiently and restore the nation’s GNP growth and international credibility. This is what is then rated as good governance. Parliaments and assemblies representing the people in each case tend to support “no-reform” policies as they have enough experience with economic reform policies to realize how harmful such policies are to the welfare interests of their constituencies. Notwithstanding this reality, the executive branches—in which economic policy primarily resides—are usually loyal to their “autonomous” central banks and to their international economic creditors, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), the U.S. Treasury, the European Union (EU), and so forth. They also tend to “construct” political majorities in parliament whom they mobilize to support their technocratic, pro-reform economic policy. Developing countries achieve this by creating political party machines, which usually become dominant parties—hence, South Africa’s ANC, Nigeria’s PDP, and Kenya’s NARC. Each country’s dominant party is driven by incumbent executives and by a loose majority coalition in the legislative bodies of government, which is held together by intricate political–economic networks reflected in the fused socioeconomic cum political state dominated by the emergent entrepreneurial classes.50 Unable to represent their constituencies (at least in terms of a major redistributive impact), assembly members are wedded to the policy and patronage

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designs of the dominant party and its executive rather than to their constituencies.51 Although symbolic representation occurs—region, ethnicity, community, and race—economic representation (in terms of economic policies to encourage significant developmental redistribution) remains subsumed to dominant party machine politics, a political economy of democracy that is skewed toward urban elite entrepreneurial interests (economic reform for capitalist production). Another implication of this political–economic framework is that urban subordinate classes, who tend to be the bulwark of activist democratic constituents, are severely hampered despite constant democratic struggles for inclusion. Moreover, regardless of structural adjustment policies that were supposed to have been beneficial to rural farmers against pro-democratic statist marketing boards, the less suffocating new democratic regimes have been unable to satisfy rural community demands for village infrastructure development—electricity, roads, clinics, and school—thus, rural regions remain marginal to the interests of their representatives. The culmination of this political–economic circularity in the new democracies is a crisis of democracy, underscoring the reality that these governments remain highly unstable, as socioeconomic struggles based on the aforementioned context become manifest in both the democratic political system (leading to party fractionalization and executive versus legislature struggles) and a broader intense struggle within the national democracy. In South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya, it is clear that constituencies are demanding democratic representation that goes beyond mere suffrage entitlements or political rights. Evidenced in the continued labor strikes, demonstrations, riots, and increasingly in militant conflicts, democratic constituencies are agitating for a democracy that generates the developmental redistribution of very scarce resources. An important consequence, therefore, for democratic capitalism in Africa is the popular delegitimization of democracy. Each succession crisis signaled widespread dissatisfaction among the populace in the Nigerian, South African, and Kenyan democracies. To date, the connection between Nigeria’s government crisis and the April 2007 electoral crisis underscores the gravity of the crisis of democracy in the country. Constituents’ satisfaction with the practice of democracy in the country had begun to decline significantly in President Obasanjo’s second term as Nigerians increasingly complained that elections were not free and fair.52 The intra-party factionalization between Obasanjo and Abubakar, PDP’s aggressive inclination toward consolidation, and the incumbent regime’s inability to make much impact on the more significant developmental needs of the country (power and energy, infrastructure, resource distribution in the Niger Delta) all contributed to Nigerians’ dissatisfaction with democratic practice. However, the 2007 electoral crisis magnified the problem with much of the electorate describing the vote as having been stolen and massively rigged by the incumbent government in order to curtail the advances of Obasanjo’s rival, Atiku Abubakar.53 A pre-election, 2007 report recorded that the majority of Kenyans are dissatisfied with the way that democracy works in Kenya, especially because of the

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system’s inability to equitably distribute resources. Public opinion poll figures on democratic satisfaction in the country dropped from 79 percent in 2003 immediately after the NARC electoral victory to 26 percent in 2005, two years after NARC’s incumbency. While revealing that Kenyans overall support for the democratic system of government had declined only marginally, the study did record a drastic decline in Kenyans’ support for the constitution. The study further indicated that the NARC regime’s handling of the constitutional reform process was also contributing to Kenyans’ dissatisfaction with democracy.54 The popular and violent protests during the aftermath of the country’s overwhelming vote for change in the candidacy of Raila Odinga’s ODM in December 2007, thwarted as a result of the presumed rigging of that vote in favor of Kibaki’s NARC-Kenya/PNU, is a manifestation of the country’s democratic delegitimization and crisis among its constituents. In South Africa, too, successive elections, while recording a growth in the African National Congress (ANC) share of the electorate, also show a decline in voter participation—down 11 percent in the 2004 election. A democratic survey indicated that 48 percent of the constituencies polled stated that elections in South Africa are not free and fair, nor do their democratic rulers follow their constituencies’ will in democratic decision making.55 Many of the unsatisfied voters in South Africa choose not to vote as a way of protesting their dissatisfaction with democracy.56 Although there are several studies linking South Africa’s dissatisfaction with democracy to unhappiness with the level of economic well-being among constituents in the urban ghettos and rural townships, there is growing evidence that the Mbeki–Zuma dispute, and the subsequent crisis in governance, is also contributing to this dissatisfaction. For example, dissident voters who originally saw Zuma as a “populist” alternative to Mbeki may have become even more disillusioned with democracy after Zuma’s corruption indictment and especially after the deputy president’s rape trial.

CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA, KENYA, AND SOUTH AFRICA A significant period of time has elapsed since the Nigerian election debacle, and the international furor over it was surpassed by Kenya’s subsequent disputed presidential election in December 2007 and its far worse postelection violence. However, Nigeria’s polity has not collapsed in the aftermath of the electoral debacle as was predicted. What has happened, however, is something of a constitutional revolution in which at least seven governorship elections to date have been overturned as a result of court decisions on the opposition’s contention of electoral fraud. President Yar’Adua is gradually forging the respect of Nigerians despite his electoral illegitimacy. A federal electoral tribunal has since upheld his election although two opposition candidates have appealed to the Supreme Court

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of Nigeria. It is apropos to recall that the new president has said that his own office will respect the rule of law. The future of democracy for South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya depends on whether each country can get beyond its crisis democratically. For Nigeria, the question is whether the country can advance a viable non-ethnic, multi-party system without creating multinational, elite, dominant parties such as the PDP. How long will the PDP dominate Nigerian democratic politics? Can pluralism emerge in Nigeria without fostering identity politics? Can an independent capitalist class emerge in the country that is large enough and sophisticated enough to nurture national development rather than amass personal wealth and private property? India provides comparative insights as a nation in which patronage and clientelism remain core features of the country’s so-called “indigenous Third World democracy.”57 Also a large, multi-ethnic and multi-religious state, by the millennium, it had weathered the storm of Indian nationalism through the Indian National Congress (INC) comeback in 2004, and the Indian democracy is employing its entrepreneurial class and its labor force to engage in the new global economy to its advantage. As Nigerian scholar Ebere Onwudiwe once noted about his own optimism regarding the PDP, perhaps the party can take on a developmental guardianship role for the country as occurred in the Indian comparative case study.58 As Nigeria’s new democracy develops, only time will tell. For Kenya, the question to be asked was how the country would come out of the electoral stalemate that arose as a result of the disputed December 2007 elections. Would Kibaki concede that the presidential elections were rigged in his favor and step down, or would Odinga enter into a government of national unity with the PNU? Well, those questions have been answered, for both Kibaki and Odinga have agreed to a political settlement that was brokered by Kofi Annan, former U.N. secretary general. Under the agreement, a coalition government of national unity was established and a new position of prime minister was created to which Odinga was appointed. But real change in Kenya’s democratic politics will require a restructuring of the country’s economic roots. Interestingly, both Kibaki’s PNU and Odinga’s ODM are representative of elite economic class interests in Kenya. Both have been in and out of democratic coalitions since re-democratization revitalized the country in the 1990s. Despite being a poor country whose labor-force wealth comes primarily from the services sector of the minority Kenyan urban classes, under NARC the country has experienced increased growth rates (estimated at 5 percent in 2006). However, Kenya continues to be the highest recipient of aid when compared to South Africa and Nigeria. The World Bank, the IMF, select EU countries, and Canada froze aid to Kenya as a result of the election crisis; yet, as the Anglo Leasing Finance, the South African French Connection, and the Nigerian Globacom affairs demonstrate, all the corruption crises experienced in each country had international finance capital roots. This reality has important implications for understanding the interweaving webs of networks within the process of national

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democratization and an aggressive neoliberalized global capital. When considering Kenya’s future in this respect, one must ask whether the PNU will become another KANU. Has NARC changed the shape of Kenyan democratic politics for the long run, and will ODM represent the real progressive democratic force in Kenya’s democratic future? Finally, in South Africa, there are several questions to consider that exhaust the scope of the current study. How long will the ANC remain a dominant party? Can a liberal progressive alternative emerge to challenge the ANC majority? Is there a future for an alternative to neoliberal economic policy in South Africa? Will Jacob Zuma become South Africa’s next president? In light of Nigeria’s and Kenya’s electoral debacles, if Zuma is elected despite the corruption scandals surrounding him, will the results be accepted without violence? Currently, South Africa’s party alternatives have been unable to muster much support despite a large block of the electorate showing dissatisfaction with Mbeki’s pro-reform policies. However, in comparison, India’s INC had forty years of incumbency flowing from nationalist legitimacy before it was defeated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) opposition in the 1990s. Regardless of how each country responds to its democratic crises, the fears among the new democratic leadership in South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya that democratic crises may delegitimize each country’s democratic transition, leading to instability and a breakdown of the nation-state, are real. Cote d’Ivoire and Ethiopia are merely extreme cases in which the crisis of democracy and development crystallized into a civil war and internal conflict. Coups in Pakistan in 1999 and Thailand in 2006 were the outcomes of similar democratic crises in those countries.

NOTES 1. “Nigerian General Election 2007,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Nigerian_general_election,_2007. 2. Rita Edozie, “Sudan’s Identity Wars and Democratic Route to Peace,” in Santosh Saha, ed., Perspectives on Contemporary Ethnic Conflict: Primal Violence the Politics of Conviction (Lanham: Rowland and Littlefield Publishers, 2006). 3. Susan Pharr, Robert Putnam, and Russel Dalton, “A Quarter Century of Declining Confidence,” in Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner, eds., The Global Divergence of Democracies (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). 4. Ibid. 5. CIA World Fact Book, 2006 estimate, umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2006/ index. 6. Phillipe Schmitter, “What Democracy Is and Is Not,” in Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner, eds., The Global Resurgence of Democracy (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). 7. Fred Block, Revising State Theory: Essays in Politics and Postindustrialism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987).

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8. This is because the United States, compared to Europe, promotes an extreme form of laissez-faire democratic capitalism. 9. Robert Pinkney, The Frontiers of Democracy: Challenges in the West, the East and the Third World (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2005), 85. 10. George Condon, Jr and Markus Stein, “Imprisoned Cunningham Outlines Depth of Corruption to FBI,” DemocraticUnderground.com, July 17, 2007, http://www. democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x292113. 11. The Jack Abramoff Indian Lobbying Scandal in 2006 related to work performed by political lobbyists Jack Abramoff, Ralph E. Reed, Jr., Grover Norquist, and Michael Scanlon on behalf of Native American casino gambling interests and bribes to Congressman Robert Ney (Republican, Ohio). 12. Schmitter regards extrinsic challenges of democracy to include (a) problems of boundaries and identities, (b) capitalists production, accumulation, and distribution, (c) overload and un-governability, (d) corruption and decay, and (e) external security and internal insecurity. 13. Sayre Schatz, Nigerian Capitalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). 14. Ibid. 15. Adam Pzreworski, “The Neoliberal Fallacy,” Journal of Democracy (3) (1992). 16. Ibid. 17. Atiku and Babangida wanted Obasanjo to exercise the Mandela option of a one-term “reconciler” of the June 12th mandate. 18. Staff writer, “Nigeria’s Political Wars Escalate,” Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy 34 (9) (2006): 1–3. 19. Bolaji Adebiyi, “Atiku Dares EFCC Over Globacom Shares,” Nigerian Masses Organization, August 28, 2006, http://nigerianmasses.com/headline_details.asp?id= 10616&stateid=Abuja. 20. Jonathan Elendu, “Bribery Scandal: Congressman Indignat,” Elendu Reports, May 22, 2006. 21. Simon Kolawole, “Obasanjo vs Atiku—Finally, Finally. . .” This Day, October 1, 2006. 22. Staff writer, “Atiku Abubakar’s Many Legal Battles,” Vanguard, February 24, 2007. 23. AfricaHit, “Femi Kuti: ‘We are in a state of anarchy,’” AfricaHit, April 2, 2007, http://www.africahit.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Nigeria&article=1261. 24. Paul Adogamhe, “The Nigerian National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS): A Critical Assessment,” A Conference paper delivered at the 49th Annual Convention of International Studies Association, Chicago, IL, USA, February 28 to March 3, 2007. 25. William Graff, The Nigerian State: political economy, state class and political system in the post-colonial era (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1988). 26. Simon Kolawole, “Obasanjo vs Atiku: Finally, Finally . . .,” This Day, October 1, 2006, thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=59563. 27. Staff writer, “Will Kibaki cede power to Raila?,” African Analysis, March 19, 2004; and Beauthah Omanga and Maseme Machuka, “Kenya: Raila—Why I supported Kibaki,” The East African Nation, May 25, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/ 200705250975.html. 28. As part of a political settlement of the bloody crisis that followed the disputed Kenyan presidential election of December, 2007, Raila Odinga has now been appointed as prime minister.

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29. Crawford Young, Ideology and Development in Africa (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 30. “Kenya’s Future,” Economist.com/Global Agenda, February 13, 2007, http:// www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RGJQNDP&CFID=1874270 7&CFTOKEN=15fa63cb66792793-E27E282C-B27C-BB00-0127699B384D9176. 31. Rob Crilly, “Kenya’s anti-corruption watchdog quits,” The Independent, February 2005. 32. Ibid. 33. “Kenya: Corruption continues to plague government and economy, but little action likely ahead of 2007 elections,” Hilfe Daily Briefing, July 24, 2006, http://findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_hb5767/is_200607/ai_n23782365. 34. Joyce Mulama, “Politics-Kenya: A Tug of War Over the President’s Powers,” Global Information Network, March 18, 2004. 35. “Is John Gitthongo Working with Raila Odinga?” Kuzungukazunguka Kenya Webring, February 13, 2007, http://kumekucha.blogspot.com/2007/02/is-john-githongoworking-with-raila.html. 36. Oscar Obonyo, “Are They Political Traitors?” Nairobi Standard Online, February 24, 2007, eastandard.net/archives/cl/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143965283&date= 24/2/2007. 37. Patrick Bond, “Reflections from South Africa: Breaking the chains of global apartheid,” International Socialist Review 19 (July–August 2001), http://www.isreview. org/issues/19/PatrickBond.shtml. 38. Michael Wines, “A Stormy Test for Democracy in South Africa,” New York Times, September 22, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/world/africa/23africa.html?n= Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/Z/Zuma,%20Jacob%20G. 39. Sharon La Franiera, “South Africa’s Ruling Party Struggles Within,” New York Times, November 11, 2003, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res= 9C03E6DC1E39F932A25752C1A9659C8B63. 40. Staff writer, “Zuma controversy may threaten stability, say analysts,” “NewsfromAfrica, August 30, 2005, http://www.newsfromafrica.org/newsfromafrica/articles/ art_10435.html. 41. Thabo Mbeki, “Letter from the President,” ANC Today, 5(34) (August 26, 2005), http://www.armsdeal-vpo.co.za/special_items/statements/mbeki_truth.html. 42. This outfit was established by President Mbeki to investigate national priority crimes, including organized crime and corruption. 43. Michael Wines, “A Stormy Test for Democracy in South Africa,” New York Times, September 23, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/world/africa/23africa.html?n= Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/Z/Zuma,%20Jacob%20G. 44. Kgomotso Nyanto, “Jacob Zuma One Down Another to Come,” New African, June 2006, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5391/is_200606/ai_n21392716. 45. “South Africa: Waiting for the Barbarians,” Business Day, October 31, 2005, http://trudimakhaya.blogspot.com/2005/10/business-day-analysis-of-ancpower.html. 46. Staff writer, “South African Commentator Says Ruling ANC Split Down the Middle Over Zuma’s Fate,” BBC Monitoring Africa, June 10, 2005. 47. Micheal Wines, “South Africa Drops Charge of Corruption for Official,” New York Times, September 21, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/21/world/africa/ 21zuma.html.

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48. Stephen Gelb, “The RDP, GEAR and All That Reflections Ten Years Later,” (lecture delivered at the launch of the 60th anniversary of Transformation, Durban, South Africa, May 11, 2006). 49. Though, it should be acknowledged that the phenomenon in these cases differs from the divided government characteristics of the policy cycling experienced by advanced industrial nations. In the African cases, policy cycling has more of an international bent especially where economic policy is concerned. National economic policy making by the democratic regime is crowded out by international finance institutions. Policy-cycling stalemate appears to occur as a manifestation of the IFI’s versus the new democratic state-societies. 50. See William Graff’s The Nigerian State, 1988, for a discussion on the “class-based state.” 51. See Rita Abrahmsen, Disciplining Democracy, Zed Books, 2000, for a discussion on the relationship between new African democratic states and the new global economic clientelism of the IMF/WB; African states are exclusionary democracies. 52. “Africa’s Attitude to Democracy,” Afrobarometer Media Briefing, May 24, 2006, http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:UXRQt18BQucJ:www.idasa.org.za/ gbOutputFiles.asp%3FWriteContent%3DY%26RID%3D1568+Africa%E2%80%99s+ Attitude+to+Democracy,%E2%80%9D+Afrobarometer+Media+Briefing&hl=en&ct= clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a. 53. Robyn Dixon, “Ruling Party Claims Victory in Contested Nigeria Vote,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 24, 2007, http://www.iri.org/newsarchive/2007/2007-04-24News-SFChronicle-Nigeria.asp. 54. Mike Mwanki, “Kenya: Unhappy with Wealth Sharing,” The Nation-Nairobi, May 15, 2007, http://www.propertykenya.com/news/470844-unhappy-with-wealthsharing.php. 55. “Voice of the People 2005 Trends in Democracy, Global Survey,” Ipsos Markinor, March 20, 2005, http://ipsos-markinor.co.za/news/voice-of-the-people-2005-trends-indemocracy-global-summary. 56. e-Africa, “Psst . . . Mind the Sell by Date,” The South Africa Institute of International Affairs (2), May 2004, http://www.saiia.org.za/modules.php?op=modload&name= News&file=article&sid=336. 57. Robert Pinkney, The Frontiers of Democracy: Challenges in the West, the East and the Third World (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2005), 85. 58. Ebere Onwudiwe, “A Reason for Optimism,” Nigerian Guardian, May 4, 2003; and Ebere Onwudiwe, “Introduction: A Context for Post-Colonial African Discourse,” in Ebere Onwudiwe and Minabere Ibelema, eds., Afro-Optimism: Perspectives on Africa’s Advances (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003), 1.

11

Democracy and Development in Africa: Important Lessons from African American History Sule Bello

INTRODUCTION Democracy, with good reason, is seen by many as the panacea for Africa’s development crisis. This is because it is the only way that true independence, a necessary condition for development, can be fully secured and promoted for the benefit of the continent. Only such independence can guarantee popular sovereignty and, from it, popular control over politics, government, and local resources will follow. It is also for this very reason that efforts towards the development of democracy in Africa have been consistently frustrated by local and foreign interests that stand to gain from the continuation of the system of neocolonial dependency in new forms.1 The modern development of democracy in Africa is rooted in the struggles for independence and liberation waged by African nationalists against the European colonial powers from the 1950s to the early 1990s. It is important to stress that the African diaspora in the New World played a crucial role in the development of Africa’s struggle for independence before and during this period. The history of independence and democratization in Africa is not complete without due regard to the role played by African Americans in the development and promotion of panAfricanism and African nationalism, as well as the particular struggles in each and every African nation.2 The various problems and reversals associated with the struggle for the entrenchment of democratic rule in Africa since the late 1960s teach us a number of important lessons. One such lesson is the fact that genuine democracy in Africa, as is the case everywhere else, can only be based and sustained on the

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sovereign, participatory, and primary responsibility of the African peoples themselves. Such a responsibility ought to be geared toward absolute control by the local people over democratic institutions concerned with all the processes of decision making, implementation, and their general reviews. This must take precedence over the prevailing practice of using local surrogate institutions to retain pre-existing oppressive arrangements or to implement new policies formulated by powerful forces from outside the continent.3 Another important lesson is that efforts geared toward checking the development of local despotism have the greatest chance of success when they are primarily based on a broad democratic mobilization of the population in alliance with pro-democratic, rather than pro-imperial, interests at the international levels.4 Developments since the most recent return to civilian rule in Nigeria greatly confirm the significance of the observations just made. Although the inception of the Fourth Republic in Nigeria, under the leadership of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, from May 1999 to May 2007, was greatly and widely supported by the Nigerian populace, the regime ultimately failed the nation in several ways. An overview demonstrating and substantiating its failures follows. First, rather than building on the support and good will offered by many Nigerians, the regime abused and squandered such support, bringing about widespread disillusionment and insecurity, violent civil disturbances, aggravated poverty, and corruption. Second, the regime abandoned the country’s legacy of national selfdetermination and its consistent leadership role in Africa as pursued by its predecessors and enshrined in the nation’s constitution, in favor of promoting the interests of those in power and their foreign business partners. Such foreign partners, as recent revelations tend to indicate, were not averse to offering bribes in order to secure privileged business concessions as well as lobbying the governments of their home countries for political props for the regime.5 Third, the regime instituted a spoils system that plundered Nigeria’s national assets, wasted its available revenues, and completely neglected its great potential in terms of human and natural resources. It neglected local systems of agricultural and industrial production. Fourth, the regime committed itself to the task of undermining Nigeria’s nascent democracy with a view to replacing it with a civilian dictatorship and, in the process, undermined the constitution, the rule of law, and popular sovereignty. In this regard, it is important to note that in 2005 the regime initiated a major attempt to change the constitution in order to perpetuate itself in office. In addition, it initiated and presided over the massive abuse of the electoral processes in the 2003 and 2007 national elections in the country. Fifth, instead of working to create new job opportunities, the regime embarked on a massive retrenchment of workers in the federal services in addition to encouraging similar practices at the levels of each state and every local government in the country. The plight of hundreds of thousands of retrenched workers was compounded by the fact that the governments failed to pay them

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their due entitlements in the form of pensions and gratuities. So destructive was this policy that the new incoming regime was compelled to abandon it and order instead the reabsorption of all those found to have been arbitrarily removed. Widespread unemployment and general poverty in the country were further aggravated by the near total collapse of both the agricultural and industrial sectors of the economy. This crisis was caused by unfriendly economic policies, especially persistent hikes in fuel prices, failed utility services such as electricity and water supply, official corruption, inflation, and the deteriorating exchange rate of the national currency. Without new employment opportunities, many graduates, as well as the skilled and unskilled labor forces, were forced to stagnate, turn to a life of crime, or emigrate. Furthermore, the government engaged in arbitrary harassment of smalland medium-scale business operators as well as the financial victimization of state governments and business organizations that were specially earmarked for such vendettas for political reasons. Those measures in turn led to the destruction of many independent businesses in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and many other major urban centers in the country, such as Lagos, Kano, Enugu, Aba, Port Harcourt, Jos, Kaduna, and Maiduguri. Although the regime launched a war on corruption through the establishment of such national institutions as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), public corruption remains a serious national problem. Consequently, the regime left a legacy of administrative, political, and economic failures that now constitutes a major obstacle to Nigeria’s independent political, economic, and social development. The ongoing development of democratic governance in Nigeria has come about despite—and indeed through— overcoming the various dictatorial inclinations of the previous regime. This is a testimony to the continuing commitment of Nigerians toward ensuring that the country is governed only in a democratic manner. It is indeed important to note that this commitment appears to be eliciting a consensual response from the new administration of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, which has already publicly committed itself to upholding the provisions of the constitution and conducting itself in accordance with the rule of law. Toward this end, many of the unconstitutional policies and practices of the previous regime, such as some of its privatization decisions, are already being examined and jettisoned by both the executive branch and the National Assembly. The commitment of Nigerians to democratic government and their willingness to stand up for democracy and challenge corrupt practices are evident in the widespread recourse to courts of law in order to challenge many actions of the former and current governments. Furthermore, some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are gearing up for a fight in order to liberate their party from the grip of the former president who imposed himself as its “life-president.” Most important of all is the fact that more and more Nigerians are calling on the government to bring to justice all those found to have abused their positions, no matter how highly placed they were.

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There is a lot that Africa in general, and Nigeria in particular, shares with the United States, not least the aspiration for a world whose nations and peoples are free, prosperous, and at peace with one another, both as members of the global community and as individual nation-states. It is important to also draw attention to the fact that the United States is connected to Africa through the history of the trans-Atlantic trade in African captives, commonly known as the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This connection with the African American population in the Americas today underlies the topic of this chapter. It is important to note that we are living in a world in which the United States is not only the most powerful nation but also the most active in global and international affairs. Its foreign policy greatly influences the course of world and national events. From all available evidence, the position of the United States on issues such as global warming and environmental changes, world trade, and financial and development policies, as well as its stand on issues of peace, politics, health, human rights, and the so-called war on terrorism, affect the world and concerned nations greatly. The power of the United States to affect African development is further aggravated by the African countries’ weak and vulnerable position in the global constellation of nations. For this and many other reasons, African and foreign activists, scholars, statesmen, and politicians concerned with the development of African countries, have looked at these issues over the years from different perspectives. An important objective of this closing chapter is to examine how Africans can build up their local capacities so they can properly articulate their positions on local, national, and international issues and communicate and cooperate with those with whom we can mutually work toward the achievement of our common goals. This chapter also seeks to draw some lessons for Africans from African American history. The essay relates the lessons to be learned from African American history to the need to pay special attention to the study of African history as an important resource for the development of Africa. This connection is an important instrument for forging African relations with the outside world, particularly the African American population in the United States. To elaborate on the importance of African American history, attention is drawn to stereotyping as a continuous threat to world peace and development. Finally, a general observation is made on the role Africans expect the United States to play in their quest for freedom, democracy, and development.

LEARNING FROM AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY The world in general, and Africa in particular, can learn much from African American history, notwithstanding the fact that it is the history of an African diaspora. Whether it is referred to as the history of the negro, blacks, or African Americans in the United States, it is a history that embodies some of the finest and most glorious chapters of human struggle against slavery and

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domination in the quest for freedom, independence, and dignity. The fact that this history is variously referred to as negro, black, and/or African American is itself a reflection of the historically changing fortunes of, and perspectives on, African Americans. Clearly, the latest term denotes an identity founded on a definite politico-cultural characterization associated with the current status of the African diaspora in the United States in terms of its ability to influence its own self-definition and determination. An important example for Africans to note is that African American history was itself denied, and where it was accepted, it was marginalized, much like African history. It had to be asserted, promoted, and studied in the face of stiff opposition, apathy, and blackmail. Carter G. Woodson and many others since and before 1926 persisted in the collection, documentation, and propagation of African American history, culminating in its annual celebration. It is a success story that is, moreover, serving important worldwide diplomatic, cultural, political, and economic objectives.6 One of the factors militating against a positive leadership in Africa is the incapacity of its present rulers to study from history in general and their own history in particular.7 The neglect of the potential role that proper appreciation of African history can play in projecting Africa’s image and forging Africa’s future has become a persistent source of lamentations for its statesmen and scholars. As a result of its deliberate and conscious promotion, African American history has today become an important field of study. Around this resource base have been constructed a good number of documentation centers, research activities, and media facilities promoting better understanding and relations among peoples, nations, and states. The history of African Americans is a great testimony to countless cases of individual courage and collective perseverance that attest to the value of self-reliance, sacrifice, and unity of purpose in the quest for freedom and democracy. These lessons will remain the most enduring benefits of this unique and important history. It is also important to emphasize that the struggle for freedom of African Americans in the Americas has, in many ways, over a long period of time, influenced the quest for freedom among Africans. African Americans’ desire to associate with Africans and to rehabilitate the African continent has remained a persistent and continuous theme in its history. This attachment is expressed most specifically in the development of pan-Africanism, which worked to discover and propagate Africa’s historical achievements. The movement also fought for the total freedom of Africa from foreign colonial domination and for Africa’s unity as primary preconditions for its unfettered development. Today, many African American endeavors are informed by these considerations. The National Summit on Africa was held in Washington, D.C., February 16 to 20, 2000, by the African American community in the United States with a view to influencing the policies of the U.S. government towards serving the interests of Africa’s development.

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GLOBAL JUSTICE ESSENTIAL FOR WORLD PEACE The struggle for freedom by African Americans has been perhaps the greatest assault on racial enslavement, discrimination, and stereotyping. Stereotyping, resulting from oppression and prejudice, always engraves banal and one-sided images about its subjects, which tend to deny them the fullness, richness, and multidimensional character of their existence and activities as human beings. It emphasizes and distorts superficial, and usually irrelevant, attributes in place of factual, humanitarian, and constructive considerations. In many cases, the struggle of African Americans has greatly enriched and inspired others in the world to fight against the oppression of racial minorities, women, weaker nations, oppressed religious groups, and the poor. It is, however, important to draw attention to the fact that such oppression still remains a significant problem in many Third World nations, which, in many ways, find themselves victims of the injustices of the developed countries as well as their own local dictators. The question of world peace cannot be separated from the quest for global justice. “Globalization” will be incomplete indeed if it is not based on a universal, acceptable, and singular system of global justice. There can be no first, second, or third world in a truly just international system.8 The virtues of human rights, democracy, and justice cannot be taught or promoted otherwise. It is important to stress that the most powerful countries in the world have a major stake in ensuring that the world as a whole, and with it every possible nation, is ruled in accordance with the principles of a common rule of law for all—at every level of the international system.

DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Discussions on Africa’s social, political, and economic development processes are numerous, with varying perspectives on a very broad range of issues. It is not possible or even desirable to go over them in this chapter. It will be rewarding, however, to broadly identify the critical issues around which scholars seem to be reaching consensus and which, taken together, generally address the major concerns surrounding the discourses. It is very important to restate the common axiom that Africa’s development can only come from the exertions of Africans themselves. In this respect, Africa need not only formulate its own vision of development on the basis of its own specific historical and cultural conditions, but it is also proper for it to expect unconditional support for its independent development agenda from all its well-wishers and associates. In the main, this issue has been at the heart of the protestations against external impositions through various forms of foreign “aids” with strings attached. Being self-reliant is an important precondition for nations to pursue a productive and sustainable course of economic development. This particular concern of African states with unfettered conditions for development is indeed

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an important reflection of their sensitivities to their own organizational and technical incapacities (incapacities brought about by a long period of slave trade and colonization). Such incapacities usually tend to make them vulnerable to more powerful nation-states and multinational corporations. Clearly, therefore, there is a pressing need to allow African states and societies to build their own capabilities in order to improve their productive powers for the independent pursuit of their own self-determined goals. This, in turn, can only be achieved through a democratization process that is a complete and genuine expression of popular sovereignty. It follows that the foreign support (political, economic, and sociocultural) that many African countries seek is the type that will facilitate the protection of their self-interests while empowering them to independently pursue them. For a number of historical, economic, political, and cultural reasons, Africans have mainly turned to the West for such support. However, today there is a greater and more widespread determination to broaden Africa’s sources of developmental support. In many ways and for a number of reasons, Africans tend to expect a great deal from African Americans in the United States. This is partly due to their support for African countries during the struggle against European colonization of the continent in the interwar period. It is also due to America’s declared stand on racism, democracy, and pluralism even though racism remains a problem there. A lot is expected of the United States due to its superpower and leadership status, the libertarian provisions of its constitution, and the general proclamations made on freedom and humanitarianism by its leaders. The burden of its history, status, and politics on the image and activities of the United States tends to inspire great expectations from the rest of the world. Such a status also makes it possible for the rest of the world to assess the policies and conduct of the United States and hold them to account on the basis of the very principles it espouses. The relationship between the United States and Africa is made more complex by the fact that it is carried out at various levels and conducted through various governmental and nongovernmental channels. In operational terms, we can look at the relationships at the international, regional, and subregional levels, as well as national and subnational levels. It will not be possible to assess relations between the United States and Africa at these various levels in the context of this chapter. It is, however, possible to surmise from various studies, commentaries, and petitions that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with U.S. policies in Africa, especially in recent times. Some of the issues of immediate concern include: • the less-than-forthcoming position of the U.S. government on global warming and the environment despite the evidence of its possible effects on the world and the likely negative impact this might have on Africa in particular

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• the need to review, in Africa’s favor, the issue of foreign debt, especially in terms of its legitimacy, as well as the extraction of super interests from and policy dictations to poorer countries, particularly in Africa • the need for fair trade between Africa and the United States, especially in terms of Africa’s exports to the United States and the removal of subsidies on agricultural produce from the United States • the need to review cases of support given to certain dictatorial regimes in Africa, and the need for the United States to sanction the corruption of African leaders through denying them banking services in the United States and the return to Africa of identified looted funds • a lukewarm attitude toward fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, especially when it comes to supporting and facilitating availability of antiAIDS medications • the need to support reforms of Africa’s economies in a manner that will promote local agriculture and industrialization in order to provide greater job opportunities and generate enhanced integration of the local economies These are a few important areas that represent key frontiers of controversy and action.9 It is also important to stress the need for support of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to be greatly increased and properly directed toward assisting in achieving good government and the promotion of transparency at various levels of government. In the long run, the effectiveness of these ventures, as well as existing local initiatives, will be determined in large part by their relevance to local needs and problems. CONCLUSION In conclusion, it is hoped that the ideas presented in this chapter will inspire Africans to further document, research, and learn from our histories in order to promote our own development as well as to complement and contribute to that of the world in which we live. The history of African Americans is an important contribution to the struggle for freedom, unity, and dignity in the world. Africans should be inspired to strengthen their relations with African Americans in order to promote mutual interests at various levels for the benefit of both parties. This essay also sought to enhance the reader’s awareness that the policies of our governments, as well as the foreign policies of those countries that affect us, can be greatly influenced through our direct activities as well as our relations with the peoples and governments of various countries. Popular activism, which increasingly transcends national barriers, is an important instrument for forging peace, promoting liberty, and engendering economic development. Africa, in particular, stands to gain from an active, collective, and regenerative promotion of its interests through a constructive and proactive engagement with the world.

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NOTES 1. Claude Ake, Democracy and Development in Africa (Ibadan: Spectrum books, 1992), 12. 2. Sule Bello, “Culture, Education and Development in Africa,” in Sule Bello, ed., Essays on Culture, Creativity and Development (Abuja: National Council for Arts and Culture, 2000), 82. 3. The South Commission, The Challenge to the South: The Report of the South Commission (Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1993), 27. 4. Bob Fitch and Mary Oppenheimer, Ghana: End of an Illusion (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1968), 81. 5. Hussain Ibrahim, “Siemens Bribery Scandal: How far will EFCC, ICPC go?,” Weekly Trust, November 24, 2007, http://allafrica.com/stories/200711240045.html. 6. U.S. Dept. of State, American History, International Information Month Programs, 2002. 7. E.W. Bovill, The Golden Trade of the Moors (London: Oxford University press, 1970), xii; Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation State (Lagos: Spectrum Books, 1993), 6. 8. Mahmood Mamdani, Contemporary Political Terror: Its Origins in the Late Cold War (Zaria: Alhmadu Bello University, 2004), 26. 9. Salih Booker, “Bush’s Global Agenda: Bad news for Africa,” Current History (May 2001): 195.

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Index

Note: Organizations are listed by acronyms which appear in the text (e.g., Peoples Democratic Party under PDP). Tables are indicated by an italicized t following a page number. Aba, 167 Abacha, Sanni, 13, 14, 42 Abdulahi, Umaru, 93 Abdul-Raheem, Tajudeen, 136 Abia state, 117 Abidde, Sabella, 138 Abiola, M.K.O., 33n34, 110 Abore Fulani people, 98–99 Abramoff, Jack, 162n11 absentee residents, 82 Abubakar, Abdulsalaam, 42, 109 Abubakar, Atiku. See also AC (Action Congress) corruption and, 14, 44, 148, 155 and elections, 19, 21, 31, 45–46, 49, 130, 137 international influences on, 42 and Obasanjo, 93, 147, 158 and political parties, 22, 23, 93 Abuja, 93, 95, 129 Abulu, Joseph, 67 AC (Action Congress), 18, 22, 47, 93, 108, 130, 148. See also Abubakar, Atiku access to information, 84–86

Accord Party, 128 accountability, 117–118 Achebe, Chinua, 73 activism, xvi, 12, 95, 172. See also resistance Adam, Jafar, 128 Adamawa state, 14 Adedibu, Alhaji Lamidi, 58 Adeleke vs. Oyo State House of Assembly, 93 Adenuga, Mike, 147, 155 ADF (African Defense Force), 153 administrative capacity, 29 Aduba, Benjamin Obiajulu, 121 Africa and authoritarianism, 7–8 and democracy, 39 diaspora, 165, 168–169 and Nigeria, xvi, 52, 134–137, 138 paths forward, 10, 165–168 trends in, 131–132 African Americans, 9, 10, 168–170, 171 African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, 8, 116, 136

176

INDEX

African Panel on Good Governance, 138 African Peer Review Mechanism, 138 African Security Council, 138 African Youth League, 154 AG (Action Group), 12, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107 Agbaje, Jimi, 128 Agbakoba, Olisa, 21 agriculture, 117, 167, 172 Aguiyi-Ironsi, Thomas Umunakwe, 107, 122 Agulanna, Christopher, 29–30 Agwai, Martin Luther, 28 aid, foreign, 151, 160 AIT news, 49 Ajayi, Femi, 68–69, 73 Ajise, Emakpor, 98, 99 Akande, Inumidun, 93 Ake, Claude, 36, 41, 43, 45, 50, 94 Akpata, Bankole, 101 Akure, Ondo state, 128 Alagoa, E.J., 108 Alamieyeseigha, Diepreye, 117–118 Albright, Madeleine, 17 Alexander, Cynthia J., 86, 87 Algeria, 132 Aliyu, Dabo, 67 Almond, Gabriel, 93–94 Alvarez, Michael, 79 Amin, Idi, 132 Anakwenze, Nwachukwu, 57, 68 Anambra state and elections, 18, 31n6, 42, 46, 129 godfatherism in, 56–59, 63, 68–70, 71, 72, 74–75 and judiciary, 92, 93 overviews, 4, 67–68 people of, 51 political financing in, 47–48, 66, 67–70 violence at polls, 49–50 ANC (African National Congress), 142, 147, 153, 154, 157, 161 Anglo Leasing Finance, 143, 151–152 Angola, 20 Annan, Kofi, 160 ANPP (All Nigeria People’s Party), 18, 22–23, 32n33, 48, 49, 130. See also Buhari, Muhammadu

Antonsson, Erik K., 79 APGA (All Progressives Grand Alliance), 21, 31n6, 49, 69 Araraume, Ifeanyi, 48 Araraume, Infeanyichukwu Godwin, 128 Asaba, Delta state, 50, 107 ASGISA (Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa), 143, 154, 155, 156 Asobie, Assisi, 42 Attah, Mike, 67 AU (African Union), 136, 138 Auddaye village, 98 authoritarianism , 41, 131, 135 Awka, Anambra, 50, 67 Awolowo, Obafemi, 12, 58, 101–102, 119–120 Awori, Moody, 151 Axtmann, Roland, 38 Azikiwe, Nnamdi (Zik), 12, 58, 103–104 Babalola, Kwara state, 50 Babangida, Ibrahim, 13, 33n34, 42, 107, 110, 122 Babangida, Mohammed, 147 bad governance, 71. See also good governance Baker, Scott, 138 Balewa, Abubakar Tafawa, 103 Balewa, Alhaji Tafawa, 58 ballot papers. See election materials Balogun, Tafa, 73 Baltimore, David, 80 Bamishile, Kayode, 93 Banda, Hastings, 63 Batista, 86, 87 Bayelsa state, 108, 117–118 BEE (Black Economic Empowerment), 154–155 Belgore, Alfa, 93 Bello, Alhaji Ahmadu, 58, 103 Bello, Sarduana Ahmadu, 58 Bendel State, 107 Benin City, Edo state, 50, 107 Benin Empire, 11 Benue Cement Company, 44 Benue state, 30 Berg, Max van den, 135

INDEX

Biafra, 12, 92 BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), 161 Blair, Tony, 138 Block, Fred, 145 Bluestar Oil Service Limited Consortium, 44 Bokassa, Jean bedel, 132 Borno State Movement, 106 bossism, 60. See also godfatherism branches of government, 71–72, 81. See also specific branches Brändli, Daniel, 84 Bratton, Michael, 59 Braun, Nadja, 84 Brazil, 12, 86 Bretton Woods institutions, 14 bribes, 26, 46, 48–49, 145, 154 Brinkerhoff, Derick W., 60, 61, 67 Britain. See also colonialism and corruption, 118 independence from, 25, 100 and Kenya, 151 and minorities, 115 overviews, 2, 11, 12 political culture of, 93–94 and zoning, 104 Bryce, Lord , 38 Buhari-Idiagbon coup, 12–13 Buhari, Muhammadu, 14, 19, 21–22, 23, 31, 130. See also ANPP (All Nigeria People’s Party) bureaucracies, 39, 40, 62t business, 145, 146, 149, 167 caciquismo. See godfatherism Calabar, 80, 100, 105 Callaghy, T., 66 Cameroon, 100 Canada, 85, 160 capitalism. See also economic ideology; market-oriented democracy and democracy, 144–146 future of, 160 and Kenya, 144t, 146, 149–152 and Mbeki, Thabo, 155 overviews, 142–143, 156–161 and privatization, 44 and South Africa, 152–156

177

and 2007 elections, 36–41, 144–146, 146–149 and United States, 162n8 censuses, 25, 42 Central African Republic, 132 Chikere, Anwuri, 93 Chimaroke, Nnamani, 52, 57, 58 China, 14 Chinese models, 131 Christianity, 57 citizenry, 53. See also democratic spirit citizenship, xvi, 38 civilian governments, 2, 12, 13, 24, 43, 126n13 civil society , 94–95 civil war, 12, 71, 108 classes, economic, 155 Clay, Edward, 151 clientelism , 59–60, 61t, 62, 66 Clifford, Hugh, 80 Cockett, Richard, 135 colonialism. See also Britain and democracy, 131, 165 and IFIS, 41 overviews, 10, 11, 101 and pan-Africanism, 169 and technical capacity, 171 and zoning, 102–103, 106 Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, 102, 103 commercialization, 36. See also economic ideology Commonwealth Observer, 129 Commonwealth Observer Group, 130 Communist Party of Nigeria, 101 community, 40 Conference of Rivers’ Chiefs and Peoples (CRCP), 105 confidence, public, 82, 129 Congress of South African Trade Unions (CSATU), 154 Conpetro, 147, 148 Constitutional Conference (London, 1958), 104 constitutional reform, 159 constitution of 1999 and Anambra state, 93 and discrimination, 116–117

178

INDEX

constitution of 1999 (continued) and interim governments, 20–21 and Obasanjo, 166 and privatization, 43 and Yar’Adua, 167 and zoning, 6, 100, 109, 110–115, 125 constitutions. See also zoning, geographical 1922 (Clifford), 80–81, 121 1958, 1960, 1963, 106 1979, 108–109, 110, 119, 125 2006, 115 Independence, 103, 106, 122 McPherson, 104 paths forward, 115, 119, 121–125 and regionalism, 107–108 Convention Peoples’ Party of Nigeria, 101 Corporate Nigeria, 44 corruption, 6, 28, 157. See also individual cases of corruption CORSM (Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers State Movement), 105 Cote D’Ivoire, 161 Côte d’Ivoire, 63 coup d’états, 24, 106 courts. See judiciary CRCP (Conference of Rivers’ Chiefs and Peoples), 105 Crick, Bernard, 37 crime, 167 crisis group, international, 91–92 Cross River state, 98 CSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions), 154 Cunningham, Randy “Duke,” 145 currency, 39, 167 cyber cafés, 85 DA (Democratic Alternative), 120 Daily Trust (newspaper), 27 Dakwang, Yau, 93 Dangote, Alhaji Aliko, 25–26, 44 Dangote Industries Limited, 44 Dantata Investment Company, 43 Darfur, 139 Dariye, Joshua, 93 debt, 172 Decree No. 28 of 1999, 43

de facto traditions, 67 de jure institutions, 67 Delta state, 14, 50, 107, 128, 129 democracy of the stomach, 23 Democratic Alternative (DA), 120 Democratic Party Alliance (DPA), 128 democratic spirit, 1, 3, 7–8, 51, 167 deregulation, 39, 43 development, 43, 45, 142, 146, 169, 170–172 direct democracy, 37 Directorate of Special Investigations (Scorpions), 153, 154, 156, 163n42 disabled citizens, 82 disclosure, 75 discrimination, 116, 118–119, 120, 123 diversity, 6, 29, 37, 98–99. See also ethnic minorities; zoning, geographical Dokubo-Asari, 14 DPA (Democratic Party Alliance), 128 Duschinskey, 66 Eastern Nigeria, 11 Ebele, Nkolika, 20 Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), 28–29, 45, 46, 118, 119, 147, 156 economic ideology, 3, 8–9, 35–41, 53, 167. See also capitalism; marketoriented democracy economic structures, 143 The Economist (magazine), 135 ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), 17, 138 Edo state, 50, 107, 127, 128, 129 education and BEE, 155 and godfatherism, 69, 75 and Obasanjo, 117 and police, 27 and public service, 103 rural, 158 and Yar’Adua, 14, 15 and zoning, 109 education, voter, 5, 6, 86–87 EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) and 2007 election, 49, 52

INDEX

and Globacom, 147, 148 and Obasanjo, 167 overviews, 28–29, 118 and PDP, 45, 46 and zoning, 119 Egbe Omo Oduduwa, 102, 106 Egbo-Egbo, Wilson, 92 Egypt, 8 Ehindero, Sunday, 27 Ejaghan language, 98 Ekanola, Adebola Babatunde, 29 Ekeh, Peter, 107, 110 Ekiti state, 93, 128 election materials, 19, 49, 91, 128, 129, 139. See also electronic voting elections. See also elections, 2007; electronic voting; voting 1951–1983, 24, 42, 103, 119–120, 132 1990s, 25, 33n34, 42, 43 2003, 31n6, 43, 44, 50–51, 142, 166 Kenyan, 162n28 overviews, 25, 35, 136–137 paths forward, 75–76, 89 problems with, 5, 83–84, 85–86, 88 regulations, 75–76 South African, 154 standards, 20 Ukrainian, 30 elections, 2007. See also electronic voting and Africa, 8 analysis of, 7, 21–31, 45–50, 138–139, 142–144 and capitalism, 36–41, 144–149 effects of, 51–52, 130–131, 134–137, 140n6, 159–161 finances for, 44 and Globacom, 146–149 and Obasanjo, 41–42, 130–131, 158, 166 overviews, ix–x, 1, 13, 17–21, 50–51, 91, 127–130, 137–138, 141 and police, 27–28 electoral commission, 6 electorate, 38, 50–51 electricity, 25, 29, 87, 117, 158, 167 electronic voting and Nigeria, 88–95 overviews, 5–6, 79–83, 95

179

successful, 83–87 elites. See also godfatherism and capitalism, 156–157 and democracy, 144–145 embedded, 7, 130, 131 and laws, 29, 38 overviews, 2, 136 in South Africa, 155 emigration, 167 emirate system, 102–103 England. See Britain Enugu state, 50, 52, 74, 167 environment, 69 Equatorial Guinea, 132 ERS (Economic Recovery Strategy), 143, 151 Esteve, 82 Ethiopia, 161 ethnic minorities, 6. See also diversity; nationalities Etiaba, Virgy D., 68 EU (European Union), 17, 157, 160 European colonialism, 10 European Union Observer Mission, 130, 135 executive interference , 93 externalization, 3, 40, 41 external observers, 17 Eze, Arthur, 69, 72 Ezeoke, Edwin Ume, 21 Faswe, Otunba, 147, 148 Fayose, Ayo, 93 FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), 148 FCT (Federal Capital Territory), 167 federal character. See also zoning, geographical federal employees. See public employees federalism, 29, 104–105, 108–110, 123, 124 female subjects, 14 Fifth Pan-Africanist congress, 101 Fika Emirate, 98 Filho-Rodrigues, 86 finance. See also godfatherism of campaigns, 44, 47–48, 89 and corruption, 26 and freedom, 74–75

180

INDEX

finance (continued) overviews, 63–67 and poverty, 70 in states, 7, 66, 67–70 First Republic, 2, 12, 42, 71 FLN (Force de Liberation Nationale), 132 Florida, 16n14 foreign investment, 40, 41, 118, 146, 149, 155. See also IMF; World Bank formal sector, 67 Fourth Republic, 2, 25, 166 France, 118 freedom of expression, 53, 99 free elections, 74–75, 84, 90, 92–93, 136–137 fuel, 167 Fulani people, 98–99, 102, 105–106, 108 Gadowska, Kaja, 59 Garba, Rufai, 67 GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution), 143, 154, 155, 156 geographical zoning. See zoning, geographical Germany, 94 Ghalioun, Burhan, 40 Ghana, 20, 132 Gitthongo, John, 151, 152 Globacom, 143, 147–149 globalization, 40, 156, 161, 170 global warming, 171 GNU (government of national unity), 22–23 godfatherism, 4–5, 6, 56–63, 65, 68–70, 89, 94 Goldsmith, Arthur A., 60, 61, 67 good governance, 40, 41, 42, 67, 137, 157, 172. See also bad governance Goodluck, Jonathan, 47 government of national unity (GNU), 22–23 Gowon, Yakubu, 12, 108, 122 Graff, William, 149 grassroots movements, 136 Great Britain. See Britain Greek democracy, 37

Hausaland, 11 Hausa people, 57, 99, 102, 105–106, 108, 120 Hilton Hotel, 44 HIV/AIDS, 172 homogeneity, 37 hospitals, 26, 75. See also medical care Houphouët-Boigny, Félix, 63 housing, 117 How Does Neopatrimonialism Affect the African State? (Soest), 59 Human Rights Watch, 91, 135 Ibadan Mabolaje Alliance, 103 Ibadan South West, Oyo state, 50 Ibo people, 92, 107 Ibo State Union, 106 Idemili Constituencies, 48 Idoma State Union (ISU), 106 IFIS (International Financial Institutions), 39, 41, 43, 164n49 Igarra town, Edo state, 127 iGate, 147, 148, 149 Igbo people, 4, 11, 58, 67, 71, 103, 108, 120 Ige, Raphael, 72 Ijaw people, 99, 105, 108, 117 Ikoro, Amaefuna, 101 illiterate voters, 85, 86 Ilo, 70–71 Ilorin, 11 Ima madu politics, 62 IMF (International Monetary Fund), 13, 14, 36, 88, 101, 157, 160, 164n51. See also predatory lending Imo state, 48, 128 Imoudu, Michael, 101 impoverishment, 5 incumbency, 36, 47, 145, 157 independence, 12, 100, 101, 104, 106, 115 Independence Constitution for Nigeria, 103 Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and electronic voting, 82 India, 160, 161 indigenous business, 16n12, 146, 155–156

INDEX

industry, 75, 172 INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) alleged corruption of, 127 and Anambra state, 31n6 and Delta state, 50 and elections in 2007, 18, 19, 20, 29, 49, 91, 92, 128 and electronic voting, 6, 82, 83, 86 and Globacom, 147, 148 and judiciary, 93 and Ngige, 69 overviews, 5, 52 and political parties, 114 informal sector, 67 infrastructure, 75, 87, 93, 158 institutions, 89–92, 144–145, 154, 166. See also specific institutions international crisis group report, 91–92 international influences. See also foreign organizations and governments; NGOs on Abubakar, 42 on democracy, 36, 38, 39, 53, 131, 138–139, 170–171 and justice, 170 lessons from, 166 Internet voting, 5 Iran, 28 Iraq War, 143, 144 Islamists, 8, 57, 99, 102, 108, 136 ISU (Idoma State Union), 106 Ita, Eyo, 104 Italy, 94 ITPP (Ilorin Talaka Parapo), 105 Itsekiri people, 107 Iwu, Maurice, 20, 49 Iyayi, Festus, 88 Jackson, R.H., 60 Jackson, Vernon, 148 Jami’ yar Mutaren Arewa (society), 102, 103, 106 Jana, Alade, 93 Jawara, Sir Dauda, 17 Jefferson, William, 148, 155 Jigawa state, 119

181

jobs, 40, 45, 49, 89, 166. See also labor; public employees; unemployment; workforce Jos, 167 Joseph, Richard, 66 judiciary. See also Supreme Court African, 39 and Anambra, 4, 18, 74 and Buhari, 21 and elections, 3, 6, 24, 30, 52, 90, 137 overviews, 2 role of, 92–93 KACC (Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission), 151, 156 Kaduna, 26, 44, 167 Kalu, Orji, 117 Kamani, Deepak, 151, 152 Kanem Bornu Empire, 11 Kano, 11, 167 Kano, Mallam Aminu, 58 Kano state, 43, 128 KANU (Kenya African National Union), 142, 150, 161 Kanuri people, 102 Katsina, 11 Katsina state, 14 Kaufman, Robert, 60–61 Kenya capitalism in, 144t, 146, 149–152, 156 economy, 143 elections in, 147, 149–152, 162n28 future of, 160–161 and Nigeria, 140n6, 142 public opinion in, 159 representation in, 158 Kenyatta, Jomo, 150–151 Kibaki, Mwai, 142, 149–150, 151, 159, 160 Kikuyu tradition, 151 Ki-Moon, Ban, 139 King, Joseph, 14 King Jr., Martin Luther, 121 kingmakers, 71 Kogi state, 129 Kohno, Tadayoshi, 81 KPP (Kabba Peoples’ Party), 105 Kuewunmi, Babs, 93

182

INDEX

Kuti, Femi, 149 Kutigi, Idris, 93 Kwara state, 50, 58, 105, 128 labor, 51, 101, 102. See also jobs; unions Lackey, Chris Albin, 135 Ladoja, Alhaji Rasheed, 58 Lagos, 167 Lagos conference (1958), 103 Lagos state, 44, 80, 95, 100, 128, 129 Lancaster House conferences, 103, 122 languages, 98, 99 Lasswell, Harold, 60, 145 law enforcement, 29, 68, 73, 74, 137. See also police Lawrence, Ben, 135 law, rule of, 38, 41, 93, 167, 170 LDP (Liberal Democratic Party), 150 leadership, 38, 169 LEEDS (Local Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy), 156 legitimacy, 17, 52, 158, 159 liberal democracy, 38–39 Liberia, 8, 20 Lincoln, Abraham, 38 local governments, 6–7, 156 Lugard, Frederick, 104 LYM (Lagos Youth Movement), 100, 121–122 Mabolaje Alliance, 103 Macaulay, Herbert Heelas, 100 Maduna, Penuell, 153 Maiduguri, 167 Maier, Karl, 16n8 Majecherkiewicz, Tatiana, 59 majority rule, 38 Malawi, 63 Mamza, Paul, 72 Mandela, Nelson, 154 Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, 48 marabouts, 60. See also godfatherism Maradona of politics, 13 marginalization, 4, 169 Mark, David, 30 market-oriented democracy, 87, 88. See also capitalism; economic ideology Martin, Hans Peter, 40

Masari, Aminu Bello, 14 Mauritania, 20 Mbadinuju, Chinwoke, 56, 67–68, 69, 70 Mbeki, Thabo and capitalism, 144t, 155 dissatisfaction with, 159, 161 economic policies of, 156 overviews, 9, 142–143, 152–153 and Yar’Adua, 139 and Zuma, 154 MBPP (Middle-Belt Peoples’ Party), 106 McPherson Constitution, 104 medical care, 26, 68, 75, 117, 158. See also hospitals merit, 117, 121 Mexico, 60, 94, 146 Michels, Robert, 38 Mid-West Region, 107, 108 Migdal, Joel, 60 military, 18, 28, 49, 50, 91, 92 Military Defense Forces, 28 military governments and elections, 42 and federalism, 110 overviews, 2, 12, 13, 14 and regionalism, 107 and Shagari, 24 and voting, 81 and zoning, 106–110 millenium development goals, 45 Ministry of Works, 118 minorities, 6, 9, 115. See also specific minorities Minorities Commission (1958), 106 Mlambo-Ngcuka, Phumzile, 154 Mobile Telecommunications (MTEL), 149 Mobutu, Sese Seko, 63 Mohammed, Alhaji Isa, 128 Mohammed, Murtala, 12 Moi, Arap, 150 money. See finance monitoring, 52. See also INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) Moslems, 128 motorcycles, 48–49 Mozambique, 20

INDEX

MSM (Mid-West State Movement), 105 MTEL (Mobile Telecommunications), 149 multiculturalism. See diversity Murungari, Chris, 151, 152 Murungi, Juraitu, 151, 152 Mustapha, Abdul-Raufu, 137–138 Mwiraria, David, 151, 152 Nal Bank, 43 Namibia, 20 NAP (National Alliance Party), 150 NARC (National Rainbow Coalition), 149–150, 151–152, 153, 157, 159, 160, 161. See also Kibaki, Mwai Nasarawa state, 129 National Electoral Commission, 124 “National Integration and the Survival of Nigeria in the 21st Century” (Ekanola), 29 nationalities. See also zoning, geographical (federal character); specific nationalities and democracy, 118–119 and oil, 121 overviews, 98–99, 102 and political parties, 103, 105, 106, 108 rights of, 114–115, 123 national judicial council, 92–93 National Summit on Africa, 169 national unity, 22–23, 32n33, 100, 101, 103, 111, 120, 122. See also north/south Nigeria NBA (Nigerian Bar Assocation), 21, 52 NCNC (National Council of Nigerian Citizens) changes in, 16n4, 107 and constitutions, 12, 104, 121–122 degeneration of, 103 and nationalities, 105, 106, 108 objectives of, 100–101 NCNC (National Council of Nigerian Citizens), East, 12 NDI (National Democratic Institute), 130 NDTV (Netlink Digital Television), 147, 148, 149 NEEDS (National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy), 45, 143, 149, 156

183

neem plant, 14 neocolonialism. See colonialism neoliberalism, 39 neopatrimonialism, 66. See also patrimonialism NEPA (National Electric Power Authority), 118 NEPAD, 138 NEPU (Northern Elements Progressive Union), 12 Ney, Robert, 162n11 Ngcuka, Buleiani, 153–154 Ngige, Chris Nwabueze, 31n6, 42, 49, 68, 69–70, 72, 73, 75 Ngige vs. Peter Obi, 92 NGOs (non-governmental organizations), 7, 172 Nguema, Francisco Marcias, 132 NICON Hilton, 149 NIDO (Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation), 120 Niger Delta, 46, 52, 92, 99, 108, 158 Nigeria Airways, 118 Nigerian National Shipping Line, 118 Nigerian Political Science Association, 91 Nigerian Railways, 118 Nigerian Security and Printing Press, 19 Nigerian Worker, 102 Niger state, 128 1965 Western Regional crisis, 42 NITEL (Nigerian Telecommunication Limited), 44, 148, 149 Nkobi Holdings, 153, 154 Nkrumah, Kwame, 131 NLC (Nigerian Labor Congress), 17–18, 25 NLP (Nigerian Labour Party), 101, 121–122 NMTU (Nigerian Motor Transport Union), 102 Nnamani, Chimaroke, 52, 57, 58 NNDP (Nigerian National Democratic Party), 100, 107, 121–122 Nnoli, Okwudiba, 39 NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation), 25–26 nomads, 98 Norquist, Grover, 162n11

184

INDEX

northern Nigeria, 58, 102 Northern People’s Congress, 12 north/south Nigeria, 11, 13, 22, 103, 109 Nova Scotians, African, 85 NPC (Northern Peoples’ Congress), 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108 NPN (National Party of Nigeria), 7, 14, 24, 32n33, 109, 119. See also Shagari, Shehu NPP (Nigerian People’s Party), 24, 32n33 Nri-Ezedi, J., 93 NTA (Nigerian Television Authority), 12, 73 Nunavut, 85 nurture capitalism, 143, 146, 147, 149, 150, 155, 157 Nwobodo, Jim, 58 Nyerere, Julius, 41, 131 NYM (Nigerian Youth Movement), 100, 102, 121–122 Nzeribe, Gogo Chu, 101 Obasanjo, Olusegun and Abubakar, 93, 147, 158 and Anambra state, 4, 73 campaign funds, 44 and constitutions, 108 and democracy, 41 drafting of, 109–110 economic policies of, 9, 156 and 2003 election, 45–47 and 2007 elections, 91, 130–131, 137, 138 failure of, 166–167 favorites of, 48 and judiciary, 92 and military, 43 and oil prices, 51 overviews, ix, 3, 12, 13, 14, 43, 142–143 power struggles of, 146–147 and privatization, 14, 25, 44 reaction to elections, 19–20, 30 second term of, 158 and Usman, 14, 16n11 and zoning, 117, 119 Obi, Peter, 18, 31n6, 42, 49, 68, 69, 93 Obiora, N., 66–67, 71

observers, 138. See also specific observing groups Odinamadu, Oyibo, 109, 119–120 Odinga, Raila, 149–150, 151, 152, 159, 160, 162n28 ODM (Orange Democratic Movement), 150, 160, 161 Offor, Emeka, 44, 69, 72, 73 Oga, 66 oil and nationalities, 121 overviews, 7, 12, 28, 51, 122 paths forward, 15 privatization of, 43, 44, 118 refineries, 25–26, 29, 52, 118 and United States, 139 Ojo, Bayo, 148 Ojukwu, Odumegwu, 21, 33n55 Okafor, Victor, 94 Okeke, Ebele O., 112 Okiro, Mike Mbama, 27 Okoli, Chuks, 93 Okonjo-Iweala, Ngozi, 121 Olaitan, Wale, 42 oligarchy, 38, 157 Olulumo-Ikom people, 99 Olulumo people, 98, 99 Ondo state, 128, 129 Onike, Rahaman, 92 Onitsha, Anambra state, 50, 104 Oniyangi, M.N., 93 Onwudiwe, Ebere, 160 OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), 28 Option A4, 124 Orjiakor, 69 Osun state, 128 Ottaway, Marina, 130, 131 Out Edo Union, 105 Oyo state, 50, 93, 128, 129 Pakistan, 118, 161 pan-Africanism, 169 parliamentary systems, 108, 124 participation, citizen, 81–83, 94, 136, 159 participation, voter, 84, 129 parties, political. See also specific parties constitutional issues, 109, 114, 124

INDEX

and elections, 92 history of, 100–101, 102, 105 overviews, 64–65t, 66–67, 131 paths forward, 136 and zoning, 99, 100, 121–122 paternalism, 57 Path to Nigerian Freedom (Awolowo), 102 patrimonialism, 59, 62, 62t, 66 patronage, 57, 59–60. See also elites; godfatherism PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and Abubakar, 93, 148 alliances, 21 and Anambra state, 31n6, 42, 69 campaign finances, 47–48 and consolidation, 158 and elections, 18, 46, 91, 128–129, 130, 137, 141 future of, 160 history of, 109, 153 and Ngige abduction, 74 and Obasanjo, 147, 167 overviews, ix, 7, 13, 157 and police, 28 and South Africa, 139 and zoning, 119, 121 peace, 170, 172 “people,” definition of, 38 Peoples’ Sovereign National Conference, 122–123 Perrier, Jean-Paul, 154 petitions, 30–31, 31n6, 33n55, 127 Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTFD), 147, 148, 149 Philippines, 60 physically challenged voters, 85 Plateau state, 93 PNU (Party of National Unity), 150, 160, 161 polarization, 3, 45 police corruption and clean-up, 26–28, 92, 118 and discrimination, 116 and elections, 17, 18, 49, 90, 91 and Ngige, 72, 73 overviews, 6

185

state, 108 and 2007 elections, 92, 128 policy, 40, 157, 172 policy cycling, 144, 157, 164n49 political class, xvi, 30, 38, 41, 43, 131, 149. See also godfatherism political culture, 93–94, 115–116, 130, 136 Polley, Ben, 136 popular democracy, 38 Port Harcourt refinery, 26, 44 Port Harcourt, Rivers state, 50, 167 Portuguese, 99 post-civil war syndromes, 4 poverty and activism, 95 and campaign finances, 47 and capitalism, 157 and corruption, 28 and democracy, 39, 40 and elections, 88–89 and godfatherism, 70 and Obasanjo, 166–167 overviews, 6, 75, 143, 156 and privatization, 45 and voter education, 86 and zoning, 100 power, electrical, 25, 29, 87, 117, 158, 167 PPA (People’s Progressives Alliance), 21, 32n33 prebendalism, 62, 66 predatory lending, 16n9. See also IMF; World Bank presidency, 92, 109, 111–114, 119. See also individual presidents Principe, 8 privatization, 3, 39, 40, 43–45, 118, 148, 149, 167. See also Obasanjo, Olusegun; Yar’Adua, Alhaji Umaru Musa PRONACO (Pro-Sovereign National conference Coalition), 122 PRP (People’s Redemption Party), 14 public employees, 26, 27–28, 101, 108, 110–114, 116–117, 118, 166 Public Enterprises Act of 1999, 43 Putnam, Robert, 94

186

INDEX

Pzreworski, Adam, 146 quota system, 100. See also zoning, geographical racism, 120 railways, 123 Ramaphosa, Cyril, 155 rational systems, 62–63 RDP (Reconstruction and Development Program), 154, 155 Reed, Ralph E. Jr., 162n11 regionalism, 104–105, 107–108, 123, 147. See also zoning, geographical (federal character) registration, voter, 6, 87, 88 rentier politics, 66 representation, 157–158 representative democracy, 38 republicanism, 106 resistance, 11, 44, 50, 51, 117. See also activism resources, 11, 100, 115, 123, 124, 158, 166. See also oil revenues, government, 122, 123, 124 Ribadu, Nuhu, 147 Rimi, Alhaji Abubakar, 58, 119 Rivers state, 50, 105, 108, 128, 129 RMAFC (Federal Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission), 26 roads, 69, 75, 87, 118, 123, 158 Rodrigues-Filho, 87 Rosberg, C.G., 60 RPC (Rivers Peoples’ Congress), 105 Rubin, Aviel D., 81 rural communities, 158 Russia, 146 Rustow, Dankwart, 131 SACP (South African Communist Party), 154 Sao-Tome, 8 SAP (structural adjustment programs), 3, 13, 14, 39–40, 43 Saraki dynasty, 58 Saudi Arabia, 28

Scanlon, Michael, 162n11 Schatz, Sayre, 146, 147 Schmitter, Philippe, 144, 162n21 Schumann, Harald, 40 Schumpeter, Joseph, 38 Scorpions (Directorate of Special Investigations), 153, 154, 156, 163n42 Scramble for Africa, 14n1 SDP (Social Democratic Party), 110 Second Republic, 7 security, election, 87 security establishment, 29 SEEDS (State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy), 156 Sefawa Dynasty, 11 self-government, 101 Senegal, 20, 60 servant leader, 52 Seteolu, Dele, 41–42 Shagari, Shehu, 12, 24. See also NPN (National Party of Nigeria) Shaik, Schabir, 153, 154 Shared Growth Initiative, South Africa, 154 Sharia, 14 shrines, 68, 70 Sierra Leone, 7–8, 52 slavery, 168, 171 Smith, I.O., 112 social capital, 94 socialism, 100 social programs, 40 Soest, Christian, 59, 60 software, 85–86, 87 Sokoto, 11, 58, 99, 103 South Africa and corruption, 118 economy, 143, 144t, 151, 158 and elections, 20, 147, 159 future of, 161 and Nigeria, 139, 142 overviews, 9, 152–156 and United Nations, 8 south/north Nigeria, 11, 13, 22, 103, 109 south-to-south networking, 13 sovereignty, 41, 122–123, 171 Soviet models, 131 Soyinka, Wole, 21

INDEX

spending, government, 26 SSS (State Security Service), 128 standard of living, 45 state managers. See elites states, 6–7. See also zoning; individual states State Security Service (SSS), 128 stereotyping, 170 strikes, 51, 52 structural impediments, 7, 130 structural rigging, 49 The Struggle to Develop Nigeria (Ferreira), 124 Stubblefield, Adam, 81 Subair, Alhaji, 147 Sudan, 139 Supreme Court, 18, 31n6, 48, 52, 72, 159–160. See also judiciary Switzerland, 84–85 Takirambudde, Peter, 91 Tanzania, 20, 143 technical capacity, 29 technocrats, 157 telecommunications, 43, 44, 123, 148 temples, 119 Thailand, 161 Thales (Thompson CSF Holdings/Thint), 143, 153, 154 Thetard, Alan, 153, 154 Third Republic, 33n34 Third Wave Transition, 142–143, 152 Third World, 142, 160, 170 ThisDay (newspaper), 22, 28 This House Has Fallen (Maier), 16n8 Thompson CSF Holdings (Thales/Thint), 143, 153, 154 Thompson, Nii Moi, 138 Thovoethin, Paul, 72 Tini, Alioune, 138 TMG (Transitional Monitoring Group), 73, 74 tolls, 26 touch-screen computers. See electronic voting Transcorp (Transnational Corporation Company), 44, 149

187

transportation, 49, 69, 75, 87, 117, 158 trends, 131–132 tribes, 98 trust, 90–91, 122 TUCN (Trade Union Congress of Nigeria), 102 Turaki, Ibrahim Saminu, 119 Turkey, 146 Uba, Andy, 31n6, 44, 48–49 Uba, Chris, 48, 68–69, 72, 73 Ude, Okey, 72 Uganda, 132, 143 Ugwu, Charles, 48, 128 Ukachukwu, Nicholas, 49 Ukegbu, Emmanuel, 67 Ukeje, Rose, 93 Ukraine, 30, 65 UMBC (United Middle-Belt Congress), 106 Umeadi, Phillip, 49 unemployment, 45, 85. See also jobs unions, 101, 103. See also labor United Africa Company, 101 United Nations, 139 United States. See also African Americans black experience in, xvi and capitalism, 162n8 corruption in, 145 critiques of, 14, 16n14, 171–172 Department of Justice, 147, 148 and development, 169 economy, 143 and elections, 17, 139 influence of, 108, 129, 139, 168 political culture of, 93–94 Treasury, 157 Unity, 22 unity, national, 100, 120 UPN (Unity Party of Nigeria), 24, 25, 109, 119–120 UPP (United Peoples Party), 107 urban poor, 158 Urhobo people, 107 USAID (United States Agency for International Development), 63, 77

188

INDEX

Usman, Bala, 14, 16n11 utilities, 167 Utomi, Pat, 53 Van de Walle, Nicolas, 59, 63 Vangard (newspaper), 23 VAT (value added tax), 51 Verba, Sidney, 93–94 Vest, Charles, 80 violence and elections, 49–50, 83, 128–129, 135, 137–138 and godfatherism, 61, 71 overviews, 36 political, 90, 91 voting, 79, 80–84, 85, 88. See also electronic voting Walecki, Marcin, 63–66, 74 Wallachs, Dan S., 81 Warri Local Government, 107 water, 25, 29, 69, 75, 123, 167 Waterbury, J., 59 Weber, Max, 38, 67 welfarism, 43 Wikipedia, 141 Woodson, Carter G., 169 workforce, 68. See also jobs World Bank, 13, 14, 40, 41, 88, 101, 157, 160, 164n51. See also predatory lending world wars, 12, 16n4

Yaba people, 103 Yanukovych, Viktor, 30 Yar’Adua, Alhaji Umaru Musa. See also PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and Buhari, 21–22 and Dangote Industries Ltd., 44 and elections, 19, 46, 47, 81, 135, 148 and national unity, 32n33, 112 overviews, ix, 13–15, 17, 21, 24, 159–160, 167 and privatization, 14, 33n37 and South Africa, 139 Yar’Adua, Shehu Musa, 14. See also PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) Yoruba people, 57, 58, 102, 103, 105, 108, 110, 120 Young, Crawford, 131 Yushchenko, Viktor, 30 Zaire, 63 Zambia, 60 Zamfara, 11 Zaria, 11 Zikist Movement, 100, 101 zoning, geographical (federal character). See also regionalism and democracy, 121–124 effects of, 115–121 and military governments, 106–110 since 1999, 110–115, 125 overviews, xvi, 6–7, 99–106, 124–125 Zuma, Jacob, 147, 153–154, 155, 159, 161

About the Editor and Contributors

VICTOR OGUEJIOFOR OKAFOR is professor and interim department head of African American studies at Eastern Michigan University. He directed African American studies at North Carolina State University. He is the author of several books on Africology, including A Roadmap for Understanding African Politics: Leadership and Political Integration in Nigeria, which won a 2007 International Cheikh Anta Diop Conference award. He was senior editor of the news department of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria and covered Nigerian national elections for the radio corporation. He served as a staff reporter for The Daily Times of Nigeria. ADEYINKA BANWO is senior lecturer in history and international studies at the universities of Ilorin and Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. He was a resident fellow in the African Scholars Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of numerous publications on human rights, political violence, and political economy in Nigeria. SULE BELLO is professor and department head of history at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, and the executive director of the African Research and Development Association. He is the author of Culture and the Book Industry in Nigeria (1993) and many articles, including “The 2007 Nigerian Elections and Nigeria’s Search for an Enduring Democracy” in Africa Update. MAKODI NNIA BIEREENU-NNABUGWU is lecturer in political science at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. He is the author of numerous publications on party politics and electoral processes in Nigeria.

190

ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTIORS

RITA KIKI EDOZIE is assistant professor of international relations at Michigan State University. She is the author of Reconstructing Africa’s Third Wave: A Comparative Analysis of Democracy (2008) and People, Power, and Democracy: The Popular Movement against Military Despotism in Nigeria, 1989–1999 (2002). She was deputy director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. GLORIA EMEAGWALI is professor of history and African studies at Central Connecticut State University. She taught at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, and at the Nigerian Defense Academy. She is the author of numerous books, including Africa and the Academy: Challenging Hegemonic Discourses on Africa (2006) and Historical Development of Science and Technology in Nigeria (1992). TOYIN FALOLA is a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and also a fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria. He is the Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor and University Distiguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. ABAYOMI FERREIRA is a surgeon in the British National Health Service who writes on Nigerian politics. He was chairman of the Lagos State chapter of the Labour Party of Nigeria and vice president of Democratic Alternative in Nigeria. He is the author of Savagery in Politics: Faulty Political Practice as the Primary Cause of Failed Economic Development in Nigeria (2006). NKOLIKA EBELE OBIANYO is senior lecturer and department head of political science at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. SYLVESTER ODION-AKHAINE is executive director of the Centre for Constitutionalism and Demilitarisation in Lagos and associate lecturer in political science at Lagos State University, Nigeria. He served as general secretary successively of the Campaign for Democracy and of United Action Democracy in Nigeria. He was Stanford University Fellow on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. He is the author of numerous books, including The Path to Demilitarisation and Democratic Consolidation in West Africa (2002) and Constitutionalism and the National Question (2000). GODWIN ONU is professor of political science and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. He was research director of the Nigerian Political Science Association. He is the author of numerous books, including Godfatherism and Governance in Anambra State of Nigeria (2008) and Information and Communication Technology and Good Governance in Africa (2006).