Transition Without End: Nigerian Politics and Civil Society Under Babangida 9781685856199

Citation preview

. Transition Without End ·

Transition Without End •

•

•

Nigerian Politics and Civil Society Under Babangida

edited by

Larry Diamond Anthony Kirk-Greene Oyeleye Oyediran

RIENNER PUBLISHERS

BOULDER LONDON

Published in the United States of America by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 1997 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved ISBN 978-1-55587-591-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992.

To General Olusegun Obasanjo, who returned Nigeria to democracy in 1979, and who has labored with courage and vision to bring it back again

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Contents

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Acknowledgments Maps of Nigeria

ix xii

Introduction: The Politics of Transition Without End Larry Diamond, Anthony Kirk-Greene, and Oyeleye Oyediran

Part 1 The Transition

2 3 4 5 6

The Remedial Imperatives of the Nigerian Constitution, 1922-1992 Anthony Kirk-Greene The Military J. 'Bayo Adekanye The Political Bureau Oyeleye Oyediran The Constituent Assembly and the 1989 Constitution Rafiu A. Akindele Electoral Administration in the Early Transition Eme O.Awa Mobilizing for a New Political Culture Adigun Agbaje

31 55

81 105

129 143

Part 2 Parties and Politics 7 8 9

Party Formation and Party Competition Babafemi A. Badejo The Reorganization of Local Government Oyeleye Oyediran The State Elections of 1991 Dan Agbese and Etim Anim Vll

171 193 213

v111

Contents

10 The National Assembly Elections of 1992 Eghosa E. Osaghae 11 The 1993 Presidential Election Imbroglio Bola A. Akinterinwa 12 Crisis and Collapse: June-November 1993 Rotimi T. Suberu

237 257 281

Part 3 Problems of Governance 13 The Rise and Fall of Structural Adjustment in Nigeria Thomas Biersteker and Peter M. Lewis 14 Indigeneity, Ethnicity, and Federalism Daniel C. Bach 15 The Judicial System and Human Rights Clement Nwankwo 16 Transforming the Civil Service Ladipo Adamolekun

303 333 351 363

Part 4 Civil Society 17 Associational Life Adebayo 0. Olukoshi 18 Religion and Politics: A View from the South Rotimi T. Suberu 19 Religion and Politics: A View from the North Omar Farouk Ibrahim 20 The Press Tunji Dare

379 401 427 449

Part 5 Conclusion 21 Postscript and Postmortem Larry Diamond

465

Appendix 1 Chronology: 31 December 1983-17 November 1993 Appendix 2 List of Acronyms

485 493

The Contributors Index About the Book

497 499 515

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Acknowledgments

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This project began many years ago, in a more hopeful time for Nigeria and its democratic prospects. It was inaugurated with two conferences, one at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, on 27-29 August 1990, and the second at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, on 9-12 January 1991. Initial drafts of most of the chapters in this book were presented at one or both of those conferences, and numerous other papers were drafted subsequently for the project. We would like to acknowledge here our sincere gratitude to the scholars who delivered conference papers or wrote subsequent drafts (and, in some cases, revised drafts) that ultimately we were unable to include in the book because of length constraints: H. Assisi Asobie, Bolanle Awe, Naomi Chazan, Martin Dent, Jonah Isawa Elaigwu, Aaron Gana, Adedokun Jagun, M. I. Jegede, Maj.-Gen. David Jemibewon, Richard Joseph, G. Onyekwere Nwankwo, Bala Takaya, Chudi Uwazurike, and Pat Williams. It is fortunate that a number of these papers have found their way into print elsewhere, and all of them will remain available in the library of the Hoover Institution. We would also like to thank those who contributed conference papers on economic crisis, structural adjustment, and political transition in Nigeria. These authors include: Tade Akin Aina, Thomas Callaghy, Bright Ekuerhare, Dapo Fafowora, Ademola Oyejide, Adedotun Phillips, Douglas Rimmer, Sayre Schatz, S. 0. Titilola, and Ernest Wilson. Their papers will also remain available in the Hoover Institution Library. Our two conferences afforded opportunities for extensive discussion and often vigorous debate over the design and implementation of the political transition and its interaction with the Structural Adjustment Program. In addition to the aforementioned authors, we would like to acknowledge the participation of scholars and practitioners who enriched our deliberations and helped to challenge, stimulate, and refine the thinking of our authors. At the Hoover Conference, these additional discussants were Adegoke Adeleke and Babandida Aliyu (of the Office of the President IX

x

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Acknowledgments

of Nigeria), Alhaji Hamzat Ahmadu (Nigerian ambassador to the United States), Barbara Callaway, Dele Cole (Nigerian ambassador to Brazil), Ibrahim Gambari (Nigerian ambassador to the United Nations, who gave the keynote address), Tunji Lardner, Paul Lubeck, Ronke Oyewumi, Karen Sorenson (Africa Watch), Richard L. Sklar, Yusuf Usman (consul-general of Nigeria in New York), and Michael Watts. At the Lagos conference, we further benefited from the participation of Tunde Adeniran (MAMSER), Olisa Agbakoba (president of the Civil Liberties Organisation), P. C. Asiodu, John A. Ayoade, Leo Dare, Emeka Enejere (MAMSER), T. G. 0. Gbadamosi, Jeanne Herskovits, Ahmadu Jalingo, Adele Jinadu (a member of the National Electoral Commission), Alaba Ogunsanwo, P. C. Okoli, Femi Otubanjo, Sam Oyovbaire (Office of the Vice-President), M. I. Raheem, Sina Sambo, Margaret Vogt, and Sani Zahardeen. We would also like to thank our conference rapporteurs, Dennis Galvan at the Hoover Conference, and Adigun Adbaje, Nura Jimoh, Bola Akinterinwa, and Rotimi Suberu in Lagos. The final summary report of the Hoover Conference is in the Hoover Institution Library and will also be made available to libraries in Nigeria. For their work on the word processing and production of the chapters, we thank Larry Diamond's assistants at the Hoover Institution during this project, Nicole Barnes, Susan Hendrick, and Marguerite Kramer. We are particularly indebted to Ms. Kramer for her diligent work on the final production of the manuscript. We also thank David Chang for his extensive assistance with research and, particularly, the preparation of the chronology. The launching of the project and the organization of the two conferences were made possible by financial support from the MacArthur Foundation (through a multiyear grant for comparative democratic studies to the Hoover Institution) for the Hoover Conference, and from the Ford Foundation, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, and Chief L. A. Gbadamosi for the Lagos conference. For their continuing cooperation and the additional support the Ford Foundation provided to facilitate the publication of this volume in Nigeria, we would like to thank in particular Mora McLean (then deputy director of the Ford Foundation's Africa/Middle East Program) and Natalia Kanem (recently the Ford Foundation representative in Lagos). We also thank the Carnegie Corporation of New York for its support of the publication of this book. Our two local institutional hosts provided considerable additional support, both direct and indirect. We would like to thank them for their personal and institutional commitment to this project in all its phases, particularly the director of the Hoover Institution, John Raisian, and Associate Director Thomas Henriksen; the then director-general of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Gabriel 0. Olusanya; and the other members of the NIIA coordinating committee, Rafiu Akindele, Femi Badejo, and Bayo Olukoshi. Our local arrangements for the Nigerian conference

Acknowledgments

Xl

also benefited from the cooperation and support of U.S. Ambassador Lannon Walker and Public Affairs Officer Robert LaGamma, both of whom manifested a strong concern for the success of our conference and of Nigeria's democratic transition program. Finally, we would like to pay special tribute to General Olusegun Obasanjo, who took a strong interest in our conference and who welcomed the Lagos conference participants to his home and conference center at Ottah in 1991. As we note in our study, almost two decades after he completed the transition to the Second Republic exactly on time, Obasanjo remains the only Nigerian military leader who has returned the country to democracy-and still one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for democracy and permanent military withdrawal from politics. It is particularly painful to us that he remains, at this writing, a political prisoner of the Abacha regime, as do Moshood Abiola, the victor of the 1993 presidential elections, and many other advocates of democracy and human rights. In both his writings and his deeds, General Obasanjo stands as an example of the difference that leadership, vision, and integrity can make to the future of Nigeria and the quest for democracy. We dedicate this book to him, and pray for the early release of all those imprisoned by the military for their political activities and beliefs. For ourselves as editors, this has been a long road, probably the most protracted collaborative study with which we have ever been involved. But delay and disappointment have, sadly, been the essential nature of the Nigerian transition itself, a transition that continues in pursuit of democracy seven years after we began this project and more than a decade after the Nigerian military first committed itself to the elaborate transition program we analyze here. We expect this work will contribute to the scholarly literature on democratization, comparatively as well as in Nigeria itself. But, beyond this, we fervently hope it may help to inform Nigerians of an important piece of their political history as well as to guide them toward the understanding that might ultimately reform the Nigerian body politic and make possible the civilian, constitutional democracy that has proved so elusive. Larry Diamond Anthony Kirk-Greene Oyeleye Oyediran

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Introduction: The Politics ofTransition Without End Larry Diamond, Anthony Kirk-Greene & Oyeleye Oyediran

When the soldiers seized power again in Nigeria at the dawn of 1984, terminating the country's second experiment in civilian, constitutional rule, it was widely assumed that military rule would be a temporary corrective. Nigerians broadly (even joyfully) welcomed the overthrow of a civilian regime they had come to view as corrupt and undemocratic. However, it was political reform and reconstruction, not prolonged military rule, they wanted. Because the two officers at the helm of the new regime, Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon, gave no sign of any plan to return the country to civilian rule-while ruling with a repressiveness and inflexibility out of character with previous military regimes-popular sentiment quickly turned against them. Less than twenty months after taking office, on 27 August 1985, they were overthrown in a bloodless coup by their army chief-of-staff, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Almost immediately, Babangida initiated one of the most ambitious, imaginative, complex, and expensive transitions from authoritarian rule that has ever been attempted anywhere. Ultimately, it would also prove to be one of the most protracted, controversial, unstable, and unsuccessful. So frequently and fundamentally were its timetables and ground rules changed, so staggering were the corruption, abuse of power, and cult of personality surrounding it, that most Nigerians came to doubt that it would ever be completed. In the process of trying to track, interpret, and explain the agonizing twists and turns of this process-and the deepening descent of this African giant into political turmoil, endemic conflict, and economic depression-we were repeatedly compelled to delay, revise, and extend our own collaborative study and to give it the regrettable but, we think, appropriate title "Transition Without End." General Babangida's transition program did come to an end, of course, in exactly the way it began. On 17 November 1993, a military coup overthrew the civilian caretaker government he had reluctantly put in place on his forced departure from power the previous August. But Babangida's

2

Introduction

former close ally and successor as military strongman, Gen. Sani Abacha, proved no more sincere in his promise of a transition to democracy-and no less cynical and energetic in co-opting civilian political leaders and manipulating the transition process. It was virtually two years (1 October 1995) before he announced his own timetable for transition to civilian rule, and that announcement stunned domestic and international observers alike by projecting yet another three years of military rule. Given Abacha 's own repeated manipulations of transitional politics and politicians, and his ruthlessness in jailing and crushing all sources of opposition, there was little reason to doubt that his timetable as well would be jiggered and postponed. Thus, as this study went to press-six years after it was initiated and eleven years after the launching of Babangida's transition programmilitary rule appeared entrenched in Nigeria through an innovative and profoundly disingenuous strategy of hegemony: transition without end. This study represents the first comprehensive account of Nigerian politics, governance, and society during General Babangida's Political Transition Program, from its launching in early 1986 to its final abortion with the November 1993 military coup. 1 It is thus, on the one hand, an in-depth account of a definitive period in Nigerian history (covering almost a quarter of its life as an independent nation). This was the period when Nigeria came to a historical crossroads, when it might have reversed the structural pathologies of statism and prebendalism, of endemic waste, corruption, and political violence, and turned toward democracy and market reform.2 Instead, it became a period of collapse into praetorianism and economic destitution, into a plundered economy, a nearly worthless currency, and a politics virtually bereft of rules and institutions. Although it never came fully into being, the putative "Third Republic" will be the historical name for this period. (Already, Nigerians are speaking of the prospects for a "Fourth Republic," as the new political transition under General Abacha unfolds). And one of our purposes here is to document and analyze the failure of this would-be Third Republic. From its bulk and scope alone (which have been reduced considerably from the original collection of papers for our two conferences and ongoing project), this is no doubt one of the most substantial studies of any political transition program (successful or not) during the (post-1974) "third wave" of global democratization. We believe the scope of our study is justified on several grounds: by the necessity for Nigerians themselves (who account for most of the contributions to this study) to think critically about their chronic political and developmental failures; by the enormous importance of Nigeria-with its one-hundred-million-plus population, bountiful oil wealth, societal dynamism, and aspirations to regional leadership-to the African continent; and by the many wider lessons we think can and must be drawn from Nigeria's failed transition.

Introduction

3

Thus, our study speaks as well to the burgeoning comparative literature on transitions from authoritarian rule. Since the mid-1980s, a vast transitions literature has accumulated, particularly with reference to the southern European and Latin American experiences.3 A comparable literature on democratic transitions in Africa had to wait until the onset of the democratization movement on that continent from 1990. Since then, several studies have analyzed the processes of transition from authoritarian rule in sub-Saharan Africa (and their interaction with concurrent programs of economic liberalization).4 Particular scholarly attention has been focused on the complex, delicate, and intensively negotiated transition in South Africa, which, in the words of two recent studies, was a "long journey" that produced a "small miracle."'i As we have already indicated, our subject concludes with no such happy ending. Although it began with much promise and participation and was virtually unprecedented for the elaborateness of its planning and design, the military's political transition program in Nigeria must be judged a sweeping and unambiguous failure. It failed to return the country to civilian rule (much less to democracy). It failed to bring forth a new political culture. It failed to control corruption and improve accountability. It failed to mitigate ethnic, regional, and religious conflict and cleavage. Despite initial strong commitment to liberalization, in the end it failed miserably to reform and revitalize the economy. Most obviously, it failed to realize General Babangida's solemn vow that his own coup would be the last in Nigerian history. A thorough understanding of the reasons for these failures is crucial to the future of democracy, not only in Nigeria but throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa-including such other prominent cases of transition failure as Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, and Zairewhere (even though the authoritarian regimes were civilian rather than military) we suspect many of the same causal dynamics were involved.

THE RISE AND FALL OF BABANGIDA'S TRANSITION PROGRAM

Nigeria's previous attempts at democratic government, one under parliamentary rule following independence from Britain in 1960, the other a presidential system inaugurated in 1979, ended in military coups.6 In each case, military intervention was preceded by a broad loss of political legitimacy due to widespread corruption, poor economic performance, electoral fraud, political violence, and rising ethnic and regional conflict deliberately mobilized for political ends. Immediately after seizing power in August 1985 from the repressive and unpopular Buhari-Idiagbon regime, Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Babangida took a number of steps toward political liberalization and promised a program

4 •

Introduction

of political transition. He denounced the harsh repression under Buhari and Idiagbon, repealed of many of their most obnoxious decrees, vowed respect for human rights, released political detainees, and shrewdly launched a freewheeling public debate on the issue of whether to accept (with all its painful conditionality) an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan. This skillful political maneuvering and image of tolerance and responsiveness initially won him wide admiration and respect, even from opponents. At the beginning of 1986, Babangida announced a return to civilian, democratic rule for the year 1990 and appointed a seventeen-member Political Bureau to initiate and lead what he termed the "collective search for a new political order" (see Chapter 3). The result of the report, the "Politburo," as it came to be known, and of the military government's review of it was an extension of the transition program to 1992, in order to permit, in President Babangida's words, "a broadly spaced transition in which democratic government can proceed with political learning, institutional adjustment and re-orientation of political culture, at sequential levels of politics and governance beginning with local government and ending at the federal level." 7 The resulting plan was virtually unprecedented in the annals of democratic transitions in developing countries for its complexity and carefully crafted sequencing. The plan began with the establishment of regulatory commissions, such as the National Electoral Commission (NEC), the convening of a Constituent Assembly (CA), and the holding of (nonpartisan) local government elections in 1987 and 1988. Prior to the 1987 voterregistration exercise, the government sought to settle the years-long mobilization for the creation of new states with the decision to create two new states (Akwa Ibom out of Cross River, and Katsina out of Kaduna) and to bar any further consideration of new states during the transition process. The subsequent four years entailed the return of party politics and the staging of five more elections, with the crucial innovation of phasing in the renewed electoral struggle at successively higher levels of power, culminating with the presidential election and final military withdrawal. These subsequent stages were to be: • • • • • • • • • •

2d quarter, 1989: lifting of the ban on party politics 3d quarter, 1989: recognition of two political parties 4th quarter, 1989: partisan local government elections 1st-2d quarters, 1990: election of state legislatures and governors 3d quarter, 1990: convening of state legislatures 4th quarter, 1990: swearing-in of state governors 1st-3d quarters, 1991: new census 4th quarter, 1991: local government elections 1st-2d quarters, 1992: National Assembly elections and convening 3d-4th quarters, 1992: presidential election and inauguration

Introduction

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5

This timetable was revised four times, first in 1989, then in 1990, after surprise government moves forced delays in the inauguration of parties and the holding of state and federal elections. The third revision-which greatly intensified public cynicism about Babangida's intentions-came in November 1992, when the regime seized on the chaos and rampant fraud in the September presidential primary elections of both parties to disqualify all twenty-three presidential candidates, dissolve the two party executives, and reorganize the entire process again. Presidential elections were deferred from December 1992 to June 1993, and the handover of power was postponed a third time, from 2 January to 8 August 1993. The military regime still seemed resolved to depart voluntarily. Yet even this benefit of the doubt was forfeited by General Babangida's fourth revision-the abrupt annulment of the presidential-election results in June 1993. So dense, twisting, and unexpected was the parade of political developments and supposed milestones during the eight years of transition under the Babangida regime that we have felt the need to provide in an appendix a chronology of key events. The Constituent Assembly submitted its draft constitution to President Babangida in Abuja on 5 April 1989. This submission was somewhat late, and it might have been much later had not the politicians in that body finally realized that the military was prepared to proceed, with or without their constitutional recommendations (Chapter 4). The Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) wasted little time in getting down to work on the draft constitution, "editing" the Assembly's recommendations in a closed-door meeting on 26 April 1989. In his speech on 3 May lifting the ban on party politics, the president also announced the AFRC's final decisions on the constitution, altering some important draft provisions and trusting that the pent-up eagerness of the political class to get on with the business of politics would dampen the public outcry against the AFRC's rather brazen abridgments of the principle of popular sovereignty in constitution making. One of the most important features of the new political framework was a mandatory two-party system, recommended by the Political Bureau (and accepted by the military) as a way of retaining democratic electoral competition while consolidating some of the past chaos of party politics and ensuring that political parties would crosscut and transcend the country's deep, complex, and volatile ethnic and regional cleavages. The period between May and July 1989 saw dozens of political associations canvassing support, but in the end only thirteen met the deadline and the substantial expense required to file a formal application with the National Electoral Commission. Of these, six were ranked by the NEC as having approached the standards for recognition more impressively than the others, but all of them were found wanting. In a stunning speech on 7 October that has come to be known as the "Abuja Declaration," President Babangida announced that the AFRC had rejected all of the political associations and that the military

6

Introduction

government itself would create two new political parties, the Social Democratic Party and the National Republican Convention, one "a little to the left" and the other "a little to the right" (Chapter 7). The transition proceeded with two political parties, their manifestos and constitutions drafted by the government (though synthesized from the documents of the preexisting associations). Despite this jolt to the old politicians and wealthy newcomers who had asserted control over the aspiring parties, and despite the fact that the two new parties were initially administered by government-appointed civil servants, the politicians quickly sorted themselves fairly predictably into the two new parties, which emerged as interesting blends of old cleavages and new faces. During 1990, a succession of party meetings, from the ward through the local government to the state and finally to the national level in July, elected party officers from the ranks and completed the transfer of party control from the government to the largely reemergent political class. The politics of party formation and competition soon revealed the old norms and practices reasserting themselves. This was made clear during the first partisan local government elections, in December 1990, the elections for state assemblies and governors a year later (Chapter 9), and the elections to the National Assembly-the House of Representatives and Senate-in July 1992 (Chapter 10). Though these elections were accepted by the NEC and the political parties as successful, serious issues, particularly concerning the voting system, arose. The open (as opposed to secret) ballot system adopted at these elections reduced to the lowest level ever the number of registered voters that went to the polls. In addition, open queuing behind candidates or their photographs during the voting did not eliminate fraud and abuse. Despite his 1987 undertaking to consider no more new states, on 27 August 1991 Babangida reneged on that promise and created nine more, bringing the total number to thirty, and adding 47 more local government areas. On 23 September, the fragmentation continued with the creation of another 89 additional local government areas, bringing the total to 589 (almost double the 1985 total of 301). These moves, however, did not stop further mobilization for more, as disaffected communities reacted with violence. Sharp conflicts were spawned over the division of existing state assets, and state governments were left much weaker and more impoverished than ever before (Chapters 8 and 14). Concurrent with the political program was a bold and far-reaching Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) begun by the Babangida government in October 1985. Through a sharp devaluation of the exchange rate, cutbacks in petroleum and other consumer subsidies, decreases in government spending and employment, and elimination of import licensing and controls, Babangida sought to open up the economy to competition, to reduce state interference, and to push the country to begin to live within its

Introduction

•

7

means. The leading element of this adjustment program was an effective devaluation of the naira by about two-thirds through the creation of the "Second-Tier Foreign Exchange Market" (SFEM), later unified into a single Foreign Exchange Market (FEM). In addition to reorganizing the economy to stimulate productivity and growth and to reduce corruption and waste, these reforms-which closely followed and in some respects even exceeded the requirements of the international Monetary Fund (although the government, bowing to immense popular resistance, declined to reach a formal agreement with the IMF)-were also aimed at bringing forth new international credit and a generous restructuring of the more than U.S.$20 billion in foreign debt that the civilian regime had left behind as part of its legacy of colossal economic mismanagement (Chapter 13). A shrewd and skillful political tactician, President Babangida succeeded initially in winning popular support for these painful economic measures, which did reduce government deficits and increase agricultural output and exports. However, as austerity measures persisted and proliferated and living standards continued to decline, public patience with SAP waned dramatically. This was evidenced in April 1988, when the government's decision to lift the remaining subsidies on petroleum products, causing modest increases in consumer prices, led to widespread labor and student protests. Popular resentment of SAP was greatly intensified and broadened by the obvious signs of continuing corruption in high places, the blatant lack of accountability in governance, and the authoritarian manner in which economic-reform policies were imposed from above. This public disaffection, volatile and profound, inspired extensive mobilization and occasional outbursts of violent protest on the part of the "popular classes" and organized forces in civil society (Chapter 17). In late May 1989, enraged students took to the streets in a number of southern cities to protest SAP. Three years later, in May 1992, student protest marches over escalating living costs, fuel shortages, and other economic and political grievances were transformed into what Newswatch described as "a carnival of looting and burning. "8 To understand the politics of the transition program, one must appreciate that it was unfolding in the midst of the most profound and prolonged economic depression in Nigeria's three decades of independence. Income from petroleum exports steadily declined to U.S.$6 billion in 1987, from a high of U.S.$26 billion in 1981. It increased to more than U.S.$13 billion in 1990 but fell back to slightly more than U.S.$10 billion in 1991. Despite eight years of structural adjustment aimed at diversifying the economy, a single primary commodity with volatile prices on world marketsoil-continued to account for 96 percent of export earnings. And, despite years of austere fiscal management, foreign debt grew under military rule from about U.S.$20 billion to well more than U.S.$30 billion and stood at

8

Introduction

about U.S.$31 billion in 1992, exceeding the annual gross national product (GNP) of the country.9 Per capita income fell from U.S.$800 in 1985 to U.S.$380 in 1987. By mid-1992, it was estimated to have plunged to U.S.$320. The naira continued its descent in the newly unified foreign exchange market, from an exchange rate of roughly four to five naira to the U.S. dollar in 1987 to more than eighteen in 1992 and roughly thirty by mid-1993 (with even less value on the parallel market). As the purchasing power of the naira relentlessly declined, the salaried middle class was plunged back to subsistence living. The top professorial salary of :N: 27,000 (27 ,000 naira), worth roughly U.S.$30,000 at the official exchange rate when Babangida assumed power in 1985, sank to less than U.S.$1,500 in value by 1991. Even with the huge increases in salary and benefits announced in 1992, a typical professor's remuneration was worth less than U.S.$3,000. Civil servants suffered similarly. From their heady gains of the oil-boom era, workers fell back to earning the equivalent of a few hundred U.S.dollars a year, with prices of basic commodities much higher. Annual inflation rose as high as 40 percent. With fiscal restraints preventing the government from raising salaries and wages sufficiently to recover the lost consumption power, workers became restive and salaried professionals-doctors, engineers, pilots, professors, etc.-left the country in large numbers. The universities became so stripped of faculty, library resources, technical equipment, and even such basic materials as paper, chalk, and exam books that many departments could barely function and higher education in general virtually collapsed. Nigerians who were not rich (especially the politically strategic middle classes) saw their hopes-of cars, refrigerators, and other consumer durables, foreign travel and education, and anything else requiring foreign exchange-evaporate, and the lower classes suffered serious deprivation. On most university campuses, students lived in appalling conditions, grossly overcrowded and undersupplied. The increasing depravity and hopelessness of their own immediate situation fueled the deepening alienation and rage of the students, traditionally the most politically volatile group in the country as well as one of the most articulate. More generally, the cities in Nigeria, as in most Third World countries, were the primary site of potential unrest, and it was there that the economic pain and deterioration were most wrenching. Since urban residents cannot grow their own food and are more dependent on the cash economy, they were most affected by the rising prices, especially of food and fuel. At the same time, services and infrastructure continued to deteriorate. All this while ruling military officers (and their political and business cronies) grew visibly rich and rumors circulated of their stupendous wealth. Economic hardship, political duplicity, and gross misgovernance wore thin and ultimately obliterated the enormous popularity, hope, and good

Introduction

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9

will with which General Babangida began his tenure in office. Lacking the resources to co-opt all sources of opposition, the Babangida regime turned increasingly to coercion and intimidation through a growing apparatus of state repression (led by the feared State Security Service [SSS]). The arbitrary arrests, detentions, and harassment, which fell heavily on the press, trade unions, students associations, human-rights advocates, and other independent interests in civil society, heightened political and social tension while contradicting the self-proclaimed liberal intentions and democratizing goals of the regime (Chapters 15 and 20). In the final months of the Transition Program, and above all in the shocked, sullen interlude following Babangida's brusque annulment of the presidential election, the crisis of confidence became so bad that, despite the announcement at every available opportunity that the administration would hand over power on 27 August 1993, the overwhelming majority of Nigerians did not believe it. Even after the government inserted paid advertisements into most newspapers reiterating that it would indeed hand over power on the appointed date, the Nigerians still did not believe it. It was widely told and retold how, toward the end of its life, if the Babangida administration said it was morning rather than afternoon or evening, the first thing Nigerians would do would be to look at their watches to check. As Obasanjo put it, "It has now got to a stage that when government says good morning, people will look out four times to ascertain the time of the day before they reply."IO Yet long before that perilous political void of June to August 1993 (Chapter 12), biting questions were being raised, at first privately and then more and more publicly, about the likely legacy of the Babangida administration. Among the most prominent and respected critics was Anthony Enahoro, who in 1953 moved the first independence motion for Nigeria. In a stinging denunciation in March 1992, he asked what policies and programs the Babangida administration wanted to hand over to its successor: Is it Structural Adjustment Program and their economic policies which have proved so disastrous to the naira and to the common people of Nigeria? Is it budgetaty actions, which have outraged even former military leaders like General Olusegun Obasanjo and General Alani Akinrinade? Is it their fiscal management which has left the new civilian state governors with empty treasuries or their theatrical largesse which together have made our pleas for debt relief a sick joke around the financial capitals of the world? Is it their record of unemployment which has resulted in the closure of factories up and down the land and in mounting numbers of beggars in the streets? Is it their social policies which have produced a sharp decline in educational and moral standards not to mention an explosion in corruption and religious conflicts? Is it to the deification of wealth, with no obvious source of its sudden appearance? Is it in its attitude to "open government" when you and I do not know who lifts Nigeria's oil which is the country's major source of income? Is it in the promotion of

10

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Introduction

a free wheeling society where no questions are asked, so long as the end and the means coincide?! I

Segun Osoba, a social historian formerly at the Obafemi Awolowo University, went so far as to label Babangida the "one leader that has inflicted the greatest suffering on the Nigerian people." 12 For General Danjuma, corruption in Nigeria had become "so abrasive, so flagrant and pervasive that it is frightening."I3 Although the nation (or, more precisely, the political class) was divided over the whether the results of the 12 June presidential election should be honored, there was broad agreement by summer 1993 that General Babangida's political maneuvers had exhausted themselves, that his credibility was destroyed, and that he (and the military) had to go. After ten weeks of mounting confusion at home, where the specter of another civil war reemerged, and a deepening concern abroad, when Nigeria's ambassadors were lectured to and aid programs were trimmed, General Babangida finally acknowledged the scale of his miscalculation of Nigerians' reaction and of the world's response to his authoritarian cancellation of the election. On 26 August 1993, he finally did what many Nigerians were by then convinced he would never do: voluntarily surrender the presidency. However, he handed over power not to the legitimate victor of the 12 June election but to an interim government in which the military loomed large and the public had little confidence. Another ten weeks later, that flimsy framework was easily overturned by General Abacha's coup.

EXPLAINING THE FAILURE OF THE TRANSITION

From the chapters that follow, the reader will glean a number of reasons for the failure of Nigeria's democratic transition. These explanations and interpretations will be of interest to Nigerians, Nigerianists, and comparativists alike. Most strikingly, in contrast to the successful transitions in southern Europe, Latin America, and several African countries (such as Benin, Zambia, South Africa, and Malawi), Nigerian pro-democracy forces in politics and society were never able to overcome their multiple, deep divisions to forge a broad opposition coalition that could confront, pressure, and negotiate with-or topple-the regime. As a group, the politicians of the emergent Third Republic were highly fragmented and opportunistic, lacking in broad popular support, only weakly committed (at best) to democracy as a principle, and fixed on extremely short time horizons. Unable to forge any solidarity or negotiate any lasting understandings among themselves in dealing with the military regime, they proved patently incapable of resisting the regime's constant manipulations and extensions of the transition process. And the military itself had become so corrupt that

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11

it lacked a strong reformist element working to maintain the integrity of the transition process. Nor was civil society able to mobilize the breadth and intensity of popular pressure for democratization-particularly the linkages with civilian political-party leaders and organization that had proved so potent in Benin, South Africa, Zambia, and Malawi as well as in Brazil, Chile, Poland, the Philippines, and numerous other transitions during the third wave. In contrast to many of these cases, profound religious divisions in Nigeria (not only between Islam and Christianity but, as we see in Chapters 18 and 19, also within these broad faiths) prevented the church (or the mosque) from providing the moral inspiration and unifying energy that did so much to congeal pro-democracy forces and delegitimate authoritarian rule in many of the successful democratic transitions. Ethnic and regional cleavages also limited the reach and mobilizational capacity of even the most committed pro-democracy actors in civil society, the human-rights organizations. Like the parties and politicians, civil society generally was also highly factionalized, fragmented, and permeable, and for the same reason: the pervasiveness of corruption and clientelism as the most powerful organizing principles in political and social life. In explaining the failure of the democratic transition, Peter Lewis emphasizes these enormous handicaps in both politics and civil society. He concludes that the mutual disaffection among the political class and civil society served to alienate the potential democratic leadership from their potential organizational and popular base. The parties had no mass following committed to democratic principles, whilst activist associations and professionals lacked a set of candidates or institutions which could galvanize a democratization strategy. In consequence a small, easily marginalized segment of the middle class championed the democratic cause, while the political elite retreated, bargained for power, or purveyed their cooperation. Between a weak civil society and a coopted political class, there was scant room for democratic beginnings. 14

Having built his career in the military and risen to power precisely through mastering the practices of corruption and clientelism, General Babangida understood all too well their driving force in Nigerian society, and he played on and accentuated them relentlessly during his eight years in power. Thus, through prodigious dispensations of offices, favors, contracts, and cash, he was repeatedly able to co-opt or neutralize key potential sources of opposition in politics and society as well as the military. At the same time, the general was also a thorough enough student of Machiavelli (wittingly or not) to appreciate the need to exercise raw power when subtler methods failed. In this way, he was also repeatedly able to eliminate (in many instances, literally) challengers and opponents within the military ranks. Although the military remained during his years a cauldron

12

Introduction

of factional intrigues and divisions, General Babangida not only maintained but dramatically strengthened his personal dominance of it (until his will and credibility broadly collapsed in the final days). Thus, the military never divided along political lines: "reformist" officers more favorable to democratic transition were either forced out or effectively marginalized. For all the above reasons, the theoretical framework of the "transition game" derived from the study of southern European and Latin American transitions does not suit well the Nigerian experience. As we have already implied, divisions within the opposition were more along ethnic, regional, and (personalistic) factional lines than the ideological or even seriously reflective tactical lines that divided "moderates" from "radicals" or "extremists" in the opposition movements in southern Europe, Latin America, and even parts of Asia and Eastern Europe. Within the military government as well, the division between "reformers" (committed to democratization, or at least sustained political liberalization) and "hard-liners" or "standpatters" does not adequately capture the nature of the game that was being played, although it may have represented a secondary cleavage.I5 Thus, the military government in Nigeria was led by a "standpatter" disguised as a reformer, who lacked or neutralized serious democratizing pressure from within the military (and indeed faced quite vigorous hardliner sentiment from officers not eager to surrender the fruits of power). And the opposition was composed mainly not of democrats (moderate or radical) but of power seekers quite open to achieving their personal aims by nondemocratic means. Thus did the politicians repeatedly play into the hands of the military standpatters, as many of our chapters note, by discrediting themselves through their electoral misconduct and corruption and by going along with each new twist in the military's game, often in exchange for handsome immediate rewards as well as the promise of future power. The ultimate manifestations of the fragility of civilian pro-democracy forces were the splintering of the political class in the aftermath of the June 1993 election annulment (see Chapter 12) and, then, the headlong race of civilian politicians from almost every faction into General Abacha's cabinet following his November 1993 coup (Chapter 21). In such circumstances, the theoretical logic of a democratizing "pact" between authoritarian government and democratic "opposition," or between divided forces in the opposition-not to mention the prospect of a democratic movement mobilizing the power to displace or, in part through negotiations, "transplace" (in Huntington's term), 16 the authoritarian regime-appears far-fetched in the extreme. As Larry Diamond explains in his concluding chapter, the reasons for the failure of the transition to the Third Republic are linked profoundly to the character of Nigerian politics, society, and culture as they have evolved through and accounted for the two previous failed republics. From a fragmented and hierarchical social structure-organized through vertical

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13

chains of patron-client relations with only the faintest presence of horizontal networks of civic engagement and cooperation-has arisen a deeply entrenched culture of self-interest, exploitation, cynicism, and distrust, lacking any real commitment to the larger political community. What has taken root in this forbidding cultural soil has not been democratic politics-which require some minimum of trust, cooperation, reciprocity, and accommodation-but rather an utterly amoral and self-seeking approach to politics and the state, in which governance has been trumped by corruption, and democracy, by political fraud, bribery, and violence. The elements of this causal chain have been viciously self-reinforcing. As corruption flourished (particularly after the first and second oil booms), the state became more and more preeminent as the chief instrument for obtaining both development resources and personal wealth. As the premium on state power became ever more enormous, the contest for control of it (by electoral and other means) became ever more intense, to the point where rules became meaningless and the country descended into pure praetorianisman institutional vacuum in which politics is dominated by the use and pursuit of raw political power. If a transition to democracy is ever to be achieved and sustained in Nigeria, a deeper transition must somehow be effected: from prebendalism and praetorianism to real institutionalism, where legal and constitutional rules function with some effectiveness to constrain behavior. This will require not simply wise and imaginative institutional designs (of which Nigerians have shown themselves impressively capable at times), but powerful forces and agencies to enforce them. Plainly, such a task is well beyond the capacity of Nigeria's now battered, politicized, and corrupted judiciary, though it will depend in part on the degree both of institutional rejuvenation of the judiciary and of the vigor and autonomy of a Code of Conduct apparatus. Ultimately, the battle against corruption, lawlessness, and misgovernance will depend heavily on forces beyond the state, both below it, in civil society, and outside it, in the international community of agencies and governments on which Nigeria remains dependent for credit, trade, and the respect in world affairs it still craves. Real progress toward democracy in Nigeria will require a creative democratic partnership from both below and outside. But, even then, it will not happen without some presence of the variable that has been so instrumental (and often so inadequately appreciated) in many other democratic transitions: political leadership seriously committed to democratic change. From the chapters that follow, no factor appears more glaring in its absence-and more tragic in the costs imposed by that absence. Only in a few weak and weary but truly civic organizations in civil society has such leadership clearly appeared. And thus we suspect that only with a tremendous invigoration (and democratization) of civil society will more democratic political leadership have any real chance of rising to the forefront of Nigerian politics.

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Introduction

AN OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

The focus of our study is on the program and politics of military transition to civilian rule. Thus, although some of the chapters deal with the preceding military regime of Buhari and Idiagbon that followed the collapse of the Second Republic, the Babangida administration (27 August 1985-26 August 1993) and the brief political void that followed until the 17 November 1993 coup comprise the time frame of our study. Because of limitations of space, we have eschewed the idea of including a narrative chapter on Nigerian politics since 1960-the First Republic, the civil war, the military administrations of Ironsi, Gowon, Mohammed, and Obasanjo, the Second Republic, and the Buhari-Idiagbon regime. The literature on this first quarter-century of Nigeria's political history is by now extensive and often excellent.17 As editors, we are aware-and accept-that a number of landmark events are alluded to by more than one author: it would be superhuman to the point of meaningless if one were to try to write about anything to do with Nigeria's Transition Program without mentioning, for instance, the Political Bureau Report, the creation of two parties and additional states, or the integral series of elections spread across so many months. Thus, while we have tried to avoid excessive overlap between chapters, the reader will find a number of cross-references to events as well as to other chapters. Our book is divided into four parts. Part I examines the design and implementation of the transition, with a particular focus on the early institutional steps and the pervasive, continuing military control over the process. Anthony Kirk-Greene opens Part I with our one more deeply historical treatment: an analysis and interpretation of seventy years of constitution making in Nigeria, from the 1922 to the 1989 (1992) constitution. He develops the concept of constitutions designed as "reward," largely the colonial ones that sought to grant yet still control the pace of political advance, and those of "remedy," which-particularly in the postindependence period-set out to correct the perceived weaknesses of the previous constitution, which, in 1966 and 1983, had been suspended by an interventionist military government. He argues that remedial constitutions, like medication, may have unanticipated side effects, curing one defect but stimulating another malady, and reminds us that many of Nigeria's most influential decisions have been made not by constitutional provision but by administrative decision. As for the milestone 1989 constitution, KirkGreene maintains that it could not, any more than its predecessors, be expected to cope with arguably the most urgent of the problems of Nigerian governance; the proper role and control of the military. What is required, given Nigeria's record of six colonial constitutions in thirty-eight years and three postindependence ones (which have been fully operative for only about ten of Nigeria's thirty-seven years of independence), is less constitution making and greater constitutionalism.

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Chapter 2, by Bayo Adekanye, examines how the structure, interests, and behavior of the military shaped both the transition and its political legacy for democracy. Adekanye principally concentrates on, first, the "character" of the military as government; next, the management of the military qua military, together with an explanation of Babangida's evolutionary formalization of a role conception of the military; and finally the dynamics of conflict within the military elite, including Babangida's successive strategies for staying in power behind the facade of a programmed return to civilian rule-his "maradonic" tactics. Adekanye rightly underscores the sinisterly deepening role of military intelligence and the state security apparatus, still one of the under-studied aspects of the military as government. In purely military terms, he concedes that Babangida achieved more than any other Nigerian head of state since the civil war in terms of reducing the bloated size of Nigeria's armed forces and reorganizing them for greater efficiency. However, these positive legacies were greatly outweighed by the lasting damage he did-through his massive corruption, personalization of power, constant command reshuffles, and manipulation of ethnicity-to the professionalism and coherence of the military as an institution. In Chapter 3, Oyeleye Oyediran examines the deliberations. report, and extensive recommendations of the 1986-1987 Political Bureau, chaired by Dr. Samuel J. Cookey. One of the real landmarks in the analysis of Nigeria's political history from its colonial origin, the Political Bureau Report also constituted the basic outline for the political transition program and the new constitutional structure-though not, Oyediran notes, without some crucial interventions, modifications, and reversals on the part of the military government. Indeed, we see already in this first stage of the transition process the political deceit and manipulation from the top-what Oyediran calls "the unfolding of the 'hidden agena'"-that would ultimately undermine the whole undertaking. The fact that Oyediran was himself a member of the Political Bureau enables him to reveal a number of insights into the tensions, disagreements, and disappointments that from time to time characterized the committee's deliberations and proposals. The pivotal and sensitive role in the transition of the Political Bureau's report was vividly underscored when the government impounded the 13 April 1987 issue of N ewswatch magazine, which quoted extensive verbatim excerpts from the as yet unpublished report (erroneously dated March 1986 but not printed and released until September 1987) and then punished the magazine by ordering it closed for six months. A lot of mileage remains in a side-by-side comparison of the provisions of the report and the eventual constitution. Chapter 4 offers a close anatomy by Rafiu Akindele of the critical role of the Constituent Assembly. Established in April 1988 and convened in June, the CA's assignment was to recommend a new constitution and chart the way ahead to the Third Republic. Akindele examines how it proceeded

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Introduction

in the midst of General Babangida's exclusion of certain "no-go" areas from its remit-such as federalism, state creation, and religion-and how, as with its 1978 counterpart, its year-long existence nearly ended in disaster. He argues that, although aware that its primary responsibility was to prescribe a constitutional solution to Nigeria's fundamentally political problems, the CA was nevertheless conscious of its secondary role as a forum for intensive debate on the problems confronting and confusing Nigerian society. It thus adopted, in Akindele 's judgment, "postures of visionary realism." To this extent, Akindele finds it unsurprising that, in 1988 as in 1978, the North-South and Christian-Muslim divides, that "conspicuous reality on Nigeria's political landscape," once again threatened to topple the nation's political edifice. Finally, he highlights the window for clandestine wheeling and dealing, bargains and trade-offs, at a time when partisan political activity was still banned, that was opened for the new political aspirants by the convening of this CA, in the corridors as effectively, if less publicly, as in the chamber. Acknowledged or disowned, the political shaping of the Third Republic was already well under way when the CA adjourned. One of the most vital functions of the transition was the administration and supervision of the whole electoral process. This was the responsibility of the National Electoral Commission, whose operation up to 1988 is scrupulously examined in Chapter 5 by Erne Awa, the chairman of the NEC during this period. Starting from how the predecessor Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) was blamed for lapses, more those of internal management than of public performance, during its electoral role in the 1979 party elections, Awa goes on to examine the NEC 's responsibilities to and relations with the military from its establishment in 1987 through the local government elections of the same year. He highlights the huge resources required to organize and administer these elections, from the voter-registration process to the need for re-runs in areas such as Lagos State and Onitsha local government in 1988. Awa is frank about the campaign mounted for his removal. Temporarily, he "survived" and supervised the elections into the CA later in the year. Ultimately, however, his unbending independence led to his removal as NEC chairman. In reflecting on his NEC experience, Awa criticizes the overvaluation of materialism against high morality among Nigeria's elites and "the consequent strengthening of ethno/religious interests." In Chapter 6, Adigun Agbaje analyzes the largely unsuccessful implementation of one of the principal planks of Babangida's Transition Program, the mobilization for a new political culture. First, he considers the instruments of the military's "Mobilization by Design," the Directorate for Social Mobilization and its coordination of the grandiosely titled Campaign for the Mass Mobilization for Social Justice, Self-Reliance and Economic Recovery (MAMSER). After its creation in 1987, the directorate

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17

extended its campaign beyond the parameter of MAMSER to the areas of political education and mass education as well as special mobilization packages for the armed forces, the police, and the public service. Then he considers the regime's "Mobilization by Default," the changes in political culture not intentionally engineered yet nevertheless generated by MAMSER and its linked programs. In lamenting the focus of these programs on mass political culture, ignoring Nigeria's urgent need for reforming its elite political culture, Agbaje concludes that while the programs had some effect on public enlightenment and mass literacy, the development of democratic values will ultimately depend on the development and empowerment of autonomous associationallife (see Chapter 17) rather than on dirigiste action by the state and its managers. Part II is devoted to party politics and electoral competition during the transition. In Chapter 7, Babafemi Badejo traces the emergence of political alliances and associations in (and even prior to) the Constituent Assembly and, then, the competition for official recognition beginning in May 1989 among the thirteen emergent political parties that lasted until their brusque dissolution by Babangida, in October 1989, and their replacement by two military-generated political parties, the NRC and the SDP. Next, he examines the formation, the manifestos, and the internal politics and maneuverings of the two government-created parties as they began to compete for state office. Badejo observes the weakness of party programs and issues in relation to the aspirations of various nouveau-riche individuals among the gubernatorial and presidential candidates as well as the role of sectional cleavages in creating intraparty divisions. However, he criticizes the practice of regionally distributing party offices and nominations through "zoning," because it "sacrifices national merit for an institutionalized sectional merit" while still generating ethnic or sub-ethnic conflict within a "zone." His account of the struggles among regional blocs within each party to position themselves early on for the presidential nomination is telling, and it provides insights into the political divisions that would later rip the fabric of the Third Republic even before it was fully woven. Oyeleye Oyediran takes over from the closing pages of Badejo's chapter, analyzing in Chapter 8 the reorganization of local government, Babangida's "Third Tier," under the Transition Program. He considers such reforms as the creation of more local government areas, measuring the strength of the local government autonomy, the structural and institutional innovations, the quality of local government staff, and the December 1987 nonpartisan elections into local government councils as the first electoral steps to the Third Republic. While commending most of the intentions of the Political Bureau for this critical level of government, Oyediran is critical of the military's arbitrary implementation-at times, a rationalized reversal-of some of them, as well as the military's authoritarian dissolution

18

Introduction

of all elected local governments in July 1989. He also decries the pervasive decay and corruption in the performance of local government during the last few years of the Babangida regime as well as the irresponsible doubling of the number of local government areas, which served to deepened their financial distress. Proceeding chronologically, Chapter 9, by Dan Agbese and Etim Anim, advances the focus of electoral activity to 1991, when the state legislative and gubernatorial elections were held. Disappointing to some but not unexpected by many, the state election results showed little enthusiasm for reversing the political patterns of Nigeria's past, with the Hausa-Fulani states voting for the NRC and the Yoruba and former midwest states preferring the more left policies of the SDP. This time, the old eastern states forsook their leftward inclination of 1979 and leaned more toward the NRC, "a little to right." Thus (with a few anomalies due to intraparty divisions, which plagued the SDP in Lagos and Kano states), the NRC won sixteen governorships against the SDP's fourteen, while the SDP amassed 629 seats to the NRC's 543 in the State Houses of Assembly elections (maintaining the advantage it had established in the 1990 local government elections). There was, the authors comment, nothing in the 1991 elections to upset the forecast of political analysts that neither the NRC nor the SDP was strong enough to sweep the entire country. The SDP edge was maintained in the similarly competitive National Assembly elections of July 1992, which are analyzed in Chapter 10 by Eghosa Osaghae. As Osaghae notes, these elections suffered from a number of obstacles deriving from the context of uncertainty surrounding the transition process, its rules, and its timetable (as well as the financial and other hurdles in the way of candidacy). Still, more than two thousand candidates contested in the party primaries for the 91 Senate seats and 593 House of Representatives seats. Despite occasional problems of violence, bitter intraparty factional disputes in many states, limited time for campaigning before the 4 July voting, and the general unpreparedness of losers to accept defeat, the results again largely followed predictable patterns and were less controversial than many previous election outcomes. The SDP confirmed the political advantage it had previously established in the local and state elections, winning majorities in both houses of the National Assembly. However, while the two parties sustained the electoral dominance their predecessors (loosely speaking) from the first two republics had enjoyed in the largely Yoruba "west" (SDP) and the core Hausa/Fulani states (NRC), the north-south cleavage was "melted" by the results, which showed the SDP winning more Senate seats than the NRC in the north overall. As Bola Akinterinwa shows in Chapter 11, this "melting" or cross-cutting of the longstanding north-south divide occurred even more dramatically in the 12 June 1993 presidential election. In that historic contest-no

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19

doubt destined to be a landmark event in Nigerian political history-the southern, Yoruba (albeit Muslim) presidential candidate of the SDP, Mashood K. 0. Abiola, bested the northern Muslim candidate of the NRC, Bashir Tofa, in a number of the northern states, including the latter's home state of Kano. He also won overwhelmingly in the western states and fought the NRC nearly to a draw in the Igbo states (even though his opponent had an Igbo running mate and he did not). In an absorbing account of this most crucial event in the transition, Akinterinwa traces the tension, controversies, and confusion that plagued the presidential-election contest from its first false start in August 1992; describes the nominating and campaign processes that led up to 12 June; and reports and analyzes the results (which had been leaked to the press even though they were never officially released). The voting on election day was the most peaceful, free, and fair of any major election in Nigerian postindependence history, Akinterinwa contends (reflecting the preponderance of Nigerian opinion), yet the military nevertheless annulled the election. Akinterinwa advances a number of explanations for this occurrence that involve the military's lack of democratic commitment from the very start-a lack that, he argues, was generally paralleled among politicians as well-and he poses the fundamental "national question": whether elites in the north, who have controlled the federal government for most of Nigeria's postindependence history, would allow power to rotate south. Chapter 12 follows the political crisis generated by the annulment of the 12 June election to its "pathetic denouement" in the 17 November 1993 military coup. Here in Rotimi Suberu's account, for the first time in our study, we observe the international community trying explicitly to influence the transition process with the imposition of sanctions against the military regime. We witness as well the intense mobilization of civil society against the annulment. Yet, as Suberu shows convincingly, the regional and political divisions that contributed to the presidential-election crisis also prevented its resolution. Political and civil-society protest was concentrated in the southwest, and the old factional divisions within the SDP resurfaced with a vengeance, as the Yar'adua faction of the party readily acceded to the annulment in exchange for another chance to win the top prize. Open splits surfaced also in the military, but with the hard-line elements clearly predominant. Thus, even when Babangida was forced to yield to the compromise solutiop of a (superficially civilian) Interim National Government, the military remained in control. In his analysis of "the frantic search for a post-Babangida framework," Suberu shows how political opportunism, fragmentation, and "sectionalization" among the civilian politicians obstructed any political consensus and paved the way for a third abortion of the democratic process in Nigeria. Part III is given over to a study of selected problems and dimensions of governance. The overriding problem of governance during the transition

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Introduction

was management and reform of the crisis-ridden economy. The initiation in 1986, evolution, erosion, and finally (in early 1994, under General Abacha) abandonment of the Structural Adjustment Program are traced by Thomas Biersteker and Peter M. Lewis in Chapter 13. They consider the relationship of the economic-reform program to the unfolding democratic transition, partly in light of recent theoretical debates over the compatibility of political and economic liberalization. Also, they show that, in the early years of the regime, SAP and the political-transition program were mutually compatible, and were kept compatible in part through Babandiga's adroit politics. By 1988, however, the adjustment program began to waver, and the regime utilized repression and patronage to keep its policies nominally on course. After 1990, steps to maintain or expand economic liberalization were offset by increasingly reckless macroeconomic management, and the resulting economic disarray fueled discord in the political program. This period-in the wake of the abortive 22 April 1990 coup and the fortuitous oil "mini-boom" following the Gulf crisis-saw a clear contradiction emerge between political and economic reform. During the final years of the Babangida regime, these contradictions deepened, giving rise to a downward spiral of failed reform, increasing repression, and escalating use of patronage to buy off key elites. In the end, show Biersteker and Lewis, Babangida's reliance on authoritarian and corrupt methods proved incompatible with both economic recovery and political opening. The pivotal issue of ethnicity and how it interacts with Nigeria's constantly changing federal structure is addressed by Daniel Bach in Chapter 14. For Bach, one of the most ambivalent yet critical areas of the 1989 constitution lies in the contradictions and shortcomings inherent in its definition of "state of origin," or what he terms "indigeneity," in so far as it affects the whole Nigerian state-building process. His concern is centered on Nigeria's attempts at promoting equitable access to state resources-arguably the most compelling force to be accommodated on the Nigerian political scene-through statutory codification and consociational engineering. He also points out what he believes to be the pitfalls of the now intrinsic doctrine of Nigeria's "federal character." Bach concludes that, far from being of the marginal significance that some critics ascribe to it, the interaction between ethnicity and state of origin will shape the very paradigm of a consolidation of the Nigerian state through what he describes as a process of "recessive integration." In Chapter 15, Clement Nwankwo gives a concise but chilling analysis of countless edicts and decrees promulgated by the military since 1984 that decimated the rule of law. He roundly denounces the unconstitutionality and intrinsic unfairness of military tribunals (which the civilian minister of justice naively-or disingenuously-rationalized as being "cheaper and faster") and cites numerous instances of the denial of due process,

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21

violations of political rights, and abuses of press freedom and human rights, above all through the state security apparatus and detention decree. He concludes that during the transition the whole legal system greatly deteriorated, as the Babangida regime abused and actively manipulated the judiciary. For Nwankwo, because the military's legacy on the judicial front will remain a threat to the realization of the concept of judicial independence, a huge responsibility rests on the work of both nongovernmental human-rights organizations such as the Civil Liberties Organization (and Nwankwo's own Constitutional Rights Project) and of professional bodies like the Bar Association. After a summary of the Civil Service Reforms of the Udoji Commission and the impact of the Murtala Mohammed purge during the 1970s, Ladipo Adamolekun concentrates in Chapter 16 on the scope and impact of the far-reaching reorganization introduced following the 1988 Civil Service Reforms with the Phillips report. He considers the damage done to the traditional concept of a career civil service and concludes that one of the failures of the 1988 reforms is the absence of a redefinition or rehabilitation of such a cherished concept, and he puts forward his own suggestions on this issue. While stating his agreement with the Phillips study group's simultaneous emphasis on the politicization and professionalization of Nigeria's vast civil service, Adamolekun closes with a series of suggestions on how the reforms could be made more sustainable during what he foresees as a continuing decade of political instability. Administrative reform in Nigeria is an unfinished business. Part IV steps outside the formal arenas of state and party politics to examine civil society in the transition. Civil society has been one of the notable landmarks in the study of African politics and democratization over the last decade .IS In Chapter 17, Adebayo Olukoshi examines the expansion and heightened activism of associational life during the transition. though he is at pains to point out that in the Nigerian case the impetus for this projection of civil society onto the political scene came not simply from the conventional stance against military authoritarianism but from the introduction in 1986 of an IMF/World Bank structural adjustment program. In the view of Olukoshi (and many other Nigerian social scientists), the pain and suffering imposed by this SAP provided the most important stimulus for the massive pro-democracy mobilization of new associations and the reorientation of old ones (though he excludes the original ethnic "improvement" associations and their community-development successors in Lagos and the south from his remit). Among the civil-society organizations whose activities and fortunes he examines are the National Association of Nigerian Students and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Nigerian Union of Journalists, the Association of Trial Lawyers of Nigeria, the Nigerian Medical Association and the National Association of Resident Doctors (both virtually unknown before 1984/1985), the Nigeria

22

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Introduction

Labor Congress, Women in Nigeria, and the human-rights organizations such as the Civil Liberties Organization and the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights. These and similar organizations, he concludes, succeeded in increasing awareness of civil liberties and democratic concerns in Nigerian society and did constrain the state at least somewhat in the exercise of arbitrary power. Human-rights groups also won the release of many innocent people. Yet, in return for modest democratic gains, these civil-society organizations and their leaders suffered continuous harassment, proscription, and detention themselves. The courage and resourcefulness of civil society, Olukoshi maintains, contrasts strikingly with the opportunism of political society. Yet, without greater democratic commitment on the part of the latter as well as a more truly national reach on the part of the former, democracy will continue to face formidable obstacles in Nigeria. We next move to a pair of complementary chapters on what many observers considered the most dangerous social threat to the future stability of democracy, or to any form of political order in Nigeria: the relationship between religion and politics (the state). While not simply a by-product or reproduction of earlier polarization between north and south, the Islamic/Christian cleavage did rise to national salience during the political transition, with distinctive conflicts and perspectives that, in our view, called for an interpretive view both from the South (Chapter 18), with its minority of, but numerous, followers of Islam, as well as a companion view from the North (Chapter 19), with its minority but sizeable number of adherents to Christianity. The other chapter (18) by Rotimi Suberu examines how religious conflict has evolved in the South, and how secular as well as religious interests in the region have perceived it, since January 1986, when the government's controversial membership in the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) was announced and, simultaneously, the Political Bureau was appointed to coordinate a debate on the structure and needs of a Third Republic, including the matter of religion. Suberu stresses that, for all the sectarian convulsions in the North and the importance of religious controversy in the South, political polarization on a religious basis at the national level is a comparatively recent phenomenon. For Suberu, the predominant feature of southern Christians has been a positive commitment to the secularity of the Nigerian state. However, they perceive official support for Islam as operating to advance the political interests of the HausaFulani-not a Pan-Nigerian Islamic-elite. Hence, a central part of his chapter is devoted to Muslims and their assessment of religious coexistence in Yorubaland. Finally, Suberu does not overlook the fact that, given the complexity of such a shorthand concept as the South, the continuing impact of the Church on politics in Eastern Nigeria, particularly among the largely Catholic Ibo, remains very much a part of Nigeria's religious question.

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23

After a reconstruction of the recrudescence of the religious question in Nigerian politics, which he dates to the Shari'a controversy of April 1978 and which nearly undid the Second Republic before it had even come into being, Omar Farouk Ibrahim briefly considers in Chapter 19 such religious disturbances as the continual eruption of campus violence at Kano, at Zaria, and then at Kaduna and Kafanchan in 1987. Ibrahim makes it clear, however, that religious conflict within the North has not only been interreligious but has also frequently involved sectarian differences, such as the Maitatsine fundamentalism or the longer-standing intolerance between the Izala and Tarigah brotherhoods. His explanation, both social and economic, of such earlier interreligious conflicts as the Kano metropolitan affair of 1982 and the Bauchi outbreak of 1991, is particularly insightful. For Ibrahim, Babangida's handling of the controversy over the OIC in 1986 polarized the nation along religious lines to the same extreme as the Shari'a controversy. He concludes with a number of suggestions for managing religious conflict, boldly questioning the post1966 belief among Nigerians that the center cannot be too strong. For Ibrahim, it can. Chapter 20 closes Part IV with an analysis of a crucial and too often neglected actor in civil society: the press. Taking first a historical perspective, Tunji Dare notes how the press in Nigeria has historically resisted colonial and then authoritarian military rule but also too often has slavishly served blatantly partisan interests. Even leaving aside the numerous daily newspapers owned by the federal and state governments (which also have a monopoly over the electronic media), the independent newspapers have historically been owned by powerful political party sponsors, and most publications have hardly been paragons of tolerance, fairness, or integrity in their treatment of political opponents. Still, the press has also been a vital force for accountability and individual liberty. During the Babangida years, its pluralism blossomed, with the establishment of a number of fiercely independent news weeklies in particular, and its independence brought it frequently into confrontation with and repression by the military regime. Not surprisingly, Dare, who served for many years in high-level editorial positions with the Lagos-based Guardian newspaper group, gives particular attention to the Guardian's vigilance in monitoring and forthrightness in criticizing the transition process as it began to go sour. In our view, however, this focus (and indeed our choice of Dare to contribute) is not unjustified, given the widely acknowledged quality of that daily newspaper, which reflects a new, more serious, autonomous, and mature generation of Nigerian journalism. The growth in journalistic pluralism, sophistication, and energy-as well as courage and tenacity in the face of daunting political and economic obstacles-represents an important part of Nigeria's transition story-and a real if slender thread of hope for the future of Nigerian democracy.

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Introduction NOTES

1. For a wide-ranging analysis of the failure of democratic transition in Nigeria and the dilemmas confronting Nigeria's ongoing quest for democracy, see the essays in Paul Beckett and Crawford Young, eds., Dilemmas of Democracy in Nigeria (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1997). Although we have not had an opportunity to draw upon the rich insights of this collection in the preparation of our own book volume, the two works arrive at many similar interpretations, not least in their related concepts of "permanent transition" and "transition without end." 2. We use the term prebendal ism as it was applied by Richard Joseph (following from Max Weber) to societies like Nigeria where state offices are systematically "competed for and then utilized for the personal benefit of office holders as well as of their reference or support group." Richard A. Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 6. For conceptual elaboration of the phenomenon and its intimate, mutually reinforcing relationship to clientelism, see especially pp. 55-68. 3. The most influential early work was the four-volume study by Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), particularly the theoretical volume by O'Donnell and Schmitter subtitled Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies. The seminal treatment of the international context of recent regime transitions is Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991 ). Some other works in the past decade include: Larry Diamond, "Beyond Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism: Strategies for Democratization," Washington Quarterly 12, no. 2 (winter 1989): 141-163, and "The Globalization of Democracy," in Robert 0. Slater, Barry M. Schutz, and Steven R. Dorr, eds., Global Transformation and the Third World (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993), pp. 31-90; Giuseppe Di Palma, To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990); John Higley and Michael Burton, "The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and Breakdowns," American Sociological Review 54 (1989): 17-32; Terry Karl, "Dilemmas of Democratization in Latin America," Comparative Politics 23, no. 1 (October 1990): 1-21; Terry Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, "Modes of Transition in Southern and Eastern Europe, Southern and Central America," International Social Science Journal128 (May 1991): 269-284; James M. Malloy and Mitchell A. Seligson, eds., Authoritarians and Democrats: Regime Transition in Latin America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987); Geoffrey Pridham, ed., Encouraging Democracy: The International Context of Regime Transition in Southern Europe (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1991); Adam Przeworski, "The Games of Transition," in Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo O'Donnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela, eds., Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992); Donald Share, "Transitions to Democracy and Transition Through Transaction," Comparative Political Studies 19 (1987): 525-548; Alfred Stepan: Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988); Alfred Stepan, ed., Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); and Yossi Shain and Juan Linz, eds., Between States: Interim Governments and Democratic Transitions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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25

4. Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, "Popular Protest and Political Reform in Africa," Comparative Politics 24 (1992): 419-442, "Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa" World Politics 46 (July 1994): 453-489, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Thomas M. Callaghy, "Political Passions and Economic Interests: Economic Reform and Political Structure in Africa," in Callaghy and John Ravenhill, eds., Hemmed In: Responses to Africa's Economic Decline (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Samuel Decalo, "The Process, Prospects, and Constraints of Democratization in Africa," African Affairs 91, no. 362 (January 1992): 7-36; Larry Diamond, "Promoting Democracy in Africa," in John Harbeson and Donald Rothchild, eds., Africa in World Politics, 2d ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), pp. 250-277; John Harbeson, Donald Rothchild, and Naomi Chazan, Civil Society and the State in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994); Richard Joseph, "Africa: The Rebirth of Political Freedom," Journal of Democracy 2, no. 4 (1991): 11-24; Rene Lemarchand, "Africa's Troubled Transitions," Journal of Democracy 3, no. 4 (1992): 98-109); Peter Lewis, "Political Transition and the Dilemma of Civil Society in Africa," Journal of International Affairs 46, no. 1 (1992): 31-54; Celestin Monga, The Anthropology of Anger: Civil Society and Democracy in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1996); Pearl Robinson, "Democratization: Understanding the Relationship Between Regime Change and the Culture of Politics," African Studies Review 37, no. 1 (April 1994): 39-67, and "The National Conference Phenomenon in Africa," Comparative Studies in Society and History; and Jennifer Widner, ed., Economic Change and Political Liberalization in Africa (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994 ). Important publications on democracy in Africa before the recent wave of democratic transitions are Richard L. Sklar, "Democracy in Africa," African Studies Review 26, nos. 3 and 4 (September/December 1983 ): 11-24, and "Developmental Democracy," Comparative Studies in Society and History 29, 4 (October 1987): 686-714; Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Democracy in Developing Countries: Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1988); and John Wiseman, Democracy in Black Africa: Survival andRenewal (New York: Paragon House, 1990). 5. Steven Friedman and Doreen Atkinson, eds., The Long Journey: South Africa's Quest for a Negotiated Settlement (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1993); and Steven Friedman, ed., The Small Miracle: South Africa's Negotiated Settlement (Johannesburg: Ravan, 1994). See also Timothy Sisk, Democratization in South Africa: The Elusive Social Contract (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). 6. On the rise and fall of the First Republic, see James S. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958); Richard L. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent Ajl-ican Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963, and New York: NOK Publishers, 1983), "The Ordeal of Chief Awolowo," in Gwendolen Carter, ed., Politics in Africa: Seven Cases (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966), pp. 119-165, "Nigerian Politics in Perspective," in Robert Melson and Howard Wolpe, eds., Nigeria: Modernization and the Politics of Communalism (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1971), pp. 43-62, and "Contradictions in the Nigerian Political System," Journal of Modern African Studies 3, no. 2 (1965): 201-213; C. S. Whitaker, Jr., The Politics of Tradition: Continuity and Change in Northern Nigeria, 1946-66 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970); B. J. Dudley, Parties and Politics in Northern Nigeria (London: Frank Cass, 1968); John P Mackintosh, Nigerian Government and Politics (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1966); K. W. J. Post, The Nigerian Federal Election of 1959 (London: Oxford

26

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Introduction

University Press, 1963); K.W. J. Post and Michael Vickers, Structure and Conflict in Nigeria (London: Heinemann, 1973); and Larry Diamond, Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria: The Failure of the First Republic (London: Macmillan, and Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1988). On the rise and fall of the Second Republic, see Anthony Kirk-Greene, "The Making of the Second Republic," in Kirk-Greene and Douglas Rimmer, Nigeria Since 1970: A Political and Economic Outline (New York: Holmes & Meier, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1981); Richard A. Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Larry Diamond, "Nigeria: Pluralism, Statism, and the Struggle for Democracy," in Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Democracy in Developing Countries: Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1988), pp. 45-55, 65-74, and "Cleavage, Conflict and Anxiety in the Second Nigerian Republic," Journal of Modern African Studies 20, no. 4 (1982): 629-668; and Victor Ayeni and Kayode Soremekun, eds., Nigeria's Second Republic: Presidentialism, Politics, and Administration in a Developing State (Lagos: Daily Times Publications, 1988). The above-cited and other important essays on Nigeria and on Africa comparatively by Sklar and Whitaker are reprinted in Richard L. Sklar and C. S. Whitaker, Jr., African Politics and Problems in Development (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991). 7. Address by Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to the nation, "On Political Programme for the Country, 1 July 1987, p. 5. 8. Newswatch (Lagos), 25 May 1992, p. 10. 9. World Bank, World Development Report 1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), Table 20, p. 200. With the collapse of the economic reform program under General Abacha, external debt rose to close to $40 billion. 10. Tell (Lagos), 26 Aprill993, p. 21. This weekly magazine devoted most of this issue to a historic interview with General Obasanjo. 11. Quoted in African Concord, 13 Aprill992, p. 27. 12. Ibid., p. 28. 13. Ibid., p. 34. 14. Peter M. Lewis, "Endgame in Nigeria?: The Politics of a Failed Democratic Transition," African Affairs 93 (1994): 335-336. 15. On the nature of these games within and between government and opposition during the transition, see O'Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies; Przeworski, "The Games of Transition"; and Huntington, The Third Wave, chap. 3. 16. Huntington, The Third Wave, pp. 113-117. 17. In addition to the above references on Nigeria's first two republics, the reader may wish to consult the following references on the the first military interregnum: A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria, 2 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1971); Victor A. Olorunsola, Soldiers and Power: The Development Performance of the Nigerian Military Regime (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977); Oyeleye Oyediran, Nigerian Government and Politics Under Military Rule (London: Macmillan, and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979; and Lagos: Friends Foundation Publishers, 1988); and Oyediran, "The Gospel of the Second Chance: A Comparison of Obasanjo and Babangida Military Disengagement in Nigeria," Quarterly Journal of Administration 23, nos. 1 and 2 (October 1988/January 1989): 9-24. 18. On the role of civil society in Africa's recent democratization, see Michael Bratton, "Beyond the State: Civil Society and Associational Life in Africa," World Politics 41, no. 3 (1989): 407-429; Naomi Chazan, "Africa's Democratic Challenge:

Introduction

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27

Strengthening Civil Society and the State," World Policy Journal 9 (spring 1992): 279-308; Peter Lewis, "Political Transition and the Dilemma of Civil Society in Africa," Journal of International Affairs 27 (summer 1992): 31-54; Larry Diamond, "Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Consolidation," Journal of Democracy 5, no. 3 (July 1994): 4-17; and the numerous excellent contributions to Harbeson, Rothchild, and Chazan, eds., Civil Society and the State in Aji·ica. Two influential earlier contributions to thinking about civil society in Africa are Jean-Francais Bayart, "Civil Society in Africa," in Patrick Chahal, ed., Political Domination in Africa: Reflections on the Limits of Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); and Donald Rothchild and Chazan, eds., The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988).

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The Remedial Imperatives of the Nigerian Constitution, 1922-1992 Anthony Kirk-Greene

With the publication on 3 May 1989 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Promulgation) Decree No. 1989, then scheduled to come into operation on 1 October 1992, Nigeria was legally set to enter on its ninth constitution within the space of eighty years. Five of these can be designated "colonial" constitutions: 1914 (Lugard, or Amalgamation), 1922 (Clifford), 1946 (Richards), 1951 (Macpherson), and 1954 (Lyttelton, or Federal). Three are "independent" constitutions: 1963 (First Republic), 1979 (Obasanjo, or Second Republic), and 1989 (Babangida, or Third Republic). One, 1960 (Independence Constitution), might best be labeled "transitional" or "hybrid": though the input into its drafting was substantially Nigerian, the concomitant need for a Nigerian Independence Act to be passed by the British Parliament in July 1960 was nevertheless, as it literally and legally had to be, a metropolitan concession set within the context of a constitutional transfer of power, however much it was at the same time largely a matter of formality. By reformulating Nigeria's constitutional calendar statistically instead of in terms of progressive periodization, we observe that the Nigerian experience generated six constitutions within the last forty-six of the sixty years of colonial rule, and three more within the first twenty-nine years of national sovereignty. Yet if this formula seems prima facie to result in a chronology of a mean life of 8.3 years per constitution, such mathematical neatness is illusory and betrays an oversimplification. This is especially so since 1960. For the colonial period, it can be argued that the Nigerian Council Order in Council of 22 November 1913 represents more of an administrative than a constitutional instrument. Not only was there no provision for any elected Nigerian members, but the so-called Nigerian Council itself was legally defined as being no more than "an advisory and deliberate body."! This being the case, it is more accurate to distinguish the colonial period as having been marked by five rather than six constitutions, spread 31

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The Transition

over thirty-eight rather than forty-six years. This reduces the average life of Nigerian's colonial constitutions to 7.6 years. However, when we advance the scene to the independent years, the average declines yet more steeply. If we go along with the AFRC ukase-namely, that we modify the draft constitution announced on 3 May 1989 as that which "shall have the force of law" with effect from l October 19922 by the several delays and adjustments that marked the ten months following that putative date, of 1 October 1992-then over the previous thirty-three years the Nigerian constitution will have been suspended during two protracted periods of military rule, respectively comprising 13.75 years (1966-1979) and 9.75 years (1984-1993). In other words, even if one equates the final colonial constitution (1960) with the first independent constitution, Nigeria would, by the defining year of 1993, have operated its own constitutions for only 9.5 years (5.25 as the First Republic, 4.25 as the Second Republic) out of its thirty-three years of independence. This formula gives a mean constitution life cycle of 4. 75 years. If one insists on literally interpreting the 1960 constitution as a colonial one, then this average would fall away to an independent Nigerian constitution survival rate of under 3.5 years. Yet even these statistics are susceptible to further refinement if we are to put the somewhat giddy record into proper perspective. For if Nigeria's postindependence rate of a new constitution every three or four years seems excessive, let it not be forgotten that in the latter-day colonial period the country experienced no less than four constitutions within fourteen years: that is, exactly the same average length of life (3.5 years) as that for Nigeria's postcolonial constitutions. In sum, both critical periods of Nigeria's constitution-mongering, 1946-1960 and 1963-1993, carry built-in parallels. On the one hand, constant constitutional revision was everywhere an inseparable aspect of Africa's decolonization-driven decade. On the other, a roller-coaster ride for constitutional continuity has turned out to be an integral part of the politics of much of West Africa during its first quarter-century of independence (for example, the flip-flop succession of alternating civilian and military governments in, say, Ghana, Togo, and Benin). Yet, for all the argument that what Africa needs is less constitution-mongering and more constitutionalism, all democratic legislation must in the end be derived from a democratically crafted and accepted construct, using a constitution. As L. Adele Jinadu has argued, in setting out a political theory of Nigerian constitutions, these constitutions are inherently artifacts and as such must be designed according to some principles so as to facilitate peace and order-a premise in which he invokes the Hobbesian precept of "the skill is making and maintaining Commonwealths consisteth in certain Rules, as doth Arithmetique and Geometry, not (as Tennis Play) on Practice only. "3

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THE CONSTITUTION AS REWARD AND REMEDY

Thus, if constitution making in Nigeria has for the past fifty years displayed the same level of regular revisiting as the conventional seven-year cycle of locust plagues, what have Nigerians expected from their constitutions? Once again, a classificatory distinction may prove useful, between Nigeria's dependent constitutions enacted between 1922 (1914) and 1960 and its sovereign constitutions enacted between 1963 and 1989. Patrick Dele-Cole has rightly stressed that constitutions, like politics, are "vibrant issues which cannot exist in a vacuum: they need to be put into an historical context. "4 The Constitution as Reward

Expressed in the simplest of terms, Britain's colonial constitutions essentially derive from the intention of the imperial power-whether voluntary or induced, expressed or implicit, is not at issue here-to follow up its initial occupation-again, whether of a palpably uninvited colony or a purportedly invited protectorate is irrelevant here-by introducing, after a period of administrative settling down ("pacification," in another vocabulary), progressively phased measures of the twin Durham principles of representative institutions and responsible self-government. Whereas three of Nigeria's colonial constitutions-leaving aside that of 1914 as basically a matter of administrative reorganization-can be classified as constitutions of reward (1922, 1946, and 1951), those of 1954 and 1960, along with the three sovereign ones of 1963-1989, can be designated as primarily constitutions of remedy. In setting up this model of reward and remedy,5 it is necessary to qualify the former by stripping it of any element of charity by the imperial power and by subsuming it under the concept of metropolitan response to local pressures-i.e., in Africa, rather than from the British press, parliament or public. Samuel Cookey would seem to take a similar general view in his verdict that "a common feature of all these colonial constitutions was that they were not designed to build a Nigerian state, rather they were measures of administrative strategies for better administration of the colonial state, although occasionally they bent to the realities of increasing political consciousness among the colonial elite."6 We now scrutinize each of the "reward" constitutions in turn.

The 1914 Constitution (Lugard). The case for viewing the 1914 Constitution as less a constitution and more an administrative measure has been alluded to above. Basically, Nigeria's Amalgamation of 1914 never developed from a plan of administrative reorganization to any degree of

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The Transition

political unification. Sir Arthur Richards's rationalization, written thirty years later as the historical preface to a new constitution, understandably carries overtones of respectful hindsight. Lugard, he claimed in a dispatch to the secretary of state for the colonies, had been "confronted with the difficult setting of an artificial unity which existed only on the map." Moreover, "His problem was to build a system which would allow organic growth and make the unity originally superimposed from outside into a living thing which might progress from varying stages of adolescence to adult nationhood."7 If that was the aim, however, evidence of any such growth proved singularly absent. To quote Cookey again (the latest of a long line of critics of the wishy-washiness of the acclaimed Amalgamation Report ), that constitution "left unresolved for more than forty years the question of whether or not the new edifice was to be a confederation, federation or unitary state. "8 In the event, it established little more than a framework of vague political association. In Nicolson's biting final judgment, the most remarkable thing about Amalgamation was that it never really took place.9 The 1922 Constitution (Clifford). If this was Nigeria's first instance of the constitution as a reward, it nevertheless has echoes of that element of remedy that emerges so prominently in Nigeria's independent constitutions. To a considerable extent, the 1922 constitution may be seen as a part of the Colonial Office (CO) reaction to the rumblings (little more) of elite discontent most in the capitals along the West African coast. This discontent was made audible in the proceedings of the National Congress of British West Africa, culminating in the more than eighty resolutions passed to reinforce the seriousness and stature of the delegation dispatched to London to petition the secretary of state. Hence, both in Nigeria (1922) and in the Gold Coast (1925 ), a constitution was drafted that, for the first time in Britain's tropical African empire, made provision for the election of Africans to the legislative council (another twenty years had to elapse before this principle was extended to the executive counciJ,lO and longer yet before it was conceded to any legislative council in East Africa). Even then, the electoral constituency was confined to the municipal areas of Lagos (three members) and Calabar (one). Furthermore, its legislative authority to pass ordinances "for the peace, order and good government" of Nigeria was confined to the Colony and the Southern Provinces. Nonetheless, a representative constitutional start had been made. The 1946 Constitution (Richards). The element of reward is even more striking in Nigeria's next constitution; at the same time, that of remedy begins to make a strong appearance. In its postwar euphoria, the Colonial Office set about promoting the idiom of "constitutional advance.'' Governors Arthur Richards in Nigeria, Alan Burns in the Gold Coast, and Hilary

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Blood in Sierra Leone were vociferous in their advocation of the principle of constitutional "development." As the first of the changing-of-the-guard governors of colonial Nigeria, Sir Bernard Bourdillon had already urged on the eve of the war-conspicuously in advance of his time in dismissing the Lugardian doctrine of organic growth andfestina lente administration-that "the time has come when we must consider something which will not be altogether 'the outcome of slow growth and gradual development. "'11 Development was, of course, the catchword at the Colonial Office under the new Labour government, summarized in the cumulative 1947-1949 package deal of the Caine-Cohen Report, the Local Government Despatch, the Cambridge Summer Schools on African Administration, the establishment of the CO's African Studies Branch and its Journal, and the landmark Colonial Development and Welfare Act. Such a view of measured constitutional progress accords with the Durham principle of imperial trusteeship, an evolutionary stance summed up in Zimmern's judgment that "constitutionally speaking, the British Empire can perhaps best be described as a procession."12 It is, however, worth recalling that, virtually at the same moment, the Watson Commission appointed to inquire into the causes of the Accra riots of 1948 had little hesitation in writing off Burns's much-vaunted progressive constitution of 1946 as nothing less than "outmoded at birth."13 The 1951 Constitution (Macpherson). The category of reward can still be justified for the next constitution. Certainly, this was the emphatic view of its eponymous initiator, Sir John Macpherson, who in an unpublished interview shortly after his retirement from the Colonial Office gave it as his opinion that an accelerated constitutional review was the only way to avert trouble in politically conscious Nigeria and at the same time avoid implying that his predecessor, "Old Sinister" (Richards), had been guilty of a constitutional misjudgment: 14 hence his startling public announcement that, on taking over the reins of government in Lagos in 1948, he had been so impressed by the pace of progress, "so rapid and so sound,"15 made by the Nigerians in the past few years that it was no longer necessary to tie the next general review of the constitution to the nine years' interval laid down by Richards. In the event, none of Nigeria's postcolonial constitutions-and only one of its colonial ones-was to last as long as Richards's would-be probationary period. Although that protracted timetable had been endorsed by the Colonial Office, a prudent rider was added about not precluding "the earlier introduction of particular modifications from time to time where experience has shown these to be necessary or sufficient progress has been recorded to justify an immediate advance." 16 Macpherson now moved, with Colonial Office blessing, to an immediate nationwide review of the constitution. This culminated in the momentous general conference on constitutional issues held at Ibadan in January 1950. The

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result was that a new constitution for Nigeria came into effect in 1951, just halfway through the moratorium fixed by Richards. The 1954 Constitution (Lyttelton). It is this constitution that signals the shift, in our tentative classification, away from the nature of "reward" to the specific of "remedy." The Lyttelton Constitution can be seen primarily as the government's response to the country's profound political crisis of 1953. In sum, given the constitutional breakdown in Lagos of the tradition of cabinet responsibility among ministers and the flouting of the convention on exactly where loyalty properly lay between central and regional party leadership, a new constitution would have to ensure against such a deep and dangerous division in cabinet government. The same concept of the constitution as remedy in the search for political order is at the very heart of the elaborate constitutional engineering of 1966-1967, 1976-1979, and 1986-1989. In a nutshell, the primary inspiration of all three of these constitutional milestones was the search for a remedy for the constitutional defects of each of their respective antecedent constitutions-defects that had allowed the First Republic to lurch toward the shame of civil war and the threat of total disintegration and that, mutatis mutandis, had permitted, or at least not prevented, the wretched failures of the Second Republic. To borrow President Babangida's own prognosis and prescription, set forth at the inauguration of his political think tank in January 1986: What really lies at the bottom of our past dilemma is the absence of a viable political arrangement. The political history of this nation is partly one of disillusionment. ... Our search has been to remedy immediate problems without sufficient attention to the long-term issues .... Our efforts only succeeded in producing inept and inherently unstable political arrangements .... Today we commence the search for a new Political Order.l7

The Constitution as Remedy

Here lies the heart of the matter in Nigeria's constitutional history, partially since 1946 and totally since 1966: in what ways can the constitution be drawn up so as to end, once and for all, Nigeria's chronic record of political instability and successive subordination of its democratic institutions to military governments? Babangida went further and linked Nigeria's economic crisis directly to its political confusion: "Invariably military administrations come about as a result of bad government; indeed, our present economic predicament can be attributed to the nature and practice of partisan politics. "18 We will now apply to the constitutional milestones of modern Nigeria (see Appendix to this chapter) this concept of the remedial imperative of

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the constitution-that is to say, the argument that each new constitution reflects the determination simultaneously to correct the proven failures of its predecessor and to ensure that not only will they not recur but also no new resultant side effects will emerge to threaten the safety and well-being of the state. For the period 1946-1963, we will handle this in outline and then in greater detail for the Second and putative Third Republics of 1979 and 1993, respectively.

The 1946 Constitution. The would-be remedial objectives of the Richards Constitution were clear, concise, and controlled; yet, as the experience of the subsequent fifty years has shown, while the problems identified were unexceptionable, the first two have remained enduring to the point of seeming endemic. In brief, the triple remedial imperative was: 1. to promote the unity of Nigeria 2. "to provide adequately, within that desire, for the diverse elements which made up the country" 3. to secure greater participation by Nigerians in the discussions of their own affairs.l9 While this is the conventional and public expose of what Nigeria's ills seemed to be and how Richards believed they would best be remedied, it is interesting to complement them with a comment from his dispatch to the secretary of state under cover of which he forwarded his proposals for the revision of the 1922 constitution-a dispatch written, he added sarcastically, "with a brevity which is no measure of the time and trouble taken to form them."20 Besides paying acknowledgment to the writings of Lord Hailey and Sir Bernard Bourdillon, and recording how "I have steeped myself in the writings and thought of Lord Lugard, who has no equal in knowledge of the people [he had, in fact, retired a quarter-century earlier] and in grasp of the principles and practice of colonial administration [he was by then eighty-six]," Richards went on to say: We cannot leave all the difficulties to Time and Fate. As I see it, the main test to apply to the new political and constitutional proposals is: will they work and, if so, how? The problem of Nigeria today is how to create a political system which is itself a present advance and contains the living possibility of further orderly advance .... At present no unity exists, nor does the constitution encourage its growth .... What is wanted is a constitutional framework covering the whole of Nigeria and a Legislative Council on which all sections of the community are given representation.2 1

The language of the constitution as remedy in the search for a new political order is already loud and clear.

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The 1951 Constitution. The constitutional prescription here can be summed up in one of the objectives recommended by the drafting committee: while the unity of Nigeria was the main aim of constitutional advance, "real unity" would be achieved only by "further decentralization of authority to the Regions."22 Yet the real remedial thrust was directed not only at the mechanics of the constitution but also at the need to involve Nigerians in democratic consultations and the process of drafting "their" constitution. Such motivation was in stark contrast to what had been, for all Richards's declared intent of point 3 of the aims of the 1946 constitution, a virtual disregard of local feeling, resulting in the celebrated campaign against the "Obnoxious Ordinances" and the dispatch of a high-powered (though much-delayed) deputation to London to take the NCNC's "national" protest to the secretary of state. In such an argument, then, quite apart from any new remedies in the constitution, its real radicalism and its most effective remedy lie in Macpherson's determination to "go to the country" in a way hitherto unknown in colonial Africa and to take his consultative process right down to the grassroots of Nigerian society, regardless of how remote or rural (or even, in contributional terms, how sometimes unsophisticated or unproductive) that might be. The copious official documentation not only comprises primary evidence of this remedial approach in its own right but, also, represents one of the most revealing resources in the colonial period for a study of what the emerging political class of Nigerians were thinking about constitutional problems and programs.23 The 1954 Constitution. There is a case, as leading constitutional historians like Ezera, Odumosu, and Nwabueze have argued, that the socalled Eastern Regional crisis, which led to the breakdown of the Macpherson constitution, was not so much the fault of the constitution as it was that of having two very different personalities from within the same political party-"one playing the role of ·Leader of the Parliamentary Party' and the other the role of 'Leader of the National Political Party."'24 In other words, the constitution fell apart through a regional struggle over authority and power: "We have two masters to serve," as one NCNC legislator put it.25 If one goes along with the explanation of a regional row precipitating a central crisis, then a no less powerful case can be made for identifying the finger on that trigger as an Action Group rather than an NCNC one. In the mind of the Northern political class, what ultimately undermined the survival of the 1951 constitution was the "self-government in 1956" motion tabled in the House of Representatives by Anthony Enahoro on 1 April 1953. The Northern political class's memory of that unacceptable nightmare of "Lagos 1953" remained unforgiving and unforgotten for a whole decade. 26 The decision by the Council of Ministers to put on a display of that very principle of collective responsibility that they had been accused of disregarding implied that no minister should take part in the ensuing debate. This was too much for the Action Group. Their ministers

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resigned, spoke in the debate, and voted for the motion. A crisis was imminent, and the NPC made it inevitable when the Sardauna proposed his countermotion of substituting "as soon as practicable" for "in 1956." Following a furious and defiant North's announcement of its Eight Point Programme and the outbreak of the Kano Riots on 16 May 1953, it now became clear to Nigeria's political class that the only remedy for saving the country from collapse was the urgent introduction of more rather than less regional autonomy. Some observers have seen in the 1946 constitution the end of any hope for the unitary state, through the thin end of the wedge of federalism. By the time the 1954 constitution came into effect, following the feud over regional vs. central push-pull factors especially in the cabinet and the threat of Northern secession, Nigeria had clearly opted for the principle of federation as the remedy for political crisis. The 1946 shadow that developed into the substance of 1954 has remained with Nigeria ever since. A short -lived, disastrous reversion to the unitary state in 1966 and the no less dangerous proposals for a tenuous confederation in 1967-together with the constitutions of 1979 and now of 1989-have confirmed that "Nigeria shall be a Federation consisting of States and a Federal Capital Territory" (Article 22,2). For President Babangida, no other constitutional system was allowed to feature on the agenda. The 1954 Constitution thus stands out as one of the most influential and creative in Nigeria's political history, paralleled by those of 1946, 1979, and potentially 1989. It not only confirmed the regional trend of Nigerian politics since 1950; more lastingly, it consolidated a national framework that has survived for forty years, even in the face of the drama of attempted secession and the trauma of a civil war. Once again, and not for the last time, the fundamental imperative was the search for a remedy to keep the country intact and to prevent the component parts from drifting apart, thereby anticipating by a decade the wartime slogan "To Keep Nigeria One Is a Job That Must Be Done." The divisive political experience of 1953 at the cabinet level and the consequent vacuum in responsible government at the center had demonstrated beyond doubt that, in the search for a new political order, Nigeria's only remedy was to move in an orderly fashion away from, rather than lurch uncontrolledly toward, that once-common African dream of a unitary, and soon-to-be-one-party, state-a dream that, by 1990, in Eastern Europe as well as Africa, had become a nightmare shattered by shouts for multipartyism and cries for le renouveau.

The 1960 Constitution. Leaving aside the necessary constitutional safeguards for the survival of the federal government once the three regions had been granted self-government, as well as for taking care of the special status of the "temporary" British Cameroons Trust Territories pending the

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outcome of the UN-supervised referenda, and the fashionable insertion of a section on fundamental human rights, the Independence Constitution was in many ways a reaffirmation of the essential principles of the 1954 constitution.27 Remedial extensions or modifications to those principles discussed at the intermediate series of constitutional conferences, whether Postponed (1957) or Ad Hoc (1958) or Resumed (1958), and whether convened in London (1957, 1957, 1960) or Lagos (1958), were then incorporated into the Independence Constitution. What would surely have been the remedial reform par excellence, namely the implementation of a partly anticipated recommendation from the Willink Commission for the creation of new Regions,28 never came to pass. Hence, 1958 remains, in the eyes of many domestic and external observers (though less so among those who were at the helm, or at least on the bridge, at the time) as the point-of-noreturn year, in which both the Nigerian political class and British officialdom got the constitutional remedy all wrong.

The 1963 Constitution. Two changes of substance in the 1960 Constitution came in the Republican Constitution of 1963. With the creation of the Mid-West, Nigeria's federal framework was now based on four and no longer three regions; and now Nigeria, as did every former British colony in tropical Africa, became a republic. Nevertheless, many scholars and most Nigerians speak, with pardonable inexactitude, of Nigeria's First Republic as having lasted from 1960 to 1966-instead of, technically, speaking from 1963 to 1966. The 1966 Constitutional Conference

Although the Ad Hoc Constitutional Conference of 1966 did not, unlike those of Ibadan (1950), Kaduna (1978), and Ahuja 1989, culminate in a new constitution, it merits a distinct place in this historical review. As Ironsi had shown earlier in the year by establishing a Constitutional Review Group,29 in those dark days of 1966 a new constitution was looked to as the only way to save the country from the disintegrative consequences of the Ache be-cum-Yeats fate of "Things fall apart/The center cannot hold." At the same time, voices were heard throughout 1966, as in 1970 and again in 1977 and 1987, claiming that there was nothing wrong with the constitution, only with those who so spectacularly managed to mismanage its operation: the message itself was above suspicion; only the messenger was to blame. The 1966 constitution makers, confronted with the sometimes contradictory briefs of the regional Leaders of Thought, faced four remedial options: 1. a federation with a strong central government 2. a federation with a weak central government 3. a confederation

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4. "a form of association with an entirely new name yet to be found in any political dictionary in the world, peculiar to Nigeria" (in the terms used by General Gowon). The last-ditch attempt to bring the military governors together at Aburi in early 1967 was no more successful than had been the aborted constitutional conference of late 1966.30 By the middle of the year, the country was plunged into a civil war following the creation of the fly-by-night Republic of Biafra. The 1970 Transitional Program

Although not a constitutional document within the meaning of the term per se, as were the 1966 and 1967 conferences outlined above on the shape of the new Nigeria, the 1970 program for setting the country aright before the Second Republic could be introduced clearly merits notice in this context of the constitution as a remedy for Nigeria's ills. In the event, the Nine Point Program of Reconstruction, announced as a preliminary to a return to civilian rule in 1976 (a date later postponed sine die), was stunningly silent on the details of what was itemized as "the preparation and adoption of a new Constitution" other than the promise, expressed in the vaguest of terms, of "the settlement" of the burning question of the creation of more states and the introduction of yet another new revenue formula.31 Even the critical issue of the need for some less internecine form of political-party activity was expressed only in the anodyne promise of "the organization of genuinely national political parties." As it turned out, it was to be ten years between the initiative of the Leaders of Thought in 1966 and the getting down to work of a Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) in 1976 before constitution making, with all its problems, personalities, and passions, again became every newspaper's favorite headline and every Nigerian's personal crusade. During that period, the socioeconomic face of Nigeria changed dramatically. Three years of civil war, a sustained period of undreamed-of wealth, the development abroad of the stature of Nigeria on the international scene, and the accelerated emergence at home of modern classes as a social phenomenon together first overtook and then ruled out any further notion that the politics rather than the constitution presented the real, and sole, crucial area requiring remedial reform. In such a new socioeconomic Nigeria, a new constitutional framework was imperative. The 1979 Constitution

In a manner reminiscent of Macpherson's determination in 1950 not torepeat the mistakes of Richards in 1945-and one that recalled the villagelevel consultation by the NPC in 1953 to elicit a popular mandate, in the

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light of "the mistake of 1914,"32 for the endorsement of its Eight Point Program-the soundings taken by the Constitution Drafting Committee in 1976-1977 were purposeful and painstaking. This time, unlike a quartercentury earlier, there was a substantial and articulate body of Nigerian intellectuals, many of them practicing academics, eager to express their opinions in press, pamphlet, and public performance.33 Furthermore, the CDC went on to have its proposals analyzed by a Constituent Assembly (CA), where argument was shrill and sharp, culminating in walkouts and near-collapse over the Shari' a and other issues.34 By the time, then, that Nigeria came to the making of its 1979 constitution, it had had over a decade in which to evaluate dispassionately (that is to say, without the distraction of actually having to operate a constitution) the provisions of its first two independent constitutions and to identify those areas where remedial action would be essential in the search for a new political order so as to avert another national breakdown on the dramatic and disastrous scale of 1966-1970. What were the perceived flaws of the 1960 and 1963 constitutions? What remedies did the CDC and the CA constitution makers prescribe in framing the 1979 constitution? Overall, and in contrast to the analysis of the breakdown of the subsequent 1979 constitution, the measure of consensus is marked. Among the group of contemporary interpreters of "what went wrong," Richard Sklar pinpoints the paradox of eco-administrative contradictions in the distribution of skilled manpower.35 This view was advanced, too, by the Northern delegation, albeit in more emotional language, to the aborted constitutional conference of 1966, when, in unforgettable and enduring terms in the context of Nigerian society, they spoke of how we all have fears of one another. Some fear that opportunities in their own areas are limited and they would therefore wish to expand and venture unhampered in other parts. Some fear the sheer weight of numbers of other parts which they feel could be used to the detriment of their own interests. Some fear the sheer weight of skills and the aggressive drive of other groups which they feel has to be regulated, if they are not to be left as the economic, social and possibly political under-dogs in their own areas of origin in the very near future. These fears may be real or imagined; they may be reasonable or petty. Whether they are genuine or not, they have to be taken account of because they influence to a considerable degree the actions of the groups towards one another and, more important perhaps, the daily actions of the individual in each group toward individuals from other groups.36 That underlying motivation of mutual suspicion has since been reformulated as the concept of AngstY Contemporary scholars also analyzed the initial imbalances in the military, both socioethnically and in relation to the complementary distribution of political power. 38 In the graphic words of a memorable editorial in Nigerian Opinion, Nigeria was undone by the fact that

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the rulers used power that they held constitutionally to do unconstitutional things. In the process they destroyed themselves. Nigeria had censuses that were not censuses, elections that were not elections, and finally governments that were not governments.39

Latter-day scholars have seized on other causes. For Ladipo Adamolekun, writing twenty years after the event, the First Republic collapsed "because the norms and values appropriate for the successful functioning of the governmental system were either non-existent or not sufficiently widely shared among the relevant actors. "40 Still, in the late 1980s, Larry Diamond, after scrutinizing the received version of the calamitous calendar of the Western Region's internal strife of 1962-1964, the census controversy of 1962-1963, the general strike and federal-election crisis of 1964, and the ultimate breakdown of law and order in 1965, nevertheless rejects standard explanations of chronic conflict and regional cleavages in favor of an interpretation of "insidious decay" ... "the gradual evolution of destabilizing factors that do not fully erupt into crisis until they bring the system down altogether."41 William Graf leans toward a class-conflict explanation and rousingly called for "determined counter-hegemonic work ... by and for the popular classes" in order to propel Nigeria's political economy "beyond peripheral capitalism."42 In less stratospheric language, Samuel Cookey, while subscribing to the widely accepted notion of the blame attached to all the incidents of political turbulence and examples of constitutional weakness as standard factors in the fall of the First Republic, lays the ultimate responsibility squarely at the door of the political elite. "In all the crises," he accuses, "all available state apparatuses were employed by the power elite discriminately against their opponents ... not only to win and retain power but to control the center which, though politically weak, had all the dominant resources."43 Finally, the Federal Military Government, operating much nearer the time and arguably too close for objectivity, put forward in 1967 its own list of causes of Nigeria's instability. They numbered no less than seventeen, down to the cultural flaw of "national traits of sycophancy and deference support." 44 Today, a whole generation beyond the fall of the First Republic, we are far enough removed from the events to be able to reformulate. from the multiple explanations offered, a substantial measure of commonly accepted interpretation of the roots of the constitutional collapse in January 1966. In sum, the principal categories of weaknesses in the 1963 constitution, fundamental and fataL are agreed to have been the following: 1. The national imbalance caused by constitutional skewing. 2. The consequent readiness to exploit the weakness of the central government.

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3. The complementary disproportionate strength of the Regional governments and their exaggerated sense of "Private: Keep Out" domains. 4. A heightened sense of the primacy of ethnicity. Conflating the first three recognized weaknesses into a single malady-what lronsi stigmatized as the bane of "intense regionalism" 4 5-the seminal remedy was twofold: first, the abolition of the geopolitical units of four regions and their replacement by a single, unitary administration; and second, the country's formation into twelve (1967), later nineteen (1976), subsequently twenty-one (1987), and eventually thirty (1991) states-a mooted advance into the fifties was averted only by the demise of the Second Republic. With this polystate prescription came, ineluctably, two linked side effects: the emergence of a strong center, both de facto and constitutional (one of the anomalies of the First Republic had been that the imbalances between center and regions and again between regional governments were perfectly constitutional, however much the opportunities for domination and "unfairness" were legally-or at least not illegallyexploited); and a reduced risk of secession such as each of the original regions had either contemplated or executed between 1953 and 1967. Such a revised ranking of hierarchy, from regional governments invested with most of the constitutional power to a central government unarguably endowed with the whip hand, was simultaneously reinforced by a new formula and procedure for the collection and distribution of revenue between the federal government and its now multiple component parts. The fact that much of this strengthening of the center at the expense of the states had been accomplished initially by direct military decree rather than submitted to the democratic process of legislative debate and majority voting rendered the eventual constitutional solution measurably easier-and quicker. Henceforward, the Lagos piper was unequivocally going to exercise his proverbial right to call the tune. For the fourth major weakness of the 1960 and 1963 constitutions, the ugly and debilitating primacy of ethnic competitiveness a l' outrance that had so disfigured the First Republic, the remedy compounded by the government pharmacists was labeled "The Federal Character." Much has been written about the advantages and limitations of this prescription.46 In short, the novel constitutional concept of this Federal Character, which need not be the same thing as a quota system with its blunt muzzle on meritocracy, was squarely aimed at the dismantling, once and for all, of the apparatus of regional competition and ethnic chauvinism that had been the curse of Nigeria since the 1950s. A pointed summary of the fundamental premise of the 1979 constitution-which in its whole genesis made a clean break with Nigeria's past approach to constitution making-is to be found in the impetus it deliberately

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45

accorded to the vital promotion of a sense of national loyalty-what the constitution neatly calls "a sense of belonging" (14[41])-without taking away Nigerians' faith in multiple, layered 1oya1ties.47 All in all, the U.S. style 1979 constitution may be said to have devised deliberate, sensible, and generally effective remedies for the ills of the First Republic insofar as they had been correctly diagnosed. Disease, however, is not always susceptible to foolproof examination. What is more, as the medical world is all too painfully aware, new treatment can in tum give rise to uncalculated side effects. To the four major causes of the fall of the First Republic set out above, one might, in retrospect, add three more alarm areas where signals were beginning to be emitted, if not adequately heard or heeded, in the years running up to the formulation of the 1979 constitution. These were: 5. Increasing social division through incipient class conflict. Although a minority group in the CDC showed full awareness of this potential problem, triggered by the petro-bonanza of the mid-1970s, the recommendation by such forceful protagonists of a socialist, statedirected economy as Segun Osoba and Yusufu Bala Usman was rejected by the CDC. 48 6. Sectarian antagonism stemming from Islamic-Christian polarization. Comparatively unknown in Nigeria's history, this open hostility came to the fore during the CA sessions, when it was pushed under the carpet rather than boldly faced up to. More recently, the whole issue has been gravely exacerbated by the vigorous advance of Islamic fundamentalism and Christian aggression. 7. Economic collapse, replacing political confusion as Nigeria's trademark in the outside world. This, too, coincided with the eve of the handover to the new civilian government. While the culpability of the makers of the 1979 constitution in not having sought remedies for these as yet incipient national problems remains a matter of partisan debate, the progressive consolidation of such social threats throughout the 1980s was to present a fresh challenge to the makers of the 1989 constitution.

The 1989 Constitution. Barely four years, and the next general election later (the first to have been supervised by a civilian government in Nigeria for almost twenty years, with all the inevitable organizational weaknesses), the much-praised 1979 constitution-and one from which so much had been expected-was suspended. Partly because of a lack of historical perspective and partly because of a more vociferous class analysis than obtained in arriving at a verdict on "1966 and All That," there is markedly less consensus in the allocation of the blame. Notable among the

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The Transition

perceived causes of the collapse of the Second Republic stands Richard Joseph's influential critique of the prebendal nature of Nigerian politics, whereby "patterns of political behavior rest on the justifying principle that such offices should be competed for and then utilized for the personal benefit of office-holders as well as of their reference or support group." 4 9 It is an interpretation shared by one of the younger Nigerian critics, Shehu Othman (who had earlier imaginatively promoted the concept of the "Kaduna Mafia" and its critical influence on national politics).SO He argues that the logic behind the political competition in the Second Republic was impeccably captured in Shehu Shagari 's chagrined acceptance that "the 'new morality,' that power is for profit rather than for service," inevitably led to the position where "the privileges of power [are l used for pillage. "51 There are, too-and, in the case of the 1989 constitution and the disgraced Second Republic, almost overwhelmingly so-the judgments in the vigorous output of the Nigerian media, not only the fearless press corps but also the countless former politicians, former generals, former diplomats, former bureaucrats, and [former] academics who have found in the crisp and crackling atmosphere of the Nigerian media an audience they rarely reached before. In summary, it was political economy rather than pure politics that was at the root of the problems in the Second Republic. Importantly, even if the proverbial spectator is believed to see most of the game, the participant player is willy-nilly going to perceive and experience the rough-and-tumble situation in a different measure and manner from those on the touchline. Thus, there remains the view of the weaknesses of the Second Republic as perceived by the military leadership, those responsible not only for identifying the faults of the 1979 constitution that they suspended but also for subsequently devising the remedies to be enshrined in the constitution of the Third Republic. It was General Abacha who stressed economic incompetence and coined the phrase that Nigeria had become a "beggar-nation."52 It was General Buhari who attacked not the constitution but those who, seduced by "the premium of political power," mismanaged it: "Little did the military realize that the political leadership of the Second Republic would circumvent most of the checks and balances in the constitution."53 And it was General Obasanjo who, introducing the concept of "the brigand nature" of Nigeria's political competitiveness, ascribed the failure of both the First and Second Republics to "the obstinancy of the political-game players as regards adherence to the rules of the game."54 Unambiguously, however, the supreme primary interpretations must be those attributed to General Babangida, or his articulate ghostwriters (for few outside first-year undergraduates are likely to assume that heads of state write their own speeches), and to the chairman of the Political Bureau, Samuel Cookey.

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For Babangida's views of how the new political culture should be fashioned (and, hence, deductively, of what was wrong with the anterior planning of 1976-1979), the sources are obvious, copious, and much quoted in the chapters that follow. Markers include the speech inaugurating the Political Bureau and the address made when the delayed draft 1989 constitution was finally presented to the head of state, with its leitmotif of "Let us Learn from History" and its rationalization of why he had decided to preclude the CA from "debating certain subjects popularly referred to as 'no-go areas"' on the grounds of the supremacy of national consensus. 55 The crucial relevance to this chapter of the speech "The Making of the New Constitution" is highlighted in the president's reminder that the remit of the constitution-makers had been "to identify and address those issues which could create intractable problems ... for the Third Republic ... [and] to avoid laying the foundation for unnecessary constitutional crises in the future."56 Yet, in the context of "Remedy," it is the arbitrary imposition of two political parties by the military (their solution to the perceived instability inherent in multipartyism) that demonstrated how, despite Babangida's stated wish to end all coups in Nigeria, the constitution was in no way to be the last word. The Political Bureau's guidelines totaled no less than twenty-eight (subsequently raised to thirty) items that, constituting what is seen as "the bedrock of the political culture of Nigeria" and thereby on occasion in the past "bringing the nation to the brink of collapse," needed analysis so as to "provide a basis for fashioning a comprehensive political model for the country."57 Six of these were identified as carrying such urgency among Nigerians that they "tended to put tremendous pressure on our rather fragile political system" and, consequently, had to be "dealt with decisively and with some finality" before any return to civilian rule could be possible.ss These were: the national census, revenue allocation, creation of states, national languages, external relations, and "state and religion. "59 The whole report has deservedly written itself into the primary documentation for every future study of the political history of Nigeria.

BEYOND

I am left, as a historian, with three reservations on the envisaged efficacy of the Nigerian constitution as remedy for le mal nigerian, along with one matter of purely methodological concern in the analysis of the putative Third Republic. The last named intellectual reservation can be quickly disposed of. It is simply this: Are acknowledged and articulate observers of the Nigerian political scene striving for the right comparison in so studiously setting the

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1989 constitution against that of 1979? Might not the real challenge, and certainly the more revealing exercise, be to compare the draft 1989 constitution with the recommendations of the 1986 Political Bureau? That, I suspect, is where, a century on, counterfactual historians will likely put their questions: "What would the condition of Nigeria be today if either Lugard had unified instead of merely amalgamated Nigeria in 1914; or Willink had positively recommended the creation of more states in 1958; or the AFRC had accepted the Cookey recommendations lock, stock, and barrel as the political program for 1992?" There remain three areas where constitution-derived legislation is likely to be as ineffective as a waterproof anorak in a Calabar cloudburst. All three are of integral and critical significance to the Nigerian polity. One is the economy. In a sentence, the price of oil is neither amenable to democratic demand nor susceptible to parliamentary provision. Babangida himself admitted that "the financial health of the country is not a constitutional matter." Yet what shall it profit a state if it at last gets its politics right and then finds it has no economic infrastructure to support the reformed political suprastructure? Homo Nigericus cannot live by constitutional commitment and constraints alone. The second problem area is the military; or, rather, the pervasive fear among the political and intellectual (and beyond) classes that the military, even if it should prove sincere over its disengagement in 1993, will without compunction oust the next-and the next and the next--civilian government that has (or that it deems to have) "betrayed" the country. The fear is genuine; the possibility is real. And the likelihood? Virtually nowhere in Africa's abundant history of military intervention up to the advent of the democratization movement in 1990 did the army, having once marched in and later withdrawn to the barracks, not reenter the political scene. To have recourse to the stage schema used in one study of the military in Africa's politics, there has been no exit without an encore.60 Yet any legislation outlawing coups is so much pie-in-the-sky. It is axiomatic in Africa now, after thirty years of continual coups d'etat, that the military will intervene whenever it wants to intervene. As one of Chinua Achebe's talaka characters graphically expresses it, "The first thing we hear is: soja come, soja gwo,"61 a phrase of weary resignation reminiscent of Fela Kuti 's sardonic song about "If anybody want to try and run forward, soldiers' boots go kick him back." A citizen's arrest of a "criminal" colonel on grounds of contravening the inviolability of Article I of the constitution is an image best suited to a Moses Ebong cartoon in West Africa. General Babangida put an overdue paid to this constitutional chimera once and for all by "expunging" that Abuja Draft Clause 1(4) and stigmatizing it as "superfluous," even "tautological."62 The military and the economy thus remain two jokers in the pack of constitutional cards. The third danger area where the constitution may prove powerless is the control of sectarian strife-Larry Diamond's "great

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polarizing threat" to the future of Nigeria. As a freelance Nigerian journalist frankly puts it, there is no "quick fix solution to this nagging problem" of sectarian division.63 Indeed, as Babangida once reminded his compatriots in their search for constitutional panaceas, many national issues cannot be reduced to justiciability: they are "best left to conventions, interplay of political forces, and normal governmental processes."64

CONCLUSION

Even if I as yet remain, regretfully, unclear as to when Nigeria may expect its conspicuously elite political culture to be reformed into a convincingly democratic political culture characterized by self-discipline for each, social justice for all, and the inculcation of the concept of "the good loser"; and even if I continue to be no more than open-minded on whether the 1989 constitution will be the same one that takes Nigeria into the twentyfirst century, let me nonetheless conclude on a note of hope. "What," Achebe asks in his great political novel Anthills of the Savannah, "must a people do to appease an embittered history?"65 For all the record of their past-master art of election rigging and for all their stoic familiarity with electoral fraud, political manipulation, and opposition persecution, Nigerians-like many others in the Third World and now in Eastern Europe, with similar experience of arid monocracy, multiparty chaos or military dictatorship, corrupt government, and relentless class self-interest-nevertheless seem to retain a deep and genuine faith in the ballot-box as the "open sesame" to the "Paradise Regained" prize of participatory democracy. According to Babangida, "Nigerians are not in any doubt as to what is 'democracy. "'66 It is, he maintained in a perhaps unconscious plagiarism of Nyerere 's famous dictum about socialism, "a state of mind ... [it] is little other than the politics of equality."67 To many Nigerians, solace and safety are best sought in the guarantees of a fair constitution fairly implemented. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Promulgation) Decree, 1989, that would-be gift of an "enduring constitution,"68 aimed at just that: creating a new social order in a new Nigeria that is "prosperous, humanist and stable at home ... and commands respect in international affairs" and thereby proudly shows to the world how "a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society such as ours can be effectively and efficiently organized in a federal democratic system."69 To such an invocation and such an image designed-if I may borrow the stipulation of the ancient Bampton Bequest to the "Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford" for funding the preaching of sermons in the Divinity School, "to confute all heretics and schismatics"-who would not wish to murmur a firm and fervid "Amen"? Yet, in the momentum of African political life as much as in moments of interna-

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tiona! cns1s, more prayers are uttered in the hope of ultimate salvation than in gratitude for a prompt granting. Transition, of course, is not the same thing as journey's end. Much politicoconstitutional water could still flow round Zuma Rock before the year 2000.

Table 1.1

Summary of the Major Remedial Imperatives of the Nigerian Constitution, 1913-1989 Constitution

Malady Diagnosed One or two governments

1914

Unitary or federal government A single government Failure of shared government No closer coming-together Monarchism

1946 1951 1954 1960

Remedy Prescribed Amalgamation (not unification) Limited dyarchy Overlapping parliaments Regionalism Federalism Republicanism

1963 Inadequate number of regions Failure of federalism Failure of unitary government Failure of regionalism

May 1966 October 1966

Creation of another region Unitary state Confederation Creation of states

1967 "Remainder" central government

Central-government primacy Multiple states

Strong peripheral governments 1979 Public accountability Ethnicity and regional domination Instability of multipartyism How to prevent military intervention How to halt economic collapse How to avoid religious conflict How to create a democratic political culture

1989

Code of Conduct Tribunal "Federal Character" Two-party system

} ?

?

NOTES 1. Statutory Rules and Orders, 1913, No. 1268, cited in Joan Wheare, The Nigerian Legislative Council (London: Faber, 1950), p. 184. 2. Preamble to Decree No. 12, 1989, marked "Commencement: 1st October 1992." 3. "Theoretical Issues in Nigerian Politics," in Peter Ekeh, Patrick Dele-Cole, and Gabriel Olusanya, eds., Nigeria Since Independence: The First 25 Years 5 (Ibadan: I.U.P., 1989), p. 13. 4. Ibid., p. 264. 5. In a preliminary attempt to formulate the twin constitutional elements of "malady" and "remedy" in the Nigerian experience, I have used the metaphor of prophylaxis and panacea and the concept of preventive and curative medicine: see the proceedings of a workshop on the draft 1992 constitution in Arnold Hughes,

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ed., Towards the Third Nigerian Republic (Birmingham: Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, 1990). 6. Report of the Political Bureau (Coo key) (Lagos, 1987), p. 21. 7. "Political and Constitutional Future of Nigeria: Despatch from the Governor of Nigeria to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 6 December 1944," Sessional Paper No.4 of 1945, para. 1 8. Cookey, Report of the Political Bureau, p. 21. 9. I. F. Nicolson, The Administration of Nigeria, 1900 to 1960 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 180. 10. See Curtis R. Nordman. "The Decision to Admit Unofficials to the Executive Councils of British West Africa." Journal of lmperial and Commonwealth History (1975): 194-205. For earlier Nigerian initiatives by Sir Graeme Thomson in 1930 and by Sir Bernard Bourdillon in 1938, see "[Confidential] Memorandum on the Future Political Development of Nigeria," (Lagos: Bourdillon), 1939, para. 24. 11. Ibid., para. 13. 12. Alfred Zimmem, The Third British Empire (London: HMSO, 1934), p. 8. 13. Report of the Commission of Enquiry into Disturbances in the Gold Coast (Watson), Col. No. 231, 1948, para. 101. 14. Oxford Colonial Records Project oral (taped) interview, 1969 (Oxford: Rhodes House Library). 15. "Governor's Address to the Legislative Council," (Lagos), 17 August 1948, pp. 8-9. 16. "Secretary of State for the Colonies Despatch to the Governor of Nigeria," no. 397, 4 December 1945, para. 15. 17. Speech by Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, 13 January 1986 (reproduced verbatim in Report of the Political Bureau, pp. 225-228). 18. I. B. Babangida Broadcast Speech, 13 January 1986. 19. "Political and Constitutional Future of Nigeria." 20. Ibid., para. 1. 21. Ibid, para. 2. 22. Report of the Drafting Committee on the Constitution, 1949, para. 31(c). 23. Cf. the checklist in A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, "Nigeria: A Constitutional Chronology and Documentary Calendar, 1919-1989," African Research and Documentation 57 ( 1941): 1-5. 24. Kalu Ezera, Constitutional Developments in Nigeria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), p. 161. See also Oluwola I. Odumosu, The Nigerian Constitution: History and Development (Lagos: African Universities Press, 1963), and B. 0. Nwabueze, A Constitutional History of Nigeria (London: C. Hurst, 1982). 25. Eastern House Assembly Debates, 6 May 1953, p. 31. 26. The tip of the iceberg (if that is an appropriate metaphor for such heated passion) can be seen in Sir Ahmadu Bello, My Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), chap. 10, culminating in pp. 134-135: "The journey just about finished it for us." The constitutional response was the North's Referendum on the Constitution to Provincial Conferences and Subsidiary Meetings (1953) and its "Motion of Regional Autonomy" of 23 May 1953. 27. " ... largely the same": Nwabueze, A Constitutional History of Nigeria, 90 and chap. 4. 28. Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into the Fears of the Minorities and the Means of Allaying Them, Cmnd. 508, 1958. 29. Government Notice no. 863 ( 1966). Although it, too, like the subsequent Go won initiative, led to no new constitution, the terms of reference of the Political Bureau twenty years later offer an interesting comparison.

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30. As in 1951 (see no. 23), the extensive official documentation furnishes a profound insight into the attitudes and aspirations of Nigeria's leadership in its search for constitutional remedies for the nation's collapse. 31. Broadcast to the nation by General Gowan, 1 October 1970. 32. Though first used by Ahmadu Bello in the debate on Enahoro's "self-government in 1956" motion in the House of Representatives on 1 April 1953 (Bello, My Life, p. 133), the sentiment goes back to 1950 when, at the General Conference on the Review of the Constitution, the emir of Zaria threatened that. unless the North was allocated half the seats in the proposed Central Legislature, "it would ask for separation from the rest of Nigeria on the arrangements existing before 1914" (Proceedings. 218). 33. One notices that in the mid-1980s the earlier preponderance of lawyers on constitutional committees that characterized the mid-1970s gave way to a surfeit of social scientists. 34. For one of the better accounts of this confusing issue, see David D. Laitin, "The Sharia Debate and the Origins of Nigeria's Second Republic," Journal of Modern African Studies 20, no. 3 (1982): 411-430. 35. Richard L. Sklar, "Contradictions in the Nigerian Political System," Journal of Modern African Studies 3, no. 2 (1965): 201-213. 36. "Memoranda Submitted by the Delegations to the Ad Hoc Conference," Lagos, 1967, p. 19. 37. See A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, The Genesis of the Nigerian Civil War and the Theory of Fear, Research Report 27 (Uppsala: Uppsala Press, 1975). 38. See, e.g., Robin Luckham, The Nigerian Military: A Sociological Analysis of Authority and Revolt, 1960-1967 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1971); A. H. M Kirk-Greene, '"Damnosa Hereditas': Ethnic Ranking and the Martial Races Imperative in Africa," Ethnic and Racial Studies 3, no. 4 (1980): 393-414. 39. "The Last Hurrah," Nigerian Opinion, 3 February 1966 (editorial). 40. Ladipo Adamolekun, The Fall of the Second Republic (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 1985), p. 9. 41. Larry Diamond, Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria (London: Macmillan, 1988), p. 307. 42. William D. Graf, The Nigerian State (London: James Currey, 1988), p. 245. Cf. G. P. Williams, ed., Nigeria: Economy and Society (London: Rex Collings, 1976), State and Society in Nigeria (Idanre: Afrografika Publishers, 1980), and, with Terisa Turner, the chapter on Nigeria in John Dunn, ed., West African States: Failure and Promise (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). 43. Report of the Political Bureau, p. 25. 44. "The Causes of Nigeria's Instability," The Struggle for One Nigeria (Lagos: Ministry of Information, Nigeria Publishing Co., 1967). For an analysis by Nigerian academics and practitioners, seeS. Kumo and A. Y. Aliyu, eds., Jssues in the Nigerian Draft Constitution (Zaria: Nartrem, 1977). 45. Broadcast to the nation, 24 May 1966. 46. Notably in Peter Ekeh and E. E. Osaghae, eds., Federal Character and Federalism in Nigeria (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 1989). See also A. H. M. KirkGreene, "Ethnic Engineering and the 'Federal Character' of Nigeria: Boon of Contentment or Bone of Contention?" Ethnic and Racial Studies 6, no. 4 (1983): 457-476; and A. E. Afigbo, Federal Character: lts Meaning and History (Enugu: Fuurh Dimension, 1986). 47. Elaborated in A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, '"A Sense of Belonging' The Nigerian Constitution of 1979 and the Promotion of National Loyalty," Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 16, no. 2 (1988): 158-172.

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48. Cf. 0. Osoba and Y. B. Usman, A General Report on the Work of the CDC: A Minority Submission (Abuja: 1976), cited in Toyin Faiola and Julius Ihonvbere, The Rise and Fall of Nigeria's Second Republic, 1979-1984 (London: Zed Books, 1985), 24; Usman, For the Liberation of Nigeria (London: Beacon Books, 1979). Cf. Graf, The Nigerian State, pp. 68ff. 49. Richard A. Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 8. In the enrichment of the vocabulary of African politics, Joseph joins Andreski, who earlier gave us the concept of kleptocracy: Stanislav Andreski, The African Predicament: A Study in the Pathology of Modernization (London: Michael Joseph, 1968), chap. 7. 50. Shehu Othman, "Classes, Crisis and Coup: The Demise of Shagari's Regime," African Affairs (1984): 83, 333, 441-461. See also Bala Takaya and S. G. Tyoden, The Kaduna Mafia: A Study of the Rise, Development and Consolidation of a Nigerian Power Elite (Jos: Jos University Press, 1987), Dan Agbese's interview with Umaru Shinkafi, "The Core of Kaduna Mafia," Newswatch, 29 May 1989, pp. 54- 57; and the review by M. Z. Y., "Mafiosi Move in on Nigeria," West Africa, 24-30 April1989, p. 644, where not only is the origin of the term attributed to the journalist Rufai Ibrahim for his article "The Mafia, Awo and the Race," (Triumph, 3 August 1983) but a novel (thriller), Kaduna Mafia by Patrick Fagbola (lbadan: 1987), is added to the literature. 51. "Report of the Presidential Transition Committee," September 1983, p. 30 (unpublished), cited in Shehu Othman's chapter on Nigeria in Donal B. Cruise O'Brien, John Dunn, and Richard Rathbone, eds., Contemporary West Africa, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 113. 52. Broadcast, 31 December 1983. 53. Address to the nation, I January 1984. 54. Olusegun Obasanjo, Constitution for National Integration and Development (Lagos: Friends Foundation, 1989), pp. 56, 129. 55. Speeches of 13 January 1986 and 5 April 1989, reprinted in Portrait of a New Nigeria: Selected Speeches olf. B. B. (Lagos: Precision Press, n.d.), pp. 27-33, 57-64. 56. Address to the nation, 3 May 1989, pp. 3-4. 57. Report of the Political Bureau, pp. 8-9. 58. Ibid., p. 161. 59. In the event, the discussion of the integral issue of "external relations" was excluded from the final report (chap. 10). Instead, views on the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja were added. 60. A. H. M. Kirk-Greene. "Stay by Your Radios": Documentation for a Study of Military Government in Tropical Africa (Leiden: Afrika-Studiecentrum, 1981), p. 11. The vicissitudes of the Sierra Leone coups allow for that country to rank as an arguable exception. 61. Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (London: Heinemann, 1987), p. 222. 62. Address, 3 May 1989, para. 21. 63. Tunji Lardner, "The Babangida Blues," Africa Report, August 1990, p. 50. 64. Address, 3 May 1989, para. 4 65. Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah, p. 220. 66. Address, 3 May 1989, para. 6. 67. Address, 7 October 1989, para. 37. 68. Preamble to Decree No. 12, 1989 (Government Notice No. 299, 3 May 1989). 69. Address, 3 May 1989, para. 2. This address appears in Portrait of a New Nigeria.

•

2

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The Military J 'Bayo Adekanye

This chapter examines the place of the military in the transition to democratic rule in Nigeria (1985-1993). Considerations of space require us to skirt some of the larger issues of the transition structure, civil society, and the economic crisis within which the transition has taken place. I The role of the military in the transition cannot be adequately analyzed without considering the impact of such socioeconomic factors and forces. Fortunately, these other aspects are covered elsewhere in this book, thus enabling us to undertake here a highly focused analysis of the military's behavior, interests, and structure during the transition, how this impacted on the transition, and how it may affect the future of democracy in Nigeria. The key issues and concerns addressed here are: (1) the character of the "military as government" during the transition; (2) the management of the "military as military" during the transition; (3) the politics and dynamics of coalition building within the military and between the ruling military elites (especially Babangida) and important elements of society; or, better still, the escalating conflicts and crises within both the military and civil society, Babangida's strategies for staying in power, and the problematics of these for the transition project as well as political control of the military; (4) the role conception of the military as it has evolved over time and was formalized by President Babangida; (5) the expanding role of military intelligence and its implications; and (6) the prospects for postmilitary democratic installation. These categories have been influenced by insights from the study of other democratic transitions, particularly in southern Europe and Latin America, 2 and in transitions from military-led authoritarian rule.3 These case studies and comparative analyses offer important theoretical insights for analyzing the role of the military in the transition process as well as the future prospects for limiting the military's domestic role expansion, preventing future coups, and institutionalizing a new democracy. 55

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The Transition

THE CHARACTER OF THE "MILITARY AS GOVERNMENT" DURING THE TRANSITION

The character of the "military as government" during the Babangida transition was one of continuous tackling of Nigeria's major organized groups or interests as if dealing with successive teams of opponents in a football game, or even warfare; isolation and elimination of a host of independent figures; marginalization of the supreme lawmaking organ, the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), from key decisions; and centralization of power in the person of President Babangida. Some aspects of these tendencies relate directly to Babangida's leadership style, which we consider below. Here, we are interested in analyzing the character of the military government per se, in juxtaposition both to that of the Buhari-Idiagbon regime immediately preceding it and to the ideal democratic polity. General Babangida came to power with a reactive "pro-human rights" policy stance that most of the articulate and critical groups and classes in society found most refreshing, given what had transpired before. But it soon became obvious that, as a military regime, Babangida's administration would not differ substantially from the Buhari-Idiagbon one. Recourse to repression continued to be the ultimate method of rule as before. Nor, in terms of format, were any major changes introduced at the beginning by the Babangida regime to make its structure of administration different. The federal structure of government was formally preserved, but it tended to be run in a unitary fashion, as with a typical military organization. The highest policymaking body was renamed the Armed Forces Ruling Council, rather than Supreme Military Council (SMC), but this was only a change in nomenclature. In one sense, the old SMC would seem to have hung together even more, if not necessarily better, as a ruling military group than the AFRC, which-some of its members came to charge-had become a one-man affair of President Babangida's. Moreover, the old confusion proceeding from the dual authority structure-with Gen. Tunde Idiagbon as chief of general staff (CGS) exerting more visible power and influence than his boss and head of state, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari-was avoided from the very beginning by Babangida, who did not want to leave anyone in doubt as to who was really in charge. When, two years later, in October 1986, Babangida's first chief of general staff, Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, was beginning to show signs of not toeing the president's line, the president did not hesitate to replace and retire him. Babangida's early choice of the title of military "president" rather than the more innocuous and traditional "head of state" would, therefore, appear not to have been for nothing. After all, Decree No. 17 of 27 August 1985, promulgated barely two days after his coup, had also vested Babangida with the power to appoint single-handedly the chief of general staff, chairman joint chiefs of staff, all three service chiefs, and the inspector-general of police. These

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were appointments that had in the past been collectively made by the SMC. 4 Although political decentralization and empowerment were among the stated goals of the transition program, the thrust of rule by the military, since the 25 August 1985 coup, was increasing centralization and aggregation of power in the hands of President Babangida, using an uncanny combination of strategies. For example, his regime perfected the art of deploying and changing state military governors every two to three years; periodic recomposition, at one time even complete dissolution and reconstitution, of the highest military ruling body; frequent changes in top government positions; constant cabinet reshuffles; periodic ministerial transfers; appointment of persons of divergent ethnic and regional backgrounds to overlapping responsibilities; and constant "retooling" of upper-level public servants (who also face constant threat of mass retrenchment). Such methods of rule have tended to create what some journalists have aptly called a military governance "in constant motion. " 5 Add to these the occasional humiliation of aides, summary dismissals with ignominy, selective imprisonment, and even occasional executions (of coup plotters), and one sees a pervasive atmosphere of "insecurity" in public affairs and President Babangida's rather cynical maximization of this as a principle of personal rulership. W. Howard Wriggins describes the "insecurity principle" thus: Rulers may systematically encourage a sense of insecurity among their senior officials. Ministers may be transformed from prominence and power to obscurity at the leader's whim. Where loyalty is uncertain or where a ruler's position is sufficiently unsure that any member of the entourage who uses his political position to strengthen his own political base may become a rival, regularizing insecurity may be the only way of holding an entourage without being overturned by it. All lieutenants are then so afraid of descending into obscurity that they will be doubly careful not to make obvious political capital of their positions and are used to consult the leader on every major decision in order to avoid his displeasure.6

One could have bet the latter description was being distilled from observation of Babangida's government! To return to the analogy of politics as sports or warfare, the Nigerian press likened Babangida to Diego Maradona, "the Argentine football maestro, an outstanding dribbler and goal scorer." In politics, like Maradona in football, "[H]e scores well, using all manner of strategies, including the now popular tactic the 'hand of God. "'7 The first inkling one had of this "Maradonic" approach to governance was how the president managed to "trick" the country into supporting his IMF-styled Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) when it was supposed to have been overwhelmingly rejected by the population in a national debate

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The Transition

that General Babangida himself had initiated. The impression given by President Babangida was that he opposed acceptance of the IMF loan together with its conditionalities. Babangida's seeming opposition to the IMF loan was even to be made one of the grounds for the failed "Vatsa coup plot" exposed in December 1985. By June 1986, however, the country was being made to accept the implementation of SAP, which Babangida explained was not only home-grown but a "necessary sacrifice" consequent on the rejection of the IMF loan! It was the first "political goal" to be scored by Nigeria's Maradona.s There followed many examples of this political agility: the dissolution and reconstitution of the AFRC in February 1989; the astonishing Abuja declaration of 7 October 1989 canceling all thirteen political-party associations that had competed for official recognition after the lifting of the ban on politics in May 1989; and the cancellation of the presidential primaries in late 1992. Many other examples of this kind of political dribbling-tinkering with and manipulating the transition program to suit the regime's interests-will be found within the other contributions to this study. Nor has that been the only strategy deployed toward managing the machinery of government and the goal of the transition program. Much of Babangida's energy was also directed at tackling the major organized groups and interests active on the (political) transition scene. These included, above all, the "military as government" itself, represented by the AFRC, but not necessarily the "military as institution," for which Babangida reserved distinct strategies of control.9 If the supposedly powerful AFRC could be taken on, Babangida felt it much easier to tackle the other organized groups and interests, provided this was done not all at once but sequentially. Thus, in addition to the AFRC, President Babangida took on, and appeared to have successfully checkmated: the professional politicians of the First and Second Republics, whose participation in the politics of the transition was banned by Decree No. 25 of 1987; top public bureaucrats (the regime's own bulwark of support), whose influence was reduced by the civil-service reforms of 1988; the Nigerian business community (symbiotically related to professional politics), whose members' interests were injured by the abolition of import licensing and by other aspects of the government's economic reform; and, as Clement Nwankwo and Bayo Olukoshi detail in their chapters, a number of key professional and humanrights organizations in civil society, whose members faced constant harassment. Paralleling this pattern of repression was an unparalleled concentration of power in the hands of Babangida, making him potentially the most powerful ruler in Nigeria's history.Io During his years of rule, Babangida based the ministers and bosses of all the important federal ministries and agencies within the presidency, reporting directly to either the president or the vice-president.' 1 The same was done for many national commissions,

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directorates, and task forces set up by the administration since coming into office. Even some of the armed-forces personnel were outraged that some of their own units formerly based in the Dodan Barracks were becoming part of this "presidential" expansion. There is evidence to suggest that by the time of the Orka coup attempt of 22 April 1990, many of the politically relevant groups had become dissatisfied with Babangida's military governance. Particularly irksome was his treatment of aides as though they were mere political footballs. Besides, many Nigerians had come to see the playing off of major groups against one another as a calculated strategy aimed at dominating them all. At the same time, the unsettling effects of the constant changes in military/political command as well as cabinet, and the sense of insecurity of tenure bred by these, tended to increase rather than reduce the level of corruption among public functionaries.l2 Finally, the trend toward personal dictatorship did not go down well with the critical segments of the population; most Nigerians remember this to have been a chief characteristic of the overthrown Buhari-ldiagbon regime. But, in spite of all this, how did Babangida manage to survive in power for as long as he did? This question drives straight to the heart of our next problem of analysis: Babangida's management of the military as institution.

THE MANAGEMENT OF THE "MILITARY AS INSTITUTION"

Throughout the transition, the military was President Babangida's major constituency that he dared not displease. But, at the same time, he was conscious of the danger of keeping the "military as institution" completely isolated from the "military as government," and of the former becoming indifferent or hostile to the policies of the latter. Expedience compelled the Babangida regime from the very beginning to guard against the danger that an excessively dominant and organizationally cohesive military as institution posed for its members who served in government. Hence, the need for balancing geoethnic forces within the military, and for application of the classic principle of divide-and-rule, aimed at denying any particular groups the "exclusive" privilege of military control. The strategy was part of the politics and dynamics of coalition building within the military and between the ruling military elites (especially Babangida) and key elements of society, considered below. Crucial to Babangida's perpetuation in power for more than eight years was his management of the military as an institution, particularly with respect to posting, promotions, rotation of officers, retirements, distribution of power and privilege, the military budget, and military-civilian relations. The first four of these issues deal as much with individual members' interests as with the institutional. The last two issues deal mostly

60

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The Transition

with the military as a corporate whole, especially in juxtaposition to the rest of civil society. With the removal in October 1986 of Ebitu Ukiwe as Babangida's first chief of general staff, Augustus Aikhomu was moved from his post as chief of naval staff to become CGS. Rear-Admiral Patrick Koshoni became the new chief of naval staff. Shortly thereafter, Alh. Muhammadu Gambo was appointed the new inspector-general of police, following the mandatory retirement of Etim Inyang. 13 Thus, Aikhomu, Koshoni, and Gambo-in addition, of course, to Sanni Abacha, who had been promoted to the rank of major-general and made the new chief of army staff (COAS) soon after the 1985 coup-became among the first service chiefs to be elevated by the Babangida regime. Within one year, they were to be further elevated along with others. As part of the celebrations in Abuja marking the country's twentyseventh independence anniversary on 1 October 1987, President Babangida, as commander in chief of the armed forces, promoted himself straight from major-general to full general, thereby making space for the elevation of many of the top military officers. The other promotions announced as part of those celebrations were those of the CGS, Admiral Aikhomu, and the defense minister and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Maj.-Gen. Domkat Bali, who were promoted to the ranks of viceadmiral and lieutenant-general respectively. The service chiefs were also promoted: Sanni Abacha, from major-general to lieutenant-general; Patrick Koshoni, from rear-admiral to vice-admiral; and chief of air staff, Ibrahim Alfa, from air vice-marshal to air marshaJ. 14 By December 1989, however, all but one of the service chiefs were to be retired from their top military posts-namely, Vice-Admiral Koshoni, Air Vice-Marshal Alfa, and Inspector-General Gambo. Named as their replacements, respectively, were Vice-Admiral Murtala Nyako, Air Marshal Nureini Yusuf, and Aliyu Attah as the new head of police, and made under circumstances that were to create rumblings of discontent within both the armed forces and civil society. (The circumstances are part of the so-called Bali affair, discussed in greater detail below.) Following LieutenantGeneral Bali's resignation from government and retirement from service, Babangida took over the portfolio of defense minister and allowed Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant-General Abacha to double as the new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. By September 1990, Babangida was again reconstituting the country's military command structure, announcing a wave of retirements of top officers from all the services. More than one hundred senior officers, mostly army generals, brigadiers, and colonels and their equivalents in the air force and navy, were compulsorily retired, in an exercise described by New swatch as part of "load shedding."l5 Many of the top officers who had retired, particularly the army generals such as Ike Nwachukwu, Yohanna

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Kure, Gado Nasko, Mamman Kontagora, continued holding ministerial appointments in the Babangida government. Also retired in this exercise were ten top air marshals and more than thirty other senior and middleranking air-force officers, including commanders.l6 A number of senior navy officers (on a smaller scale) were also retired some time thereafter. Under the reorganization, a number of new military appointments were made. Maj.-Gen. Salihu Ibrahim, a thoroughly professional army officer, became the new chief of army staff, taking over from Lt.-Gen. Sanni Abacha, now made the defense minister as well as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Appointments were also made by General Babangida to the army's various divisions among others, which saw officers of the rank of colonels and brigadiers taking over as general officer commanders (G0Cs).l7 Army officers of the rank of brigadiers and colonels also took over as directors or commanders of the army medical corps, finance and accounts, training and operations, training and doctrine, staff duties and planning, school of infantry, supply and transport, and educational corps. Only a few serving army generals, such as Ali Mohammed, Oladipo Diya, and Jeremiah Useni, were allowed to remain in the force under the new reorganization, and these found themselves posted to the defense headquarters. IS Similar reorganizations took place in the air force and navy, resulting in officers of the equivalents of the rank of brigadiers and colonels taking over as commanders of the various operations, logistics, training institutions, and other command posts of these other services. The changes just described might well have been intended as part of the strategy of "load shedding" or preparing the forces for the professional challenges of the 1990s and beyond.l9 But they could also be interpreted as aimed at depoliticizing the military, especially since many of the generals affected were those who had been too involved in the politics of military rule. If so. the reorganization, taken as part of the preparation for civilian democratic rule and the drive toward reprofessionalization of the military, is rather reminiscent of the 14 July 1978 order of the Obasanjo regime that had posted most officers back to the barracks, appointed military administrators for the states, and asked the remaining senior officers in the cabinet to resign their commissions within the last lap of that regime's transition program.2o Yet, in addition to those professional and more developmental goals, the Babangida regime also had the short-term problems of political security and survival to worry about-which the various military changes may have been intended to address. The two sets of goals were not necessarily contradictory, and may in fact have reinforced one another, within the president's strategy for managing the military. Sometimes, though, shortterm survival concerns seemed the more pressing factor behind such military command changes, as when an entire battalion was moved from its preexisting base to a new location in late 1987. This was the 242 Reece

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The Transition

Battalion, moved from Ibadan to be placed under the Brigade of Guards in Lagos, where it would function under the command of the chief of army staff and the commander in chief of the armed forces, the president himself. The 242 Reece Battalion had traditionally been an efficient and reliable unit with the largest number of armored vehicles in the Nigerian army. 21 In mid-1991, two units of the army were disbanded, the Army Headquarters Garrison (AHG) and the 123d Guards Battalion, both based at the Ikeja Cantonment. in Lagos. Officially, the AHG unit was disbanded because the unit's main function of providing administrative support for army headquarters could be adequately covered by the Army Headquarters Camp and the 123d Guards Battalion in order "to reduce the presence of army locations in the country." The 123d Guards Battalion had supplied Nigeria's first contingent to Liberia, where the troops had been under the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) commanded by Maj.-Gen. Joshua Dogonyaro, and had returned home in February 1991 after completing their six-month tour of duty.22 It is possible that the loyalties of these returning, battle-hardened, troops had become doubtful. Other examples of expedient military changes include the October 1990 promotions elevating three-star generals to full generals, namely of Aikhomu from vice-admiral (retired) to admiral (retired); Domkat Bali, from lieutenant-general (retired) to general (retired); and Sanni Abacha, from lieutenant-general to general. Other promotions formally announced in the October 1990 government order were those of Chief of Naval Staff Murtala Nyako, from vice-admiral also to a full admiral; Chief of Air Staff Nureini Yusuf, from air vice-marshal to air marshal; and Chief of Army Staff Salihu Ibrahim, from major-general to lieutenant-general. These raised the public question of whether Babangida himself might not be aiming at becoming "Nigeria's first Field Marshal."23 After all, some of these promotions (of Aikhomu and Nyako to the rank of full admirals) were the first in the country's history. The fact that two of the top officers so elevated-Aikhomu and Bali-were promoted after they had retired from service led Africa Confidential to call the promotions "as bizarre as they were controversiaL" demonstrating "how political expediency can override military convention" in Babangida's calculations.24 Important military changes were also made on the spur of the moment, as if in quixotic reaction to immediately perceived security threats. Notable here were the changes in army command induced by retired general Olusegun Obasanjo 's speech in early December 1987 criticizing the Babangida government. The former military head of state had used the occasion of launching retired Maj.-Gen. Joseph Garba's book, Diplomatic Soldiering. to deliver a blistering attack on Babangida's Structural Adjustment Program-denouncing it as without "human face, human heart, and milk of kindness." 25 Obasanjo had also commented on the change from 1990 to 1992 as the new handover date; the blanket ban on all former politicians;

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the toying with the "secular" status of the Nigerian state; and the continued detention of the two previous military/political heads, Buhari and Idiagbon. The Obasanjo criticisms created a lot of "rumbles in the corridor of power," especially as almost all the national dailies published the full text of his remarks.26 The Obasanjo speech had the character of an effort to mobilize public opinion in advance of a military coup attempt-or so feared President Babangida, being himself an experienced and well-versed tactician in such matters. He could, therefore, take no chances.27 The almost immediate reaction to the Obasanjo speech was the reshuffling of the army commands. The changes, which were at the time the first major ones to be made by Babangida since assuming office, affected five major-generals.2x As a utilitarian mode of political survival, the Babangida presidency systematically attempted to buy the loyalty and support of the military as institution, by providing various individual rewards for the senior personnel and the other ranks. These have included not just across-the-board increases in pay (part of the general pay equalization) aimed at cushioning members against the effects of SAP, but other individual rewards as well as cash gifts. Although this is a point very difficult to substantiate, General Babangida became famous for his many acts of munificence and generosity toward individual members of the armed forces (as well as civilian aides and allies). These included the proverbial "brown envelopes" occasionally given to officers and men; donations of cows and rams to mark officers' birthdays, Christmas or Eid festivals, marriages, and new births and deaths in military families; sponsorship of medical treatment for officers or their families abroad, with all the expenses paid for by the president; and gifts of new cars and building materials. In the past, such military gifts were often financed from the "security votes," but by 1990 there was no longer an expenditure heading so called in the budget. Perhaps the monies still came from the presidency-or were taken from the sums earmarked for "contingencies." One journalist Seye Kehinde, writing in September 1990, reported Babangida to have "surreptitiously set up a slush fund last year, from the revenues of the oil exports that were anticipated because of the fortuitous increase in the price of oil on the international market," and the fund from which were financed the measures used to cater to the welfare of the military.29 But we have no hard evidence for this. The fact is that, although Nigeria operates a relatively open accounting system of military budgeting, 3D the researcher faces considerable problems in trying to determine the precise size of the country's military budget under given regimes, especially if such regimes are also military. For example, a good portion of the budget estimates for military regimes in power before 1979-1980 "covering 'general administration' and under such expenditure heads as 'State House' (or Dodan Barracks), and 'Cabinet Office,' tended to contain (hidden) components of military expenditure." 31

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The Transition

The lack of budget transparency was an even more acute problem in the Babangida regime, given the much-expanded nature of this presidency and the trends toward establishing a security and intelligence apparatus based within the presidency and outside of the regular military formation (see below). A number of the allocations made under the Babangida presidency, such as the :N: 1.11 billion (1.11 billion naira) and the :N: 1.50 billion approved in 1990 and 1991, respectively, as recurrent expenditures on police/police affairs under the presidency, and the :N: 151.65 million and the :N: 337.20 million appropriated in 1990 and 1991, respectively, as capital expenditures for the police/police affairs,32 could arguably be counted with the allocations to the Ministry of Defense (MOD) in order to arrive at much more accurate (and much larger) expenditure figures on the defense and security sector. The entire capital expenditure for MOD in 1990, for example, was :N: 581 million. Even limiting ourselves to MOD budget figures, we see that (except for the first two years of the introduction of SAP, when the drastic shrinkage in the country's foreign exchange affected all capital expenditures, as reflected in the much-reduced figures for fiscal years 1986 and 1987), the overall pattern in the combined recurrent and capital allocations since 1985 points to a rising defense-expenditure trend. The picture would be more discernible if we added the concealed figures from the presidency and other extrabudgetary sources of allocations to the military. Although the relative shares of federal expenditures on defense had been declining since the immediate post-Civil War period, defense spending in absolute terms continued to rise; it climbed up for the first time to the two-billion-naira mark in 1987, when it hit nearly 10 percent of total federal spending, at the expense of education and health care, and stayed more or less at that level for much of the remaining time period of the Babangida regime (while declining again as a percent of federal spending; see Table 2.1). The figures for these years are provisional, but there is no reason to expect that the actual defense spending for these years was lower. They could well have been higher, given the tendency toward huge extrabudgetary allocations characteristic of the period. Under the Babangida regime, Nigeria also experienced increased differentiation of the military from the rest of society, as measured by the huge privileges that came to be accorded to military status. It was as if the whole machinery of the Nigerian state were being put at the service of the military, both serving and retired, as I have documented elsewhere.33 For two random illustrations of this, in July 1986, a widely publicized circular was dispatched from the office of the chief of army staff requesting seven federal ministries as well as state governors under the Babangida military presidency to give consideration to retired military officers in the award of government contracts "so that they could earn a living in arespectable manner." The seven federal ministries specifically approached

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Table 2.1 Defense Share of Total Federal Nigerian Expenditures Under Babangida

Fiscal Year

1985 1986 1987 1988a 1989a 199oa 199P

Total Federal Expenditures (millions of naira)

Total Defense Expenditures (millions of naira)

14,894.6 16,733.3 22,018.7 27,749.5 41,028.1 61,149.1 67,530.4

1,385.2 803.2 2,154.9 1,720.1 2,219.3 2,285.2 2,711.7

Percent of Total Federal Expenditures Defense Education Health 9.3 4.8 9.8 6.2 5.4 3.7 4.0

5.4 5.2 2.0 6.4 8.3 4.6 2.3

1.4 1.9 0.6 2.0 1.9 1.3 1.1

Source: Central Bank of Nigeria, Annual Report and Statement of Accounts, various issues. Notes: The naira ('I*) is the basic unit of Nigerian currency, and approximately equalled £0.88 (British Sterling) and $1.85 (U.S. dollars) in August 1980. With the devaluation of the Nigerian currency consequent on the introduction of SAP, the naira as of June 1991 approximately exchanged for £0.05 (British sterling) and $0.08 (U.S. dollars). a. Provisional

for this end were those of internal affairs; communications; information; youth, sports, and culture; transport and aviation; labor and productivity; and trade. Similar organized efforts were launched about the same time to help retired soldiers interested in farming. Perhaps the most bountiful military privilege Babangida announced, and the one that most aroused the ire of the public, was the special ~ 500 million allocation in 1992 for the purchase of cars for military officers, mostly majors and captains and their equivalents in the navy and air force. By January 1993, junior ranks from warrant officers to sergeants were reported to have had their own share of Babangida's motor donations in the form of motorcycles, while the other ranks collected bicycles. Other security agencies, including the police, came later on to partake of this largesse. Needless to say, the money voted was not enough to make these donations go around. For the military rulers, SAP has brought such destabilizing political effects that their instinctive reaction was to seek to buy more security through recourse to greater coercion and authoritarianism.34 The resulting militarization was manifested in such measures as creation or expansion of paramilitary bodies, the police force, as well as the intelligence and security apparatus, alongside the regular armed forces; higher salaries and other benefits for the military and other state-security and intelligence personnel; and purchase of newer and more sophisticated equipment, including communications systems. A major focus of Babangida's management strategy toward the military as institution was aimed at preventing the armed forces at all costs from entertaining a common cause with disaffected groups in civil society,

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even if this meant inciting the armed forces' latent antipathy against civil society. Thus, in his address of 5 June 1989 to the new Armed Forces Consultative Assembly (AFCA)-inaugurated soon after violent anti-SAP protests that had threatened Babangida's hold on power-the president said that the protesters of the previous two weeks were merely using SAP as "an excuse to wage war against the government in order to destroy the credibility of the military institution." He told the 265-member military assembly-comprising all battalion commanders in the army and their equivalents in the other arms of the forces, all brigade commanders and their equivalents, plus two selected senior staff officers from each army division and their equivalents-that "the military must not allow itself to fall prey to the divisive antics of our detractors .... We must not let the military as an institution be humiliated or be disgraced out of office as was the case in some other countries."35 General Babangida implied a similar threat at the height of the Kafanchan religious riots two years before when, in a national broadcast on 17 March 1987, he declared: "What we are dealing with is not just a religious crisis but rather the civilian counterpart of an attempted coup d' hat organized against the federal military government and the Nigerian nation."36 But did such an arousal of latent military antipathy against civil society produce real equilibrium in relations between the military and society? On the contrary, it was counterproductive to the political transition program's goal of civilian control over the military. Elsewhere, Babangida spoke of what he called "the hegemonic crisis which looms in the horizon of the relationship between the military and civilians." It centered on "the intractable question of who does the military perceive must control its organization?" In Babangida's view, "[l]t is the military who can work out a relationship that can lead to some civilian-military equilibrium and not the civilian political authority. I believe that it is only the military that can successfully lead the armed forces back to the barracks."37 Babangida's solution to the crisis of civil-military relations lay in making the military "a state within the state."

COALITION BUILDING, INTRAMILITARY CONFLICTS, AND THE PROBLEM OF CMLIAN CONTROL

From the very moment of its installation, a military regime tends to divide the military into two: the "military in government" versus the "military in the barracks."38 This division was in Nigeria (as it typically is elsewhere) one of the key factors underlying the initial pressure to demilitarize andreturn power to civilians, as we saw. For this conflict, arising from the divergence of interests between those selected military officers holding political office and the bulk of soldiers still in the fighting services, is the

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basic cause of the many countercoup attempts, conspiracies, and threats to which such regimes are so vulnerable. It is true, of course, that once the principle of military withdrawal has been accepted and the "transition to civil rule" project is commenced and implemented, this particular source of conflict diminishes in significance (although it does not completely disappear), thereby permitting the departing military regime to concentrate on other sources of intramilitary dissension or worry. To that extent, the "transition" project does perform a very useful unifying and legitimizing function for the regime. Among the other sources of intramilitary officer conflicts with implications for any political transition program were those latent in the structure of the officer corps. We refer to the military's internal system of stratification and its supremely unequal service conditions and benefits regarding pay, privilege, promotion, and other self-regarding interests, which are at the root of most struggles raging within the officer corps, particularly of the middle ranks against the upper-officer class and the lowerofficer class (including noncommanding officers [NCOs]) against the middle ranks. Such intraofficer struggles are known to spill over into acts and/or threats of coups and countercoups against governments.39 A transitional regime is not immune from such internal conflicts. Indeed, it may be even more vulnerable, especially when this source of conflict coincides with others, including the ethnic or linguistic, religious, and regional. Another common source of intraofficer conflicts during transitions centers on whether or not to accept demilitarization and democratization.40 This is the conflict between the ''hard-liners" and the "soft-liners." The "hard-liners" in the Nigerian military were hesitant about handing power to what they dismissed as a corrupt class of civilians and would have preferred reforming the inherent authoritarian excesses of military rule, in order to allow it to give Nigeria a considerable period of stable and purposive government. In this category also belong the "dyarchists." Rejecting the conventional separation between the civil and military realms of state power as irrelevant to Nigerian needs, they favor a system of joint military/political rulership, while mobilizing core social groups like workers, peasants, women, students, and youth to participate, with the military as the senior partner (essentially a ''corporatist alternative"). For the regime "soft-liners," or moderates, it is in the interests of both the armed forces and society at large for the regime to liberalize, for power to be returned to civilians, and for the country's politics to become demilitarized and democratized. Among the soft-liners are genuinely professional officers who consider military intervention in politics as an aberration and are committed to returning the armed forces to soldiering as a profession, leaving politics to the professional politicians. The regime softliners enjoyed significant support from the growing ranks of top retired military officers, such as Generals Gowon, Obasanjo, Yar' Adua, Danjuma,

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and Jemibewon, most of whom have become converted to the ways of civilians or the democratic method and who did not tire of reminding the Babangida regime of the dangers of clinging to power too long. Of course, the class of top retired military officers have their own economic and political interests for taking this position. Yar' Adua and Gowan, for example, both contested for the presidency in 1992 before the two party primaries were canceled.41 Intramilitary officer conflicts are potentially explosive in Nigeriaeven when they are purely military, rank-based, and personal-because they tend to be amplified by the conflicts and crises (including ethnic, regional, and religious divisions) of the larger society. By the same token, societal crises and conflicts can provoke rather unexpected intramilitary disagreements, if not conflicts. A case in point is the Bali affair.42 Gen. Domkat Bali was until January 1990 the most senior and longest-serving general in the Nigerian army and had been a member of the AFRC and of the Federal Executive Council, where he had been serving as minister of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff since the August 1985 coup. Then came the 29 December 1989 military reshuffling, which saw Babangida replacing all but one of his service chiefs as well as the top army commanders (the socalled GOCs). General Bali himself was seriously affected by that reshuffling, stripped of his joint portfolios and given the less prestigious post of minister of internal affairs. The army boss, Lt.-Gen. Sani Abacha, was the only one among the service chiefs unaffected negatively by the changes but, rather, given enhanced status combining his position as chief of army staff with a new portfolio as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; while General Babangida himself took over the defense portfolio outright, adding this to his powers as the president and commander of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Ordinarily, these were purely military changes and would perhaps have remained and been generally seen as such, but for the fact that those changes took place against the backdrop of deep religious divisions generated by the controversy over Nigeria's joining the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in early 1986 and general suspicion about the intentions (including willingness to leave power) and political moves of the Babangida regime.43 These factors led those military changes (and most subsequent ones) to be interpreted from the calculus of the North-South dichotomy, Muslim-Christian divide, and zero-sum political gamesmanship. Thus, the reconstitution of the service chiefs and top army commands set many Nigerians at work counting "who has gained, who has lost" among the competing segments of society. That the December 1989 reshuffling left only Muslims in charge of all armed services as well as the presidency became an instant issue. The latter was not, of course, a small matter to be easily passed over in a country whose civil-military politics and ideology have long been regulated

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by "quota" or "federal character," and where religion had suddenly come to assume such a potent force in politics. Editorials of many newspapers across the country criticized the regime for being insensitive to this, while Christian groups severally or acting under their umbrella organization, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), staged peaceful marches to protest what they saw as increasing discrimination against them in the running of the country's affairs. In fact, several of the key officers who lost their positions-not only Lieutenant-General Bali but also Chief of Navy Staff Vice-Adm. Patrick Koshoni, Air Force Chief Air Marshal Ibrahim Alfa, and Maj.-Gen. Joshua Dogonyaro, replaced as GOC of the Ibadanbased 2 Mechanised Army Division-were Christian. That all these top officers had served their tour of duty did not seem important to those protesting the reshuffling. Thus, by the time Lieutenant-General Bali in early January 1990 called his press conference in effect to challenge publicly President Babangida's right to carry out those changes, and to announce his retirement from the force rather than accept his new posting as minister of internal affairs, security reports had begun talking of acute civil-military and intramilitary tension. For, as some political analysts observed: "It was the first time in recent history that two top military officers would be seen to be disagreeing publicly. Sources said that tension and suspicion cut through the rank and file of the armed forces." 44 So serious were the tension and suspicion generated by the Bali affair, offering would-be putschist and opportunist elements an excuse for causing trouble, that President Babangida had to cancel a planned overseas trip to the United States to attend to the political and security crisis at home. The Bali affair was only the latest in a long string of crises and conflicts that rocked the Babangida regime and threatened to scuttle the transition program: the exposure in December 1985 of an alleged countercoup plot led by Maj.-Gen. Mamman Vatsa, leading to a number of executions; the OIC imbroglio beginning the following month; the national debate over the constitutional provisions regarding Nigeria as a "secular state"; the Kafanchan religious riots of June 1987; the nationwide students riots of April 1988 protesting removal of petroleum subsidy; the killing of Ahmadu Bello University (A.B.U.) students in May 1988, which provoked another round of nationwide student uproar; another round of nationwide anti-SAP riots in May 1989; and, following the Bali affair, the long-term closing of many of the nation's universities in February through March 1990, due to further anti-SAP protests by university students; the coup attempt of 22 April1990 organized by Maj. Gideon Orka and his cohort; and numerous other riots and protests since then. Some of these conflicts could be seen as part of the process of reactivating social forces inherent in any transition project; that is, the difficulty of reconciling, let alone containing, the interests of divergent groups and

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classes in a resurgent civil society. 45 Other sources of the intramilitary, civil-military, and societal discords, though, were traceable to ethnic, regional, religious, and communal divisions in the country that the Babangida regime did a poor job of managing. Others, still, were a direct consequence of the nation's economic conditions and the government's policies, particularly SAP and its pains. Prominent among Babangida's strategies for containing these conflicts and crises was the use of force whenever necessary. He failed to acknowledge any contradiction between this practice and his professed commitment to human rights. Recourse to force was intended not merely to contain the crisis of the moment but to serve as a deterrent to would-be troublemakers, conspirators, and "subversives." Thus, he did not hesitate to arrange and approve the subsequent trial and execution of MajorGeneral Vatsa and others implicated in the December 1985 plot, and of Major Orka and company, found guilty of the foiled 22 April 1990 countercoup attempt. Admittedly, such repression was not confined to the Babangida era only. All of Nigeria's military regimes have at one time or another resorted to proscription or closure of newspaper houses and presses, arrest and imprisonment of journalists, lawyers, and other professionals, and sacking and/or detention of university lecturers. Nor have successive military regimes permitted or supported the development of autonomous, selfconstituted associational groups. For example, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) was proscribed by the Obasanjo regime, and, although it was later resurrected, NANS meetings continued to be considered "clandestine" by the Babangida regime. During the ldiagbon-Buhari era, both the National Medical Association (NMA) and the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) were by decree proscribed, even as the press was gagged, the judiciary intimidated, intellectuals cowed, and organized labor repressed. While leaving some "space" for civil society in a formal sense, the Babangida regime was unprecedented in Nigerian history for the number of social groups and organizations that it succeeded in breaking up, taking over, or proscribing. Among them were the Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC), for almost a year (1988-1989), and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), for two years from 1988 to 1990.46 As Olukoshi discusses in his chapter, the Babangida regime became noted most not for its commitment to human rights but for its constant harassment and detention of university lecturers, labor leaders, journalists, human-rights activists, and social critics. But General Babangida 's expansive leadership style also lent itself to various noncoercive and often seductive strategies for managing conflict and dissent. Among these were: encouraging a proliferation of debating events, seminars, and workshops on one national issue after another (what someone described as "the season of seminars"); projecting an ideological

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image of populism and bonapartism, even while proclaiming an "end to ideology" and to "undue radicalism" in Nigerian politics; offering state governorships and other political offices to middle-ranking military personnel, as a way of winning over the radical elements among them; "using plum political offices for military patronage"; creating and using new institutions, like the AFCA, as a means of broadening the regime's base of support as well as legitimation; co-opting politically significant individuals, families, and ethnic as well as other social groups, and a whole military corps into serving under the regime; using donation and payoffs to oil the machinery of governance; enticing hitherto politically quiescent social groups such as women's associations and traditional rulers to support the regime; making recourse to foreign policy for winning domestic allies; raising alarms over threats to "national security," whether real or imagined, partly to create consensus and to mobilize particularly the armed forces behind the regime's transition program; constantly circulating elites, power groups, and bases within the military command structure; and combining periodic military retirement of officers with their promotion to new political influence. To illustrate with two examples the nature of the strategic mixes involved in his gaming, when General Babangida came to power in August 1985, he was generally believed to have been helped to power by the socalled Langtang Mafia, a group of highly influential officers, including Gens. Joshua Dogonyaro and Jerry Useni and Col. John Shagaya, mostly Christians, and hailing from the Langtang village of Plateau State in the Middle-Belt subregion of Nigeria. From Langtang also comes one of the last of the Sandhurst-trained top army officers, Gen. Domkat Bali, as well as that charismatic "diplomatic soldier" of the Obasanjo era, the retired major-general Joseph Garba. Judging from the strategic positions held by such key Langtang members within the regime up to 1988, it was apparent that Babangida was relying on the group as his initial power base. But, by the end of the third year of his presidency, Babangida felt the need to reshuffle his ruling coalition, reduce the influence of the Langtang group, and build up a new power base. By the time President Babangida effected his dramatic cabinet reshuffle at the end of December 1989, he had succeeded in cutting the group's influence to size. By March 1990, the well-informed London-based newsletter, Africa Confidential, was headlining its report on Nigeria as "the fall of the Langtang Mafia."47 But the Bali affair and the Orka coup attempt of 22 April 1990 along with the issues raised by both were to force Babangida to make aU-turn and seek reconciliation with some of his old allies, by making "a series of deft moves designed to restore his control over the military and his political leverage in society at large" and that saw among other things the "Langtang appeased." 48 Among the measures cited in support of this were the promotion of Lt.-Gen. Domkat Bali, after he had retired from the army, to full general, the appointment of the retired

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major-general Joseph Garba as ambassador-at-large, and the selection ofMaj.Gen. Dogonyaro as field commander of ECOMOG troops in Liberia. One of Babangida's major worries since assuming the presidency was the phenomenon of "young officers' radicalism" and how to cope with it. He correctly diagnosed middle-ranking officers at any given time to be the ones invariably planning coups against the upper-military cum political class, and the lower-class officers combined with the NCOs to be behind junior officers' revolts against the middle- and upper-officer cum political classes. To reduce the coup pressures coming from these two sources, he attempted to co-opt elements from among the lower- and middle-officer classes. That was how, for example, Maj. Abubakar Danjuma Umar, a dashing young army "socialist," came to be appointed governor of Kaduna State at the inception of the regime. At the same time, Babangida recognized the importance of not antagonizing the retiring class of generals and other senior officers, but keeping them happy with the regime. Thus, he pursued a two-pronged strategy, divesting senior officers of key military command posts, and even retiring them from active service, in order to make way for the up-and-coming younger officers, even while palming the senior officers so divested and retired with lucrative political offices and government board appointments. From the foregoing, General Babangida appeared for most of his rule as a skillful strategist and master political tactician, indeed the most consummate Machiavelli's prince in action on the contemporary African scene. However, some of the president's strategies and moves created more problems than they solved. Witness the use of surprise as a political strategem as well as the juggling between groups and the divide-and-rule principle. While these tactics may have been suitable for managing the military and the broader security structure, they tended to create more problems for governing Nigeria as a divided society. They were also responsible for the growing public doubts about General Babangida's oftstated intention to hand over to a democratically elected civilian government by 1992 (and then, by 1993). Nor was the situation helped by the repeated rescheduling of the date for the handover of power as well as other elements of the transition timetable. In the end, General Babangida outsmarted himself, as his constant manipulations alienated public opinion and trust rather than uniting the citizenry behind the government, while providing the former political class the opportunity to sow the seeds of more discord and disaffection.

THE EXPANSION OF THE INTELLIGENCE AND STATE SECURITY APPARATUS

Facilitating President Babangida's strategies of repression and co-optation was the establishment of a new national security (cum intelligence) state

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apparatus, autonomous from the regular armed forces and personally responsible to General Babangida as president. Although it was a pillar of the regime, the expansion and centralization of control over this apparatus were a subject of much contestation among the military as well as civilians. Babangida's reorganization of the state intelligence apparatus began with his initial dismantling of the Nigerian Security Organization (NSO), which had been used by the preceding Buhari-Idiagbon regime to spy on the activities of regular military officers as well as to terrorize that regime's civilian political opponents. But the Babangida presidency soon found that it too needed its own security and intelligence network for managing the military as well as maintaining control over society. Thus, Babangida came to create his own security and intelligence apparatus even more powerful and awesome than the one he had dismantled. It began with the establishment of three new security agencies to take over the functions of the defunct NSO. These were the State Security Service (SSS), the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). According to the decree promulgating their establishment in late June 1988, the SSS was to be responsible for intelligence within the country, the NIA for external intelligence, and the DIA for defense-related intelligence both within and outside the country. The heads of the three agencies were to be responsible directly to the president. At the apex of the three agencies stood the newly established office of Coordinator of National Security (CONS) charged with coordinating and overseeing the activities of the security organizations, including their staffing. The coordinator was to be a principal staff officer in the office of the president. 49 It is not known how these new security agencies related to preexisting intelligence services, such as the army's Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI). But the new arrangement no doubt allowed room for much jurisdictional jealousies and conflicts between the former Dodan Barracks-based (and later Aso Rock-based) new security/intelligence outfit and the regular armed forces, whose own intelligence units had cause to complain about usurpation of their functions. I suspect that the controversy that later blew open between one Major Bashorun, as the principal staff officer to the president, on the one hand, and Maj.-Gen. Sanni Abacha, as OAS, and Brigadier Halilu Akilu, as director of military intelligence, on the other, was part of this. Complicating the situation by this time was the Israeli factor. The Israeli intelligence service, the MOSSAD, was widely rumored to have been brought in to help train and supply the personnel of Babangida's new security cum intelligence organizations, especially the components directly concerned with protecting the presidency. The purported quid pro quo for the Israeli involvement was a promise of diplomatic recognition. so These developments coincided in time with the acute religious controversy over the OIC matter, the promotion of Israeli interests by Christian groups to counter the perceived rising Islamic influence, and the centrifugal

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implications of all this for the polity. It was with the latter considerations in view, along with the professional soldier's traditional distaste for any organization of "contra-security cum intelligence forces," that Gen. Sanni Abacha, then OAS, issued a statement categorically denying that the Babangida regime had been relying on Israeli technical assistance for its security and protection.5l Such contradictions coming from the heads of the armed forces suggest that President Babangida's creation of a new and powerful state security cum intelligence apparatus was a major bone of contention within the military. At the same time, the gestapo-style tactics of some of the new security agencies, including the 1986 "parcel bomb" assassination of crusading Newswatch editor Dele Giwa, in which two top intelligence officials were publicly implicated, came to worry most civilians. In addition, the trends toward centralization of the countermilitary and intelligence services under the presidency appeared to belie Babangida's "human rights policy" claims and his commitment to hand over power by his various promised dates. Suspicions as to the president's real intentions deepened in the wake of the May 1989 riots and the government's subsequent review of its means for maintaining law and order, resulting in the establishment of the controversial National Guard. The latter engendered a national furor, led by key members of the former political class, civil-liberties groups, the bar association, students and intellectuals, journalists, and organized labor. Some of the country's military and police security and intelligence chiefs were also known to have had misgivings about the scheme, although they kept these to themselves. Maj. Gideon Orka and his coconspirators sought to capitalize on these fears when they identified the disbandment of the National Guard as one of the major objectives of their 22 April 1990 coup attempt. The Orka putsch came to be significant for a number of reasons. Not least, it was the first serious coup attempt in Nigeria to be organized completely outside the regular military format, using mostly extramilitary facilities, such as arms and ammunition secretly stockpiled on the outskirts of Lagos, at the premises of a fishing company belonging to a civilian business tycoon; a freshly acquired fleet of 15 Peugeot combo-buses, for transport and retired soldiers and noncoms, privately reenlisted, as followers. The full story of the 22 April 1990 event has not yet been told, in part because some of the principal culprits are still at large. What can be said definitively is that the coup attempt "outwitted the awesome security network which Babangida had put in place" while posing "more questions than answers" for the transition program.52 Although the expanded and centralized intelligence apparatus did not detect the 1990 coup attempt that nearly killed the president and toppled his regime, it probably uncovered other budding coup plots during the Babangidea years. More seriously, however, the intelligence apparatus acquired

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an autonomy and power that figure to make it a major problem for democratic control when power is formally transferred to elected civilians.

PROSPECTS FOR DEMOCRACY AFTER MILITARY RULE

General Babangida's presidency introduced perhaps the most far-reaching measures in Nigerian history aimed at reforming the political system, establishing a new constitutional rule, and "laying the foundations of a new socio-political order."53 Yet the whole thrust of Babangida's rule was to increase rather than diminish political authoritarianism, for three major reasons. The first is the basic antidemocratic nature of the military qua military. The second has to do with the inherent contradictory forces set in motion by imposition of the economic-reform package called SAP, which tended to induce increased reliance on coercion and authoritarianism. And the third was Babangida's own personal leadership style and strategies, which led to relentless enhancement and centralization of the security and intelligence apparatus under the presidency. These authoritarian practices of the regime, using structures of state power not markedly changed from the colonial era, were incapable of nurturing the democratic orientations among the citizenry essential for running a constitutional government. Moreover, any new civilian political leadership is bound to have serious problems controlling the awesome intelligence apparatus constructed by the Babangida regime. The issue here is not simply whether the new intelligence agencies will be prepared to give as much loyal service to a civilian ruler, since many of their heads are and will in all probability remain of military or former military backgrounds. Perhaps even more difficult are the latent jurisdictional squabbles between the presidency's own counterintelligence units and those other services of the regular armed forces traditionally charged with intelligence function, which repeatedly erupted into overt conflicts even under the Babangida regime. If top regular military officers and service chiefs could occasionally challenge a military president over the operations of that countervailing security and intelligence outfit, a civilian president is bound to have even more problems with the use of such an outfit for checking the regular military. From comparative experience, countless coups and countercoups are known to have been staged by regular armed forces where governments are perceived to be building paramilitary and security forces aimed to rival or preempt the regular armed forces. A possible positive legacy is that President Babangida did more than other previous rulers to deal with many of the problems handicapping the military professionalism of the Nigerian army since the end of the civil war in 1970. These include the problem of the army's bloated size and the

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need for "demobilization," which all previous leaders had found too hot to handle, so to speak. The attitude of most of the previous rulers, beginning with Gen. Yakubu Gowon, had been marked by lack of planning, indecision, and equivocation as regards this issue.54 Although the MurtalaObasanjo government had planned to prune the army down, and even took initial bold steps in that direction, the exercise had to be discontinued for all practical purposes when it became known that Colonel Dimka and others had sought to use the issue and the fears generated by it to mobilize the rank and file behind their abortive countercoup attempt of 13 February 1976. Demobilization had since remained shelved as a policy until President Babangida's advent to power, when the boldest attempt at confronting the issue began to be implemented. During Babangida's rule the army declined in size from 140,000 to fewer than 100,000 troops, with an ultimate declared goal of 60,000. Side by side with the drastic reduction of army personnel were reorganization measures aimed in part at raising the capabilities, efficiency, and professionalism of all the armed forces. Babangida was also acutely aware of the deleterious consequences for the body politic of the breakdown of military professionalism arising from cycles of coups, and spelled out at length his vision as to what an ideal Nigerian professional military would be. Thus, through his rhetorical vision, Babangida sought to convince the Nigerian armed forces of the need to return to their traditional, "nonpolitical" role as a way of maintaining and advancing their corporate wellbeing under a democratic constitutional order. However, numerous aspects of Babangida's style and practice of rule contradicted those goals. To begin with, the very existence of a military government whose political power derived from a coup d'etat fires similar ambition for political power on the part of other military members. This is especially so since the benefits of a coup for those who successfully execute one have become so enormous (as have, of course, the costs of failure). Never has participation in a coup government brought with it so much in the way of rapid promotions, huge privileges, and stupendous wealth. Given this, there remains a standing danger that the military-political "outs" of today may be waiting for their own slightest opportunity of staging a coup. The 17 November 1993 coup that toppled Babangida's interim government must be seen in this light. We have also talked of Babangida's strategy of offering middle-ranking officers various government offices in order to win their support and ward off a potential countercoup. Unfortunately, as the principal target for this special military patronage, the class of majors and their equivalents in the air force and navy constitute a veritable plateau within the officer corps, too large to be covered comprehensively by choice political appointments and military promotions. The result is that the strategy tended to provoke splits in the military officer corps, as other lower- and middle-

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officer classes not so favored increasingly vented their frustration. 55 These splits seem likely to persist under future regimes. Likely also to persist are other divisions within the military accentuated by the application of "divide and rule," juggling between submilitary groups, manipulation of ethnic-military relations, and constant command reshuffling, among Babangida's other political-military strategies of control. All these are certain to make the realization of Babangida's professional, democratic conception of the role of the military in a future civilian republic very difficult. General Babangida is on record to have called his own 1985 coup "the last coup to end all future coups"! To be sure. his whole strategy of demilitarizing the political realm and establishing the so-called grassroots two-party system was informed by this. Undoubtedly, the events immediately preceding and following Babangida's forced exit from power on 26 August 1993, the scuttling of the transition program, and the 17 November 1993 palace coup have come to belie all of this. But the problem facing the new Second Republic in 1979 remains just as palpable, if not more so, for any future republic: whether soldiers, who have been used to enjoying certain "perquisites and privileges of political power," and "who have been accustomed to being treated like lords as the politicians before them would be content with the drab and unprestigious life of the barracks."56 To overcome this problem, civilian government must function effectively to deal with the "high stakes" challenges that have bedeviled Nigerian politics in the past: elections, revenue allocation, legislative cum political representation, and military recruitment, all of them contested in zero-sum political environment. To these must be added the essentially military interest, the protection and promotion of which has in the past made it well-nigh impossible to keep the military "out" of domestic politics.57 Unfortunately, nothing in the transition program or in the conjugation of forces in civil society suggests that Nigeria has overcome these and related political disabilities. Unless it does so, the prospects for the persistence and institutionalization of democracy in a Fourth Republic will be-to say the least-most uncertain.

NOTES 1. I have explored some of these issues in comparative perspective in an earlier paper; see J. 'Bayo Adekanye, "The Military and Grassroots Democracy;· presented at a National Conference on Grassroots Democracy in Nigeria, organized at Abeokuta by the Department of Political Science, Ogun State University, AgoIwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria, 23-25 July 1990. 2. Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).

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3. Of particular interest to us are the essays by Alfred Stepan, "Paths to Redemocratization: Theoretical and Comparative Considerations," and Alain Rouquie, "Democratization and the Institutionalization of Military-Dominated Polities in Latin America," both appearing in O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, eels .. Transitions froom Authoritarian Rule, volume on Comparative Perspectives, pp. 64-84, 108-136. From that Stepan piece is adapted the distinction between the "military as government" and the "military as institution" used in the analysis below. See also Stepan's Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). 4. African Concord (Lagos), 3 September 1990, p. 38. 5. Newswatch (Lagos), 17 September 1990, p. 18. 6. W. Howard Wriggins, The Ruler's Imperative (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 174. 7. From the character sketch on Babangida by Seye Kehinde, "The Man, His Style," in African Concord, p. 37. 8. West Africa (London), 24 August 1987, p. 1616. 9. Sec the sections on "the management of the military as institution" and "the expanding role of military intelligence" below. 10. Yet the vaunted power of Babangida (like that of his role model, Machiavelli's prince) rested on the flimsy foundation of manipulation and nothing more. 11. That is the former chief of general staff (CGS) whose title was changed to that of vice-president on 1 October 1990. 12. The present author has offered a similar explanation for the massive corruption prevalent under the Shagari civilian presidency, in "Politics in a PostMilitary State in Africa," Politico 49. no. 1 (Pavia, Italy, 1984 ): 58-59. 13. Newswatch, September 17, 1990, p.l8. 14. West Africa (London), 12 October 1987, p. 2048. 15. See Newswatch, 17 September 1990, pp. 15-20, for a detailed analysis of the names of the top military officers and commands affected by these changes. 16. Ibid., p. 16. 17. These officers were: Brig. A. Abubakar, GOC, I Mechanised Division, based at Kaduna; Brig. J.-M. Inienger, GOC, 2 Mechanised Division, based at lbadan; Col. Tunji Olurin, GOC, 3 Armored Division, based at Jos; Col. Chris Garuba, GOC, 82 Airborn Division, based at Enugu. Newswatch, 11 September 1990, p. 20. 18. Ibid. 19. On this, see "Nigeria's Armed Forces: Not Yet a Revolution, African Guardian (Lagos), 1 October 1990, pp. 12-18. 20. See my contribution, J. 'Bayo Adekson, "Dilemma of Military Disengagement," in Oye Oyediran, ed., Nigerian Government and Politics Under Military Rule 1966-79 (London: Macmillan, 1979), pp. 212-234. 21. West Africa (London), 2 November 1987, p. 2178. 22. West Africa, 10-16 June 1991, p. 960; and 4-10 March 1991, p. 316. 23. For speculations and public debates on this, see Newsbreed (Lagos), 5 November 1990, pp. 43-46. 24. Africa Confidential (London), 9 November 1990, p. 6. 25. Edited version of the speech can be found in West Africa (London), 7 December 1987, pp. 2389-2390. 26. For some of the political reactions to the Obasanjo speech and other subsequent reverberations, see West Africa, 7-13 December 1987, p. 2409; and 6-12 November 1989, pp. 1841-1842. 27. In fact, this December 1987 speech of Gen. Obasanjo's was rather reminiscent of one he gave on 5 August 1985, making similarly veiled but damaging

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criticisms of the Buhari/Idiagbon regime just three weeks before its overthrow. See the Keynote Address by Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, "Nigeria: Which Way Forward," Annual Conference of the Agricultural Society of Nigeria, Moor Plantation, Ibadan, 1985. 28. Maj.-Gen. Garba Duba, then GOC of the 2 Mechanised Division, Ibadan, swapped positions with Brig. Joshua Dogonyaro. GOC of the 3 Armoured Division in Jos. Brig. Oladipo Diya, GOC of the 82 Division, Enugu, swapped positions with Maj.-Gen. Sanni Sami, commandant of the Nigerian Army School of Infantry (NASI). Maj.-Gen. Paul Omu, commandant of the Command and Staff College, Jaji, became principal joint staff officer in the Ministry of Defense headquarters, replacing Maj.-Gen. Duro Ajayi, who became the army's adjutant-general; and Maj.-Gen. Abdulahi Mamman moved from his active command to replace Omu at the Command and Staff College. These and several other strategic command shifts were announced with immediate effect on 7 December 1987. West Africa, 7-13 December 1987, p. 2409. All five major-generals were subsequently retired from the military. 29. Kehinde, "The Man, His Style," p. 38. 30. See J. 'Bayo Adekanye, "Sources and Methods for the Nigerian Military Expenditure Data: A Research Note," Nigerian Journal of International Affairs I 0, no. I (1984): 88-101. 31. J. 'Bayo Adekanye (Adekson), Nigeria in Search of a Stable Ci~·i/-Military System (Aldershot, England: Gower, and Boulder, CO: Westview, 1981 ), p. 56. 32. See Guardian Financial Weekly (Lagos), 7 January 1991, p. 12. 33. J. 'Bayo Adekanye, Military Occupation and Social Stratification, Inaugural Lecture (Ibadan: Vantage Publishers for the University of Ibadan, 1993). 34. For general arguments supporting our contention here, see Yusuf Bangura, "Structural Adjustment and the Political Question," Review of African Political Economy 37 (December 1986): 24-37; Jeffrey Herbst, "The Structural Adjustment of Politics in Africa," World Development 18, no. 7 (1990): 949-958. 35. That 5 June 1989 speech to the AFCA by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida was reported in Guardian (Lagos), 6 June 1989, pp. 1-2, emphasis mine. 36. Quoted, in West Africa (London), 23 March 1987, p. 552, emphasis mine. 37. All quotations are from "Address Delivered by Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida CFR, FSS, mni, President, Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces on the Occasion of the Chief of Army Staff Annual Conference on 25 January 1988," p. 3. 38. Samuel E. Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics, 2d en. ed. (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1975), p. 174ff. 39. Adekanye, "Towards Explaining Civil-Military Instability in Contemporary Africa: A Comparative Political Mode," in Current Research on Peace and Violence 8, nos. 3-4 (1978): pp. 195-197; and "Pay, Promotion and Other Self-Regarding Interests of Military Intervention in Politics," Military Affairs 45, no. 1 (1981): 18-22. 40. O'Donnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule. 41. See my The Retired Military as Emergent Power Factor in Nigeria (lbadan: Heinemann, forthcoming). 42. For a good report on this, see the weekly magazine Newswatch (Lagos), 22 January 1990, pp. 10-12, 15-16. 43. On the dispute over Nigeria's joining the OIC, see the chapters on religion and politics in this volume by Suberu and Ibrahim. 44. See Newswatch (Lagos), 22 January 1990, pp. 11-12.

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45. This was the central subject of my earlier piece, "The Military and Grassroots Democracy." 46. Again, see the chapters in this volume by Olukoshi, Jega, and Nwankwo. 47. Africa Confidential (London), vol. 31, no. 5, 9 March 1990, p. 5. 48. Africa Confidential (London), vol. 31, no. 22, 9 November 1990, p. 5. 49. West Africa (London), 16 June 1986, p. 1286. 50. Africa Confidential (London), vol. 28, no. 20, 7 October 1987, p. 5. 51. West Africa, 11 July 1988, p. 1273. Eight months before then, the chief of air staff, Ibrahim Alfa, had similarly denied that Nigeria was about to restore diplomatic relations with Israel. West Africa, 2 November 1987, p. 2178. 52. Africa Confidential (London), vol. 31, no. 10, 18 May 1990, pp. 2-4. 53. See Sam Oyovbaire and Tunji Olagunji, eds., Foundations of A New Nigeria (Enugu: Precision Press, 1990), for an official view of this. 54. For an analysis of the debate on "demobilization" as one of the major themes of Nigeria's civil-military thought in the immediate post-Civil War period, see Adekanye, Nigeria in Search of a Stable Civil-Military System, pp. 10-12. 55. Although the organizers did not admit to this, such a motive was among the purely self-regarding military interests actuating Maj. Gideon Orka & Co. to stage their failed April 22, 1990 counter-coup attempt. 56. Adekanye, "Dilemma of Military Disengagement," pp. 231-232. 57. For arguments bearing on this, see J. 'Bayo Adekanye, "Politics in a Military Context," in Nigeria Since Independence: The First 25 Years, Peter P. Ekeh, Patrick Dele-Cole, and Gabriel 0. Olusanya, eds., vol. 5, Politics and Constitutions (Ibadan: Heinemann, for Nigeria Since Independence History Project, 1989), pp. 198-201.

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The Political Bureau Oyeleye Oyediran

Every military administration in Nigeria since 1970 has realized that a public announcement of a political transition program within the shortest possible time after it takes over power is almost mandatory.' It was therefore no surprise that less than six months after he successfully carried out his palace coup, General Babangida appointed a small group, called the Political Bureau, to deliberate on a political program for Nigeria. Most earlier references in the literature to the Political Bureau, for obvious reasons, concentrate only on its published report or the white paper arising from that report. This chapter examines the formation, membership, workings, and recommendations of the Political Bureau. It begins with the "rough beginning" of the bureau, not only in respect to the chairmanship controversy but also the original design of the administration. The key adviser in selecting the members of the bureau knew each one personally, but not necessarily how each would respond to certain promptings from the new administration. Most especially, the federal bureaucracy viewed a national and influential committee that was overdominated by academics as an affront. How did the bureaucracy cope with this group that did not even have a civil servant as its secretary? What effects did the group tours around the country have on the personal views of members on various national issues? If the collection of data was exciting and educative to members, the attempt to synthesize the materials showed in some cases the Nigerian in some of the members. How was the bureau able to achieve the difficult task assigned to it? In short, what was the politics of writing the report? These and other issues are addressed in this chapter. The final section deals with government reaction to the report. Because of space limitations, I will be able to address here only some particularly salient aspects of these issues.2

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ROUGH BEGINNINGS

There is little doubt that the original list of members of the Political Bureau numbered not more than eight. These were Erne 0. Awa (who was to be chairman), Ali D. Yahaya, Haroun Adamu, Ibrahim Halilu, Paschal Bafyau, Oyeleye Oyediran, Tunde Adeniran, and Sam E. Oyovbaire. Shortly before the list was made public, the president succumbed to pressures from different groups and individuals to increase the list to seventeen.3 With the exception of the Nigerian Labour Congress-which had two of its national leaders, Ibrahim Halilu of the National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institution Employees (NUBIFE) and Paschal Bafyau of the Nigerian Union of Railwaymen, on the bureau-no other identifiable interest group had any representatives on the original list of eight names. The addition of new names brought in among others the then president of the National Council of Women's Societies (NCWS), the wellrespected Hilda Adefarasin. Erne Awa was told that he would be named chairman.4 The bureau was in its original conception basically a committee of academics, particularly political scientists. Awa has always been regarded as the doyen of Nigerian political scientists. He is the oldest political scientist in Nigeria and the longest as full professor. If he did not serve on the appointment panel of almost all other professors of political science, he was probably away from Nigeria, or otherwise engaged. He is highly respected for his writings and views. Always unassuming, he stood ideologically to the left of center. Virtually every member knew this decision even before the announcement of the names and was prepared to work hard with him. When the announcement was made as Awa returned from Lagos to Jos to prepare for what he thought was the task ahead of him as chairman, a different name was announced. This created some problems at the beginning of the meetings of the bureau. Within a short time however, the openness, candor, and comportment of Samuel J. Cookey soon won members' hearts. Though he did not speak the political-science language that had become part of the life of most members, he showed that experience counts in most critical positions-such as chairman of a high-powered national committee. He became the stabilizer of the bureau. It is difficult for this writer to accept the position taken by Olagunju, Jinadu, and Oyovbaire in their book that "it was not unlikely that among the criteria for selecting members of the Bureau was that they should have some understanding of, sympathy with or, perhaps, familiarity with the processes that gave rise to the consensus that seemed to be emerging in the form of this 'political programme in embryo. "'5 Except if the special adviser to the president on political atlairs, Olagunju, made certain assumptions on the basis of his friendship with many of the members of the bureau, this supposed "understanding of, sympathy with or, perhaps, familiarity with the

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processes" of the political program in embryo, as basis for selection is really mere rationalization. There is, however, no denying the fact as observed above that "social, cultural, occupational, professional and intellectual background and gender of the members of the Bureau" played a significant part in the selection.6 Nor can one deny that significant weight was given to the "Federal Character" criterion. In addition to the problem that the bureau had in connection with the chairmanship, one or two other problems need to be mentioned. At the bureau's inaugural meeting in Abuja, the members decided that "in view of the inadequate facilities at Abuja (especially communication difficulties and lack of research facilities) most of the meetings of the bureau would be held in Lagos."7 The administration wanted the bureau to make Ahuja its base and headquarters. The minister for Ahuja had assured the bureau that all necessary facilities would be arranged for members. This was the first decision taken by the bureau that was unexpected by the administration. Another, probably more unexpected, concerned the bureau's approach to the task. In its original conception, members of the bureau were expected to be stationed in different regions of the country to gather the views of Nigerians on various issues of governance. But, as General Babangida said in his speech inaugurating the bureau, this Administration does not conceive the Political Bureau as an agency set up simply to serve the national political debate. The Political Bureau will do much more. In addition to guiding, monitoring, analyzing and documenting the national political debate, the Bureau will provide an objective and in-depth critique of our past political experience in order to serve as background information for the debate. It will also produce the blueprint of a new political model (or models) for the consideration of the Administration8

In addition to this, the bureau was expected to deliberate on other political problems "as may be referred to it from time to time."9 The decision of the bureau to do things its own way definitely did not go down well with the administration. Not only did the bureau redefine its mission, it also approached it in a completely different way. It defined the task to be: 1. Stimulating, coordinating and guiding the national political debate through: • organizing grassroots participation and mobilizing the broad masses of people in the quest for a new political order • encouraging the contribution of professional academic, economic, and social groups and organizations • seeking the views of men of experience in public affairs 2. Collecting all relevant data for the work of bureau and for possible use by the government

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3. Collating, analyzing, and summarizing the views expressed in the course of the national political debate 4. Reviewing Nigeria's political history and identifying the basic problems therein and making recommendations for solving and coping with these problems 5. Working out a basic philosophy of government for Nigeria 6. Preparing a blueprint for a future political model or models for the country 7. Providing a blueprint for an economic model consistent with the political order 8. Providing guidelines for the implementation of the recommended model 9. Providing a time sequence for political transition by 1990 10. Deliberating on any other political matters that may be referred to the bureau by the government. tO The bureau also provided twenty-eight (later increased to thirty) issues that the members of the general public could address in their contributions to the debate. These were announced by the chairman in a nationwide broadcast on 3 February 1986. In addition, it was decided that the basic unit of the debate would be the local government; this was to guarantee adequate participation by the grassroots population. At each of the then 301 local government councils and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, two assistant monitoring officers were appointed to stimulate, facilitate, and organize discussions with the grassroots constituency and to monitor and record their views. A monitoring officer was appointed at each state capital to coordinate and supervise the work of the assistant monitoring officers in the state. Individuals, groups, and organizations were invited to send memoranda, contribute newspaper articles, participate in radio and television discussions, and organize seminars, conferences, and symposia on various topics of the debate. While some groups and organizations were sponsored to do these things by the bureau, others paid for their own. Also, individuals in the academic and other professional bodies were commissioned to prepare papers on various topics. Thirty-one such papers were commissioned. In every state and local government, the bureau established a publicity and enlightenment committee. General managers of the Nigerian Television Authority and state radio, managers of local newspapers and representatives of the Nigerian Labour Congress, students' and women's associations, the federal and state chief information officers, and the bureau's state monitoring officer constituted the membership of the publicity and enlightenment committee at the state level. The committee was given the task of disseminating information to the people on the work of the bureau and of providing enlightenment to all on the issues in the debate.

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Undoubtedly, this elaborate approach to the task gave an early indication to the administration that the group constituting the Political Bureau had its own mind and decided to take its task more seriously than probably expected. Arising from this was the question of finance. For quite some weeks, the bureau was poorly financed. Tours by members, as well as other tasks planned, had to be postponed. It was the late Rahmatu Abdullahi, the psychologist from the University of Lagos, who succeeded in obtaining funds for the work of the bureau. In comparison with the presentday manner of spending public funds, what the bureau work cost altogether was a pittance-less than N 5 million (five million naira). As would be seen from the last item in the terms of reference of the bureau-to "deliberate on other political problems as may be referred to it from time to time''-the bureau was originally conceived as a standing committee. But with the submission of its report, it was allowed to close shop. Nothing else was referred to it. This is not surprising, given the relationship that developed between the administration and the bureau during the fifteen months it was in session. At one stage, the bureau was compelled to write to the administration that certain recently announced policies were not conducive to the effective performance of its task. On one occasion, the administration requested an interim report, which was submitted very reluctantly and was very critical of the administration. Part of it stated that one issue on which Nigerians were united during the debate was that the military should return to the barracks, that the general public had had enough of military rule. It is necessary in these opening paragraphs to elaborate on the administrative problems that confronted the bureau at its inception. At the end of its first three months, the bureau decided to look back and summarize its activities. Four constraints were highlighted. These were funds and means of transport-regarded as the main constraint to the execution of the program of the bureau at the grassroots level-obstructive bureaucracy in the cabinet office, inadequate office and vehicle needs at the headquarters, and members being housed in two separate hotels-Federal Government Guest House and the Eko Holiday Inn.1 1 Though the question of funds was critical, the second problem-i.e., obstructive bureaucracy in the cabinet office-required further elaboration. In chapter 5 of their book, Olagunju, Jinadu, and Oyovbaire discussed the background to this problem faced by the bureau. 12 Between September and December 1985, many attempts were made "to define and chart the pathways to democratic consolidation in Nigeria." 13 Two groups submitted position papers. The first was the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), the influential elite institution "established by General Obasanjo Administration in 1978 as a one-year intellectual retreat for selected mid-career Armed Forces and Police personnel and selected chief executives of public and private sector organizations to reflect

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on national and international issues and problems.I4 The second was a committee of eight federal permanent secretaries.t5 Members of this committee were J. F. K. Oyegun (who was elected Governor of Edo State in 1991 ), Alh. Abubakar Alhaji (who later served in the regime as finance minister and then high commissioner to the United Kingdom), F. Y. Emmanual, Alh. S.M. Gwarzo, M. 0. K. Williams, D. Mohammed, Emeka Ezeife (elected governor of Anambra State in 1991 ), Bashir Ikara, with J. A. Olatunji, the director of the Cabinet Office, as secretary. The group addressed the problem of leadership in Nigeria, the problem of development and stability, the centrifugal combination of "tribalism, regionalism and statism," the tripodal nature of power politics in Nigeria, the country's inability to organize and conduct free and fair elections, and the frequent changes between military and civilian forms of government. 16 Setting up a Political Bureau to do exactly what this powerful and influential group had addressed in their report was an affront to the bureaucracy. What was worse, and was seen as a way of rubbing it in, was (as already noted) that no civil servant was allowed to serve on the bureau, not even as secretary. As the first three-month report of the activities of the bureau pointed out, "[S]tringent bureaucratic procedures at the Cabinet Office have been making it difficult to draw even the funds available for quick execution of many urgent matters of the Bureau.''I7 After about six months, the bureaucracy reluctantly accepted that the bureau had come to stay and would not be deterred from completing its task simply because the federal bureaucratic elite was unhappy.

GATHERING AND SYNTHESIZING THE VIEWS OF NIGERIANS

In addition to the decision to hold meetings in Lagos rather than Abuja, the inaugural meeting of the bureau appointed a five-man subcommittee and the executive secretary of the bureau to prepare a working paper on the task before the bureau for the full meeting that was scheduled for ten days after inauguration. i.e., 23 January 1986. The meeting also decided that members should not discuss issues concerning the work of the bureau with the press. If and when there was the need, "the Chairman would issue a statement" or talk to the press. It is necessary to raise this last point in view of the controversy that surrounded the forced withdrawal of Edwin Madunagu from the proceedings of the bureau. Many so-called defenders of the common man passed judgment on an issue about which they hardly knew anything. Members of the bureau were called all sorts of names, but they preferred to keep quiet and continue with the task ahead of them. 18 It is necessary to discuss this issue here, however briefly.

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At the meeting of 17 December 1986, members of the Political Bureau resolved to stop sending information on the proceedings of the bureau to Madunagu, including notices of meetings and minutes: The main reason behind this decision was the need to protect the confidentiality of the Bureau's work during the crucial period of writing its report, The Bureau was worried with any leakage of its report because of the very sensitive nature of the issues before it Although the immediate reason for taking its decision had to do with a front-page story which appeared in the Guardian of 27th November 1986, what led to the Bureau's decision was the refusal of Edwin Madunagu to withdraw the threat he made on 25 November 1986 at the meeting of the Bureau which considered the submission of an interim report, 19 Madunagu threatened at that meeting that if an interim report were sent to the government as requested, "I would be morally bound to issue a counter report and choose whatever mode I deem fit to do so."20 The bureau did send an interim report; members of the bureau believed that Madunagu released the information that led to the publication in the Guardian of 27 November 1986 on the activities of the bureau. There were, of course, many other antecedents to this last straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, including one public statement made by Madunagu in June 1986 that the bureau was no longer relevant.21 Earlier on, Ola Balogun had resigned from the bureau ostensibly because he needed to devote more time to his private business. In actual fact, Balogun simply found it difficult to work with people who refused to be dominated by his point of view. He was rebuffed many times not only because of his grandiose ideas as to how to perform the task assigned to the bureau but also because economy in the use of resources, in particular money, was not one of the things he considered important. It was alleged that he tried many times without success, after his resignation, to have the Political Bureau dissolved. As was pointed out earlier, gathering the views of Nigerians was a multifaceted process: sending invitations to individuals, groups, and associations to send memoranda, contribute newspaper articles, participate in radio and television discussions, and organize seminars, conferences, and symposia on various topics of the debate. In addition, members of the bureau went out in teams across the entire country to supervise and monitor the work being done at all levels. All 30 I local government areas were visited by members of the bureau as well as was the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja). These tours, however, did more than provide an opportunity for members to conduct research on the political debate. The tours enabled members to learn firsthand the political and social conditions of the many peoples of

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Nigeria-knowledge that proved quite useful during the writing of the report. The debate formally took off on 23 February 1986, when the chairman of the bureau spelled out in detail the modalities of the debate in a national broadcast. Altogether, the bureau held 149 meetings and received 27,324 contributions from individuals and groups-including almost 15,000 memoranda, almost 4,000 newspaper articles, 1, 723 recorded cassettes and video tapes, 2,214 papers in debates and conferences, 3,729 summaries of debates and interviews, and 703 contributions made at public hearings organized by the bureau.22 Members reported to the bureau varied and interesting experiences from during their tours. The team that this writer led to the Cross River, Rivers, Imo, and Anambra states was thoroughly educated on the problem of the riverine areas. Other members of the team were Sam Oyovbaire and Bala Takaya. Oyovbaire is a citizen of the present Delta State, so he has lived with the problems. For Takaya and this writer, touring the Rivers State in particular convinced us that Nigerians in that region have a very strong case against the federal administration. The team could not reach by road many of the areas it planned to visit: it was necessary for it to borrow a helicopter from one of the multinational oil-prospecting companies. The team learned that petrol extracted virtually from the backyard of the citizens costs more to buy in many parts of the state than in Maiduguri, Sokoto, or Lagos. Most of the citizens who were fisherman had lost their profession; those still hanging on were often arrested for bunkering because they carried fuel in their boats when traveling miles away from their base to fish in open seas. In the Imo State, the team felt embarrassed because elaborate police escorts were provided to lead the tour of the city and various local government areas. This was a courtesy academics never dream of, and they feel uncomfortable when provided with it. In Sokoto State, on another tour, this writer was shocked with some of the contributions regarding the issue of the role of traditional leaders in governance. Young men who came forward in large numbers repeatedly demanded that traditional leadership be democratized. One member of the team suggested that he saw no reason why the writer, who was chairman of the visiting team, could not, if he so wanted, contest for the position of Sultan of Sokoto, if there were need to retain the position. All of these views were expressed by these young educated men in the presence of a large representation of members of the traditional leadership. In Kano State, a seventy-year-old-plus man advocated giving the political leadership of the country to women. He did not speak in English but brought along his son to translate his submission. Indeed, the tours by the members of the Political Bureau were both exciting and educative. The military-especially the army-was also fully involved in the debate; their views were presented by two representatives on 29 January 1987 during one of the plenary sessions of the bureau. These two were

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then Brig. Oladipo Diya (now General Diya, Chief of General Staff) and Brig. A. D. Mamman. One of these officers advanced the view that the military is part of Nigerian society and has as much right as any group to come to hold political power-that there is nothing unusual about it and, thus, no need to hurry the handing over of power. The other held that the military has no right to hold political power, that doing so destroys military professionalism and divides the military between those who hold political power-and become rich-and those remaining behind who sometimes become envious of the former. Each of the two presenters was thoroughly questioned by members. With these presentations, the collection of views formally ended. Synthesizing the expressed views was a most difficult task. Not only the volume of submissions but also the varied nature of these-from extreme right to extreme left-presented the members of the bureau with an uphill task. The approach adopted was to set up four committees of the bureau to handle each of the agreed-on sections of the report. Each committee met, prepared its report, and reported to the plenary session, where the reports were debated, edited, and finally approved. This last meeting was regarded by members as probably the most delicate part of the task, because of the confidentiality required as well as the importance attached to the assignment-despite the feeling by some that it might tum out to be a wild-goose chase, so to speak. Attendance at the meeting was high: at this stage, on no occasion did fewer than ten of the fifteen members tum up for the meetings. As much as was humanly possible, members kept an open mind on most issues, but there were occasions when approaching "full impartiality" became impossible, or was unrealistic. Two of these occasions were during discussion of the issues of representation at legislative assemblies andworse still-the creation of states. The main issue for which the president of the NCWS wanted support was special dispensation to women in legislative assemblies. At first, her request was for the acceptance of this idea merely in principle. Due to both her charm and the respect that others in the group accorded her, she was able to win enough support for a favorable consideration. Next was the issue of the specific percentage of representation: either 20, 10, or 15 percent. Many of the members who supported her on both issues did so not so much out of rational analysis of the issues involved as out of respect for the one making the demand. There were, however, the "stubborn" members who refused to be charmed-including those who would trade support on this issue for support to give special dispensation also to labor. At the fifty-fourth meeting of the bureau, on 11 February 1987, the last issue discussed was again the role of women. The minutes read: The issues raised in the paper were extensively discussed. The recommendations were considered but were not concluded because some members

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The Transition wanted the paper on "Labor in Politics" to be discussed first. They argued that would aid them to take decision on one item contained in the recommendation, i.e .. concessional representation in politics granted to women. The issue was finally resolved by granted both labor and women special concession of five per cent representation in all legislative houses of all the three tiers of government. While the seats for each were to be filled by women or labor, the nomination for these seats were to be made through political parties. For labor this was to be in proportion to the numerical strengths of each political party in each legislative house.23

As has been pointed out earlier, the issue of state creation almost broke up the Political Bureau; it was the most emotionally discussed and resolved of all issues. Some members were literally in tears at one stage or another. Some confessed to trying to blackmail other members who took an opposing position. There were members, however, for whom state creation was simply nothing more than another issue needing resolution-no more, no less. A final decision on the issue was postponed for a number of reasons very many times. One of the reasons was that on each occasion that a vote on the issue was taken, there was a tie, and the chairman decided not to cast the deciding vote, for obvious reasons. I can testify that this was one issue that became externalized. Fortunately, I got to know about it only after the report had been submitted to the government. My former high-school principal sent word of his plan to visit in Lagos; I responded by promising to visit him as soon possible. When we finally met, he requested that I cool my opposition to the creation of new states, going further to say that he had been approached by a top civil servant in the federal establishment in which he was making a visit. He had promised this civil servant to help out on this issue-which was simply why he had wanted to visit me. There may have been other such difficult issues, but this writer was not aware of them. The decision to present the views on state creation of each group to government was the best decision considering the circumstances. Those of us who reasoned that creating more states was like opening a Pandora's box knew that the chairman was on our side, but we did not press him to use his vote: otherwise, a report might not have been produced by the Political Bureau. On the issues of concessional representation at legislative houses and state creation, full impartiality in decisionmaking was not adhered to.

UNDERSTANDING THE BUREAU RECOMMENDATIONS

In the final part of this section, I devote my attention to what was behind the thinking of the bureau in some of its recommendations. Space permits me to consider only a few: political and constitutional systems (in particular,

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presidentialism); state apparatuses; democratic political processes; some special issues such as national census, revenue allocation, state, and religion; and the political transition program. Chapter VI of the Report deals with political and constitutional systems. Under this general topic are issues concerning forms of government and representation, the constitutional systems and functions, and responsibilities and obligations of tiers of government. I have summarized elsewhere the arguments for and against the presidential system of government.24 The arguments in 1985-1987 merely repeated those of 1976-1979, when the presidential system was first recommended for Nigeria. The bureau found that, in terms of reponses, "a considerable number of Nigerians support the continuation of the presidential form of government." The bureau added, "This ... may be due to the fact that Nigerians have forgotten or do not know what parliamentary form of government is."25 As it was last practiced as far back as January 1966, there was not much of an argument on the appropriate form of government: presidentialism had an easy ride. Dyarchy and triarchy were dismissed as inappropriate for Nigeria. Dyarchy (shared military and civilian rule) was made popular by Nnamdi Azikiwe in a 1973 lecture at the University of Lagos; many believe that he was at that time being used by the Gowon administration. In any event, the issue arose again as to whether a mixture of military and civilian politicians was the best model for Nigeria. Triarchy involves the military, civilian politicians, and traditional leaders. The arguments for these proposals, as the report makes clear, centered on the following.

1. The notion that the Nigerian military is apolitical is false. In the Nigerian army, it is an established practice that promotions beyond the rank of major are made by politically influenced military council. Furthermore, the case for military intervention in politics has been political. 2. The reality of the situation is that, since 1960, Nigeria has had civilian administration for only nine years. Since the military has tasted power longer than civilians during this period, it would be unrealistic to exclude them from exercising some executive responsibility in future government arrangements. 3. Traditional rulers are not only the unquestioned leaders of their people but also a unifying force whose nonpartisan role continues to pay great dividends in minimizing hostility and maintaining peace and unity among people with divergent political beliefs. In short, traditional leadership provides the necessary stability in government. 26 As strong as these points may appear to be, "a preponderant body of opinion does not agree,"27 mainly because the points are based on the

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fallacious assumption that military participation in future government would put an end to military coups. A past military ruler put it this way, "Except in very rare cases, the senior military men who qualify to participate in government in a dyarchy are not the men who normally carry out coups. Coups are normally undertaken by middle ranking officers who, by rank and experience, are too young to represent their respective services in government." He added, "Our experience in Nigeria shows that the military are even more impatient with their peers in government than with civilian governments. 28 As regards traditional leaders, the bureau was not in the least sympathetic. The recommendation of the bureau on this traditional position makes this abundantly clear. Even with all the public relations engaged in by strategically placed traditional leaders, the strong, powerful memoranda from some of them, and the public addresses given by some during this period, the bureau was unshaken in its resolve to allow this institution to wither away. It is significant that the expression used consistently in the Report was traditional leaders not traditional rulers.29 The bureau argued for a unicameral legislature at all levels of government, including the national assembly. It also agreed with the Constitution Drafting Committee of 1975-1976 that, in the type of presidential system recommended, a powerful, full-time, and strong legislature is necessary. It argued that the "legislature should not only make laws but also be informed of the way in which these laws are executed. In our situation, a unicameral assembly is probably more able to fulfil the function of a vigilant check on presidential powers than a bicameral one."30 Additional support for a unicameral legislature was as widely expressed by contributors to the debate as the need to minimize the cost of government)! There were strong submissions made on the issue of how legislative representation should be based: by territorial district, population, profession, or function. The bureau settled for territorial representation "in the circumstances of or peculiar problem with population census. "32 It also recommended that each local government (then only 301) be allocated one federal legislative seat, and that at the state assembly each local government area be represented by three individuals. This would have given a total composition of I ,204 legislators in Nigeria, at both state and federal levels, irrespective of the number of states created.33 One of the most crucial issues the bureau considered was the appropriate structure of the country: federal, confederal, or unitary. If the members were not initially united in their positions on this issue, their exposure to the diversity of Nigeria during the various tours changed them to strong federalists. It is important to add that. being teachers of the political process in Nigeria, most of the members were aware of the virtues of a strong federal system with considerable decentralization of authority. In other words, while conscious of the need for togetherness, members were

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aware of the need for devolution of power. This notion comes out most strongly in the recommendations on local government.34 In the end, the bureau came to an unambiguous conclusion: Although we appreciate the expression of the sense of structural alienation, and the manifest need to correct the ills of certain aspects of the existing system, we do not find any compelling merit in the case for confederalism or in the case for a unitary system of government for Nigeria. In fact, we do not see any other accommodating and healthier arrangement for Nigeria than the continuation of the system of federalism.35

The legislature, executive, council of state, judiciary and machinery of justice. civil service, parastatals, public enterprises, special executive agencies, and local government constitute the major elements of the "state apparatuses." Thirty-four pages of the Report were devoted to these areas of governance. Of these, seven pages were devoted to local government. Each of the other areas of concern had an average of four and one-third pages. If the emphasis on local government is due to the presence of two specialists on local government on the bureau, it also shows that members were convinced of the relative importance of this level of government.36 As was pointed out above, the emphasis on local government was because of the importance of democracy, decentralization of decisionmaking, and accountability of the leaders who make these decisions (see also Chapter 10 of this volume). Not only were local government councils given specific functions in the Report, development area councils and village or neighborhood committees were recommended for delegation of responsibility. As the Report emphasized, "The delegation of responsibility is one administrative action which will stimulate popular involvement in local government. "37 There was total agreement with the 1975-1976 Constitution Drafting Committee's recommendation for the legislature to be a strong, virile, and vigorous partner in the making of public. The bureau, however, saw one very vital area of neglect in the attempt of the drafters of the 1979 constitution to strengthen the legislature: "The need for high calibre membership of the legislature."38 The bureau argues that Sections 62(1 )(f) and lOl(l)(f) of the 1979 constitution were discriminatory and ill advised because they disqualified persons employed in the public office. This discrimination, the bureau argued, "deprives the legislature in particular of a very important area for recruiting high calibre members. In the light of this we recommend that those employed in the public service be given the opportunity, if they so wish, to contest for public office. The period of service in the elective position should be regarded as leave of absence."39 The recommendations on the executive were made in order to overcome the shortcomings of the past and bring maturity, virility, discipline, and sense of purpose to that branch of government. These included the need to vest executive powers in the chief executive of each tier of

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government; that ministers and commissioners be appointed on the basis of competence and integrity; that the principle of "Federal Character" be taken into consideration in the appointment of ministers and commissioners; and that members of the federal and state executive branches attend the sittings of the legislature as special members. One of the sections dealing with what was called democratic political processes examined the need for "a neutral umpire outside of the Political party orbit" to monitor the activities of political parties, "not only at election periods, but also on a continuous basis."40 This the bureau called the National Commission on Political Parties and Elections. This critically important body would be responsible for "(a) recognition and registration of the two political parties; (b) organization and conduct of all elections; (c) monitoring the financing of political parties and political campaigns; (d) deciding, on the basis of prevailing circumstances, the total amount of public funds to be made available to political parties."41 The role that it was expected to play necessitated the recommended change from the Federal Electoral Commission to the new name-National Commission on Political Parties and Elections. The Report made the point that "[t]he extent to which leadership succession in political parties and the political system becomes stabilized will depend on the ability of this body to discharge its responsibilities effectively, responsibly and impartially."42 The bureau recommended a commission membership of seven-a chairman, two military officers not below the rank of colonel or equivalent, one woman, one representative of labor, and two others. The chairman and members were recommended to be appointed by the Council of State on the nomination of the president. Except for the military members, it was recommended that the president should nominate five names for the post of chairman and three names for each of the other posts to the Council of State. From the way the former electoral commissions functioned (in particular, the 19791983 commission, whose executive secretary was frequently at loggerheads with the chairman), the bureau was of the view that the chairman should be the chief executive and the accounting officer of the commission. Not any Nigerian would be eligible to serve on the recommended commission. The qualifications were made stringent, for obvious reasons. Candidates for membership: 1. should be not less than fifty years (chairman) or forty years of age (for other members) 2. should be persons of integrity 3. must not have been actively involved in partisan politics 4. should possess a level of education that will enable them to perform their duties adequately and effectively 5. should have held positions of responsibility in the public or private sector. "43

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Anyone above the age of seventy would be ineligible to serve on the commission, and tenure was to be five years, renewable only one other time, for another five years. State electoral commissions were recommended to be appointed by the Council of State, but on the recommendation of the National Commission on Political Parties and Elections. The commission was empowered to appoint its own staff, including a secretary, a legal adviser, and an auditor. With these provisions, the commission was expected over a short period of time to become an effective, independent body. The final section of the Report to be examined here is the political transition program-necessary discussion in order to bring into the open some of the private comments and insinuations of members. This section of the Report, as others, was assigned to a committee of the bureau. Most members were agreed on the actual items to be included in the transition program. The area of controversy, however, was how much time was required. In his speech inaugurating the bureau, General Babangida announced that 1990 would be the year to hand over power to a civilian administration; most members accepted that statement as a commitment. Two members, however, argued that the complexity of the political transition program required an extension to 1992. Each side tried to persuade the other to change position, but without success. Rumors were rife that those two members were influenced by promptings from the presidency. When it was realized a day or two before the submission of the Report that one of the members arguing for an extension to 1992 had been offered a strategic government position by the presidency, the rumor became more menacing. Since neither group was able to win the other to its side, majority and minority reports on this issue were submitted to the government. Soon after submission, the other advocate for 1992 was also appointed to a critical position by the government. Both stayed with the administration until the end and were very influential in most of the policy decisions of the administration. 44

GOVERNMENT REACTION TO THE REPORT

The bureau decided that no summary of its report would be provided for the government, although each major part of the report had a section titled "Recommendation(s)." The reason for this decison was simple: the members wanted to make sure that the group preparing the Government White Paper would read the whole report and not just a summary. This point was emphasized in the presentation statement made by the chairman, Samuel Cookey, on the morning of 27 March 1987. In their book Transition to Democracy in Nigeria, 1985-1993, Olagunju, Jinadu, and Oyovbaire observe,

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The Transition The scope and depth of the Report went beyond what was expected in the sense that the Bureau gave a much more liberal and expansive interpretation to its mandate than was intended by the administration. The result ... was a remarkable overview of the problems of governance in the country since colonial times. Also remarkable were the (Report's) policy prescriptions and the conditions for political stability and democratic rule which it put forward. In a way, the Report of the Political Bureau ... is a compendium of the grand national socioeconomic and political debate on the future of the country that the Bureau conducted throughout much of 1986.45

How did General Babangida's administration react to this report? Just as we are unable to treat all the most important recommendations of the bureau, we are not able to treat the government reaction to even each of the recommendations discussed above.46 A nine-member panel led by the then major-general Paul Omu, the commandant of the Command and Staff College, Jaji, and a member of the highest decisionmaking body in the country, the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), was constituted on 30 March 1987 to prepare the government's draft White Paper on the Report. The composition of this group included the two brigadiers who presented the two opposing positions of the military to the bureau, Oladipo Diya and A. D. Mamman. Also included were Commodore Ndubuisi Kanu, Air Vice-Marshal Nura Imam, and three members of the Presential Advisory Committee (PAC), Professors !kenna Nzimiro, Jonah Elaigwu, and Yahya Aliyu. Alh. Lateefat Okunnu, the permanent secretary of the political department in the Cabinet Office, served as secretary.47 This writer disagrees totally with the conclusion of Olagunju, Jinadu, and Oyovbaire that "the White Paper was a thoughtful and reasoned assessment of the Report of the Bureau, undertaken in the broader context of the policy objectives and the overall transition project of the Babangida Administration. " 48 The revelation by these political scientists and close advisers of the Babangida administration that the Omu Panel, just like the Political Bureau itself, "was divided over the issue of state creation, particularly on how many new states should be created and which ones should be so created,"49 underscores this writer's condemnation of that panel. How could this otherwise distinguished panel have come to the conclusion that the Political Bureau recommended creation of states when paragraph 10.058 of the Report states In assessing the ... views and proposals from the Nigerian people on the issue of state creation, the Bureau is unanimous in rejecting suggestions to either abolish or merge some of the existing states. Opinion in the Bureau is, however, divided between support for retaining the existing nineteen-state structure and creating a few additional ones, the numbers of states ranging from two to six. We present the contending positions in

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full below to assist government in disposing of this matter in the larger interest of the country and the success of the new social order proposed in this report.

In not less than four sections of the bureau report were minority views reported to the government; they were termed minority views. It is obvious that the White Paper panel was totally in favor of creating new states; the problems were how many and which ones. Thus, they were blinded to any contrary position. It is indeed a shame.so It is correct that to some extent "the Report of the Political Bureau began to assume that character of the Blueprint of the Transition."51 It must be pointed out, however, that there is a difference between what the government accepted and what it eventually did. Some of these differences have been treated elsewhere.S2 Here, we shall concentrate on the White Paper and the Report, and not much on the government's eventual policy action. The government accepted the presidential system recommended by the bureau and simply noted the point that the bureau was not persuaded by the arguments for dyarchy and triarchy because neither is capable of ensuring progress, stability, and peaceful continuity. As pointed out above, the bureau was not unanimous in its recommendation regarding a unicameral federal legislature; a strong minority of three thought otherwise. While noting the majority and minority views on the issue, the government reaffirmed the continuation of the 1979 constitutional provision in this regard and chose to retain the constituencies delimited for the 1979 and 1983 elections. This was, in the opinion of this writer, a grievous error. In another section of the White Paper, the government accepted the creation of additional states. By the logic of this decision, at a minimum the number of senators would be different from the 1979 or 1983 exercise. Furthermore, shortly after this announcement, more local governments were created on two occasions, and, by the time elections were conducted, the decision had been taken to base representation at the House of Representatives on local government area, thereby increasing the membership of that house from 450 to 594.53 On the issue of form of representation-whether based on population, territory, or functional/interest group-government flatly rejected the bureau's recommendation that representation on the basis of territory (i.e., local government) be adopted. As pointed out above, it later reversed itself and based representation on local government area. The government, however, accepted the recommendation that Nigeria should continue with a federal system of government and that the existing three-tier arrangement of government-namely, federal, state and local-should continue. Two basic questions constituted the discussions on political partiesthat is, whether political parties are necessary in the new social order, and

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how many political parties would be necessary for the type of political system envisaged. Government accepted the bureau's recommendation of a two-party system and that these parties accept the national philosophy of the government. In addition, it accepted the recommendation that the difference between the two political parties should be the priorities and strategies of implementation of the national objectives. However, it modified the recommendation on membership of the political parties. While accepting that the parties should be open to every citizen of Nigeria irrespective of place of origin, sex, religion, or ethnic group, government would not include those banned by any authority or order issued by the federal military government. On the recommendation to reflect the Federal Character of Nigeria in the national executive organs and the principal officers of each political party, government was categorical in its acceptance. Again, it is necessary to point out that on the issue of who could join political parties, government's action varied over time. Banning and unbanning of people from political participation became a weapon used most indiscriminately by government throughout the remaining life of the administration. As was pointed out above, government accepted the recommendation to establish a central body to monitor the activities of political parties and conduct elections, but it adopted the name National Electoral Commission rather than the National Commission on Political Parties and Elections recommended by the bureau. As in other areas where the bureau recommended that the military be included in critical agencies, government rejected military inclusion in the National Electoral Commission. So also did it reject the required inclusion of one woman and one representative of labor. Government accepted that the composition of the commission should be a chairman and eight others. It merely noted the age limit of members to seventy. All other recommendations about the commissionincluding the chairman as chief executive and accounting officer, the minimum ages for the chairman and members, and the minimum educational level and tenure of office-were accepted by government. Of course, as was usual with General Babangida, he did not keep to the rules of the game. When Humphrey Nwosu was hurriedly appointed to replace Erne Awa as chairman, Nwosu was less than fifty years of age. When this was realized, Babangida, rather than appoint another person of the right age, simply changed the rule! On the frequency of elections at various levels of government, the bureau recommended elections for president/vice-president and governor/ deputy governor every five years. It also recommended that election to the various legislative houses at the federal and state levels be conducted every five years, and that elections to the local government councils be held every three years. Government reduced the interval between elections to four years but accepted that of local government as three years. Once again, government did not behave according to the rules it laid down. For a variety of reasons, government dissolved local government councils

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prematurely, simply according to its whims and caprices, and removed chairmen of local government councils, which defend the rights of their communities against encroachment by state and federal agencies. Probably one of the most interesting government positions was on what the bureau called "traditional leaders." Widely varying views were expressed by Nigerians on these offices. There were those who wanted outright abolition of the institution; co-optation in government; democratization to conform with the standards of modern government; maintenance of the status quo; and the determination of their relevance and future by the people. The bureau recommended that since the term traditional ruler is a misnomer, government should provide a legal definition for this group of leaders and keep a register of such leaders throughout Nigeria. In addition, they should be confined to the local government area within the communities where they have relevance, and even there they should not be granted legislative, executive, or judicial functions. While government merely noted the first recommendation and stated that there was no need to provide legal definition "because the term 'traditional ruler' is colloquial," it accepted the latter recommendation on the role of these officeholders in governance. Government concluded by stating that "the Constitution will be amended to reflect the decisions contained in the White Paper and the Dasuki Report. "54 The Babangida administration more often than not put one step forward and two steps backward on many public policies; the issue of tradtionalleaders was one of them. By the position taken in the White Paper on the bureau's Report, the administration put one step forward. By its subsequent action, it took at least two steps backward. Not only was the position of this group of leaders enhanced during Babangida's tenure, the administration even toyed with a national forum for traditional leaders in which the then Sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Dasuki, would hold the leadership. Furthermore, no changes were made in the 1989 constitution in respect to this group of leaders. Finally with respect to the termination date for the transition program, a majority of the bureau members believed that the Babangida administration was the primary initiator of the minority position. So it was not difficult to understand why the administration accepted the minority view of 1992 rather than 1990 first promised by the president on 13 January 1986 when he inaugurated the Political Bureau. But, as did other deadlines in the transition, 1992 dawned and the administration still looked for reasons to stay on in power.

CONCLUSION

Apart from his contribution at the Constituent Assembly in 1988-1989 correcting the incorrect information given by the government that the

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bureau had recommended creation of additional states, the chairman of the Political Bureau spoke publicly for the first time as interviewed in Toplife, published 28 October 1993. In the interview, Cookey said: In June 1986 there was this problem of joining the OIC. We heard it through a foreign radio and you remember what this country went through. The former President later responded. The more I looked at this statement, the sadder I became. The whole thing was prevarication. He didn't say yes, we have joined, he didn't say no, we have not joined. Then in the end, he said if you have a problem and you have a friend who can help, won't you do that sort of thing. That night, I couldn't sleep. The next morning, I went to the Bureau and told them my experience. It was my full intention to resign immediately. And the reason is this, how can one work for such an unreliable person? He sent some people to ask me to please stay on. It was much later that I realized I made a mistake to listen. How can you work with that kind of man? His agents in the Bureau who kept him abreast of our work must have told him what I said. So I was from then persona non grata. 55 He is not alone in this type of feeling: This writer is of the same feeling. The only consolation is to rationalize that the risks to our lives that were taken during the fifteen months that the bureau worked were not for an administration, military or civilian, but for a better, more prosperous, more stable, and more democratic Nigeria. Members of the bureau might not have achieved that because one person manipulated a whole nation to the extent that he became "richer than Nigeria," to use the headline of one of the weeklies, Goodtime.56 Within the context of what happened in the later years of Babangida's administration-cancellation of the process for the formation of political parties; creation of two government-named, -sponsored, -funded, and -directed political parties; banning and unbanning of groups and individuals from political participation; execution (assassination?) of opponents; regular postponement of return to civilian rule; institutionalization of corruption and flamboyant living; indiscriminate dissolution of executive committees of political parties; nullification of court decisions that unleashed organized confusion; and annulment of the widely acclaimed freest, fairest, and most peaceful election ever held in Nigeria-the misuse of the Report of the Political Bureau was simply the beginning of the unfolding of "the hidden agenda" of an authoritarian military leader who refused to surrender political power until he was disgraced from office on 26 August 1993.

NOTES 1. A notable exception was the Buhari-Idiagbon administration, which lasted only twenty months-from December 1993 to August 1995.

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2. In "The Military and Democracy in Nigeria: The Political Bureau Report and Government's Reaction to It" Babafemi Badejo and I concentrated on the issues of state creation, and local government reform. See Adedayo Oluyemi-Kusa, ed., Governance and Political Economy in Nigeria Under the Babangida Administration (Lagos: Malthouse Press, 1997). 3. This was not uncommon in virtually anything that General Babangida did in his eight years in office. There are now (as of this writing) thirty states and 589 local governments in Nigeria because, at the point of announcing his decision on these issues, the general could no longer resist pressures to increase the number originally decided. Even for a die-hard populist, this characteristic became embarrassing to his close advisers. See Tunji Olagunju, Adele Jinadu, and Sam Oyovbaire, Transition to Democracy in Nigeria, 1985-1993 (Ibadan: Saferi Book Ltd., 1993), p. 248. 4. This contradicts the claim by the authors of Transition to Democracy that "a principled position had been taken by the Administration that the Chairman should come from one of the minority ethnic groups in the country," Ibid., p. 117. Awa is Igbo. 5. Ibid., pp. 111-112. 6. Ibid., p. 112. 7. Minutes of the first meeting of the Political Bureau held 13 January 1986. 8. See Report of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printers, 1987), p. 226. 9. Ibid., p.8. 10. For full details, see Ibid., pp. 9-10. ll. Ibid., pp. 10, 11. 12. Olagunju et al., Transition to Democracy, pp. 90ff. 13. Ibid., p. 108. 14. Ibid., p. 94. 15. In addition to these two groups, there was a confidential aide memoir that presented the new administration with a political program. 16. One of the most important recommendations of the group was a "return to a modified parliamentary system of government based on the principle of power sharing" and a fifteen-year transition period, to end in the year 2000. For details, see Olagunju et al., Transition to Democracy, pp. 99-104. 17. Report for the First Three Months of the Political Bureau, 27 April 1986, p. 7. 18. See, for example, the editorial in Sunday Sketch, 11 January 1987; the article in Guardian, 10 March 1987, by Kunle Amuwo of the Department of Political Science, University oflbadan, titled "Madunagu and the 1990 Petty-Bourgeois Dream," from Punch, 7 January 1987. It is worth disclosing that three motions were considered by the bureau on Madunagu. They read: In view of the fact that the Bureau's work at this crucial moment require absolute confidentiality; also in view of the fact that Dr. Madunagu had previously decided to work out his individual way of work in the Bureau, the Bureau has resolved that Dr. Madunagu should resolve to withdraw his earlier statement that he reserved the right to publicize in any way he sees fit the deliberation of the Bureau. If he fails to do so, the Bureau should take measures to protect the confidentiality of its work. In view of the fact that Mr. Madunagu was, as we all believe, responsible for the Guardian publication on the Political Bureau in the paper's issue of 27th November, and in view of the fact that he had

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The Transition resolved previously to publicize in any manner of his choosing any discussions or decisions of the Political Bureau, the Bureau resolves to exclude him from further participating in its deliberation as from now onwards in order to maintain confidentiality of its decisions and save it, as well as members, from further embarrassment and possible danger. Until Edwin Madunagu withdraws his position to choose whatever mode he deems fit for operating within the Bureau, and maintain confidentiality of its proceedings, he, Edwin Madunagu be excluded from the deliberations of the Bureau.

The motions received six, two, and four votes, respectively. Three members decided not to vote. Madunagu was present at this meeting. 19. Minutes of the twenty-second meeting of the Political Bureau deal exclusively with this issue. 20. Confidential report prepared by the executive secretary to the Political Bureau. 21. Ibid. 22. Report of the Political Bureau, p. 254. 23. See Report of the Political Bureau, paras. 9.063, 9.076, pp. 154, 158. 24. See Oyeleye Oyediran, "Leadership in Nigeria's New Constitution," Presence Afi·icaine no. 115 (1980). 25. Report of the Political Bureau, para. 6.005, p. 72. 26. Ibid., para. 6.008, p. 73. 27. Ibid., para. 6.009, p. 74. 28. The quotations are from a memo sent to the bureau by Lt.-Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (retired). See Ibid. 29. See the discussion on traditional rulers hip and administration in the Report of the Political Bureau, chap. 9, pp. 142-147. The recommendation was short, simple, and clear. It says: I. Since ... the term traditional ruler is a misnomer government should provide a legal definition for this group of leaders and keep a register of such leaders throughout the country; 2. The role of this category of leaders should be confined to the local government area within their communities where they have relevance. Even here, however, they should not be granted legislative, executive or judicial functions. 30. Ibid., p. 75. 31. It is interesting that, after rejecting this recommendation, the Babangida administration in its closing days used, among other reasons, the need to cut costs as an excuse to reduce the members of the House of Representatives, and as a justification for the infrequency with which the National Assembly met. 32. Ibid., para. 6.019, p. 75. 33. Ibid., para. 6.019. pp. 75-76. 34. Ibid., paras. 7.123-7.152. At least two of the members have devoted most of their academic writings to advocacy of a democratic, strong, and decentralized local government system. 35. Ibid., para. 6.041, p. 81. 36. It must be added that the issue of local government appears in other sections of the Report, in particular in the five-page discussion of traditional leadership and administration, pp. 142-147.

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37. Ibid., para. 7.132, p. 117. 38. Ibid., para. 7.006, p. 90. 39. Ibid., para. 7.006, p. 90. It is difficult to show that this recommendation was based on selfish needs of the members of the bureau, at least nine of whom were at the time public servants. It is easier to suggest that in making this recommendation, members recalled the admonition of its chairman for the spirit of fairness and justice. 40. Ibid., para. 8.019, p. 127. 41. Ibid., para. 8.022, p. 128. 42. Ibid., para. 8.023, p. 128. 43. Ibid., para. 8.060, p. 136. 44. One principle this writer strongly suggested to the bureau was that members who for whatever reasons decided to include in the report their objection to majority decisions should append their names to the minority report. Unfortunately, most members disagreed. This is why on this sensitive issue the names of the dissenting members will not be disclosed. However, members of the bureau will find it interesting that the administration assigned the task of working out the details of the timetable, in line with the substantive recommendations in the Report of the Political Bureau and the White Paper on it, to Olagunju, Oyovbaire, and Tunde Adcniran, as disclosed in Olagunju et at., Transition to Democracy, p. 170. 45. Ibid., p. 161. 46. In addition to the issues raised in the following paragraphs, see also Oyediran and Badejo, "The Military and Democracy in Nigeria." 47. Olagunju et al., p. 163. Chief Olu Falae, then secretary to the federal military government, was said to have described the panel as ''a miniature committee of the AFRC and the PAC [Presidential Advisory committee]," (ibid). 48. Ibid., p. 166. 49. Ibid. 50. In my view, the authors of the White Paper contributed immensely to the terrible instability in government policies, most especially in the closing years of the regime, by opening up to endless mobilization demands for new states and local governments. It is true that the Newswatch magazine that printed and circulated copious sections of the Political Bureau's report in its 6 April 1987 edition misrepresents the report by claiming that the bureau recommended the creation of states. This cannot and should not be the source of a summary of the report by such a distinguished panel. 51. Olagunju et al., p. 166. 52. Oyediran and Badejo, "The Military and Democracy in Nigeria." 53. This decision became a problem, particularly in 1993, as the cost of maintaining the National Assembly rose considerably. The question then arose whether to reduce the number of members in the House of Representatives. 54. Government's Views and Comments on the Findings and Recommendations of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1987), para. 217. 219, p. 50. 55. Toplife, 28 October 1993, p. 15. 56. Goodtime, no. 19, October 1993.

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The Constituent Assembly and the 1989 Constitution Rafiu A. Akindele

Preparation for the return to civil rule in Nigeria's Third Republic began with the appointment and inauguration of a seventeen-member Political Bureau in January 1986. Mandated, among other things, to "search for a viable political future and provide guidelines for the attainment of consensus objectives," the bureau submitted its Report in March 1987.1 Having considered its recommendations,2 the Federal Military Government (FMG) announced in July 1987 a detailed political program of transition to democratic civilian rule.3 Critical to the transition program was constitution making. Accordingly, the FMG established, in September 1987, a forty-six-member Constitution Review Committee (CRC) to review the 1979 constitution, the Report of the Political Bureau, and the government White Paper on thereport. It was directed to complete the assignment within a period of six months. In February 1988, the report of the CRC was submitted to the govemment,4 which then (in April 1988) established a Constituent Assembly (CA) with powers to deliberate on the draft constitution and to make recommendations to the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC).5 Since 1986, planning for military disengagement and specifically preparations for a new democratic political order led to a notable sequence of activities. 6 In his inaugural address to the CA on 11 May 1988, President Babangida rightly pointed out that "[Constitution making] is a political process which should be subjected to the inter-play of political forces," reminding the nation that this inter-play of political forces commenced with the setting up of the Political Bureau and the Constitution Review Committee. It is now to continue with the deliberations in the Constituent Assembly and end with the final enactment as the fundamental law of the land.7

Subsequently, it became pointedly clear that the political center of gravity in shaping those activities and defining the character of the constitutional 105

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structure and political landscape of the Third Republic was not conceded to the CA. As the Guardian persuasively argued, "[T]he transition program which marginalizes the Constituent Assembly and popular participation into a third place in a four-tier constitution process (which began with an appointed Political Bureau and will end with the AFRC) can be considered flawed ab initio. 8 Strictly speaking, the role that the Babangida administration conceded to the CA in shaping the character of the constitutional structure of the Third Republic did not differ from that which the Obasanjo regime had assigned to its predecessor CA of 1977-1978. At the inauguration of that Constituent Assembly on 6 October 1977, General Obasanjo had advised members of the Assembly: The purpose of your being here is to discuss the draft Constitution already produced by the Constitution Drafting Committee and to come out with your recommendations. Those recommendations will then be taken to the Supreme Military Council [SMC]. Thereafter, a Decree on the subject of the Constitution for the Federal Republic of Nigeria will be considered and promulgated to usher in the new Constitution.9

If, to quote the Guardian editorial again, "[T]he Constituent Assembly is a

vanguard for mobilizing popular participation behind the constitution making process ... in this day and age ... constitutions are considered legitimate only if they have been the product of popular participation,"IO to what extent can it be said that the 1989 constitution promulgated by the AFRC after a series of amendments to the draft submitted by the CA represents the wishes of the representatives of this country and therefore becomes legitimate? This chapter examines the work of the CA, bearing in mind the observation that [w]hat the Political Bureau, the Constitution Review Committee and the Constituent Assembly have done is to refurbish, panel-beat and tinker with the 1979 Constitution. What is finally produced may smell of fresh paint but it is merely a recoating of the 1979 [Constitution]. II

It also focuses not only on how the politics of constitution making from 11

May 1988 to April 1989 can be said to reflect the structure of conflict and accommodation as well as the dynamics and peculiarities of political life in Nigeria but also on the implications of the politics of the CA for the Third Republic.

THE 1977-1978 CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

Twice in Nigeria's postindependence history, a Constituent Assembly has been established by a Federal Military Government as a part of its political

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program of transition to a democratic political order, charged with deliberating on the fundamenta1law of the land and with making recommendations to the highest decisionmaking body in the country (the SMC/AFRC). The first CA sat from 6 October 1977 to 5 June 1978. The 1988-1989 CA was constituted in April 1988. Since students of Nigeria's political and constitutional history are bound to draw comparisons between how the two assemblies executed their task of designing a constitutional structure for the Second and Third Republics, it is necessary to preface a study of the 1988-1989 CA with a brief summary of issues and problems of its predecessor CA. The 1977-1978 CA was made up of 230 members. Of these, 203 were elected by the local government council members, who constituted the electoral college. The remaining 27 members of the CA were appointed by the Federal Military Government to represent key interests. Among these were 7 members who, as chairmen of the subcommittees of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), were expected to provide institutional linkages between the CDC and the CA.l2 As to the class and professional profile, Billy Dudley has pointed out that "the majority of the members of the CA were businessmen and contractors, former politicians, commissioners and (usually retired) top military police personnel and members of the professions, such as lawyers and doctors."l3 In effect, they represented and reflected the cream of Nigeria's business, professional, political, and academic elites. The major document in the hands of members of the 1977-1978 CA was the Draft Constitution prepared by a fifty-member CDC headed by a distinguished legal giant, Chief F. R. A. Williams.1 4 This reflected the specific requirements that the Supreme Military Council had expressly urged the CDC to consider. There were: (1) "genuine and truly national parties"; (2) "an executive presidential system of government"; (3) "an independent Judiciary"; (4) "corrective institutions [such] as the Corrupt Practices Tribunal and Public Complaints Bureau"; and (5) "constitutional restriction on the number of States to be further created."l5 The most explosive and controversial issues on the agenda were those relating to the Federal Shari' a Court of Appeal and the creation of more states in the federation.l6 According to one member of the assembly, the Shari'a debate "was not conducted in rational terms" and "threatened to tear the country apart,"!? especially as ninety-two pro-Shari'a members boycotted the proceedings of the CA from 6 to 24 April in protest against what they regarded as the objectionable manner in which the issue was being handled. IS The pro-Shari'a group returned to theCA only after the head of state and members of the SMC had an informal meeting on 19 April with theCA members.'9 By and large, the 1977-1978 CA endorsed most of the provisions in the Draft Constitution.20 The Draft Constitution then went through a series

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of amendments by the SMC before it was promulgated as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979, the fundamental constitutional instrument of the Second Republic (1979-1983).

THE 1988-1989 CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY: MEMBERSHIP, COMPETENCE, AND FUNCTION

The 1988-1989 CA was made up of 567 members. The wisdom behind having such a large body for constitution making is questionable. The size of the assembly presumably resulted from the decision to make the federal constituencies the basis of representation nationwide. There were three categories of membership. The first consisted of 450 members representing all of the federal constituencies. The official thinking was that "[f]ederal [c]onstituencies are closest to what can be called 'grassroots' and they take into account the discernible diversities in Nigeria ... and that aggregate of the [f]ederal [c]onstituencies best approximates the broadest representation of Nigerians."21 The second category was drawn from the CRC "for the purpose of continuity." As resource persons, they were "to pilot the Draft Constitution Bill through the Constituent Assembly ... and to provide the background and necessary link for the revisions proposed in the Draft constitution."22 There were five such members in the Constituent Assembly.23 The third category consisted of 112 distinguished Nigerians nominated by the FMG "to represent important and critical interests in a deliberate effort to further broaden the base of the Constituent Assembly." Among these were traditional rulers (five) regarded as "custodians of our values, customs and traditions," and two members representing the Political Bureau. Overall, the CA included thirteen women, five of whom were elected by an electoral college at the federal-constituency level. Nominations for election into the CA were screened by the Federal Electoral Commission so as to ensure that those who had been officially banned from contesting elections did not offer themselves as CA candidates. The intention was to have only candidates with a clean personality compete and, if elected, participate in the epoch-making assignment of drawing up a new constitution for the approval of the AFRC. Examining the 450 elected members and observing their contribution to the debates in the Constituent Assembly, one is left with the impression that, even though they were men and women of high standing and integrity, they often could not always detach themselves from the complex cobweb of social values and prejudices imposed on them by the ethnic landscape in which they were raised. The nominated members were essentially selected as representatives of specified interests. Nevertheless, it would be naive to assume that they were insulated from the crosscurrents of sectionalism and ethnicity that

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permeated discussion. One may also note the views sometimes articulated by the elected members that the nominated members had been selected to defend the views of the FMG on issues that might prove controversial. Nothing was further from the truth. On the membership of the CA, its chairman, Justice Anthony Aniagolu, accurately observed: The membership of the Constituent Assembly consisted of a formidable list of the most intelligent and most responsible people of which this country can boast, including experienced and highly educated men and women in all walks of life-traditional rulers, judges, seasoned civil servants, lawyers and doctors; university professors and other academics; men of accounts and financial experts; frontline journalists and trade unionists; very experienced teachers and experts on Government; spiritual leaders as well as members close to the grassroots and experts in local affairs. It was indeed a galaxy of "who's who" in different fields.24 With regard to that membership, the New Nigerian, a national daily based in Kaduna, notorious for defending Northern interests, editorially decried the character of the assembly, claiming that the members were 'basically conservative in their beliefs." 25 In its view, the membership of the assembly ret1ected what has since amounted to official obsession with "extremists." Admittedly, the well-known bias of the Babangida administration against extremists of both the right and the left and its belief that "extremism is fatally destabilizing to the political system"26 may have ensured that no known "radical" could have been nominated to the CA. Nevertheless, it is illogical to assume that such a posture would necessarily predispose the FMG to exercise official bias in favor of "right-wing" extremists. The view held by the New Nigerian may also have been given some credibility by the AFRC's rejection of the Political Bureau's recommendation that Nigeria "should adopt a socialist socio-economic system in which the State shall be committed to the nationalization and socialization of the commanding heights of the national economy. "27 The truth is that what the FMG rejected was "the imposition of a political ideology on the nation."28 In any case, the CA, which overwhelmingly recommended in Section 15(1) of the Draft Constitution presented to the AFRC that "Nigeria shall be a Welfare State based on the principles of democracy and social justice,"29 can hardly be said to be "right wing" or "basically conservative." In summary, to claim that the 1988-1989 CA had a right-wing character is a mischievous exaggeration and totally overlooks the situational reality of the absence of vocal radical elements in the assembly. The Constituent Assembly Decree 1988 established a CA with "full powers to deliberate upon the draft Amendment Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria drawn up by the Constitution Review Committee appointed by the Federal Military Government. "30 This purely deliberative

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function implies that the assembly was not to have the last word on the constitution for the Third Republic. In other words, the constitution does not derive its authority as the fundamental law directly from the CA but from somewhere else not expressly stated in the Constituent Assembly Decree 1988. When President Babangida, at the inauguration of the assembly on 11 May 1988, told members that they were "called upon to frame a Constitution for the people of Nigeria, a Constitution of which posterity will be immensely proud," that they were in Ahuja "to fashion a Constitution for the Third Republic," and that "the framing of a Constitution for the People of Nigeria is precisely the Task and Challenge before them, "31 the impression created was that the constitution of the Third Republic would actually be made by the CA. Such an impression ignores the strictly deliberative function of the assembly and the logical implication that it could do no more than give institutional advice and make recommendations to the "higher authority," the same AFRC that had constituted the assembly in the first place. There is absolutely no doubt that the deliberative function included in the Constituent Assembly Decree 1988 was as far as the FMG was prepared to go, and that the AFRC, like the Obasanjo administration in 1977, "was not conceding either to the people in their mass or to the people's assembly the opportunity to exercise their right to adopt a constitution for themselves."32 Bearing in mind the similarity in the mode of election of both the 203 elected members of the 1977-1978 CA and the 450 elected members of the 1988-1989 assembly-that is, the fact that the elected members of both assemblies were elected not directly by the people but by electoral colleges-what B. 0. N wabueze said of the 1977-1978 CA is also true of that of 1988-1989: A [C]onstituent [A]ssembly elected in this way could not have claim to have the mandate of the people to adopt a constitution on their behalf.... Nor would the method by which its members were elected or appointed justify the assembly in claiming the constituent power of the people as against the [S]upreme [M]ilitary [C]ounciJ.33

In any case, President Babangida came out authoritatively when accepting theCA's report in 1989: "Now that you have completed your work, it is with the responsibility of the Armed Forces Ruling Council to appraise the entire constitutional document and promulgate it into law. "34 Although the 1988-1989 CA had full powers to deliberate on the CRC's reviewed constitution, Babangida made it quite clear that "the Assembly should not indulge itself in the fruitless exercise of trying to alter the agreed ingredients of Nigeria's political order."35 For him, the principal political issues on which a fundamental agreement-a national consensus-had emerged were seven: federalism, executive presidentialism,

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nonadoption of any religion as state religion, respect and observance of fundamental human rights, a two-party system, ban placed on certain persons from participating in politics, particularly their disqualification from standing for election into public offices, and belief in basic freedoms, including the cherished freedom of the press. He directed the CA "to improve on these agreed political issues and not to change them."36 He further explained that precluding the Constituent Assembly from debating certain subjects popularly referred to as "no-go areas" of the Draft Constitution ... was informed by the need to preserve and respect the irreversibility of the wide measure of national consensus reached on a number of political and constitutional issues in the course of the political evolution of our nation. 37

It is difficult to understand the confusion in the minds of many CA members about the role assigned to the assembly. There is no basis for the invitation extended to the attorney-general to clarify whether the CA was a constitution-making or a constitution-recommending body and to explain the restriction on the deliberative competence of the assembly. Prince Bola Ajibola did not show up in person. Instead, he sent a letter explaining that [i]t is not the intention of the President to prevent full and fair DISCUSSION on the basic constitutional issues placed before the Constituent Assembly. The clear intention being expressed by the President in the [inaugural] address is that we have got certain fundamental features of our political structure which instead of being destroyed or discarded are better improved upon.38

The prohibition expressly placed on the competence of the CA to alter certain political elements on Nigeria's political landscape was offensive to the political sensibilities of the Constituent Assembly. During the debate on President Babangida's inaugural address, that lasted six weeks, speaker after speaker found the prohibition uncalled for and insulting. One member got up to state-preposterously-that he had been mandated by his people to ignore the president's restriction order.39

STRUCTURE AND PROCESSES OF ROLE PERFORMANCE

As directed by the Constituent Assembly (Amendment) Decree 1988,40 the proceedings were conducted in accordance with the Constituent Assembly Standing Order 1988. That is to say, the first reading merely involved the formal introduction of the bill. In a normal legislative house, the second reading is the most crucial stage in the legislative process. Debate is usually on the whole principle of the bill. At the committee stage, the bill is

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examined in great detail, with amendments being offered in special, standing, or working committees or in the committee of the whole assembly. The bill then goes through the third reading. But, at theCA, the Draft Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was sponsored through all the necessary stages of the deliberation by the chairman of the CRC as well as the chairman of its several subcommittees after it had been presented to the assembly and committed to a committee of the whole assembly. To facilitate the operations of the CA, two special committees were constituted. These were a standing orders and a business committee. The more operationally important of the two was the business committee, with thirteen members, which advised the chairman of the CA on the number of days to be allotted for the discussion of business. In addition, twenty-one other committees were appointed to carry out the deliberative functions and other activities of the assembly. These included (inter alia) separate committees on citizenship, fundamental rights, legislature, membership of the National Assembly, public funds, federal executive bodies, federation accounts, public service, federal judicature, state judicature, and local government areas as well as the drafting committee. As far as practicable, the individual preferences of members determined the composition of the different committees, bearing in mind the need to have not only an average of twenty-seven members but also different states' representatives in all the committees. Selection of committee chairpersons was done in such a way that each state produced one committee chairperson. In addition, six committee coordinators were appointed. They were instructed to attend meetings of their committees, resolve possible conflicts in their decisions, and supervise the activities of the various groups of Committees. The coordinators were S. J. Cookey (chairman of the Political Bureau), Chief G. C. N. Onyiuke (chairman of a CRC subcommittee), Solomon Asemota, Justice B. 0. Kazeem, Alh. Ibrahim Dasuki (chairman of the Committee on the Review of Local Government Administration in Nigeria), and Alh. Aliyu Salman. As regards the procedure and process of decisionmaking, the guiding principle was President Babangida's preference for "the promotion of consensus through the inter-play of political forces which rejects fixed positions and inflexibility" and the need to have "a geographical spread governing amendments" to particular clauses of the CRC's Draft Constitution.4I The guidelines formulated by theCA chairman for the work of the committees emphasized the need for all decisions to be taken by consensus; "[ w ]here, on any serious issue it is not possible to reach a consensus, the Chairman of the Committee should report to the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly who, either alone or in conjunction with the business committee or with other members of the Assembly will assist to resolve the issue, failing which he will refer the matter to the Assembly."42 There

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is no doubt that many decisions at the committee level were not made by consensus but were arrived at on the basis of the principle that the majority would have its way while the minority would have its say. Equally important to note is that in the plenary sessions--or when the assembly sat as a committee of the whole assembly-"voting by voice" very often took place. After the votes had been taken by voices-aye and no-the chairman would announce the result; if he was not sure which side won the vote, a division was ordered. Members filed out and appended their signatures for or against the motion. Then followed the counting of signatures for and against, and the announcement of the result. The statutory prescription for a quorum in the CA was "the Chairman or Deputy Chairman and not less than three hundred members of the Assembly." In the face of a persistent wave of absenteeism by members, a quorum became a much talked about issue in the life of the assembly. Absenteeism sometimes resulted in the lack of quorum and, thus, often led to either a delay in the beginning of official business or in the ability of the assembly to proceed. Justice Aniagolu 's response to the glaring situation of absenteeism and its negative consequences on the progress of the assembly's work was to reduce the quorum from three hundred to two hundred on 31 January 1989. The decision was illegal, and this in turn gave rise to the question of the legal status of decisions when a quorum was not formed. Indeed, the attorney-general expressed reservations on the taking of a decision when there was no quorum.

CONTROVERSIES AND POLITICS WITHIN THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

The CA was a hotbed of high politics: these ranged from political bargaining and intrigues, political salesmanship, political alliance building, and clandestine political activities to political and constitutional engineering. For many, it provided a forum for improving their "visibility profile" in preparation for the emergence of the expected competitive electoral politics. Members of the CA, whether elected or nominated, clearly shared President Babangida's belief that "[C]onstitution-making is a political process which should be subjected to the inter-play of political forces." 4 3 This perhaps explains the underlying political maneuvering that, for example, characterized the creation of the working committees, so well summarized by Akpo Esajere: As members became more and more familiar with the schedule of each [C]ommittee of the House, their interest became usually roused for some [C]ommittees while they lost interest in others. Members started to question the composition of the [C]ommittees and the criteria for appointing their chairmen. Suddenly, every Christian and Muslim wanted to be in

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[C]ommittees 3 (General Provisions), 16 (State Judicature) and 17 (Federal Capital Territory, Abuja) because the [C]ommittees had one thing or the other to do with Sharia Court of Appeal. Suddenly, every "northerner" and "southerner" wanted to be in the FCT Abuja [C]ommittee; the "northerner" to make sure that the clause which says that Abuja shall run "as if it were one of the States of the federation" stays in the constitution, "the 'southerner' to ensure that the clause is voted out Tension began to build up as members resorted to lobbying, blackmailing or questioning the method of selection and composition of the [C]ommittees. Some said the method was undemocratic. Others spotted a procedural lapse because, according to them, the final say as to who serves in what [C]ommittee rested with the general House.44

Three controversial issues posed acute political problems to the members of theCA and stalled the proceedings: the Shari 'a; the status of Ahuja as the Federal Capital Territory; and the learning of indigenous languages in schools. The Shari'a

As was the case in 1977-1978,45 Shari'a proved to be the most contentious issue tackled by the Constituent Assembly, particularly in Committee 3 (general provisions), Committee 16 (state judicature), and Committee 17 (the Federal Capital Territory). At one stage, Committee 3 voted by a margin of 19 to 12 to reject Shari'a and to expunge it from the constitution.46 When Committee 3 finally submitted its report, the decision to expunge the Shari'a provision had apparently been reversed. The committee chairperson, Alexis Anielo, was able to report that "at the end of a prolonged and intense debate, as intense as we could imagine it, there did not appear to be a consensus on the retention or otherwise of the Shari' a Courts of Appeal and Customary Courts of Appeal for the States and the Federal Capital Territory."47 There was a strong indication that if the issue of Shari'a were to be put to a vote in Committee 16, Shari'a would have been rejected. Committees 3 and 16 became stalemated, unable to present a report to the CA along with the other committees. The politics of intrigues and acrimony that distinguished for eight weeks deliberations on the Shari' a issue was so intense that they paralyzed the Constituent Assembly. Members' views became rigidly polarized. At one extreme was the view that Shari'a should be expunged from the constitution. At the other was the view that it should not only be retained but expanded up to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. A Committee of Elders, set up by the assembly chairman to advise him on the impasse, appeared to be near working out a mutually acceptable solution based on the provisions of the 1979 constitution, when the FMG intervened on 28 November 1988 and, "in the national interest and indeed ... in the interest of the Assembly itself," withdrew the CA jurisdiction over the issue. It furthermore directed the assembly to stop further discussion on clauses 6(2) to 6(6)(d) and 248-263 of the reviewed constitution.

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The chief of general staff, Vice-Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, justified this by claiming that "there already exists a wide measure of national consensus on these clauses. "48 There was no doubt that the intervention by the FMG was welcomed by many members of the CA. Some, however, felt that the political bargaining and accommodation initiated by the Committee of Elders and about to mature at the time of the FMG's intervention would have enabled the CA to resolve the crisis, as Justice Aniagolu put it, "on a principle of 'give and take' ... which left no side in the great divide to a position of 'win or lose all. "'49 The Status of Ahuja The second issue that shook the CA's foundation was the status of Abuja, the new Federal Capital Territory.so According to Article 263 of the 1979 constitution, "the provisions of this Constitution shall apply to the Federal Capital Territory as if it were one of the States of the Federation." CRC's Reviewed Constitution retained this provision (Article 279). The main demand in the numerous amendments proposed was that the phrase "as if it were one of the States of the Federation" be expunged from the provision and from the constitution. The protracted debate over the status of Abuja brought into sharp focus the North-South dimension of the political competition and cont1ict in Nigeria. For the "Southerners," the phrase "as if it were one of the States of the Federation" was "not only a clever move to create an additional Northern State but also ... a subtle control strategy for promoting and imposing Northern ways of life over the rest of Nigerian society as a national culture."5I The Political Bureau, in its 1987 report, had drawn the attention to what it called "the constitutional problem ... generated by a conflict of perspectives, and compounded by certain administrative measures" taken by the Federal Ministry of Capital Territory. 52 The Abuja debate was finally decided by a formal division in which 235 members voted in favor of expunging the phrase and 160 members voted to retain it. Eight members abstained.53 The decision meant that Abuja is simply Nigeria's capital territory and, therefore, not a state. With regard to the administrative of Abuja, by creating a mayoralty and leaving the National Assembly to provide for the details of its administration and political structure, the CA simply shifted the North-South battle over Abuja to the National Assembly in the Third Republic.54 Indigenous Languages in Schools The third controversial issue was the learning of indigenous languages. As part of the educational objectives of the nation, the Constitution Review Committee had recommended, in Section 19(4) of the Reviewed Constitution,

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that "[g]overnment shall promote the learning of the three main languages namely, Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba, in all primary and secondary institutions in Nigeria" and, in Section 53, that "[t]he business of the National Assembly shall be conducted in English, and in Hausa, lbo and Yoruba when adequate arrangements have been made thereof." On the language problem, the CA reached a consensus on Section 53, but found Section 19(4) provocative. The battle began in Committee 4, where the minorities, particularly in the Middle Belt and the South, wondered why only the three main languages should be given preferential treatment. Their argument was that in a multiethnic society like Nigeria, characterized by multilingualism, the learning of all the languages should be promoted by government in primary and secondary schools. There was a consensus in Committee 4 that Section 19( 4) should be amended to direct the government "to promote the learning of indigenous languages." The view of Committee 4 was approved by the committee of the whole assembly after both a voice vote and a formal division. But the split was deep and remained unhealed.

CLANDESTINE POLITICAL ACTIVITIES

We have argued that the cream of the political elite during the Second Republic served in the Constituent Assembly and that this provided a forum for building the bridges of understanding among them, laying the foundation for the future formation of political parties. With respect to the opportunities for clandestine political activities and interaction with likeminded colleagues, membership in the CA undoubtedly conferred a strategic head start that was bound to be exploited to the fullest. It is conceivable that some members in fact attached as much importance to the grasping of such opportunities as they did to the task of fashioning the constitution of the Third Republic, notwithstanding the fact that the latter was the raison d'etre for their being in the Constituent Assembly. For many, Abuja remained "the hottest city for political manoeuvres. Politicians of all shades and colours make frequent pilgrimages there to either talk shop or shun for new recruits into the various political alliances. There, alliances are formed easily as they are broken."55 On the partisan political landscape that the procedural meetings of members of the CA helped to create, the account by Newswatch is particularly pertinent: With the lid still firmly on partisan politics, political groupings go under the guise of innocuous names and every social event in various parts of the country has become a cover, a meeting point of nascent political leaders of the country's Third Republic. The Umuahia burial ceremony was one of such occasions. A marriage ceremony in Maiduguri, Borno State,

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was another. It was September 11. Aminu Mai Deribe, son of multimillionaire Yai Deribe and Fatima Kingiba, daughter of the [S]ecretary to the Constituent Assembly, Baba Kingibe, were being joined in holy wedlock. Top notchers of the society were there. But also were representatives of the various political interest groups-the Peoples Front, the Progressives, as well as those of the banned political parties of the Second RepublicNational Party of Nigeria ... and the People's Redemption Party.... 56

Among the major political groups formed in Ahuja by members of the CA were the Consensus/Democrats, the Patriotic Front, the Progressives, the Assembly Forum and the Trust. Politically active and ambitious members of the assembly invested much of their time and energy in building various "shadow political parties," attending their meetings, and recruiting new members from within and outside the Constituent Assembly. In the conduct of their clandestine political activities, they proceeded from four general assumptions: (1) it was imperative to spread their net of membership wide, knowing full well that geographical spread of membership would be an indicator of the national character of any association; (2) it was tactically imprudent to allow CA members from one state or one section of the federation to put all their membership eggs in one political basket so to speak; (3) it was desirable to seek to belong to the group with the greatest potential to win statewide; and (4) it was politically wise to avoid being perceived as surrogates for the banned politicians of the Second Republic. At the CA, getting set for the forthcoming partisan political and electoral game beyond was a pastime that many members took seriously but that was at the expense of the full attention that the Federal Military Government expected of them in the task of constitution making for the Third Republic. The Constituent Assembly and Constitutional Engineering

What was in the Draft Constitution that the CA adopted after nearly a year of deliberation and recommended to the AFRC for enactment as the fundamental law of the land for the Third Republic that justifies such a vast investment of time and resources on constitution making? This question is best placed against the background of the following observation by Nigeria's prestigious weekly magazine, Newswatch: The assembly sat 87 times in seven months and considered about 800 amendments proposed by 21 of its 23 committees to the 1979 constitution. Some of the amendments were defeated on the floor of the house. Of those that sailed through, some were new provisions and others were minor additions to existing provisions. Do these justify the money spent on the work of the assembly? Of the 144 million naira spent, 88 million was given to the Federal Capital Development Authority for the provision of suitable accommodation and furnishings to accommodate the 567

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The Transition members of the assembly in flats in the future federal capital, Abjua. Monthly pay of the members and staff of the assembly took another 1.6 mi II ion naira _57

Similarly, one may note the Guardian editorial: "The Constitution Review Committee and the Constituent Assembly, while they existed ... cost the taxpayers at least 5 million naira. Yet in the end, no more than six substantive amendments were made to the 1979 Constitution. And they were made more by the Armed Forces Ruling Council than by the Constituent Assembly."SS In his letter of apology to the members of the CA for his inability to accept their invitation to address them at Abuja, Prince Bola Ajibola, attorney-general and minister of justice, put his weight behind a widely held view that "[W]e have got a constitutional foundation; we have even built the edifice but the house is in need of repairs and improvement because of leakages in the roof and cracks in the walls." 59 In assessing the performance of the CAin the task of constitutional engineering for the Third Republic, it is important to stress that the assembly did not start from a clean slate. The 1979 constitution, as reviewed by the CRC, was there; by and large, there was very little "radical" departure from its philosophical principles and prescriptions in the Draft Constitution presented by theCA to the AFRC. There were ten noteworthy changes among the few recommended and embodied in the Report of the CA, namely: 1. the explicit designation of Nigeria as a "welfare State based upon

the principles of democracy and racial justice," Section 15(1) 2. the commitment of the state to the provisions of free education and medical care, Sections 46 and 47 3. the prohibition of any government from overtly or covertly giving preferential treatment to any particular religion, Section 11(2) 4. the conception of coup d'etat as a crime punishable at all times under Nigerian law, Section 1(4) 5. the stipulation of minimum academic qualifications of school certificate or its equivalent for candidates seeking election to public office, Section 66(2) 6. the expunging of the phrase "as if it were one of the States of the Federation" from Section 263 of the 1979 constitution in order to clarify the constitutional status of Abuja and expressly to confirm that Abuja is not a State, Section 320 7. the introduction of a new set of constitutional provisions in support of the establishment of local governments as a third-tier government, no longer an appendage of the state government, and the statutory allocation of public revenue directly to them, Sections 290-317

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8. the reduction of restriction imposed on the president to deploy the armed forces on combat duty outside Nigeria, Section 5(5) 9. the acceptance of the novel principle of recall and the stipulation of the processes and conditions under which any elected member of a legislative house may be recalled by those who elected him, Sections 70, 112, and 311 10. the changing of the tenure of office of the president and of the state governor from two terms of four years each to one term of six years, after which the incumbent would not be eligible for reelection, Sections 139(2) and 186(2). Some of these changes were accepted by the AFRC and accommodated into the new fundamental law of the land enacted in May 1989. Others were rejected, with clearly stated reasons and defensive explanations. As President Babangida pointed out on the promulgation of the 1989 constitution, "[O]ur decision not to accept some of the recommendations of the Constituent Assembly is governed by our fervent desire to ensure that federalism works and is seen to be working by all. "60 This decision of the AFRC has been well summarized by Peter Koehn: The actions taken by the AFRC included (I) striking out reference to a "welfare State" on the grounds that such non-judiciable matters are properly dealt with in the policy-making arena; (2) restricting jurisdiction of the Shari' a court of appeals to cases involving the personal lives of Muslims. and allowing each State to decide whether or not to create such a court; (3) eliminating the CA's clause which declared the take-over of government via a military coup d'etat to be "a punishable crime at all times; (4) rejecting the proposed single six-term for the chief executive, and reverting to the "maximum of two terms of four years each" provision found in the 1979 Constitution; (5) reducing the number of Senators from each State from five to three; (6) requiring Senate confirmation (rather than mere consideration) of the President's ministerial appointments; (7) limiting to three the number of special advisers to the President, and eliminating the post altogether at the State level; (8) restricting each State to ten Commissioners; (9) reducing the minimum-age requirement for holding elective offices. The military agreed with the Constituent Assembly's determination that Abuja is not a State and that it should be government by an elected majoralty, but granted the federal capital territory one senatorial district and four federal constituencies. Finally, the AFRC created 149 new local government areas and granted constitutional status to all the 449 local jurisdictions. 61

There can be no doubt about the deep involvement of the AFRC in decisionmaking on constitutional matters, both in relation to the identification of the essential ingredients of Nigeria's political order that theCA was forbidden to change and with respect to the amendments it effected to the CA's constitution.

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The involvement of a predominantly elected Constituent Assembly of 567 people in the shaping of the constitutional structure for Nigeria's Third Republic, nevertheless, endowed the processes of constitution making with some critically important legitimizing value, especially since the CA could be perceived basically as "a vanguard for mobilizing popular support behind the constitution making process."62 It is, of course, arguable that the limitation imposed on the assembly's deliberative function by the creation of "no-go areas" and the amendments effected by the AFRC to the Draft Constitution submitted by the CA partially erode the "public legitimation effect" of the participation, role, and work of the Constituent Assembly. Given the multiplicity of interests and the clearly differentiated groups in Nigeria's federal society, the cleavages that have become institutionalized and the imperative challenge of cooperatively establishing a structure of agreement and consensus on which Nigerians can afford to bicker without threatening the political foundation of the national edifice, there does not appear to be any doubt that the Constituent Assembly produced a Draft Constitution that the interplay of political forces within the group permitted it to agree on and to present to the AFRC. The financial cost of involving a broad spectrum of the Nigerian citizens in the shaping of the fundamental law of the land may appear high. Nevertheless, what it enabled the CA to do brought a most welcome democratic value and spirit to the political culture, which transition to civil rule was expected to instill in Nigeria after military disengagement from governance.

SUMMARY

The establishment of the CA was an important step in the carefully mapped out journey toward the demilitarization and recivilianization of political life in 1992. There is a sense in which the idea of involving a predominantly elected CAin the shaping of the constitutional structure of the Third Republic is indicative of the preference the Babangida administration had for the emergence of a democratic political order at the end of military rule in Nigeria. The CA was a forum for an intensive political debate on the problems of Nigerian society. Even though its most important responsibility was to prescribe a written constitutional solution to essentially political problems, it adopted postures of "visionary realism" in its prescription, conscious that the fundamental law of any country must reflect a consensus of agreement among the principal groups and differentiated interests. Constitutional engineering was rightly perceived as an integral part of the larger challenge of political engineering, aimed at bringing about a fundamental management of diversities and the building of a united and prosperous

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country. In the performance of their duties, members of the CA were conscious of the fact, neatly articulated by Larry Diamond, that "[c]onstitutional innovations alone cannot solve the problems facing democracy in Nigeria. But they can compensate for some of the weaknesses in the social structure and political environment. "63 Not unexpectedly, the North-South and Christian-Muslim divides, which have been a conspicuous reality on Nigeria's political landscape, threatened menacingly to pull down the country's political edifice. The opportunities for clandestine political activity that the CA provided were masterfully utilized by the new political aspirants. The wheeling and dealing that took place in the formation of the "shadow political parties," the political bargaining and trade-offs that featured in the search for acceptable solutions to some problems and consensus on other issues, and the double standard, double talk, intrigues, and conspiratorial machinations that sometimes characterized the assembly cannot, and should not, be lost sight of. They all helped to shape the turbulent politics of the emergent Third Republic. And when one further remembers the elaborate politicking, political furor, deals, and mudslinging that accompanied the campaigns for the election of deputy leader of the CA-the election that subsequently never took place because the Constituent Assembly (Amendment) Decree 1988 abolished the post-one appreciates the intensity of high politics in the assembly and, perhaps more important, the need to study the dynamics of Nigeria's geopolitical calculus and religious politics if one is to come to grips with the nature and prospects of democratic politics in Nigeria.

CRITICAL FEATURES OF THE 1989 CONSTITUTION

The 1989 Nigerian constitution was the country's eighth and probably most elaborate in preparation. Comparison of the 1979 and 1989 constitutions exposes some key areas of innovation and reform in the 1989 constitution. 64 A prior issue, however, is whether the Nigerian constitution ( 1989) could be described as an expression of the will of the Nigerian people. As Nwabueze notes: "A constitution is an act of the people if it is made by them either directly in a referendum or through a convention or constituent assembly popularly elected for the purpose."65 Considering this definition, and the fact that, as was the 1979 constitution, the 1989 constitution was promulgated into law by military decree, following the repeated exercise of military influence noted in both this chapter and the previous one, it could be argued that the constitution was largely an imposition on the will of the people by the military. As the process went forward, from the Political Bureau to the CRC to the Constituent Assembly, it became clear that

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government had a stake in controlling the constitutional shape of the Third Republic. In the end, the 1989 constitution was not radically different from the 1979 one, although it contained some significant innovations aimed at removing institutional bottlenecks, reducing waste, and eliminating sources of conflict and instability. Both constitutions settled for the presidential system, within a federal framework, with unicameral state assemblies and a bicameral National Assembly made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The three arms of government were clearly defined and constitutional guidelines were entrenched to prevent one arm from usurping the power of the other. A significant element concerned the Shari' a and customary courtspotential sources of tension in a multiethnic and multireligious context such as Nigeria. The Shari'a Court was given jurisdiction only in matters relating to a Muslim's personal life, and only states that wished to have such courts would have them. Unlike in the 1979 constitution, the Shari'a Court could only hear cases involving Muslims. This way, the threat of religious crises arising from bringing non-Muslims before such courts, or the tension that could be generated by citing such courts in areas that were predominantly non-Muslim, was removed. In the area of the judiciary, another innovation was added. The removal of judges was made more rigorous and difficult, thereby strengthening the tenure of judges and independence of the judiciary. There was also the welcome innovation of election tribunals to adjudicate disputes involving election returns. This was designed to insulate the judiciary from the type of bitter and acrimonious legal battles fought during the 1979 and 1983 elections over who had won what election. With the judiciary freed from the need to make controversial political judgments capable of provoking crises, the 1989 constitution hoped to mitigate the potential destabilizing impact of contested electoral outcomes. Although theCA's 1989 Draft Constitution contained a clause against military coups, the military expunged this from the consititution. In relation to the status of the Federal Capital Territory, Ahuja, it was clarified that Abuja was not a state of the federation; rather, it would be a mayoralty made up of four area councils, one senatorial district, and four federal House constituencies constituted by the area councils. This provision was perhaps designed also to protect Abuja from the adverse effects of the politics of states creation and revenue allocation. Besides it made it difficult for any group to lay exclusive claim over Ahuja. The 1989 constitution also strengthened the legislature's capacity to confirm the appointment of ministers, commissioners, and other political appointees, at both the federal and the state levels. This went beyond mere consultation to give teeth to the legislature to resist any attempt by the executive to impose political appointees on the people.

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Another important element of the 1989 constitution was the removal of the ambiguity as to whether the attorney-general or the inspectorgeneral of police was the chief law officer by specifying that the former indeed held that status, while the latter was in charge of enforcing laws in the federation. The process of state and local government creation was made more difficult. Section 9 and 10 laid down the guidelines involving the National Assembly, the State House of Assembly in the affected area, and the local government councils in the area, after which a referendum was to be organized that also had to be approved by a two-thirds majority of members in each house of the National Assembly. This imposed very severe hurdles for the creation of new states and of local government areas, even if it did not extinguish the likelihood of new demands. The 1989 constitution introduced several innovations to local government. First, it provided for the direct allocation of funds to the local governments from the federation account. It also made the local government chairman the chief executive at the third tier of government, with the councillors constituting the legislative arm. While the chairman was the chief executive, a provision for his recall was inserted in which a petition signed by half of his constituency and sent to the National Electoral Commission could spell the end of his tenure. In this way, the system of checks and balances was extended to the grassroots level to make for accountability, transparency, and good governance. However, what was envisioned in the constitution was not necessarily what happened later in the political arena. The 1989 constitution did recognize the creation of 140 local government councils to bring the total to 449, excluding the mayoralty of Ahuja. In this way, it acceded to some of the strong pressures for additional local governments before "'shutting the gates." as it were. As a measure of reducing the cost of government, the 1989 constitution reduced the number of senators from five to three for each state, and state legislators were reduced by one third, while the maximum sitting days of legislatures was established as 181. In addition, the number of special advisers to the president was limited to three, while the number of ministers was pegged at twenty-one. Some innovations were also introduced in the organization and powers of the executive. Unlike the 1979 constitution, that of 1989 provided for a minimum educational qualification of at least a school certificate or its equivalent for those seeking public office. It also included a novel provision to round off to whole numbers in the computation of two-thirds of all the states of the federation as well as one-third of the votes cast in a state during presidential elections. This was basically designed to avoid the controversy that arose out of the "12 and 2/3" case of the 1979 presidential

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elections, when a dispute over what constituted two-thirds of nineteen states challenged the legitimacy of Shehu Shagari's election as president. Another critical element of the 1989 constitution concerned the fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy, based on democracy, social justice, and sovereignty vested in the people. It was designed to define the ideals of state policy as well as the modalities for attaining these ideals. It tried to foist a national vision on the country, with an ideological orientation defined in largely welfarist terms. From the foregoing, it is clear that the 1989 constitution contained two broad critical elements: political engineering by the military and modifications designed to avoid the controversial and potentially troublesome sections of the 1979 Constitution.

THE 1989 CONSTITUTION AND NIGERIAN POLITICS

In examining the impact of the 1989 constitution on Nigerian politics during the period of Babangida's transition program (1986-1993 ), it is important to note that the functioning of the constitution was circumscribed by the overriding interest of the military in controlling political power. A major aspect of this interest was expressed in the endless tinkering with the constitution in the name of "political engineering" or a "learning process." This at times involved the deployment of "ouster clauses" rendering some critical parts of the 1989 constitution impotent. The promulgation of certain transitional decrees while the constitution was in operation rendered it powerless, transferring power not to the people but retaining it in the office of the military president. As a consequence, authoritarianism at the federal level percolated down to the other tiers of government in which executives sought to insulate themselves from both the other arms of government and the people. Indeed, while the letter of the constitution was clear, its spirit was clearly violated. With the persistence of dyarchy, in which a military president ruled over elected assemblies and state governments and the military dominated the national polity, the constitutional spirit was quickly derailed and replaced by political expediency, militarism, and the monopoly of power, profoundly undermining the popular sovereignty and democratic procedures envisioned in the constitution. While it is impossible to deny that the 1989 constitution had an impact on Nigerian politics during brief periods of the Third Republic, neither the military authors of the constitution nor the civilian political actors in their zero-sum approach to politics gave the constitution a real chance to work. Increasingly, they used the constitution when it suited them and abused it when it did not fit into their political agenda. Taken as a whole, most of the 1989 innovations were not given much of a chance to be tested before the constitution was jettisoned. Some of the

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assemblies did attempt to function properly. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the local governments. And, ironically, the courts were drawn into the dispute over the 12 June 1993 presidential elections more controversially than ever before, with the Abuja high court's ruling stopping the elections in spite of a decree vesting all matters affecting the holding of elections in NEC. As Chapter 12 shows, the crisis was aggravated by the continued resort not to the constitutionally prescribed election tribunals but to different high courts, which gave conflicting rulings about releasing the results of the 12 June elections. This gravely damaged the image of the Nigerian judiciary and set the stage for the demise of the Third Republic It is not surprising that, given the wanton violation of the 1989 constitution, it could not save the Nigerian political system from crisis. It underwent numerous mutilations by decree and disregard until it finally collapsed in the November 1993 coup. The experience showed that the resolution of Nigeria's chronic political instability lies beyond the mechanics of drawing up a good constitution: it drives to the fundamental nature of forces, values, and interests involved in Nigerian politics.

NOTES 1. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1987), p. 7. 2. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Government's Views and Comments on the Findings and Recommendations of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1987. 3. "Transition to Civil Rules (Political Programme) Decree 1987 (Decree No. 19)," Supplement to Official Gazette Extra-Ordinary 74, no. 43, 28 July 1987, part A. 4. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Constitutional Review Committee Containing the Reviewed Constitution, vol. 1 (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1988); Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Constitutional Review Committee, vol. 2 (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1988). The CRC did not fault the essence of the 1979 constitution. It did, however, note "ambiguities and lacunae in certain of its provisions and difficulties in the operation of some of its institutions." It therefore recommended some changes that would prevent a repeat of the mistakes of the 1979 constitution. Like the Politburo (Political Bureau), the CRC conducted its deliberations in camera and its recommendations were not subject to any referendum or popular test. 5. Constituent Assembly Decree 1988 (Decree No. 14) in Supplement to Official Gazette Extra-Ordinary 75, no. 25, 20 April 1988, part A. 6. For a comparative analysis of the transition programs designed and implemented by the Obasanjo and Babangida regimes, see Peter Koehn, "Competitive Transition to Civil Rule: Nigeria's First and Second Experiments," Journal of Modern African Studies 27, no. 3 (September 1989): 401-430. 7. Inaugural Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to the Members of the Constituent Assembly at Abuja on Wednesday, 11 May 1988, para. 9. 8. The Guardian, 19 May 1988, p. 10.

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9. Federal Ministry of Information, Speech by His Excellency, Lt.-General Olusegun Obasanjo Head of the Federal Military Government, Commander-inChief of the Armed Forces on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the Constituent Assembly on Thursday, 6th October 1977, news release, no. 1, 781, 6 October 1977. 10. Guardian, 19 May 1988, p. 10. 11. Newswatch 9, no. 13,27 March 1989, p. 10. 12. See, generally, Oyeleye Oyediran, "A New Constitution for the Second Republic," in Oyediran, ed., Survey of Nigeria Affairs, 1978-79 (Lagos and Ibadan: NIIA and Macmillan Nigeria Publishers, 1988), pp. 3-15, and "The Search for a New Political Charter," in Oyediran, ed., Survey of Nigerian Affairs, 197677 (Lagos and Ibadan: NIIA and Macmillan Nigeria Publishers, 1981), p. 10; Alex Gboyega, "The Making of the Nigerian Constitution," in Oyeleye Oyediran, ed., Nigerian Government and Politics Under Military Rule, 1966-79 (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 246. 13. Billy J. Dudley, An Introduction to Nigerian Government and Politics (London: Macmillan, 1982), p. 161. 14. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Constitution Drafting Committee Containing the Draft Constitution (Lagos: Federal Ministry of Information, 1976). For an excellent analysis of the work of the Constitution Drafting Committee, see Keith Panter- Brick, "The Constitution Drafting Committee," in Keith Panter-Brick, ed., Soldiers and Oil: The Political Transformation of Nigeria (London: Frank Cass, 1978), pp. 291-350. 15. Dudley, "An Introduction to Nigerian Government and Politics," pp. 127-228; Alex Gboyega, "The Making of the Nigerian Constitution," in Oyediran, ed., Nigerian Government and Politics, pp. 245-246; Keith Panter-Brick, "The Constitution Drafting Committee," p. 295. 16. David D. Laitin, "The Sharia Debate and the Origins of Nigeria's Second Republic," Journal of Modern African Studies 20, no. 3 (1982): 41l-430;West Africa, 24 April 1978, pp. 776-779; Dean E. McHenry, Jr., "Stability of the Federal System: Elite Attitudes at the Constituent Assembly Towards the Creation of New States," Publius: The Journal ofF ederalism 16, no. 2 (spring 1988): 91-111. 17. Turi Muhammadu, The Nigerian Constitution 1979: Framework for Democracy (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1982), p. 31. 18. Gboyega, Alex. "The Making of the Nigerian Constitution," p. 253. 19. Ibid., pp. 253-254. 20. Dudley, An Introduction to Nigerian Government and Politics, p. 129. 21. Inaugural Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to the Members of the Constituent Assembly at Ahuja on Wednesday, 11 May 1988, p. 4. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Report of the Constituent Assembly 1988-89: Chairman's Letter of Presentation, 5 April 1989, p. iii. 25. New Nigerian (Kaduna), 9 May 1988, p. 1. 26. Inaugural Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to the Members of the Constituent Assembly at Ahuja on Wednesday, 11 May 1988, p. 4. 27. See Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Political Bureau; Government's Views and Comments on the Finding and Recommendations of the Political Bureau, p. 14. 28. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Government Views and Comments on the Finding and Recommendations of the Political Bureau, p. 14. 29. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Constituent Assembly 1988-89, vol. 1, p. 25.

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30. Constituent Assembly Decree 1988 (Decree no. 14 ), part A. 31. Inaugural Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to the Members of the Constituent Assembly at Ahuja on Wednesday, 11 May 1988, pp. 8, 11. 32. Ben 0. Nwabueze, A Constitutional History of Nigeria (London: Hurst, 1982), p. 255. 33. Ibid. 34. Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida on the Occasion of the Acceptance of the Draft Nigerian Constitution from the Constituent Assembly at Ahuja on Wednesday, 5 April 1989, p. 8. 35. Inaugural Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to the Members of the Constituent Assembly at Ahuja on Wednesday, 11 May 1988, p. 6. For a comprehensive analysis, see R. A. Akindele, "The Fundamental Ingredients of Nigeria's Political Order," Nigerian Forum vol. 8, nos. 7 and 8 (July/August 1988): 149-59. 36. Inaugural Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to the Members of the Constituent Assembly at Ahuja on Wednesday, 11 May 1988, p. 4. 37. Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida on the Occasion of the Acceptance of the Draft Nigerian Constitution from the Constitution Assembly at Ahuja on Wednesday, 5 April 1989, p. 4. 38. Constituent Assembly. Minutes and Proceedings, 29 June 1988, p. 40. 39. Akpo Esajere, "The Making of the 1989 Constitution" (M.Sc. thesis, University of Lagos, 1989), p. 41. 40. Constituent Assembly, Supplement to Official Gazette Extra-ordinary 75, no. 49, 29 June 1988, part A. 41. Inaugural Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to the Members of the Constituent Assembly at Abuja on Wednesday, 11 May 1988, p. 9. 42. Circular from the Chairman, Constituent Assembly, n.d., p. 1. 43. Inaugural Address by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida to the Members of the Constituent Assembly at Ahuja on Wednesday, 11 May 1988, p. 5. 44. Esajere, The Making of the 1989 Constitution, pp. 50-51. 45. See David D. Laitin, "The Sharia Debate and the Origins of Nigeria's Second Republic," pp. 411-430. 46. Esajere, The Making of the 1989 Constitution, pp. 50-51. See also "Politics of Sharia," Newswatch, 24 October 1988, p. 14: ''It was clear that those for the abolition of Section 241(1) of the draft Constitution had it." 47. Report of the Constitution Assembly 1988-89, val. 2, p. 20. 48. The address by the chief of general staff is produced in Report of the Constituent Assembly 1988-89, vol. 1, pp. xi-xii. See, generally, "Hammer on Sharia Debate," Newswatch, 12 December 1988. 49. Report of the Constituent Assembly 1988-89: Chairman's Letter of Presentation, p. x. 50. For an incisive analysis, see "The Abuja Controversy," Newswatch 8, no. 18, 31 October 1988, pp. 15-21. 51. Bala J. Takaya, "The Status of the Federal Capital Territory, Ahuja," Quarterly Journal of Administration 24, no. 3 (April 1990): 197. See also "The Ahuja Controversy," pp. 15-21. 52. Federal Republic of Nigeria. Report of Political Bureau, p. 194. Emphasis added. 53. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly (Official Report no. 76, Monday, 13 February) (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1989), pp. 23-26. 54. See Esajere, The Making of the 1989 Constitution, p. 98. 55. Newswatch, 5 December 1988, p. 15.

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56.Ibid.,pp.13-14. 57. Newswatch 9, no. 13,27 March 1989, pp. 14-15. 58. Guardian, 17 March 1990, p. 8. 59. Constituent Assembly, Minutes of Proceedings, 29 June 1988, p. 40. 60. Address to the Nation by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida on the Occasion of the Promulgation of the New Constitution on Wednesday, 3 May 1989, p. 3. 61. Peter Koehn, "Competitive Transition to Civil Rule: Nigeria's First and Second Experiments," Journal of Modern African Studies 27, no. 3 (September 1989): 424-425. 62. Guardian, 19 May 1988, p. 10, editorial. 63. Larry Diamond, "Issues in the Constitutional Design of a Third Nigerian Republic," African Affairs 86, no. 343 (April 1987): 226. 64. Oyeleye Oyediran, Information to the Nigerian (1989) Constitution (Lagos: Project Publications, 1992). 65. Ben 0. Nwabueze, The Presidential Constitution of Nigeria (London: Hurst, 1982).

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Electoral Administration in the Early Transition Eme 0. Awa

QUEST FOR A NEW SOCIOPOLITICAL ORDER

The Nigerian sociopolitical system has been characterized by severe departures from the ideals of democratic government. The problems of rigging, violence, and various forms of political chicanery have been highlighted and shown to have four main effects. First, violence at the polls tends to reduce the number of electors who actually cast votes during each election, with a consequent reduction in the degree of democracy. Second, the results of the elections do not necessarily indicate how voters would have cast their votes if there were no interference. If people can acquire political authority through devious manipulation, then they are technically not beholden to any particular persons for the conduct of government and their performance has little relevance to their ability to win again at the next polls. Third, there are no legitimate ways of ensuring the succession of leaders through the system from one era to another. Finally, the national psyche becomes inured to violence and to accept instability as a way of life.

BACKGROUND TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ELECTIONS

It was to eliminate these difficulties that the Babangida regime set out to "establish a viable and enduring people-oriented political system devoid of perennial disruptions." This was how it described the new political culture that it sought to inculcate in Nigeria at the time it set up the Political Bureau. The objective was somewhat mechanistic, for the emphasis, when spelled out, was on the questions of who votes, whom is voted for, and the conditions under which the elections take place. Are political rights available in the constitutional system, and are the people able to realize these rights through multiparty competitive politics? These questions call for action on two fronts: to enable Nigerians to acquire democratic attitudes and

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behavior, and to make the electoral commission a reliable instrument for administering the elections. The latter is the subject of this paper. A tendency to restrict electoral power in the hands of the elites by denying the franchise to the masses has been commonplace. In the West, it was only after a protracted struggle that the franchise was eventually given to the people. The restriction of voting rights is used to ensure the entrenchment of power and to limit the accumulation of power and wealth to a few hands. In Nigeria, the franchise was made universal at an early stage of its political development. However, to ensure the entrenchment of power in a few hands, the main actors manipulated virtually every election through rigging and violence. The task of refereeing the electoral process is entrusted to an electoral commission. In Nigeria's Second Republic, this task fell to the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO). Because of the financial value attaching to Nigerian politics, politicians sought desperately to circumvent FEDECO by rigging and violence, even employing the staff of the commission for that purpose. Naturally, the losers accused the FEDECO of complicity in the rigging. Internally, the commission had serious structural problems; for example, the executive powers of the FEDECO secretary enabled him to preempt the powers of the chairman. Partly because of the massive corruption during the Second Republic, the competition for power among parties in the 1983 elections resembled a real war. Every major party committed serious excesses, and FEDECO was blamed for every problem. Following the coup d'etat of 1983, FEDECO was dissolved and the military regime appointed a commission, headed by Justice B. 0. Babalakin, to investigate its conduct during the elections of 1983. FEDECO was not found guilty of corruption, of complicity in rigging the elections, or of inciting people to acts of violence. However, it was publicly blamed for management lapses, especially its inability to resolve its own internal conflicts. The new National Electoral Commission (NEC) was appointed by Decree No. 23 of 1987. NEC consisted of a chairman (myself) and eight commissioners appointed by the National Council of State on the nomination of the president. They were to be chosen from among persons of proven integrity not actively involved in partisan politics. Section 4 of the decree provided for the establishment of an electoral commission in each state, but this was amended by Decree No. 8 of 1989 to provide for the appointment of a state electoral commissioner. Originally, all members of the commission at state and federal levels were barred from holding elective offices once they had been appointed, but this was amended during the transition period by Decree No. 9 of 1989. The chairman was the chief executive and the accounting officer of the commission. The secretary to the commission worked under its general direction; he was responsible for keeping the record of commission proceedings,

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headed the Secretariat, and controlled the staff with the approval of the commission. This unequivocal location of executive authority in the commission was clearly spelled out in Sections 2(2), 9(1), and 9(2) of Decree No. 23, 1987. Yet, in May 1988, the secretary to the Federal Military Government told the NEC secretary in my presence as chairman that he (the secretary) was the director-general of the commission and, as such, should take over from my control NEC's department of finance and supplies. The functions of the NEC were to organize, conduct, and supervise all elections into all elective offices; to provide rules governing the qualifications to vote and be voted for; to provide guidelines, rules, and regulations for the emergence, recognition, and registration of the parties; to register two political parties and determine their eligibility to sponsor candidates for elective offices; to monitor the organization and conduct of the parties and their financing; to monitor political campaigns, providing rules and regulations governing the parties; to recommend the amount of funds required for the organization and conduct of the parties, and arrange annual examination and auditing of their funds; and to carry out delimitation of constituencies, the registration of voters, and the preparation of voters' registers. From the beginning, it was made clear that the military had embarked on a plan to tutor the country in democratic political behavior. This would last for five years, at the end of which it was hoped that Nigerians would have acquired a new political culture. Recognizing that the teaching environment that is provided for people is at least as important as the subject matter of the course, the government decided to clean up the environment by imposing a ban on certain categories of public officers and politicians. All persons who had held political or public office between 1 October 1960 and 15 January 1966 or from 1 October 1979 to 30 September 1983-or who had been found guilty of misdeeds by any panel or tribunal-were banned for life from holding any public or political party office. So, too, were those who had contributed in one way or another to the economic adversity of the nation or who had exercised corrupt influence on public officeholders. Those who had held certain specified public offices within these periods, including the chief executives, ministers, commissioners, and senior political leaders, but who had not committed any specific offense, were also disqualified from participating in politics and elections during the transition period. None of those banned or disqualified were permitted to hold appointments during the transition. Military and police officers who had held or would hold certain public offices, such as the presidency, head of state, chief of staff, and so forth, from 15 January 1986 to the end of the transition period, were also disqualified from elective office during the transition period. This tutoring of the people for the acquisition of a new political culture was entrusted to a new body, the Directorate of Mass Mobilization for

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Social and Economic Recovery (MAMSER). The task of applying the law on the ban and disqualifications of politicians was given to NEC. But troubling questions abounded. How should NEC, supposedly an apolitical body, relate to the government? How could the autonomy of the agency be preserved while it had to report to senior military officers whose behavior traditionally is informed by authoritarian, not democratic, doctrines? If the autonomy of NEC as perceived by the public eroded before the power exercised by the military, could the credibility of NEC be sustained? If NEC comes to be seen as more or less a pawn in the hands of the military, would the political parties and politicians defer to its views and accept its decisions on elections? Should not NEC then be absolutely autonomous? Again, was it reasonable to allocate to NEC the controversial job of implementing the law on the banning and disqualification of certain categories of public officers and politicians? If the government should appoint to public office people who came under the banned and disqualified groups, could NEC challenge the government when it was the president himself who made the appointment? For instance, was it reasonable to expect NEC to plough through every list of appointments-made with frightening frequency on both federal and state levels-executive positions and parastatals, panels, commissions, and ad hoc bodies, to fish out those who did not qualify? Similarly, was not the attempt to contrive a new political culture in the minds of the people by a military regime with an authoritarian orientation bound to generate serious contradictions? Democracy implies freedom of thought, conscience, expression, freedom to form association, etc. If the government, because of its traditional disciplinary orientation, cracked down on some people on the basis of their unwanted radicalism, would the people not depreciate the efforts to evolve new values, attitudes, and beliefs? If, by its action, the government appeared to lose credibility, its primary agencies for evolving the new political culture would not fare any better than the government. If NEC emerged from the transition period a hobbled instrument, how would it fare in the future? I admit there are no easy answers to these questions. Complicating the matter further, NEC was granted an annual budget of 1 billion naira up to the end of 1992. Suddenly, NEC was a gold mine, and all those with a solid or precarious interest in "mining" expected royalties to be paid to them. Again, NEC needed the support of state governors. In theory, the autonomy of NEC was properly protected. Its chairman and members were appointed by the National Council of State on the nomination of the president, and they could be removed only by the National Council of State. Further, Section 5(1) of the enabling decree empowered the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) to give to the commission such directives as appeared to it to be just and proper for the effective discharge of its functions. In practice, because it was the chief of general staff (CGS,

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the number-two figure in the regime) who carried out this duty on behalf of the AFRC, he tended to regard the commission as a section of his office and as one of the several agencies under him. In the end, the government revised the transition program and established a Transition Committee that seemed to function like a holding company, with NEC tucked away in one corner. The Nigerian Economist put it like this: The role of the Transition Committee has not been gazetted and so far, except for the ordinary and grammatical interpretation of "Co-ordinator," its powers, especially vis-a-vis the CGS 's office over certain aspects of the transition remain ambiguous. Though Alfa (chairman of Transition Committee) will report directly to the President, some of the officers who will be relevant to the transition program will report to the CGS. The CGS normally supervises the state governors and by inference state affairs. This was why the order to suspend Dr. Samuel Orji, elected chairman of Enugu Council in 1988 came from the office of the CGS even though constitutionally it was wrong to remove any councillor except he was impeached. Awa said so when he was asked to set up the machinery for Orji's removaP

The additional task of executing the disqualification orders created more difficulties for NEC, some of which exposed them to severe attacks by banned or disqualified politicians. There was first the problem of facing the Transition to Civil Rule Tribunal if NEC's decision was challenged. Suppose NEC had reason to feel that the tribunal's ruling was not reasonable-what would it do? The tribunal was a judicial body of the first instance, but its decision on questions of the ban and disqualification could not be appealed or referred to any higher body, whereas its decisions regarding offenses committed under the terms of Decree No. 19 of 1987 could be appealed to the Special Appeal Tribunal (the Recovery of Public Property Decree of 1984), with subsequent confirmation by the AFRC. On at least one occasion, NEC felt very strongly that the decision of the tribunal could have been overruled by a higher judicial body, but it could not appeal the case. The real problem with the ban and disqualification exercise lay with the attitudes of politicians to the law. It is understandable that they would not take kindly to this law, but their disapproval gave rise to attacks that were directed at NEC and not the government. For instance, one politician attempted to have the chairman of NEC disqualified in 1987, alleging the latter had been an Action Group (AG) candidate in the 1962 election. 2 This was absolutely false, as I had not been a member of either the AG or its successor, the UPN. But the episode generated heat as well as a demand for the chairman's removal for making an unguarded remark regarding these accusations. Finally, there was the question of dealing with governmental appointments of people who were prohibited by the decree from holding appointment.

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One assumed the executive would exercise care not to appoint people who could conceivably be questioned by NEC. But this was not the case. People with doubtful backgrounds were appointed to all sorts of positions in 1987. NEC declined to examine any such cases, even though the press raised queries. A larger question concerned the reasonableness of a military regime sponsoring and supervising the development of a democratic political culture. Inherent inconsistencies came to the fore, undermining the credibility of the transition program and, especially, of NEC. My attitude had been that, within the short space of five years, it would have been possible to develop NEC into an impeccable agency that could then serve as a steersman, taking the political system gradually to maturity (over many years beyond the formal transition date). Instilling the idea of democratic political culture into people's minds takes a long time. But when the credibility of NEC was eroded through acts of the government, the press, or politicians, then the country was not in a position to advance. When the commission is wedged between two such antagonistic groups as the military and the public, it is bound to suffer severely. Several elections were scheduled to take place during this transition period on local, state, and federal levels. Constitutionally, local government elections were to be held every three years and the others, every four. The plan was to hold the local government elections as frequently as possible during the transitional period, to provide reasonable opportunities for the people to learn to comport themselves democratically during the exercises. Another government objective was to stagger the dates of the elections so as to eliminate the difficulties that electors might face if more than one type of election were held in the same year. Two-year periods were allowed for local governments during the transition period but three-year periods afterward. The program of elections could then be spread out as follows. Local government: 1987, 1989, 1991, 1994; state government: 1990, 1994, 1998; federal government: 1992, 1996, 2000. The general program was as follows: • 1987, 4th quarter: elections into local government • 1988, 1st quarter: Constituent Assembly elections (moved to 2d quarter because of local government by-elections held on 26 March) 1989, 2d quarter: ban on politics to be lifted; 3d quarter: announcement of two parties; 4th quarter: local government elections; 1990, 1st quarter: state elections • 1991, 1st-3d quarters: census; 4th quarter: local government elections 1992, 1st quarter: federal elections (the legislatures); 2d--4th quarters: presidential election, swearing-in of president and disengagement of the military rulers.

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THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS OF 1987

Holding the local government elections in December 1987 meant that they would have to be organized on a nonparty basis and within four months from the date when NEC was sworn in. A section of the public insisted that NEC should refuse to hold the elections under these conditions. This was not practicable, and, in any case, the government assured NEC that the exercise was experimental, designed to enable the commission to learn all it could from elections held under such circumstances. NEC itself established a research panel made up of scholars drawn from the various universities to study the developments and advise on how to improve its performance. Immediately after the elections, an important constitutional issue developed between the elected chairmen and councillors and the state governors who were ruling by fiat. When reporters inquired of me about the legal relationship between the local governments and the governors, I replied that no existing law empowered the (military-appointed) governors to remove the chairmen of local councils. Most of the governors rejected my views. Subsequently, the CGS directed me to arrange for the removal of the Enugu local government chairman. Because I could not do so, the CGS himself removed the man, citing breach of security as his reason. In Decree No., 15 of 1989, promulgated after my removal from NEC, the government set out the procedure to be followed by the local government council in removing the chairmen and the vice-chairmen.

REGISTRATION

The first step in the holding of elections is the registration of voters. We registered about 55 million electors. FEDECO had based the 1983 elections on an elector population of 50 million; a net addition of 5 million voters in four years seemed reasonable. Other operations included preparation of the voters' list, guides for registration officers hired on a temporary basis, and guidelines for voters as well as providing 55 million registration certificates. There were 380,000 polling/registration centers throughout the country for which enough people had to be recruited and trained to staff. In collaboration with MAMSER, NEC appealed to the people to turn out in large numbers to register, provided they had attained the age of eighteen years. They could register and be voted for in any place they had resided for a period of at least twelve months. Many governors participated actively in the campaign to get people to register. Some even declared that registration was compulsory and that people would be required to show their registration certificates before their children could be admitted into state schools. By the time the exercise ended, 72 million people

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were given registration certificates and a further 5 million turned up after we had run out of the certificates. How do we account for this huge number of eligible voters? If it is correct, it implies that the total population of the country was then around 150 million. Our view in NEC was that there had been multiple registration-e.g., the registration of children and of names of nonexistent people. Some of those manipulations might have been condoned by the registration officers. Banned and disqualified politicians might also have contributed to the problem. That the problem remains intractable is evidenced by the fact that the new 1989 NEC wrestled with it for another twenty months before holding its first elections in 1990 and still did not come up with any firm figures of registered voters.

ELECTIONS

Our preparations for the elections were elaborate. There were 5,024 wards in the country with 380,000 polling centers. One booth and a single ballot were placed at each polling center. Ballot papers were provided for the 72 million voters, with 144 million envelopes for the ballot papers of the chairman and councillor, respectively.3 Guidelines were prepared, countless forms were printed, and stationery of many descriptions were purchased. Some polling centers could only be reached by speedboat, helicopter, or four-wheel-drive vehicles. Nearly two million people were recruited to serve as presiding officers, polling clerks, returning officers, and so forth; all were given training. The Babalakin commission had recommended that election offers be properly trained: "The Electoral Commission must be enabled to build up a corps of permanent staff whose tenure would be guaranteed subject to good behavior and good performance." Such an objective was impossible within the period of four months in which NEC had been in operation. Because NEC had to purchase huge quantities of materials for the elections, it set up a committee from within itself to determine the quantities needed and where these materials could be purchased at cost-effective rates. The committee's report was approved unanimously in my absence. Yet a section of the press was informed, deliberately by an NEC insider, that some of the items needed had been overinvoiced by the chairman. The attack on me was taken up by the press, with calls that I should be removed. All these materials had to be relocated to strategically chosen places in each ward and then made secure with the help of the police. They would be moved to the polling centers on the morning of the election, 12 December. In metropolitan Lagos, the most complicated electoral unit in the country, we made special arrangements to ensure that the materials would be distributed in time: we requested all electoral officers (one for each

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local-government area) to spend the preceding night in the local government headquarters, or some other designated places, so that they could deliver the election materials on time. We even arranged to pay the reasonably high inconvenience allowances. Yet, in spite of these arrangements, these officers failed to turn up on time. They pleaded that they could not move from their offices for fear of attack by thugs, since the police refused to escort them. In actuality, they were probably induced by saboteurs not to get there on time so that the electors might riot out of frustration. We had also arranged for all private vehicles to be kept off the road between the voting hours of 8 A.M. and 3 P.M. This measure was taken to prevent voters from moving from one local government area to another or from one state to another, causing confusion. In some urban centers, this strategy backfired on us-especially in Lagos where the municipal buses that needed to move the army of election officers to their places of duty failed to move for fear of breaking the traffic ban. Thus, in many places, the elections did not start on time, partly because of the restriction on movement and partly because of the difficulty in getting hired drivers of trucks and other vehicles to move on time. A further complicating factor was the provision of symbols for identifying each candidate for the elections. Where parties exist, the candidates are identified by their respective party symbols. It is easy to imprint the party symbols on the ballot papers. But where there are no parties, how do you select symbols for candidates who would not be known until after the close of nominations, which is rather late in the day? NEC was aware that a large number of people were going to compete for the post of chairman in many local government areas: ten or more appeared in some places. NEC decided to arrange the names of all candidates in alphabetical order and to assign strokes to candidates in place of symbols. For instance, G. Abba would get one stroke (/), Hajia C. Badru would get two (//), Chief Gbolu would get seven(///////), and so on. We took infinite pains to explain this procedure to the voters, but to some it was like walking a maze. Other problems flowed from the organizational arrangements; others again, from antidemocratic tendencies on the part of the people. The latter problem took two forms. One was the demand of "indigenous communities in urban centers" to be given the chance to produce the chairman of the council or a majority of the councillors, even though this indigenous group had come to represent only a small fraction of the total population of the area. This demand was made in parts of Lagos, in Onitsha, and in Aba, where the indigenes threatened to murder the chairman of the council if he did not turn out to be an indigene. Another problem was the tendency to take out on the electoral system preexisting communal conflicts. For instance, if one village or clan had a conflict with another because of land and got hold of the election materials because a son of the soil happened to be an election officer, every trick in the book would be employed to

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deprive his rival of equal access. This problem was widespread throughout the country. On election day, these translated into acts of violence (Lagos and Onitsha), rigging, and other malpractices. Inevitably, there was a further problem in Lagos. Many voters had stood in the queue patiently, waiting for the materials to arrive. Some concerned citizens tipped me of a whispering campaign in some places where the voters were asked: "Why are you people standing here quietly instead of rioting when those NEC people do not get you the materials?" They rioted accordingly. Also in Lagos, many voters registered, as we found out later, not where they resided but in places convenient for them. On election day, they looked for their names in the wrong places. Besides, the Lagos State government made adjustments to some ward boundaries after the registration exercise and before the elections, without informing NEC. The government was trying to correct problems of gerrymandering that had characterized the constituency system for some time and to provide wards for new residential areas. Nevertheless, the officials should have informed NEC of these adjustments. Some blatant rigging by elections officers also occurred. For instance, in Lagos, the headmaster of a school who served as a presiding officer in his area was caught witH ballot boxes that he had filled beforehand. NEC did not hear of any action taken against him by the police. At the close of the elections, major problems involving violence occurred in Lagos State and the Onitsha local government area. Elsewhere, other problems were encountered. Altogether, 312 wards out of 5,024 had their results disqualified. Relying on its own findings and without prompting from any aggrieved persons, NEC canceled the elections in these 312 wards and directed that fresh elections be held-something that had never been done before. On the night of 12 December, after the close of the polls, the secretary to the Federal Military Government (FMG) met me in the house and requested a detailed report of the elections in Lagos Statewhich he said he was obliged to forward to the president before twelve midnight. Although I did not believe him, I gave him what information I had. A few days later, a powerful delegation was sent from Lagos State to the president urging him to remove me. I was informed that among the YIPs who had masterminded the sending of the delegation to the president were some banned and disqualified politicians as well as some high public officers. I managed to survive. The reelections for Lagos State, Onitsha local government, and other areas were set for 26 March 1988. NEC used the intervening period to correct nearly all the lapses highlighted in this chapter. In order to handle the problem of municipal Lagos effectively, we worked in close liaison with state government, the eight local governments, and the wards. This led to the establishment of a hierarchy of task forces, manned on each level by an NEC officer as chairman, representatives of the relevant government, the

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policy, the State Security Service, and MAMSER. Polling stations were created for new residential areas; the names of voters were transferred to registers in polling stations nearest their places of residence; and new maps were drawn to show the areas covered by each ward. More polling centers were created so as to reduce congestion. A list of display centers and the area covered was prepared by each local government so that the public could easily know where to look for their names. While all this was in the process of being done, a section of the press kept up the attack against me, demanding that I be removed. A few people wrote rejoinders in other newspapers, evaluating the performance of NEC as reasonably satisfactory. All who wrote in support of NEC, or of me specifically received anonymous threat letters addressed to them care of the Guardian, where the defense articles had appeared. One typical threat letter warned: "For, on March 26, this year the unavoidable verdict will once more be confirmed that Awa cannot organize free and fair elections in this country." From this, I deduced the fact that the detractors would again try to sabotage the elections on 26 March 1988. To counteract whatever moves they might make, I directed every NEC commissioner to take charge of each local government area in Lagos, to report to the headquarters of the area at 7 A.M. on 26 March, and to move into the wards to see if anything was wrong and to effect corrections before the arrival of the voters at 8 A.M. Many things did go wrong: polling booths were moved from one center to another; some booths were found in places where NEC had not provided for any; sheets were torn out from the register of voters; and stationery was destroyed or removed. The commissioners quickly rearranged everything and thus cut the ground from under the feet of the saboteurs.

ELECTIONS INTO THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

The Constituent Assembly consisted of a chairman and a deputy chairman appointed by the AFRC. There were 450 members, not more than onequarter of whom were to be nominated by the AFRC, the others being elected. Other members included the chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC), chairmen of the various subcommittees, and some other members of the CRC. The local government councils were constituted into electoral colleges for the purpose of electing members of the CA. Each local government area was to elect one member; around 338 members were elected. The sizes of the local government councils varied greatly but were generally small, consisting of sixteen to twenty members. Thus, if sixteen councillors were to choose the CA member out of two candidates, it would mean that whoever scored nine votes would win. This would be a very

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small number to determine victory in such matters. It would be even worse if the candidates were more than two. To reduce the number of candidates to the barest minimum, the CA decree stipulated that every candidate must be nominated by ten registered voters in every ward of the local government areas that made up the constituency. The secret-ballot approach was employed, and only one box was used by each college. The ballot papers were marked secretly but dropped into the box in full view of all members of the college. Under certain circumstances, the returning officer could cast lot to determine a winner.

PETITIONS

We settled down to streamline the structure of the NEC. In particular, we reinforced our financial-control system, set up personnel-management structures, and devised two tenders' bodies for the handling of major and minor contracts, respectively. It was while discussing the division of NEC's functions into departments that the secretary of the FMG informed the NEC secretary that he should take charge of the department of finance and supplies. The chairman and some of the commissioners, knowing the folly of this, got the commission to reject the FMG secretary's direction and to restrict the secretary to the role prescribed by Decree No. 23, as nonexecutive secretary. From January 1988, NEC was inundated with petitions concerning the local government, and later also the Constituent Assembly, elections. Other people went to the tribunal seeking to reverse NEC rulings. NEC could disqualify prospective candidates on various grounds, including (1) the banning or disqualification of people by Decree No. 23, (2) failure to meet residential requirements, (3) failure to meet educational standards in the case of elections to the Constituent Assembly, and (4) nonpayment of taxes. Anyone dissatisfied with the ruling of NEC could take the case to the tribunal for resolution. But anyone who objected to the results of an election on such grounds as the employment of violence, rigging, undue influence, bribery, and the like, could file an action with a high court and, if need be, with the court of appeal. I have already mentioned NEC's dissatisfaction with the way the tribunal handled some cases. NEC petitioned the president, requesting him to provide for appeals of decisions delivered by the tribunal. This seemed to have been granted, for the attorney-general later forwarded to us for comments the draft of the proposed amendment. We returned the draft to the attorney-general with our comments but never heard any more on the matter. We may note that in the 1979 constitution there was a provision for high-court judges to constitute the election tribunals. But in the 1992 constitution this was altered. Article 269 provided for the establishment of

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three tribunals for the presidential election, the state-governorship and -legislative elections; and the local government elections. Only retired judges and lawyers qualified to serve as judges were eligible to serve on these bodies, with a small number of nonlawyers. Appeals from these bodies went to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, and the high court of a state respectively. Some Nigerians are wont to make false accusations and throw libelous brickbats in a lighthearted manner against fellow Nigerians. In addition to those cited above, we cite another. One Ameh Udoh had contested the 1987 elections for the chairmanship of the Otukpo local council (Benue State). Having lost the election, he filed an action in high court, alleging impropriety in the conduct of the elections. Later, he withdrew the action from the court, then petitioned NEC alleging failure of the incumbent chairman to satisfy the residency requirements at the time of the elections. NEC set up a committee to investigate the matter; the committee wrote its report in January 1989 but had not yet submitted it. On 2 February, Udoh met me in the office and stated that the report, which he had apparently seen, did not favor him. Udoh was clutching two bundles of papers, one of which he handed over to me. In these, he made false, malicious, and essentially frivolous accusations against me relating to the handling of some funds. He demanded that he be appointed chairman of the Otukpo local council or that he would cause the fabrications to be published through a professional blackmailer. He added that he was working on his blackmail in collaboration with lawyers from Onitsha, who were allegedly angry because their request for the appointment of an indigene as their local council chairman was denied. I told him I could not possibly submit to such blackmail. In the next few days, I managed to trap Udoh into speaking on tape. He repeated many of the issues he had raised originally and also uttered a threat to my life. I submitted a full report, together with the tape record, to the authorities. No action was taken against Udoh. On 19 March 1990, the professional blackmailer's paper published blatantly libelous accusations that he knew to be false. Because he also stepped on the toes of some people in authority while attacking me, they carpeted him. He then confessed that a notable of Otukpo origin had set him up to organize the whole episode. These events may seem somewhat pedestrian, but they speak volumes about the deep-seated patterns of Nigerian political behavior. The petitioner attempted to secure the chairman's seat at Otukpo by fair or foul means. He fought for it first in the court, secondly through NEC, then through his own blackmail effort, and finally through a secondary blackmail effort organized by a professional. As have the previous incidents noted here, this situation demonstrates the unwillingness of powerful and ambitious people to give NEC a chance to mature to a point where it could earn the confidence of the people.

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CONCLUSION

The basic Nigerian problem is an overvaluation of materialism relative to high morality. This leads to both a prebendal view of politics and the quest for the primitive accumulation of wealth. NEC is an important instrument of the state apparatus, and it was in a position to disburse more than 5 billion naira in a mere five years. Many Nigerians assumed that the chairmanship of a particular commission would give an automatic financial advantage to the members of his respective ethnic/religious group. There was also the problem of displaced aggression involved in this particular situation: attack and replace the particular chairman because he represents an ethnic/religious group that possesses only minor political clout; and ignore the people who preside over agencies with far greater financial resources because they are representatives of groups with imponderable political power. Sadly, this account of my experience with NEC reflects the steady weakening among the upper classes of principled, civic orientations, with a consequent strengthening of ethnic/religious interests.

NOTES 1. The CGS then directly removed Orji on the grounds of state security. 2. This was one self-proclaimed progressive and member of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), successor of the Action Group. 3. The 1987 local government elections were the first in which the chairman of the local government council was to be chosen separately through a direct popular vote.

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Mobilizing for a New Political Culture Adigun Agbaje

A unique, and perhaps ironic, element in the program of transition to democratic rule was the avowed commitment of the military regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida to the enthronement in Nigeria of what it called a new political culture more supportive of democracy through a carefully designed program of social mobilization. One source of this irony and uniqueness is the fact that, in the postcolonial era, Africa has been noted more for state structures and forces, actors and processes, that deliberately limit popular participation in governance and seek to demobilize the populace.' In plotting out this tendency, Crawford Young has drawn a picture, akin to a bell-shaped graph, of a political culture that began on the low side for the continent with "an authoritarian legacy of the colonial past. "2 This low political participation then gave way only after a nationalist struggle that mobilized a broad-based popular movement against the colonial regime) After the termination of colonial rule, however, the participant political culture declined again.4 Although Nigeria is often pointed out as an exception, in which even under military rule there was a "growing pressure to restore democratic rule"5 and a commitment "to the concept of open political competition,"6 this has been due more to voluntary action largely out of the purview, and often in spite, of the state and state actors.? Moreover, even when state managers in the past initiated programs of mobilization, they tended not to be directly linked to politics-were often ad hoc and poorly articulated in nature and intent-while the more salient political consequences of such endeavors were often their unintended consequences. Against this background, the transition program of the Babangida regime stands out in bold relief in a postindependent Africa whose ruling regimes-military and civilian-have primarily sought to demobilize the people by reducing their involvement in politics, eliminating or weakening participatory structures and institutions, canceling elections, and neutralizing political opposition.s 143

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Even more significant, the move for a new political culture was made by a military regime apparently embarking on the termination not only of itself but of the very idea of military rule in the future, by laying what it considered solid foundation for a democratic Third Republic. If governing regimes in Africa have not been known to encourage the development of a vibrant political culture, military regimes are often seen as doubly handicapped in this regard.9 As indicated below, Babangida's move derived from the position of his administration that political and economic change could not be successfully engineered without a program of social mobilization meant to bring about commensurate changes in the values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms of the people. No doubt, meaningful changes at the level of structure, material production and distribution, and political processes can be sustained only when accompanied by necessary changes in the values held by members of that society, the norms that guide their action, the beliefs they hold dear, and their attitudes to institutions, groups, and other individuals in society. JO In the context of this paper, it is interesting to note the decline in intellectual interest during the 1970s and 1980s in such concepts as political culture, political participation, and political socialization, 11 which were of primary importance in the study of political development in the late 1950s and 1960s.l2 Political culture, defined as "the system of beliefs about patterns of political interaction and political institutions,"l3 or as "the particular distribution of patterns of orientation toward political objects among the members of the nation," 14 was thus conceptually marginalized in the study of political development. IS It was to be expected, however, that recent studies of and concern about the prospects for democracy in Africa, Asia, and Latin America would lead to a refocusing of attention on the political-culture dimension of democracy in developing countries as well as to the questioning of the tendency in the relevant literature to overlook not only the politics and sociology of consciousness in general, but the political culture of consciousness 16 in particular, in analyzing political development. As the traditional literature has emphasized, political culture serves as a vital connecting link between micropolitics and macropolitics, reflecting and affecting forces at the levels of economy, society, politics, and the individual's personality. The crucial nature of political culture, therefore, lies in the fact of its location at the subjective realm of politics 17 and in the role of belief and perception in the definition of the political situation. Is This chapter assesses the effort of the Babangida military regime to "mobilize" Nigeria for a new political culture." The next section examines the government's program, which for much of the period under review revolved around the activities of a Directorate for Social Mobilization (DSM) to coordinate a new campaign for social mobilization.

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The third section addresses what this chapter calls "mobilization by default." This concept relates to the unintended consequences for social mobilization of the general conduct of state affairs during the transition period. The chapter concludes with an overall assessment of the planned march toward a new political culture, which sought to instill the discipline that would sustain democracy in the Third Republic.

MOBILIZATION BY DESIGN

The Babangida regime's program of social mobilization sought in principle to turn Nigeria's political culture around, building loyalties across cleavages of class, region, religion, and ethnic communities. Thus, it sought to engineer consensus within diversity, participation and enlightenment within apathy and ignorance, compromise and accommodation within conflicts, trust within distrust, information certainty within a pillarized society, and responsive and responsible ethos of governance among the leaders and the led. In all this, the regime only built on the past, even if it occasionally justified its own program in a language that rejected that same past-including the very recent past. The fundamental problems and issues relating to concern over the content and context of Nigeria's political culture stretch as far back as the precolonial era, 19 even as their forms were transformed during the colonial20 and postcolonial eras. To this extent, the Babangida regime's effort was not the first of its kind, nor was the political culture subsequently under siege a recent phenomenon. Highlights of this political culture, long identified in the literature,21 include the amorality of the state, political corruption, apathy and mass alienation, violence, mistrust, and generalized stereotyping that have encouraged hostile cleavages largely around the contours of ethnic, regional, religious, ideological and, lately, class divides. Pre-MAMSER Attempts at Planned Social Mobilization

It is, therefore, not surprising that public policy has been directed at solving these problems since 1960 when the country became independent.22 Thus, special programs such as unity schools and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme were launched in the 1960s and 1970s to promote national unity. Various regimes also launched anticorruption crusades against a cankerworm that had eaten deep into the nation's fabric. This was complemented by literacy campaigns and socioeconomic programs such as Operation Feed the Nation, which aimed at mobilizing all Nigerians, including the marginalized class of peasant farmers, for food production.

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These programs-with perhaps the singular exception of a proposed "ethical revolution" slated for the second term (from October 1983) of President Shehu Shagari but aborted along with that regime by the military coup that terminated the Second Republic-tended to be ad hoc measures and were not conceived as part of a sweeping and comprehensive package designed to produce the desired change on several fronts simultaneously. Such a program of mobilization was to await the military coup of 31 December, 1983, which terminated the Second Republic and brought in the military regime of Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. Even in his maiden broadcast to the nation as head of state on the night of 31 December, Buhari had outlined the intention of his regime when he condemned the degenerate character of the political system operated in the Second Republic.23 In military fashion, his regime subsequently launched a War Against Indiscipline (WAI), a comprehensive program of mass mobilization that laid emphasis on discipline. This, along with other policies and legislation, created for the regime an image of high-handedness that contributed to its demise via the palace coup of 27 August 1985 that brought in the Babangida regime. MAMSER and Social Mobilization

The point of departure for the Babangida regime in the area of social mobilization was outlined early enough on the day of the coup. In his first broadcast to the nation as its new leader, General Babangida promised to pursue a less militaristic program.24 The government subsequently transformed WAI into a National (Re)Orientation Movement (NOM), the "principal aim" being "to produce a state of mind; a consciousness in our citizens at all levels of society and in all walks of life, which will inculcate in them the civic virtues of selfregulation, commonly found in all mature and responsible civil societies."25 This was the framework for social mobilization in the early part of the administration, and especially before January 1986, when it announced a program of transition to democratic rule and established a Political Bureau to organize and report on a one-year public debate on Nigeria's political future. In his speech inaugurating the bureau, President Babangida observed that26 the political history of this nation is partly one of disillusionment with partisan politics and politicians .... The search and solutions have hung around the issue of a political system without adequate care of its supportive values .... Not surprisingly, our efforts so far only succeeded in producing inept and inherently unstable political arrangements, which have failed to synchronize our cultural ideals with our economic and political potentials. To put it differently, apart from the immediate and more visible problems of salvaging our battered economy, the other task is to

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bring about a new political culture which, like a veritable fountain head, would bring forth a stable, strong and dynamic economy.

In its report, the Political Bureau appeared to have been swayed by President Babangida's arguments. Chapter 12 of the report outlined the need for a new political orientation for Nigeria and recommended that government should establish a National Directorate of Social Mobilization and Political Education to coordinate the task of social and political mobilization. The report "emphasized the need for the inauguration of a new political culture" featuring such values as "discipline, loyalty, true patriotism, commitment, dedication and accountability to the Nigerian State." 27 Government subsequently accepted this recommendation28 and, on 1 July 1987, while formally outlining his administration's transition program in a nationwide broadcast, President Babangida announced the establishment of a Directorate for Social Mobilization (DSM), based in his office, to pursue the "urgent need to inculcate new values, politically educate the adult, socialize the young, and mobilize the masses for participation in the new order."29 The structure, according to its architects, was designed with a grassroots orientation "to facilitate mass mobilization."30 At the federal level, the national directorate operated largely as a think tank, organized into functional and specialized departments, formulating policies, programs, and projects, and monitoring and evaluating their implementation. The state directorates, on their part, coordinated and supervised the programs of the DSM at the grassroots levels, with appropriate input from state governments. The directorate also had a presence at the local government, ward, and community levels, where local interests were adequately represented. From 1987 until 1993, when it was scrapped, the directorate's mobilization drive focused on three main programs3I in addition to a fourth one consisting of special offerings for particular role cultures and subcultures in the armed and public services. These programs were in the areas of: (1) mass mobilization for self-reliance, economic recovery, and social justice (MAMSER), (2) political education, and (3) mass education. Under the first program, the directorate depended on radio and television as well as its own community-based approach, utilizing popular organizations at the community level and mobile public-address systems. The focus here was on two projects. First was the Operation Food First campaign, which sought "to mobilize and organize" small-scale farmers into cooperatives and to link such cooperatives with banks and other financial institutions and governments for assistance in the form of loans and other means. The second component sought to enhance social justice by assisting to publicize and channel grievances to the Public Complaints Commission, another institution set up to perform the function of an ombudsman.

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According to the directorate, the ultimate goal of its political-education program was "the attainment of a National democratic society where the masses are conscious, vigilant and organized ... in which social injustice, poverty and foreign domination of our economy are totally eliminated. "32 This "implies the creation of a new national political culture."33 In pursuing this goal, the directorate educated Nigerians on their political history; the need for democracy, involving the transformation of unjust structures, an end to apathy, observance of rights and duties of citizens, and revitalization of popular organizations; and the need to reject manipulation or other acts that threaten the identity, integrity, and solidarity of the nation. The directorate's third program sought to promote mass literacy by organizing, in conjunction with relevant federal and state agencies for mass education, literacy classes outside the formal school system. In the first phase of the program, around 1.2 million Nigerians had been registered in mass literacy classes all over the country. Projections were that this figure would increase to about 5 million by 1989. The program, according to the directorate, revolved around the point that "a literate society is a liberated society."34 As indicated earlier, the fourth set of programs was those specially designed for ones occupying role cultures considered of strategic importance35 to the sustenance of a stable democratic dispensation. Thus, at various times, special mobilization packages were launched for the armed forces, the police, and public service. The program of mobilization within the army was called Operation Service Alert while that of the navy was tagged All Hands on Deck. That of the air force was Operation Diligence and Vigilance while, for the police force, the program was Operation Service with Courtesy. One called Operation Excellence in Service was also launched for all categories of workers in the nation's public service, while a special Crusade Against Corruption (CRAC) was designed in conjunction with the Code of Conduct Bureau to tackle the general malaise of corruption in the country. Apart from all this, the directorate also served as another publicenlightenment arm of government, not only in the areas of political transition program but also with regard to the publication and dissemination of other public-policy statements emanating from the Babangida administration in such disparate areas as agriculture, science and technology, and economic recovery. The directorate also retained and nurtured the WAI brigade, which had previously served as an enforcement arm of WAI, as a voluntary organization of young Nigerians aged between twelve and forty-five that would perform the role of "agent of change" and "instrument for the achievement of a just, self-reliant, united, disciplined and democratic society."36

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The Contribution of Other Public Institutions

Apart from the federal and state ministries of information and the broadcast media under them, which worked closely with the DSM, four other public institutions whose outputs had direct bearing on the search for a new political culture were the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), the Babangida regime's highest legislative and policymaking body until 1992, the National Electoral Commission (NEC), the Directorate for Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), and the Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS). The role of the AFRC went beyond providing the overall framework for policy initiative in the area of social mobilization for a new political culture. It also endorsed institutional innovations for the Third Republic aimed at correcting the perceived mistakes of the previous two. In this regard, perhaps its most crucial decisions were the endorsement of only two parties for the Third Republic, government's funding of these parties at their embryonic stage-in order to ensure not only that they were grassroots-oriented but also that they were not hijacked ab initio by affluent individuals-and the initial banning for life or during the transition of certain Nigerians, including officeholders, past and present, from partisan politics. With these decisions, the AFRC hoped to see the emergence of truly national participatory political parties cutting across language, region, and religion. The electoral commission, in the various guidelines on party formation and elections it issued, attempted equally to engineer a legal and cultural framework that would ensure an electoral process largely bereft of the sins of old-manipulations, violence, apathy, ethnicity, domination by rich individuals, and so on. Another significant policy initiative was the regime's emphasis on rural development, with DFFRl playing a central role in opening rural areas, and creating the infrastructural and economic bases for grassroots development and democracy. From its creation in 1986, the hope was that DFRRI would be used as an instrument "not only to effectively promote a framework for grassroots social mobilization, but also to mount a virile program of developmental monitoring and performance evaluation"37 and thus to promote the principle of accountability in government bureaucracies. DFRRI was in a sense a precursor to the DSM, having at its inception a department charged with social mobilization that was scrapped only after the setting up of the DSM. Moreover, DFRRI subsequently shifted focus from the initial concern with the provision of rural infrastructure-feeder roads, potable water, electricity-to helping set up such agencies as community banks, community-development associations, and community direct participation schemes. These were all guided by the principle that "the

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people of this nation have to be convinced about how they could, on their own initiative, take appropriate action in all aspects of the growth and development process .... They do not have to wait for Government to take the lead anymore.''C18 A program Better Life for Rural Women, aimed at socioeconomic and political mobilization of the rural women-which subsequently metamorphosed into Better Life for Rural Dwellers, while maintaining its focus on rural women, and which was initiated by the wife of the president, Maryam Babangida-was also located in DFRRI until 1990, when a National Commission for Women was set up by government. The last major institutional arrangement to be put in place by the Babangida regime in its planned program of mobilizing the people toward a "new" political culture was the CDS. This center was established in 1989, but took off effectively in 1990, with the mandate to "seek out and identify sources and types of anti-democratic attitudes, beliefs and behavior in Nigerians and devise measures to correct them through educational, bureaucratic and political institutions."39 The center was organized around two main operational departments-studies and research-with an administration/finance department providing the necessary support and the office of director-general, the leadership. The center provided training first for public officials appointed to organize the takeoff of the National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the two parties formed by government following its decision not to register any of the political associations that sprang up after the ban on politics was lifted in May 1989. As elected party officials emerged at the ward, local government, state, and national levels, the CDS organized training workshops and seminars for them on party administration and the democratic process. Similar training was organized in 1991 for local government operatives elected in December 1990 and for state and national officials elected in 1991 and 1992. On a more permanent basis, part of the CDC's brief was to run "certificate of competence" workshops for party men wishing to contest elections into public office at all levels. The CDC was also to conduct research into factors that aid or inhibit democracy in Nigeria, as well as into leadership types and forms in Nigeria, the ultimate aim being to produce policy-relevant recommendations.40 How Effective?

The skepticism that greeted government's announcement of the mobilization program was informed not only by the fact that similar programs in the past had failed to achieve visible and desired results but by several other factors as well. One was government's decision, in accepting the Political Bureau's recommendation on the need to set up a directorate for

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social mobilization, to reject at the same time the bureau's recommendation on the need to adopt socialism as the official ideology for the Nigerian state. In rejecting the call for socialism and later for a milder welfarism, government's position was that it had no mandate to impose an ideology on Nigerians.41 For a significant portion of the Nigerian population, however, the decision not to endorse socialism implied that the mobilization program was hanging in the air "like its predecessors ... without an ideological prop" 42 while the mobilization program "is easier propagated within a socialist ideological framework than within the brand of crude capitalism which the system currently harbors and nurtures."4l Another school, however, believed that it was wrong to equate ideology with socialism and to suggest further that only socialism could guarantee effective mobilization. As Jerry Gana, first chairman of the DSM, argued, echoing the views of government, "[O]bjectives themselves do not bring about revolution. Every ideal is empty. It is the people who put action into it. "44 Earlier, the government, in rejecting what it called the imposition of a political ideology, had explained that it considered as adequate for the purpose of social mobilization the goals enunciated in the Second National Development Plan (1970-1974) with regard to the need for national unity, strength, self-reliance, and the building of a just, free, and democratic society. The debate over the appropriate ideological framework for mobilization not only created an ideological divide but also strengthened the hands of those who saw the whole enterprise, and the institutions being created in that regard, as yet another instrument of presidential patronage as well as another way of creating jobs "for the boys." 4 5 The logic appeared to be that if there was no change in the ideological framework for mobilization, what else could be mobilized but the pockets of favored individuals and patron seekers? And, although defenders of government policy were quick to assert that the agencies charged with mobilization were actually underfunded and closely monitored,46 this viewpoint was further reinforced by what observers believed to be contradictions in the Babangida regime's avowed commitment to the enthronement of a new political culture and the regime's track record of being more liberal in the handling of cases of political corruption inherited from the Buhari regime-as well as the tendency for some of the Babangida regime's principal actors to maintain a high profile in ostentatious living.47 All this tended to lead commentators to wonder whether mobilization was only for the common people, and not for the elite in the corridors and boardrooms of power. To this concern, the DSM insisted that its programs were for both the government and the governed, insisting that "even government itself is

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supposed to be mobilized to the wishes of the people because mobilization will be fast, more effective if there is mobilization at the top, middle and bottom. "48 However, the sore point in this regard was the lack of effective and institutional enforcement for the norms of accountability and probity being propagated through agencies such as the CDS and MAMSER. Although a Code of Conduct Bureau and tribunal had been established and backed with necessary legislation, it remained essentially incapable of enforcing accountability and was a poor substitute for a powerful oversight institution adequately equipped to ensure such accountability. While agencies like CDS and MAMSER may have been sincere in their programs of action, their ability to deliver was bound to be limited by the absence of concrete incentives and punishments to back up their messages.49 It is not surprising, therefore, that public skepticism persisted. Government shifted the blame for this on those it described as the elite,so but there were clear objective and experiential bases to the widespread cautions and doubts concerning the mobilization enterprise. It did not help matters that a significant portion of public opinion believed that the government program had bitten off more than it could chew.SI While the multidimensional nature of the program could be seen as a strength, others argued persuasively that the vast new bureaucracy for creating a new culture via mobilization actually covered subjects that might as well have been executed by already-existing institutions. And, if that were so, the entire enterprise was little more than wasteful duplication and overinstitutionalization. Unfortunately, much less attention was paid to defining the problem. If the extant political culture recorded a level and type of political participation unconducive to the sustenance of democracy, what is to blame for this? While government and its officials, including those charged with mobilizing the people, blamed mass apathy, commentators operating outside the governmental framework fingered mass alienation from the governmental and political processes as the cause of the level of political participation that has been the bane of the democratic process in the country.5 2 This issue touched a raw nerve, so to speak, in the debate about the efficacy of mobilization at a period when the dictatorship of poverty weighed the people down and sought to demobilize them. To argue, however, that opinion was not divided on the issue is inaccurate, since there were those who. along with those in government, 53 saw the depressing economic circumstances of the people as an opportunity for more purposeful mobilization. One such perspective5 4 argued that MAMSER 's program Operation Food First was geared toward ensuring that the Nigerian poor escaped from the tyranny of hunger and, therefore, became transformed from a hungry, demobilized person to a well-fed person well disposed to mobilization.

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Nevertheless, there was no doubt a link between the level of poverty and want in society, the extent to which this was traced to government action or inaction, and the efficacy and public reaction to the mobilization program-which was seen also as a government project.55 This was despite disclaimers by those in charge of the project, who insisted that, because the program of mass mobilization was initially suggested by the Political Bureau, it could not but be seen as a people's project rather than as a government baby. 56 The excessive government presence in the mobilization effort did not escape the public's attention. Rather, it tied the fate of the program to the fate of the Babangida administration in general. To be sure, an impact assessment of the mobilization program is quite a hazardous enterprise, given sharp differences over its rationale, essence, and goals, and given also the unintended consequences of unplanned mass mobilization, discussed below. The government program appears to have achieved some measure of success in the areas of mass literacy and organization of small-scale farmers and other rural dwellers into cooperatives and other associations. Nevertheless, perspectives that cannot be ignored insisted that5 7 "MAMSER is a colossal loss of money" in spite of protestations from government officials that MAMSER did succeed in raising the level of Nigerians' political awareness.58 Grassroots assessments appeared to support the skeptics. Fourteen out of fifteen Nigerians interviewed by the National Concord newspaper in January 1990 gave MAMSER a score of below-average, with only one person-a civil servant from Otukpo, Benue State-indicating that, with time, the country would reap benefits from the program.59 A sample of such opinions includes the following: • Alb. Taibat Adeyemi, market woman, Ibadan: "I don't even know anything about MAMSER, or what did you even call it. My own concern now is the market and the people who will eat. Prices of food and other things are going up daily and you are talking about MAMSER.... The point is just that I do not care to listen to it. If I have my way, government should cancel it and divert the money to other productive ventures." • Kemi Shodunke, university student: "Everybody can understand the good intention of the government in introducing MAMSER, but unfortunately the present state of hunger and disillusionment has not allowed the program to work." • Bayo Gbadamosi, a Youth Corps member: MAMSER to me has remained nothing but a time and money-wasting effort. Who is mobilizing who? ... Our leaders in this country have not shown the necessary exemplary leadership to effectively mobilize Nigerians. The program is also being seriously affected with the present economic

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situation in the country. Except one is deceiving anybody, no proper mobilization could be carried out in an empty stomach." Taiye Alabi, vulcanizer: "I beg leave me please to do my work. It is too early in the morning. If you want to know anything about MAMSER ... go and meet the government people who sahi well, well. Me, I am concerned with my work alone; to get chop money. MAMSER no be my problem." Oyindamola Owolabi, civil servant: "The idea of MAMSER is good, but whatever amount that has been sunk into the program is definitely a wasted amount ... Everybody is just concerned with his or her survival ... The best government should do ... is to first unfold a lot of relief measures for the masses, and I bet you, any other thing the government wants will definitely succeed." Toye Adelabu, secondary-schoolleaver: "So far, I have not been to any MAMSER lecture because to me it is another empty talk-talk arena." ldris Iko, guard: "I no sabi MAMSER and I dey Lagos since five years." Francis Onyezubelu, businessman: "To me, MAMSER is another 0Rhanje child that was born to die, just like other Kwashiokor institutions established before it."

If the preceding was a mirror of public opinion, then it suggests two things. First, the Babangida administration's attempt at a planned mobilization toward the so-called new political culture-where "new" implies "better," "pro-democratic," and "developmentalist"-never really fully took off. In fact, following the emergence of elected party leaderships in 1990, even its major instrument of policy formulation in this regard, the DSM, fell under the shadow of partisan suspicions as the new leadership of the NRC was quick to accuse the directorate's top leadership of having pro-SDP tendencies. Such accusations were partly confirmed when Jerry Gana, the directorate's chairman, resigned in 1992 to seek the SDP's presidential nomination. Government quickly redeployed its national security adviser and former inspector-general of police, Muhammadu Gambo, as administrator of the directorate with the mandate to carry out an audit of the institution, including a review of its roles. As a result, the directorate was reorganized to focus more on public enlightenment while retaining its location in the presidency. However, following the inauguration of the transitional council, a second decision was taken in January 1993 to transfer the directorate to the Federal Ministry of Information,60 in line with a similar, apparently cost-saving, decision to transfer DFRRI to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture. The directorate's top management, including its new chairman and former secretary, Tunde Adeniran, spent much of the first quarter of 1993

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trying to ensure that the directorate was not swallowed up by the ministry but retained some form of autonomy as a parastatal in the image, for instance, of the Nigerian Television Authority or the Federal Radio Corporation.61 By August 1993. plans for a National Orientation Agency (NOA) were under way. The agency was to be made up of the former DSM. NOM, and WAI brigades as well as the Public Enlightenment Division of the Federal Ministry of Information. In any event, by the time the two government-created parties had fully taken off in 1990, it became clear that the directorate would become and did become increasingly irrelevant to political mobilization during the transition. At the second level, the climate of public opinion also suggested that some other forms of mobilization could in fact have been taking place outside the framework of government's declared plans. It is to this unplanned mobilization that I now turn.

MOBILIZATION BY DEFAULT

There is a sense in which, to appropriate from Huntington and Nelson,62 it can be argued that changes in political culture are more likely to arise from unintended consequences of the development process than from concrete choices and deliberate plans. Certain enduring features of Nigerian state and society, as well as developments since the 1983 coup, have had consequences that can on Iy be called unintended, even if logical, for the avowed government policy of bringing about a new political culture through a program of deliberate social mobilization. One such enduring characteristic, which has been adequately analyzed in extant literature, has to do with the nature of the Nigerian state, its relationship with society, and public perception of all this. A legacy of colonial and postcolonial practice has been the centrality and overbearing nature of the Nigerian state as well as the overpoliticization of social life. As a result, groups and forces have engaged in competition for state power in the belief that political power is discountable for economic benefits, and such power has indeed been used pervasively in the nation's postcolonial history to reward political friends and punish opponents. Given the fact that political culture results and is shaped not only by deliberate political socialization and resocialization but also by people's everyday experience of political and social life, the implications of all this need to be further pursued. For one, it underscores the aphorism that when the state and state actors sneeze, elements in civil and political society catch the cold virus: in other words, virtually all the actions and inactions of the state and its managers become crucial in shaping the nature and direction of mobilization. And, since political culture is also a consequence of political memory, the history of previous actions by the state, its actors, and its agencies also

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weighs heavily on the determination of the contemporary situation.63 To a large extent, therefore, leadership by example is an important force for value change, and the negative example of widespread corruption and brazen display of ill-gotten wealth in the Babangida regime profoundly contradicted its officially stated aims toward "mobilizing for a new political culture. "64 In the context of the transition period, for instance, Larry Diamond warned that "until ... the risks and costs of corruption increase sharply ... Nigerian politics will continue to be riddled with violence and fraud. Since the resumption of electoral politics in 1987 and of party politics in 1989, there have been numerous signs that the corrupt political practices of the Second Republic are returning. These include brazen vote buying at party conventions, gross inflation of the electoral rolls, and vehement charges and countercharges of irregularities."65 This continuity in the character of political competition is symptomatic of the enduring morbidity of the state and the nature of the "transitional" regime, including its inability to check the perversion of the party formation process effectively. Critical in this instance of state behavior and policy environment, therefore, are the store of political memory and events and issues of contemporary relevance. Political Memory

The process of ethnicization of politics and channeling of party politics along the contours of regions rather than in favor of a broad national outlook had surfaced even before independence in 1960, but the experience of the First Republic further ensured the primacy of ethnic and geopolitical symbols in the struggle within the dominant class for supremacy in the federation. It was against this background that elections in that republic were fought principally around the guiding principles of ethnicity and regionalism, spilling into several other crises in the areas of censuses and the politics of resource distribution, both of which further aggravated the salience of ethnicity and regionalism as organizing frameworks for politics and subsequently led in 1966 to coups believed to be ethnically motivated and a slide into civil war (1967-1970). In all this, the critical element for the emergent political culture was the belief that fractions of the dominant class had ensured mobilization of the masses along ethnic and geopolitical lines-not whether or not the belief in the salience of such elements in the body politic was accurate. Military intervention into politics, once introduced into the political process, also had its own, perhaps unintended, implications for the political culture. It confirmed and aggravated the primacy of political violence and the brutalization of the nation's psyche. In the words of Finer,66 it tore down "the structures of civilian authority and constitutional procedures" subsequently requiring "many years ... to rebuild them." And it showed

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how relatively easy it is to overthrow a civilian regime, ensuring that "once the ice is broken, more coups follow."67 As a result, the necessary learning process "occurs in a world of turbulent and dramatic change, both in the nature of society and in the structure of politics."68 Such an unsettling environment hardly allows space for the tolerance and longtime perspectives that accept the rules of the democratic game. Another crucial element of the nation's political memory relates to the heritage of authoritarianism, which has further aggravated the schisms of intolerance.69 This, of course, is not attributable only to the incursion of the military into the political scene. What has been witnessed is a cyclical slide from civilian authoritarianism into a temporary phase of enlightened, corrective military regime-which soon degenerates into military authoritarianism, breeding a palace coup in the process and yet another regime, first of enlightened military rule and later sliding again into authoritarianism-terminated only by transition to civilian democracy, which surely degenerates into yet another authoritarianism and subsequently generates some form of alienation and cynicism among the populace. 70 Two other developments that have contributed to the nation's political memory in this regard include a belief among segments of the populace with regard to an apparent move toward an ethnoreligious and geo-political hegemony in favor of Muslim and core far-North, Fulani elements. The second relates to the public's belief about widespread corruption among the nation's political leaders. While these factors will be discussed in more detail below, one question that all this raises is: new political culture for whom? It would appear, indeed, that those factors and forces that have made Nigeria's political culture less conducive to the sustenance of democracy have tended to be instigated and generated more by fractions of the dominant class and the managers of the state. It is not difficult to agree with Young and Diamond, given the political-memory component of Nigerian political culture, that, meanwhile, "the politically conscious public, a fairly broad segment of the populace, was strongly dedicated to the concept of open competition."71 These "values and beliefs appear to have had greater independent influence in precluding the institutionalization of authoritarian rule in Nigeria and pressuring for renewal of democratic government."72 Analysis so far, however, is not in defense of a thesis that paints the dominant class as the devil in the game. In a sense, as Joseph has rightly surmised,73 to the extent that the ruled classes are co-opted into and benefit from the arrangement that makes all this possible, they have their own share of the blame, if there is any. We should neither romanticize the elite/mass dichotomy nor view mass political culture as uniformly antidemocratic or autonomous from elite culture. No doubt, given evidence of intolerance of political and other opponents, pursuit of the crumbs of elite political corruption, worshiping

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of corrupt former politicians, deference in some areas to traditional authority, and the readiness in others to engage in violence, there are some elements in the mass political culture (and the mass political cultures of some ethnic and other groups more than others) that are in fact antidemocratic. Beyond this, there is also a strong undercurrent of antidemocratic ethos in civil society outlined by a pervasive lack of tolerance as well as some measure of authoritarianism and gerontocratic tendencies at all levels of society as well as in day-to-day existence beyond the assemblage of politicians. Yet, to argue that mass political culture in Nigeria has tended to be antiauthoritarian is not to suggest that it has, therefore, also tended to be pro-democratic. In fact, there is a sense in which antiauthoritarian tendencies in Nigeria are increasingly generating in the horizon signs of "anti-authority in general"74_what Jowitt and Diamond have described as nihilistic movements of rage expressing the anger and frustration of the Third World poor.75 Thus, while unwillingness to abide authoritarian domination is a positive cultural attribute for democracy, this can serve as a dependable prop for lasting democratization only when it is supplemented by other attributes, including tolerance, patience, political efficacy, willingness to compromise, and respect for the rules of the democratic game.76 What the preceding analysis of the nation's political memory points to, therefore, is the need for a positive-sum approach to cultural engineering for sustainable democracy that simultaneously focuses on elite engineering while seeking to deepen and widen cultural democratization at the mass level. Such a positive-sum approach renders largely irrelevant the old chicken-and-egg question of which should come first: institutional and behavioral change at the elite level or cultural democratization at the level of the masses. One question that remains to be answered, however, relates to the role of contemporary reality in the project of state-directed mobilization for a new, and more democratic political culture. Contemporary Reality

One crucial element contributing to what I earlier called mobilization by default was the larger policy environment provided by the Babangida administration, elements of which were, however, inherited from the Buhari military regime. One aspect of this environment relates to the rationale and strategy of the government's mobilization program itself. In a very important sense, that program was built on a negation and denial of the past.77 This posed a major limitation on the program not only in blinding it from the full lessons of the past but also in creating room for a comparison between that past and the present, a comparison that did not always work in favor of the Babangida regime and its policies, including that on social mobilization.

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Beyond that, government's attempt to bury the past also led to a more critical public appraisal of its policies in general and the outcome of the mobilization program in general. For instance, on the issue of corruption, commentators took the regime up on the apparently more liberal manner in which it handled the case of those detained by the Buhari regime's on allegations of corrupt practices in the Second Republic. This was in spite of the Babangida regime's explaining its actions in this regard as falling within its avowed commitment to the observance of human rights. That the regime itself was riddled with corruption did not help matters. Moreover, the government's decision in 1991 to pardon erstwhile military governors dismissed from office in 1975 by an earlier military regime for corruption took the sting from Babangida's warning in the same 1991 to senior members of his administration that he could call on them at any time to render account of their stewardship. Another contradiction recorded during the period was the one between the Babangida regime's policy of human-rights observance and its authoritarian bent in practice. As I have noted elsewhere, and as is detailed elsewhere in this volume, the extent to which ... the transfer of power has been initiated amidst a largely illiberal context of autocratic military rule further contributes to a cynical perception of the evolving democracy not only among the emerging political elite but also among the incapacitated masses of the people. Not only were such mass and traditionally radical organizations as the unions of university students and teachers, the Labour Congress either incapacitated or banned outright throughout the period under consideration or parts thereof. Added to this was the fact that government actions and directives ensured that significant proportions of articulate Nigerians, especially those considered as having "radical" tendencies, were effectively prevented from having a meaningful input in the transition program.78

The Babangida administration's commitment to the philosophy of democratization thus occurred in and was undermined by a context in which his own regime was increasingly being criticized for autocracy and fascist tendencies, with the implication that the newly emerging political associations and their leaders were living through and imbibing the spirit of democratic precepts and largely undemocratic and illiberal political practice. 79 It is for this reason that voices within and outside the administration cautioned that "it is crucial that the military administration begin to set some standards for democratic performance by holding itself to standards of accountability and responsibility under the law. "80 Further undermining the mobilization for a new political culture was the creeping dictatorship of poverty, worsened by the government's Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), which appeared to leave unprotected the weakest and most marginalized sections of society who, unfortunately, are

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in the majority. Worse still, most people believed (more or less correctly) that the gains of SAP were cornered by the privileged few as reflectedfor instance, in a boom in the banking industry-while the pains were shouldered principally by the poor. One ironic development in this regard, however, was a greater sensitization of the masses to the need to influence those in policy and to react, violently if necessary, to what was perceived as bad policy. This led to the more regular venting of grievances through social and political movements, often leading to sporadic urban riots by students and the urban mass and the heightening of the culture of protest. It also led to the formation of several human-rights bodies such as the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) and the further strengthening of already-existing ones (such as Amnesty International) in the search for enhanced liberty and freedom. The culture of repression, which did not spare the media of mass communication, led to the primacy of rumor in public life, to the extent that the public was willing to listen to and believe what Ellis has called "radio trottoir," 81 often with disastrous consequences, as was witnessed in 1989 when there were widespread demonstrations over a rumor that the Ebony magazine had published a report on the vast wealth of President Babangida and his immediate family. But perhaps the most crucial factor for group political action was the manner in which President Babangida and his predecessor, Major-General Buhari, handled the management of scarcity and the distribution of strategic goods and values since 1984. The constitutional principle of Federal Character, which enjoins government to reflect the country's ethnic diversity in all public institutions, was enforced relatively thoroughly with regard to admission to tertiary educational institutions and in appointments to the public service and government-owned concerns (where it appeared that Muslim, far-Northern, elements had not been equitably treated in the past due partly to the slow pace in the development of Western education in that part of the country). However, the same had not been done with regard to appointments to the highest political offices in the land (where, apparently, it was believed that Southern and Middle Belt elements had not fared very well). The apparent geopolitical and ethnoreligious lopsidedness in appointments to the highest executive and legislative organs of the state under Buhari and Babangida, whose administrations were accused of being Northem- and Muslim-dominated, coupled with the repeated meddling in religious affairs, guaranteed a very divided society (see Chapters 21 and 22). This presented yet another obstacle to overcoming the political culture, deeply embedded in historical memory of fragmentation, distrust, and intolerance. A final consideration with regard to contemporary reality relates to the philosophy of the transition process itself. In this regard, it is easy to adopt the logic in the positions of Rustow and Dahl, ably appropriated by

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Youssef Cohen. According to the argument, shortcuts to democracy tend to enhance mutual distrust, tension, and uncertainties. 82 Thus, it has been observed that there is "an explicit connection between the gift-like character of democracy in the Third World and the likelihood that it will degenerate into an autocratic regime."83 Those societies that skip the stage of political struggle, it is argued, are likely not to have developed value systems conducive to a stable democracy, since what frequently happens in this instance is that "the political elite of these countries delivers democracy to the people before any group in society has enough power to extract democratic rights from the State."84 This perspective calls into question not only the belief that a government can apropos give mobilization to the people in a planned manner, but also the implication of the notion of transition for the durability of democratic regimes: does this planned mobilization from above, especially when it recurs, not put the military in the role of the Almighty, dispensing and withholding democracy and democratic values as it deems fit, enthroning in the political culture a fatalistic perspective that, so to speak, the Military Giveth, the Military Taketh, All Hail the Military? Subsequent twists and turns in the so-called philosophy and tactics of the transition program, leading finally to its death in 1993, appear-more by default arising from undeclared designs gone awry-to have created precisely this climate of popular culture, organized and unorganized, seeking to extract democratic rights and applying pressure to ensure that the democratic transition stayed on course. Although the regime adopted a very aggressive approach that sought to incite ethnic and regional animosities as a counterweight to the prodemocracy campaign, the breadth and passion of that campaign. especially after the 12 June 1993 presentia1 election, suggested that Nigerian politics might never be the same again. The passionate campaigns of peaceful civil disobedience, in Lagos in particular, revealed the capacity of Nigerians to challenge and fight autocracy to a stalemate, to force the retirement of a military dictator who seemed determined to stay at all costs, and to keep the quest for democracy alive despite the stubborn persistence of illiberal and autocratic forces.

TOWARD A NEW POLITICAL CULTURE: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS

I have not attempted to argue here that the Babangida administration's program of social mobilization toward what it called a new political culture more supportive of national discipline and democracy had no positive results. No doubt, the program made some impact in the areas of public enlightenment, mass literacy, and propagation of government policies.

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However, those elements of political culture that have undermined Nigeria's attempts at democracy are deeply rooted in the political culture of both the dominant class and the masses, even if it does appear that such elements are generated more often by the structures, processes, and institutions of governance. Developing and nurturing pro-democratic values (at both the elite and mass levels) are likely to depend more on the growth of associationallife and the further empowerment of civil society than on the actions of the state and its managers. As has been argued, attempts by the state to engage in social mobilization are likely to be hampered by inconsistencies in policy resulting from factional struggles among the state class and the tendencies for such factions to reach into political and civil society for support and succor. Attention in social engineering, therefore, has to focus on the modalities for encouraging autonomous mobilization within civil society outside the purview of the state and in a manner that cuts across cleavages. As I have argued elsewhere in the particular context of the examination of the social context of press freedom in Nigeria,ss such freedom makes sense only when defined statically in the context of relative freedom from government control and legal strictures. In political and civil society, however, the press, like several other institutions so located, "in fact remains largely a captive of jingoistic claims of ethnicity, petty rivalries, personal ambitions, religion, regionalism and partisan politics as outlined by the dominant groups in civil and political society."86 The challenge for theory and practice, therefore, relates to how those institutions of political and civil society, elite and non-elite, including the press, business, the family, the school system, political parties, ethnic groups, and religious institutions, germane to the upholding of the autonomous sphere of pro-democratic mass political culture "can be divested of their preoccupations with particularistic tendencies ... and be infused with universalistic perspectives and motives."87 In the quest for a democratic culture and polity, one complementary role that a government program of social mobilization could play is to focus not only on mass but also on elite political culture, to apply structural, procedural, and institutional brakes on the path of synchronizing elite and mass political culture in the service of enduring democracy. It is perhaps in this regard that one can end on a note of both pessimism (for government-controlled mobilization programs) and optimism for the further development of forces in civil society. No doubt, the texture of Nigeria's political culture in the period of transition to democratic rule and beyond will continue to be determined by the interaction between the political culture of the dominant class and that of the masses. In this regard, the hope for democracy lies in the extent to which the Nigerian people, elite and non-elite, are willing to work for the triumph of pro-democratic political culture within the elite and among the masses-or acquiesce in a return to the manipulative politics of the

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various fractions of the dominant class and their allies in civil and political society. To succeed, the project of implanting pro-democratic values must distance itself from the state and state actors as much as possible, not only to avoid the corporatist arms of the state but also to avoid fragmentation. A peek into the future is indicated by charges of partisanship leveled at MAMSER shortly before the December 1990 local government election by the NRC. One possibility is to shield public organizations involved in mobilization from direct political control in a manner that ensures access to government funding but decrees autonomy from direct government control and encourages the exploring of private endowments to reduce the financial dependence of such organizations on government. 88 In the same vein, nongovernmental organizations concerned with the implantation of democracy can expand their resource base through such private endowments, although one obstacle in this regard is the parasitic nature of Nigeria's emerging super-rich, who depend largely on the state for sustenance and are, therefore, unlikely to identify openly with interests that could be considered by state managers as confrontational. It is therefore ironic that while efforts to enthrone democratic culture are likely to achieve more results the more they distance themselves from dominant interests in and around the state, such distancing itself poses for the drive for democratic culture the danger of impoverishment, given that the state remains (especially so in the context of the widespread hardships imposed by the structural adjustment program) the major source of material and financial resources that could be tapped in the service of the prodemocracy project. Given the picture of a weak and impoverished civil society and a resurgent and relatively buoyant state, therefore, where are nongovernmental organizations and associations to obtain the necessary funds to pursue the implantation of a resilient and vibrant pro-democratic culture? How can they act effectively in the face of intimidation, penetration, harassment, and subversion by government and its agencies? Such questions can only be answered as democratic actors in civil society pursue their struggle for a return to civilian constitutional rule in Nigeria. No doubt, whether the democratic ship of state runs aground a fourth time around will depend not only on the vigilance of crew and passengers alike, but on the extent to which the ebb and flow of politics, economy, and society do in fact generate a new political culture that supports and nurtures, rather than subverts, democracy.

NOTES 1. Cf. the views expressed in International Conference on Popular Participation in the Recovery and Development Process in Africa, African Charter on Popular

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Participation in Development and Transformation (Arusha 1990) (Arusha: Economic Commission for Africa, 1990); The Carter Center, "Perestroika Without Glasnost in Africa," Conference Report Series 2, no. 1 (1990); and Crawford Young, "Politics in Africa," in Gabriel A. Almond and G. Bingham Powell, Jr., eds., Comparative Politics Today: A World View (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), pp. 491-495. 2. Young, "Politics in Africa," p. 491. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. See also The Carter Center, "Perestroika Without Glasnost"; and Michael Bratton, "Beyond the State: Civil Society and Associational Life in Africa," World Politics 41, no. 3 (April 1989): 407-430. 8. Cf. Adigun Agbaje and Jinmi Adisa, "Political Education and Public Policy in Nigeria: The War Against Indiscipline (WAI)," Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 26, no. 1 (March 1988): 22-24; Ayo Dunmoye, "The Ideological Rationale of Mass Mobilization in Nigeria," Savanna 10, no. 1 (June 1989): 67-76; Eghosa E. Osaghae, "The Character of the State, Legitimacy Crisis, and Social Mobilization in Africa: An Explanation of Form and Character," Africa Development 14, no. 2 (1989): 27-47; and Nelson Kasfir, "Departicipation and Political Development in Black African Politics," Studies in Comparative International Development 9, no. 3 (fall 1974): 3-25. 9. Aryehl Unger, The Totalitarian Party: Party and People in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 266-267. 10. Lucian Pye, "Introduction: Political Culture and Political Development" in Pye and Sidney Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 18. 11. Cf. W. Connell, "Why the 'Political Socialization' Paradigm Failed and What Should Replace It," International Political Science Review 8, no. 3 (July 1987): 221. 12. Cf. Pye and Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development; Gabriel A. Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963); James S. Coleman and CarlS. Rosbert, Jr., eds., Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1964); and Almond and Coleman, eds., The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1960), among others. 13. Sidney Verba, "Comparative Political Culture," in Pye and Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development. 14. Almond and Verba, The Civic Culture, p. 14. 15. David Laitin, Hegemony and Culture: The Politics of Religious Change Among the Yoruba (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 171-175. 16. Cf. Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, eds., The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988); Rothchild and Victor Olorunsola, eds., State Versus Ethnic Claims: African Policy Dilemmas (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1983); Richard A. Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); and Larry Diamond, ed., Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992). See also Otwin Marenin's review of W. Graf, The Nigerian State in African Studies Review 32, no. 2 (September 1989): 115-188. 17. Pye, "Introduction," p. 7. 18. Verba, "Comparative Political Culture," pp. 529-530.

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19. On this, cf. John F. Ade Ajayi and Bashir Ikara, eds., The Evolution of Political Culture in Nigeria (lbadan: University Press, 1985). 20. Cf. Peter P. Ekeh, "Nigeria's Emergent Political Culture," in Ekeh, Patrick Dale-Cole, and Gabriel 0. Olusanya, eds., Nigeria Since Independence, The First 25 Years, vol. 5.: Politics and Constitutions (lbadan: Heinemann, for Panel on Nigeria Since Independence History Project, 1989), pp. 1-9. 21. See notes 12, 16, 20, and 21 above, and Anthony Kirk-Greene, Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 5. 22. For a summary of previous attempts, cf. Agbaje and Adisa, "Political Education and Public Policy in Nigeria." 23. New Nigerian (Kaduna), 2 January 1984, p. 2. 24. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, "The Justification for Change of Government," in Tunii Olagunju and Sam Oyorbaire, eds., Portrait of a New Nigeria: Selected Speeches of IBB (Enugu: Precision Press, 1990), p. 26. 25. On this and NOM's other aims, see Department of Social Mobilization (DSM), MAMSER Handbook (Abuja: DSM, n.d.), p. 11. 26. Babangida, Portrait of a New Nigeria, p. 28. 27. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printer), 1987, p. 206. 28. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Government's Views and Comments on the Findings and Recommendations of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1987), p. 79. 29. Babangida, Portrait of a New Nigeria, p. 91. For details on the directorate's mandate, see Sections 3, 4, and 8 of the Directorate of Social Mobilization Decree (Decree No. 31) of 1987. 30. DSM, MAMSER Handbook, pp. 28-29. 31. For the description that follows, see DSM, Directorate for Social Mobilization: Functions and Programs of the Directorate (Abuja: DSM, n.d.), pp. 1-18. 32. Ibid., p. 14. 33. Ibid. 34. Ibid. Emphasis in original. 35. See Ibid., pp. 15-16. 36. DSM, WAf Brigade: Code of Conduct (Abuja: Directorate of Social Mobilization (n.d.); p. 1. See also DSM, WAf Brigade Handbook (Abuja: DSM, n.d.); pp. 1-19. 37. Babangida, Portrait of a New Nigeria. p. 141. 38. Larry D. Koinyan (chairman, DFRRI), "Integrated Rural Development: Direct Participation Scheme," Guardian on Sunday (Lagos), 19 May 1991, pp. AS, A6, All, A12. 39. Guardian (Lagos), 10 October 1989, p. 6; see also Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, The Dawn of a New Era: An Address to the Nation on the Occasion of the Registration of Two Political Parties, 7 October, 1989 (Abuja: DSM. 1989), p. 16, and Sunday Times (Lagos), 15 July 1990, p. 4. 40. Interview with Professor John A. A. Ayoade, the center's Director of Studies. 41. See Government's View, pp. 13-14. 42. Femi Sonaike, "Who Is Afraid of MAMSER," Daily Times (Lagos), 21 September 1988. p. 2. 43. Daily Times (Lagos), 23 May 1988, p. 24. 44. Guardian (Lagos), 2 March 1988, p. 7. 45. Cf. Yinka Tella, "What's Amiss with MAMSER?" Herald (Ilorin), 16 September 1988, p. 4; and N. Warikobo, "MAMSER and the Cash-Rich Mamas," National Concord (Lagos), 30 March 1988, p. 3.

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46. Tella, "What's Amiss with MAMSER?" p. 4. 47. Cf. Akinjide Osuntokun, "The Dilemma of MAMSER," National Concord (Lagos), 26 March 1988, p. 3. 48. Guardian (Lagos), 2 March 1988, p. 7. 49. I owe this point to Larry Diamond and Jane Guyer. See also Diamond, "Issues in the Constitutional Design of a Third Nigerian Republic," African Affairs 86, no. 343 (April 1987), and "Political Corruption: Nigeria's Perennial Struggle,'' Journal of Democracy 2, no. 4 (fall 1991): 73-85. 50. Cf. Guardian (Lagos), 2 March 1988, p. 7. 51. Sonaikc, "Who Is Afraid of MAMSER," p. 2. 52. Cf. Kayodc Samuel, "On MAMSER,'' Vanguard (Lagos), 29 January 1989, p. 7; and Sam Aluko, "Propaganda and Mobilization," Guardian (Lagos), II January 1988, p. 9. 53. Cf. Jerry Gana (MAMSER chairman), Guardian (Lagos), 2 March 1988, p. 7. 54. Tclla, "What's Amiss with MAMSER?" p. 4. 55. Fred Onyeoziri, "Taking MAMSER Seriously," Guardian (Lagos), 2 September 1988, p. 11. 56. Gana, Guardian (Lagos), 2 March 1988, p. 7. 57. National Concord (Lagos), 2 June 1988, p. 5. 58. It is alleged, for instance, that as of May 1990 around 10 million Nigerians had registered as party members during the first phase of registration of members into the NRC and the SOP, the parties of the Third Republic. See Daily Times (Lagos), 6 June 1990, p. 1. 59. National Concord (Lagos), 11 January 1990, p. 3. All quotations in this regard are from that newspaper. 60. See Wole Afolabi, "Information Ministry Absorbs MAMSER," Guardian (Lagos), 23 January 1993, p. 3. 61. See "MAMSER in Limbo," Sunday Tribune (Ibadan), 5 March 1993. pp. 1, 14. 62. Samuel P. Huntington and Joan M. Nelson, No Easy Choice: Political Participation in Dn·eloping Societies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, I 976), p. 166. 63. On all this, cf. Young, "Politics in Africa"; Pye, "Introduction," pp. 3-26; and Larry Diamond, "Class Formation in the Swollen African State," Journal of Modern African Studies 25, no. 4 ( 1987): 567-596. 64. I owe this point to Larry Diamond. 65. Larry Diamond, "Nigeria's Search for a New Political Order," Journal of Democracy 2, no. 2 (spring 1991): 66. 66. Samuel E. Finer. The Man on Horseback (London: Paul Mall, 1962), as cited in John B. Londregan and Keith T. Poole, "Poverty, the Coup Trap, and the Seizure of State Power,'' World Politics 42, no. 2 (January 1990): 152. 67. Ibid. 68. Young, "Politics in Africa," p. 491. 69. Ibid., p. 492. 70. Adigun Agbaje, "On the Firing Line?: The Nigerian Press Under Military Rule," paper prepared for the 1990 Annual Conference of the International Association for Mass Communication Research, Bled, Yugoslavia, August 1990, pp. 5-6. 71. Young, "Politics in Africa," p. 491. 72. Larry Diamond, "Nigeria: Pluralism, Statism, and the Struggle for Democracy," in Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Democracy in Developing Countries: Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1988), p. 70.

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73. Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics- in Nigeria. 74. I owe these points to Larry Diamond and Alaba Ogunsanwo. 75. Diamond, "Nigeria's Search for New Political Order," p. 67, and K. Jowitt, "The New World Disorder," Journal of Democracy 2, no. 1 (winter 1991): 11-20. 76. I thank Larry Diamond for this point. 77. Dan Agbese, "Pipers of MAMSER," Newswatch (Lagos), 6 February 1989, p. 4. 78. Adigun Agbaje, "Party Formation and the Transition to the Third Nigerian Republic," project report submitted to the Social Science Council of Nigeria (SSCN) under the SSCN/Ford Foundation Research Grant Programme for the Study of Contemporary Issues, July 1990, pp. 32-33. 79. Ibid., pp. 93-94. 80. Diamond, "Nigeria," p. 81. 81. Stephen Ellis, "Tuning In to Pavement Radio," African Affairs 88, no. 352 (July 1989). 82. Youssef Cohen, "Democracy from Above: The Political Origins of Military Dictatorships in Brazil," World Politics 11, no. 1 (October 1987): 47. 83. Ibid., p. 46. 84. Ibid. 85. Cf. A. Agbaje, "On the Firing Line?" and "Freedom of the Press and Party Politics in Nigeria: Precept, Retrospect and Prospects," African Affairs 89, no. 355 (April 1990): 205-226. 86. Agbaje, "On the Firing Line?" The extent of this captivity for the press up to the Second Republic is outlined in The Nigerian Press, Hegemony, and the Social Construction of Legitimacy 1960-1983 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1992). 87. Agbaje, "On The Firing Line?" 88. I thank Larry Diamond for this point.

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Party Formation and Party Competition Babafemi A. Badejo

Almost from the very inception of the political transition to the Third Republic, it was apparent that its party system would be different from that of the first two republics, by virtue of the mandatory limit of two parties decreed by the Babangida administration. Yet, at the same time, the process of party formation built to some extent on the legacies of the previous party systems. 1 A process that took a long time to evolve in each of the two previous Nigerian republics-that is, the emergence of two main political party coalitions-was now occurring right from the beginning, by legislative fiat, and not just as temporary electoral alliances but as formal political parties. While the politicians still found it difficult to reach working compromises that could reduce the thirteen political associations that came forward for registration to a manageable number from which the military could choose, the military went ahead and actually legislated two new parties for the Third Republic. To what extent could the two parties ultimately created by the military-the National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP)-be seen as a departures from the previous patterns of party formation and party competition in Nigeria? This is the main question to be addressed in this chapter. In so doing, I consider the emergence of the associations that initially sought registration, the formation of alliances and mergers, leading personalities and issues, nascent lines of cleavage, the contest for formal party recognition, competition within and between the two recognized parties for support from other political associations, and the preparation for mass electoral competition.

THE EMERGENCE OF POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS

To understand the development of parties in the emergent Third Republic, we must begin with their historical antecedents in Nigeria. Richard Sklar's 171

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account represents the most thorough singular account on party formation in Nigeria in the 1950s and early 1960s.2 Mackintosh,3 Dudley,4 Oyediran,5 and Oyediran and Badejo6 among others bring the account up to the demise of the Second Republic. As these accounts show, Nigerian parties have largely revolved around favorite sons who parade themselves as the best people to articulate ethnic positions either in alliance with others or alone in opposition.? Issues and ideology have always been secondary considerations, at best, despite the tags of conservatives and progressives, socialists and feudalists, populists and elitists, and the like.s On 9 May 1987, death snatched perhaps the most formidable of political favorite sons, Obafemi Awolowo, from the political scene. The disappearance from politics of the dominant Yoruba political leader created an opening for the reorganization of the "progressive" political forces that had opposed the Northern-dominated ruling parties of the first two republics. Indeed, his burial in Ikenne on 6 June 1987 provided perhaps the first opportunity since the fall of the Second Republic for delegations from all factions of the Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA) to assemble. But before there could be a full-scale regrouping of these forces and settlement of the thorny issue of who would succeed Chief Awolowo as political leader of the Yorubas, the government announced its ban on the major political actors of the previous two republics from participating in politics during the transition program. This sweeping ban drove the old politicians underground, but they nonetheless fielded candidates for the "nonparty" local-government elections in December 1987. Since the defunct parties of the Second Republic played a role in electing local government councillors, it was easy for them to influence the elections into the Constituent Assembly (CA), as the councillors constituted the electoral colleges for choosing CA members. Other politicians who had friends in government ensured that they were nominated into the 567-member assembly. With the ban on party politics and the State Security Service (SSS) agents hounding banned politicians, the Constituent Assembly provided a comfortable ground for the emergence of various political associations. As soon as the members of the assembly were sworn in on 11 May 1988, they started congealing into interest groups in search of coalitions for forming viable political parties. In this respect, the old pattern of alliancesgrouped around the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), the Northern-based ruling party in the Second Republic, and the opposition PPA-came in handy. The brain behind the NPN caucus in the new assembly was Ibrahim Dasuki (who then held the traditional title Maraden Sokoto). Dasuki, a nominated member of the assembly, was seen as the rallying point of the core North. 9 As a prince of Sokoto, with the potential to become the Sultan if he were to choose to contest for the throne instead of the presidency, there was no doubt that Dasuki had all the credentials to speak for the core

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North. And he eventually did indeed become the Sultan of Sokoto, in November 1988. Initially, Dasuki and the retired major-general Shehu Musa Yar'adua (who served during 1976-1979 as chief of staff, Supreme Headquarters, the number-two position under General Obasanjo) were said to have provided impetus for what was known as the Consensus/Democrat group. Yar'adua was not in the assembly, but he was ably represented by such people as Ango Abdullahi, a former vice-chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, and Baba Gana Kingibe, a diplomat and administrator who was in the kitchen cabinet of the Obasanjo era and was a former ambassador to Greece, Cyprus, and Pakistan. Kingibe had been appointed as secretary to the Constituent Assembly, but he also managed to find enough time to participate in the unfolding politics of the CA scenario. Outside the assembly, Adamu Ciroma, a prominent NPN minister in the Second Republic, and Uba Ahmed, the last secretary-general of the NPN, provided some support. Over time, this group succeeded in reaching out to a number of other newcomers and former NPN stalwarts in the assembly. Eventually, the Yar'adua group broke away to form the Patriotic Front. The major difference was the desire of the mainstream fraction in the Consensus/Democrat group to use the old NPN platform and the insistence of Yar'adua to do away with the old brigades of the NPN, with whom he had fallen out during the latter period of the Second Republic. Chief Michael Ibru, a leading industrialist from Bendel State who insisted that the next president should come from the South (and who had presidential ambitions himself), set up The Trust Group. But The Trust did not last long, giving way to a new coalition called the New Movement. It was made up of Michael lbru, Onwuka Kalu (a young, new arrival on the political scene who had made a lot of money and who saw his business achievement as enough qualification to lead), the retired major-general Ibrahim Haruna (a nominated member), and Ahmed Joda, a retired permanent secretary who saw his mission in politics as filling the void created by those banned from participating in politics until 1992. 10 Joda led the assembly forum, which was made up mainly of Northerners who were members of the New Movement. Also in the New Movement were such individuals as Abba Dabo (who had served briefly as chief press secretary to President Shehu Shagari), Olu Ogunsola, a mechanical engineer from Ibadan, and Yomi Ademefun, another engineer, from Abeokuta in Ogun State. The Progressives-who were largely Awolowo's old Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and a number of people from the minority areas of the old PPA-had substantial support both inside and outside the assembly. Reportedly, they were the principal opposing camp to the Consensus/Democrat group, but they lacked a visible leadership structure, in contrast to some of the other associations in the assembly.

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Numerous smaller groups also surfaced in the CA. The Independent Group came together as a response to the call by General Babangida that the new-breed politicians should refuse to be surrogates for those who had been banned. The Youth Front saw itself as merely a trade union for articulating positions of concern to young people in the CA. The persistent calls by the Babangida administration for the newbreed politicians to do away with old politicians and parties led to changes of name by almost all the assembly associations in their drive toward recognition. Also the Nigerian media had associated some of the specific names with those of the banned politicians and so it became necessary to be, in a sense, "horn again." The Consensus/Democrat group initially became the Federalists and ended up as the Nigeria National Congress (NNC)-with a list of officers that included such names as presidential aspirant Chief Emmanuel lwuanyanwu, a highly successful engineer and publisher, as Chairman, and Alh. Ahmadu Kurfi, a retired civil servant and the first executive secretary of FEDECO (Federal Electoral Commission of the Second Republic), as secretary-general. Other members of the NNC were Alh. Umaru Shinkafi, a presidential aspirant and former head of the Nigerian state-security apparatus, Hameed Kusamoto, a successful Lagos lawyer, Rev. Dr. S. T. Olga Akande, a leader of the Baptist Convention, both from Oyo State and with presidential ambitions, and Hyde Onuaguluchi, from Anambra State. The Patriotic Front metamorphosed into the People's Front of Nigeria (PFN). It was effectively dominated by Yar'adua (who was among those banned from participating in the transition program), even while it struggled to deny its association with him. The Progressives became the New Progressives, and the splinter group that detested the control of the old guard became Awoists. Eventually, the Awoists left to join the PFN, and the New Progressives, in an attempt to shed the Awo image in order to get registered by the Babangida administration, took the name People's Solidarity Party (PSP). The PSP had such members as Alh. Muhammadu Arzika, who was principal secretary to General Obasanjo (as head of state) and said to be President Shagari's son-inlaw. Others included Tokunbo Dosumu, a daughter of the late Chief Awolowo, Claude Ake and Asikpo Essien-Ibok, both political scientists (the former a past president of the Nigerian Political Science Association), David Iornem, the national publicity secretary, and Ezekiel Izuogo, the national secretary. The Liberal New Movement-after taking on new groups and people outside the assembly such as Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, a rich airline magnate, and Chief Sunny Odogwu, also a multimillionare-transformed itself into the Liberal Convention (LC). It remained a party of the wealthy noveaux riches that sought to use this money to "catch up" with the old guard, which had strong structures that had been built up through the previous

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two republics. With so much money, the LC members were bent on resisting the hegemony of the established elites that the NNC had inherited from the NPN and the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) of the First Republic. Thus, the four major associations that congealed within the Constituent Assembly did so either as a reincarnation of the old NPN/PPA cleavage (the NNC and the PSP) or as a reaction to this age-old cleavage (PFN and LC). The LC was more akin to the old NPN but sought to articulate an independent posture, while PFN was avowedly anti-NPN (and, thus, anti-NNC). The Oriental Club was a countergroup that sought to unite the members of the PPA in the Eastern states. It was said to be the Eastern front of the National Progressive Movement. It had such well-known names as the retired brigadier U. J. Esuene, former governor of South-Eastern State under General Gowon who had contested but lost as governor of the Cross River State on the platform of the UPN in 1983. He coordinated the AkwaIbom branch while Emeka Echeruo and Edwin Onwudiwe (both senators in the Second Republic of the Igbo-dominated Nigerian Peoples Party, which gravitated toward the PPA) coordinated the Imo and Anambra states, respectively. Lulu Briggs, chairman of the defunct UPN in Rivers State and an associate of Chief Awolowo, coordinated Rivers State. 11 The affiliate of the Oriental Club in the West was the Ikenne Club. Ikenne, the birthplace of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was the rallying point for the Western Progressives until the schism within the Awolowo flock could no longer be bridged by the matriarch of the group, Chief (Mrs.) H. I. D. Awolowo. The tension in the Awo camp came as a result of the desire of the former UPN governors. as well as other old associates of Awolowo, to direct the affairs of the Progressives-an ambition that the younger elements who dubbed themselves Awoists resented. With Babangida's emphasis on the need for grassroots politics by new-breed politicians not tainted by the ills of the past,l2 the various localgovernment chairmen who were elected on a "nonparty" platform in December 1987 saw themselves as the anointed "midwifes" of a new order. They decided to do away with the structures of the defunct political parties of the Second Republic that had seen them into office. They initially dubbed themselves "The Council'' and fully metamorphosed into the Republican Party of Nigeria. They sought to coordinate all the local councils in Nigeria in a central organization that could easily qualify as a political party under the new dispensation. The People's Liberation Party revolved around the person of Balarabe Musa, the most prominent radical politician of the Second Republic, who was impeached and removed as governor of Kuduna State by the NPNdominated state legislature. Adebayo Olukoshi suggests that the group actually began meeting as far back as 1985, just immediately after Balarabe Musa was released from prison by President Babangida.13 Having received

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a clean bill of health from the Uwaifo judicial panel set up to review the cases of detained and jailed politicians, Musa sought to organize the official Left party of Nigerian politics. But the honeymoon with the Babangida administration did not last long, and Balarabe Musa was soon banned once again from politics along with numerous others. He went on to launch the People's Liberation Party on 6 May 1989-just three days after the lifting of the ban on politics, daring anyone who thought he was banned to take him to court. The SSS accepted his challenge and detained him. He was later brought before the military tribunal set up to try offenses against the transition program. After a protracted trial, the state withdrew the case against Musa. But his detention and subsequent trial put an end to the only avowed socialist party that sought to dismantle Babangida's Structural Adjustment Program (SAP).I4 The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had always resented the restrictions placed on its ability to participate actively in partisan politics.15 The NLC's position paper to the Political Bureau in 1986 made a strong case for the Nigerian workers either to have a party of their own or to be allowed the right to contribute funds to a workers' party.16 The recommendations of the Political Bureau that explicitly supported the positions articulated by the NLC were rejected by the Babangida administration.!? By the time the ban on politics was lifted on 3 May 1989, Paschal Bafyau, a former member of the Political Bureau who was regarded in many quarters as a personal friend of General Babangida, had become the president of a reorganized NLC. One of the immediate issues of concern to Bafyau was the NLC role in the emergent party politics. A national workshop called to debate the issue on 2-4 April 1989 issued a communique, which was adopted by the various leadership organs of the NLC, accepting the need for a workers' party.18 The initial reaction of the government was a warning by Alh. Abubakar Umar, then the minister of labor and productivity, that the laws of the land prevented the NLC from sponsoring a party. This position was later changed by the minister when he pointed out to journalists that the government had decided to allow the NLC to float a party if it so wished.19 The birth of the Nigerian Labour Party (NLP) was then announced on 20 May 1989, with Frederick Fasehun as chairman. Other, smaller parties also emerged and merged. On 10 May 1989, Peter Ighofose, a fishing magnate, launched the People's Party of Nigeria with the sole aim of becoming president. This party eventually merged with two other associations-the Ideal Party of Nigeria, of Alh. Mohammed Sani Shu-aban, and the Republican Peoples Party, led by Alh. Buba Aliyu from Kano. The new group sought registration under the name Ideal Peoples Party (IPP). Chief G. B. A. Akinyede, who failed to get his Nigeria People's Welfare Party (NPWP) registered in the Second Republic, tried again in the Third Republic. Alh. Garba Hamza, a wealthy businessman, felt it was time he made a contribution toward uniting the country with an

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emphasis on welfare schemes for the disabled and children, and sought to register his All Nigerian People's Party (ANPP). Several other small groups were among the 13 that sought recognition from the National Electorial Commission (NEC) as one of the country's two political parties. The United Nigeria Democratic Party (UNDP) was launched by Alh. Isa Ibrahim on 27 May 1989, which was the result of a merger between two associations-the United Front and the Loyalist Movement. The Patriotic Nigerians Party (PNP) had in its rank Paul Ukpo, a brother of Col. Anthony Ukpo, one of the younger architects of the coup that brought General Babangida to power. The People's Patriotic Party (PPP) was launched by Alh. Iliya Ibrahim on 11 May 1989. Finally, the National Union Party was launched on 17 May under the leadership of Chief Fola Akinrinsola, a successful Lagos-based legal practitioner.

THE CONTEST FOR PARTY RECOGNITION

Barely twenty-four hours after President Babangida had lifted the ban on politics on 3 May, the NEC released the document "Main Guidelines: Formation of Political Parties." These guidelines required nonrefundable payment of :N 50,000 (fifty thousand naira) by any association seeking registration as a party. The associations were then to indicate the number and spread of their membership throughout the country as well as all of their offices and officials at all levels of government from the ward level up. Of course, such membership and administrative officials needed to reflect the federal character of Nigeria. In addition, the associations were to present their constitutions and their manifestoes, reflecting their positions on a wide range of issues.2o What brought numerous complaints by the associations, however, was that NEC required not only a list of members' names, but that the members must have been issued membership cards with their photographs, copies of which were to be kept at the local-government branch of the party. Copies of the membership list and staff were also to be reproduced and submitted along with the application form. The associations and other opinion leaders complained seriously against the NEC's stringent registration requirements. The cost for an association to establish, furnish, and staff offices at the local, state, and national levels was estimated to be about :N 12.75 million.21 Some associations estimated that their attempts to reach out to rural outposts and set up offices consumed :N 25 million.22 Reacting to these stringent measures, Alao Aka-Bashorun, then president of the Nigerian Bar Association, stated: I think the guideline is the biggest joke of the year. Even if the political associations are given one year, they won't be able to meet up with what

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is in that document. The Conservative Party in Britain cannot produce one million committed membership cards. The issue is not merging. The issue is that the guideline by NEC is out to favour the normal selected

few. 23 There is no doubt that the measures that NEC imposed on associations desiring registration was meant to sift the grain from the chaff, so to speak. Furthermore, the conditions were meant to allow for some objective measures in pruning the number of parties, thus making the verification procedure easier. Nonetheless, the monetary outlay was such that only associations that had people with substantial wealth could ever come forward for official registration. So it was not a surprise that when it came to paying 50,000 in order to purchase application forms for official recognition, only thirteen associations could step forward between I July 1989, when NEC opened its offices for the purchase of forms, and the closing date of 19 July 1989 (which had been extended from 15 July to accommodate the Muslim festival of Eid-el-kabir). The move toward mergers of like minds intensified as NEC set about its painstaking verification exercises from 1 to 31 August, and the trend continued right up to the time the Federal Military Government announced its final decision on the parties. But the best that was achieved in this period was working accords between various parties to provide for mergers later, in the event a particular party was recognized while another failed in its bid. The LC and the NNC were said to have realized such a working accord,24 and the NNC and the UN DP signed an accord on 5 October 1989. The PSP and the PFN also held a series of meetings that was initially aimed at a merger. These talks were said to have broken down over such simple issues as what name and emblem to adopt as well as some unspecified adjustments to the manifesto.25 It does appear, however, that the stakes were often higher than simply questions of symbols-such as how to share political offices. The verification exercise by NEC was thorough. NEC deployed its staff to go throughout the country to cross-check the claims of the various associations. Through random sampling, NEC was able to establish that all of the associations had, to varying degrees, made false claims as to the extent of their presence in all areas of the country, in terms of the number of members, staff, and offices. The associations had lifted names from the voters' register and fixed other peoples' pictures onto false membership cards. In a ward in Lagos State, the verification party was informed that one person whose name was on the list of members had actually died years back, with the bereaved mother weeping all over again. 26 NEC, based on its investigations, concluded that the associations were weak organizationally, depended largely on a few wealthy individuals, were thin on ideas, exhibited little differences if any in ideology, and suffered

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from a personalization of politics that had led to intense factionalism_27 More important, however, in spite of attempts by the associations to give the impression that they had no antecedents in the First and Second Republics, NEC found that most of the parties were merely reincarnations of defunct parties and were being "teleguided" by banned politicians. Nonetheless. NEC came out with a ranking of the associations, shown in Table 7 .I. And, on the basis of this performance, NEC recommended the top six of the thirteen associations for consideration by the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC).

THE CREATION OF TWO NEW PARTIES

President Babangida appeared to enjoy springing surprises on the nation. When asked about his reputation for suspense and making the unexpected happen, he was reported to have stated with little-concealed pride: "I am a military officer and they say surprise is one of the attributes of a good GeneraJ."28 Thus, while everyone was cautious as politicians lobbied and remained hopeful for the recognition of their associations, most Nigerians could not have expected that President Babangida would, in one fell swoop, lay to waste all the previous efforts of the political associations. On 7 October 1989, while politicians patiently waited to find out which two of the top-six (or of all thirteen) associations that sought registration would be registered, the president surprised-indeed, stunned-the nation: he announced the military's decision to deny all of the thirteen associations and to create instead two new parties, the NRC and the SDP. While the politicians had prepared for the possible registration of any of the top-six associations-or even the forced fusion of associations-they did not in the least expect the creation of two new parties. The president tried to convince the nation that the AFRC decision was the best in the circumstances that the military government faced. He quoted copiously from the NEC report to demonstrate that the PSP, NNC, PFN, and LC were all guilty of some of the sins of the old order from which his administration wanted to steer the nation away: One is a reincarnation of a makeshift alliance during the Second Republic containing people who betrayed the parties that elected them into force. The reincarnation reflected political opportunism, old lines of cleavage and primordial loyalties. Another is almost a purebred re-emergence of a Second Republic party. with the same ideas and loyalties as the political association mentioned earlier. A third political association is a proxy organisation founded and funded by influential people who are disqualified from political activities during the transition period. A fourth party appeared new in loyalties, but is reputed to be an association of wealthy individuals who use their money to determine who joins them and who does not; and who gets what, when, how and how much.29

Table 7.1 Overall Performance of Political Associations as Ranked by the National Electoral Commission, 1989 Membership Association

People's Solidarity Party Nigerian National Congress People's Front of Nigeria Liberal Convention Nigerian Labour Party Republican Party of Nigeria All Nigeria People's Party Ideal People's Party United Nigeria Democratic Party National Union Party People's Patriotic Party Patriotic Nigerians' Party Nigerian People's Welfare Party

Administrative

Organization

Size 25.00

Spread 25.00

Staff 15.00

Spread 15.00

Manifesto 20.00

Total 100.00

8.70 4.30 5.20 2.50 .10 .50 .70 .03 .04 .01 .03 0.00 .01

5.30 7.80 5.20 5.10 .90 2.10 .30 .14 .17 .02 .20 0.00 .02

9.30 9.70 9.40 9.00 4.20 3.10 2.10 .94 1.68 0.00 1.10 .09 .24

8.10 8.50 7.90 7.20 3.60 2.90 1.50 .77 1.39 .02 .90 .07 .17

12.50 12.30 13.50 10.20 9.10 8.40 7.80 7.60 5.80 7.88 4.60 3.30 0.00

43.90 42.60 41.20 34.00 17.90 17.00 11.77 9.48 9.08 7.93 6.83 3.46 .44

Ranking

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th lOth 11th 12th 13th

Source: NEC, "Report and Recommendations on Party Registration" (Mimeo), September 1989, p. 23. Published in Newswatch (Lagos), 23 October 1990, p. 17.

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General Babangida went on to argue that it would be wrong to defend a position that offers a prize to the two "best" candidates in an examination wherein all the candidates failed.30 So, the president rejected the "serial order option." He reviewed five other options. The first was to have all the thirteen political associations be involved in the local government elections in December 1989 and then register the two that performed best. For him, while this might appear democratic, it made nonsense of the NEC verification exercise. It would represent a reversal of the normal order of things since, as he put it, parties are formed to contest elections and not elections to form parties. In addition, it would be wrong to get the electorate bewildered with all sorts of unclear choices and, after elections, to disband some of the associations for which people had voted to run their local government affairs. Finally, according to the president, this expensive and cumbersome process would contradict the Constitution governing the transitional process. Thus, this option was summarily rejected.3 1 The second option was to ask the associations to enter into voluntary mergers within a fixed period-say, one month. But this option would extend the period NEC had given within which the associations had failed to realize a merger. Any merger realized as a result of extension of time could be nothing other than shallow marriages of convenience. Furthermore, such coalitions would account for a verifiable membership of only half a million out of a voting population of 60 million. This option was also rejected.32 The third option was tagged the "repeat exercise": cancellation of the whole exercise and the order of a fresh exercise. This, for the president, would have been wasteful and at the same time would delay the transition program with the consequences of rumors of the military not being sincere about handing over power. So, this option was also rejected.33 The fourth and fifth options, considered and finally rejected, had been intended to screen further the associations on an ideological or issue basis. The former, according to the president, could serve as a way of encouraging an emphasis on issues rather than personalities as the basis for electoral contest, but the option was rejected because ideology was no longer considered relevant in the world today.34 The suggestion that a labor-centered party for the "common man" or "the masses" be set up against all other associations, the president argued, would lead to the same problems as those of the ideological option. In addition, a labor party would be at a disadvantage if it were seen as being concerned only with an occupational segment of the society (especially if rural dwellers did not identify with it).35 Having reviewed the six options, the president went on to declare that the nation had no option other than the creation of two new parties: All we are saying is that we will not serve our people yesterday's food in glittering new dishes. We have consistently warned the "newbreed"

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politicians not to be surrogates of banned or disqualified politicians. We have also repeatedly warned against the temptation to exploit ethnic and religious sentiments for political ends. When we said new social order, ''newbreed" politicians, we meant business. We meant new political institutions with a new leadership group, not old political wolves in newbreed sheep skins.36

According to General Babangida, the new parties were to be funded from inception by the government. and were to be organized from the grassroots level so that every Nigerian could have an opportunity to a cofounder and cojoiner irrespective of wealth, ethnicity, and so forth. NEC was given the task of synthesizing the manifestos and constitutions that the thirteen associations had submitted, to two manifestos for the two parties-with one a little to the Right and the other a little to the Left of the center. The structures of the two parties were to be made identical by NEC, with membership starting from the ward level. Reactions from the men behind the thirteen dissolved associations were sharp. Odumegwu Ojukwu praised the government for evolving a new political formula but at the same time berated it for forcing that formula down the nation's throat, so to speak. He argued that it was undemocratic for the government to form political parties for the people, and joked about the notion of the two parties being a little to the Right and a little to the Left, asking: "What happened to the center?"37 Chief Ojo Madueke, secretary to the Liberal Convention, claimed that he would quit politics altogether (he did not). He went further to condemn the creation of the two parties as an act that discouraged the evolution of a civil political culture in Nigeria.38 Abdulazeez Farouk, chairman of the PFN, was equally bitter when he said, "This amounts to an imposition and insult to our sense of democracy. Must the military intervene in the very process we are trying to nurture?"39 Hameed Kusamotu, deputy national chairman of the NNC, was particularly disappointed that government had laid to waste all the effort, money, and time that had been invested in the dissolved associations.40 The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) equally condemned the move.4I However, some of the other bodies and politicians supported the government's move. The president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Charles ldehcn-a more moderate successor to Alao Aka-Bashorun-endorsed the decision,42 as did some of the traditional rulers in Plateau State.43 Such politicians as Sunday Oyegoke of the BBB, who had lost out at the initial stage, of party formation, described the government's formula as the most revolutionary and far-reaching decision of the administration.44 Sam Oshisanya, who had unsuccessfully floated the Nigerian Socialist party, also endorsed the creation of the two parties. 45 Even with the element of costly waste aside, this action by the government did not augur well for nurturing a democratic spirit. Three months

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was rather too short a time to expect viable political structures from a political association that was seeking to become a political party without any root in the past. As Larry Diamond points out, parties "need time not only to develop their organizational structures and political identities, but also to build relationships of mutual tolerance and trust with one another. "46 Rather than assisting the associations toward voluntary mergers in the direction of the decreed two-party system, the government entered with the military mien. ordering and manipulating actors at will. If the two parties that the government had set up-with all their bureaucratic machinery as well as concessions such as waiver of membership dues, etc.-could not manage to get members registered until close to six months after they were decreed into existence, wherein lay the fair play? After all, the defunct thirteen associations had not even been able to organize before 3 May 1989 and only had up to the end of July to set up offices all over the country and undertake meaningful mergers (without having any roots in the past). Even granted that the military government had the authority to create two parastatals and call them political parties, to what extent did these parties depart from the ills of the past? What were the lines of cleavage separating them? These are the questions to which we now turn.

THE CHARACTER OF THE NEW PARTIES

As soon as politicians recovered from the initial shock of Babangida's surprise attack, they quickly took over the two parties, organizing them largely according to the existing PPA/NPN division. Within forty-eight hours of the president's announcement, various spokespeople began making press statements on where their respective supporters should go. Most of these declarations took place when no one was sure which party would be to the Left and which party, to the Right. Rather, what happened was that a few individuals indicated which of the two they intended to sign for, and other elites to countered by moving to the opposing camp. The various working accords that the parties had established prior to the AFRC's decision proved helpful in solidifying these "hijackings of the government parties. One day after the presidential announcement, a number of party chieftains either issued statements or granted interviews to the press. Chief Emmanuel lwuanyanwu, former chairman of the defunct NNC, opted for the NRC and called on his friends and well-wishers to join him in the new party.47 Ezekiel Izuogo, former national secretary of the defunct PSP, was reported on the same day to have announced his declaration for the SOP "because it is the reflection of the objectives of the PSP."48 Both Peter lghofose, chairman of the defunct IPP, and Chief Kola Balogun, national publicity secretary of the defunct PFN, agreed that they had not seen the manifesto of the SOP but would be opting for that party by the time of

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registration.49 Umar Farouk Abdulazeez, chairman of the defunct PFN, issued a statement two days after the president's speech in which he stated: "I am sure I shall find comfort in the Social Democratic Party."50 With only a few defections, the new alignments quickly took shape: The members of the defunct NNC, LC, and RPN went into the NRC, while those of the PSP, PFN, and LP went into the SDP. While this trend was perhaps not what the military government had bargained for, it witheld any concerns and continued to praise the success of the transition program. In fact, it would have been difficult for the government to turn around to state that, in spite of all its efforts, it had failed to stop the clutch of personalities and parties of the First and Second Republics from capturing the structures into which it had pumped so many millions of naira. In effect, the personalization of politics rather than programs or issues continued to be the order of the day. In large part, NEC drafted similar manifestos for the two parties. The two parties had no choice but to affirm utmost faith in the SAP of the Babangida administration.5 1 On the economy, while the SDP manifesto recognized the importance of market forces but accorded a leading role to the state, 52 the NRC's emphasized the need for greater participation of Nigerians in the economy while recognizing the need for government to continue to control "key sectors" of it. 53 There were, however, minor differences on possible rates of taxation and support for "peasant farmers" as opposed to "small-scale farmers."54

CHOOSING PARTY OFFICERS

We have argued so far that, despite the efforts of the military government, the old structures of coalitions and alliances from the previous republics remained largely intact. Nevertheless, minor changes could be discerned as a result of personalities who had either left the stage or renounced their old leanings, or of new entrants who had made an impact on the political landscape. The ward elections of 26 May 1990 provided the political associations that had been forced underground the first new opportunity to ensure that their former supporters were elected. The open-ballot system for this election did not prevent the influence of the disbanded associations in the election of ward officials and delegates to the local government leveJ.55 At the ward level, the offices that were filled were those of chairman, vice-chairman, secretary, treasurer, publicity and organizing secretary, two ex-officio members; ten delegates to the local-government congress, and three delegates to the state congress. The local government-level party and delegate elections took place on 16 June 1990, but it was not until after the state congresses ofthe parties-

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on 7 July 1990-that the influence of the banned politicians and disqualified political associations started coming more clearly to the fore. In Lagos State, for instance, the role of Alh. Lateef Jakande, the former Second Republic UPN governor of the state, was reported to be strong in ensuring that Alh. Muniru Baruwa (former PSP chairman in the state) became the SDP chairman.56 The NRC election in Lagos State was not as organized, as the number of candidates for that chairmanship came to fourteen; the party's efforts toward reducing that number failed. At the end of the day, the chairman was Mrs. Osinowo, whose husband, Oladosu Osinowo, had been the speaker of the UPN-controlled Lagos State House of Assembly until he had differences with Alb. Jakande and switched over to the NPN; because he was banned, his wife took the front seat in the NRC instead. The pattern in Lagos State repeated itself in a number of other states as well, though there were some exceptions. In Kwara State, for instance, Olusola Saraki, the multimillionaire senate leader for the NPN in the Second Republic, had broken with the party toward the end of that republic. With the beginning of the formation of associations for the Third Republic, Saraki was said to have supported the LC. When the LC opted for the NRC as a result of Babangida's intervention, Saraki's refusal to have anything to do with those having NPN roots saw him offer support to the SDP. Thus, the LC chairman who was reported to be Saraki's candidate became the SDP chairman after the state party congress of the SDP.57 Abubakar Rimi, the former governor of Kano State in the first term, held control over the Kano SDP.58 In Anambra, even though Jim Nwobodo, the former NPP governor of the state, was said to have SDP sympathies, he avoided involvement with any of the aspirants. This, however, was not the case with the NRC in Anambra State. C. C. Onoh, the NPN successor to Jim Nwobodo for the last three months of the Second Republic, battled the "new-breed" Hyde Onuaguluchi (who initially desired the presidency but now seemed satisfied with the governorship of the state); Onuaguluchi was reported to have defeated Onoh.59 The contest for control of the two parties at the national level was even more keen. The major issue was whether a Southerner would be the presidential candidate. Initially, there appeared to be an emerging consensus that the time was ripe for an elected president to come from the South. The two parties then began to discuss the idea of zoning, which the NPN had introduced in 1979.60 In Nigerian parlance, zoning implies the distribution of party and elective offices among geographical divisions of the country-which at times tallies with ethnic divisions. Thus, if the presidential candidate of the party is from one zone, the vice-president would be from another, and likewise with the chairman of the party, the vicechairman, the secretary, and so forth. The positions are then understood to be due for rotation at subsequent elections. While some would argue that this arrangement ensures the fair representation of ethnic groups or regional

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cleavages in the country, this arrangement not only violates basic democratic principles but further politicizes ethnicity, The members of a part of the nation at large become overly restricted in the choices of people to occupy such important positions as party chairman or president The arrangement thus sacrifices national merit for an institutionalized sectional merit Moreover, the struggles among candidates from competing ethnic groups or geographical areas in a zone lead us back into the same problems of ethnic mistrust as a result of the struggles of the elites for power. The election of Chief Tom Ikimi as the chairman of the NRC brought such mistrust to the fore. Coming directly from the Constituent Assembly, a number of key members who formed the NNC and then the NRC argued that the Hausa-Fulani had had a sufficient number of opportunities to provide elected chief executives for the country. In fact, the initial position of this group was that the president in 1992 would have to come from the South-a view that was much in the air in the LC as well as held by a few members of the NNC. By the time the NNC, LC, and RPN fused to become the NRC, the main line of cleavage concerning the issue of zoning. Initially, a moderate group from the North, mainly former members of the LC, seemed willing to tolerate the idea of a Southern presidential candidate leading the NRC, appearing to back Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu for the post. The Yorubas in the NRC also wanted the presidential nomination if it was to come from the South; they were divided, however, with one faction apparently led by Kusamotu and the other by Rev. Akande. But-crucially-if the plans of the Southerners to stop a Northern NRC presidential candidate were to work, the chairman of the party under the zoning arrangement would have to come from the North. Along these lines, there seemed to be unity among the moderates and the conservatives in the NRC. A suggestion was then made that the chairmanship of the party should go to a Southern minority candidate, since the Yorubas and the Igbos had rejected the position. Chief Bassey Akpan, the former chairman of the Republican Party of Nigeria (RPN), was tipped; his nomination was easily supported in the North but faced difficulties in the South, which put forward Ibrahim Mantu, a Northern minority from Plateau State. Candidates for the chairmanship position finally included Tom Ikimi, a wealthy architect from Bendel State, Portright Akahigbe, and Austen Izeagbo (both also from the South). Just prior to the elections, the Northern delegates had dumped Akpan and switched to Ikimi. A substantial amount of money was said to have changed hands, and, by the end of elections, Ikimi had become the NRC chairman, with L782 votes to Ibrahim Mantu's 878.61 However, just before the start of the elections, the chief of general staff, Vice-Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, read a statement to delegates at the convention condemning zoning. He told the delegates that the Babangida administration would not support zoning as an immutable law and

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that leadership should be sought from all levels.62 If the North had been keen on taking advantage of the election of Chief lkimi to exclude the South from the presidential race, Kusamotu came on to argue that all was not lost for the Southern part of Nigeria, as the "South" zone, in NRC parlance, only meant Bendel, Rivers, Cross River, and Akwa Ibom states. According to Kusamotu, the Yoruba zone, otherwise called the West zone, had nothing to do with the Southern minorities. He concluded that only one zone had been used for the chairmanship and, thus, that anyone from the remaining five zones could contest for the party presidential ticket. 63 As if replying to Kusamotu, Ikimi, while thanking party members on his election as chairman in a paid advertisement, argued that his election would not prejudice anyone's chance to contest for the presidential nomination. As he put it: "I wish to reiterate that the presidential ticket of our great party will be selected on MERIT; and as provided for in our party constitution, it will NOT be zoned to any group or section of our country which means that any Nigerian, regardless of his tribe or sect is free to offer his/her services for the top job. "64 The struggle in the SOP appeared to be at bay, as the SOP had implicitly endorsed a Southerner for the presidency from the outset. Thus, the chairman of the party was zoned to the far North, meaning Sokoto, Kano, and Borno states. The two candidates at the end of the day were Alh. Arzika, former chairman of the PSP, and Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, former director of organization of the PFN. The PSP, as the principal partner in the SOP, was bent on electing Arzika and a slate of its candidates, having marginalized other parties in the election of delegates to the SOP National Convention. The success of Baba Gana Kingibe showed, however, that the PSP bloc inside SOP did not have full control over its members, many of whom defected to support a PFN slate for the major party posts of chairman, vice-chairman, and party secretary. While the accusations of the exchange of money could be relevant, there was no doubt that Baba Gana Kingibe and the PFN faction of the SOP recognized their weakness and worked hard to sway many PSP delegates. While Kingibe had campaigned around the country among party supporters, Arzika had to apologize at the convention that he lacked the resources to do the same. Nonetheless, the failure of Arzika cannot be attributed to the efforts of the PFN faction and Baba Gana Kingibe alone. In a magazine interview, Arzika suggested that no one in the North joined the SOP because of Awolowo (though Arzika had never met Awolowo personally).65 The Awoists in the PSP saw this statement as a denunciation of the legacy of Awo. For them, it would have been fine if Arzika had limited his opinion to himself; but to speak for the whole of the North was, the Awoists felt, insulting, and they decided to work toward dumping Arzika. This group circulated a document in which they highlighted Arzika's denial of Awo

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with the intention of ensuring that the Yoruba vote was split in support of Kingibe. The politics of who controlled the SDP in Imo state had equally much to do with the election of Ebere Osieke as national secretary of the SDP.66 Chief Samuel Mbakwe, former governor of Imo State in the Second Republic, became locked in a battle of wills with Chief Arthur Nzeribe, a multimillionaire who had already launched a bid for the governorship of Imo State before he was banned during the transition. Nzeribe got the upper hand in collaboration with Jerry Okoro (another millionaire), former correspondent for the Times of London. With the old PPA governors unrelenting in their support for Arzika, Nzeribe's faction-which ended up controlling the Imo delegation-backed Kingibe for SDP party chairman. The last-minute dumping (by the Arzika faction) of labor activist Frank Kokori as the candidate for SDP financial secretary also antagonized some members from Bendel State and from the Labour Party faction of the SOP, who also voted against Arzika and some other PSP candidates.67 Kingibe announced at his first press conference as SDP chairman that while the SDP supported the idea of zoning, it would be wrong to say that the presidency had been zoned to the South. He argued, along the same lines as Ikimi, that the issue was one not of a Southern presidency but of a Nigerian presidency.68 From then on, the struggle for the SDP presidential nomination appeared wide open and would eventually tear at the party's unity even more than in the NRC. However, the question of presidential candidates for the two parties was still almost two years away. The two parties first had to test their popularity at the 8 December 1990 local government elections (the first elections during the transition to be conducted on a partisan basis). The openballot system that was tried for the party-leadership contests was extended to the local government elections. The personality-centered nature of party contests featured again in these elections: in fact, the parties suggested that the clout of principal party officials would be utilized to see to it that party candidates win in their respective wards and local governments. Thus, party officials from the chairmen to the lower cadres went back to their roots to campaign. While some were able to deliver, others failed. It is important to note, however, that the politics of the past still held sway over the performance of the parties.69 Thus, there were few instances of voter behavior departing from the pattern of PPA/NPN control over the states in the Second Republic. The exceptions were the SDP's electoral dominance in Katsina and Kwara, as indicated earlier, which was to be expected with the strength of Yar'adua and Olusola Saraki in those two states, respectively. Perhaps most significant was the radical reduction in the level of violence compared to party elections in the past. Some government officials seized on this fact as justification for continuing the retrogressive open-ballot

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system (in which voters lined up behind their candidate's picture in full view of any and all observers). But the "siege mentality" that existed during the 8 December elections as well as the fact that the stakes were still low were just as likely to have accounted for this relatively low level of violence. In the final results of the first local government elections, the SDP emerged as the clear leader, with 3,765 local government council seats (and a majority in fourteen of twenty-one states), compared with 3,360 seats for the NRC. In addition, the SDP won 315 local government chairmanships (which were directly elected), as opposed to 274 for the NRCJO The numerous court cases did not change this pattern significantly. In conclusion, the trends in party formation showed the structures of the First and Second Republics to a great extent congealing into a modified version. Also, the personalization of politics continued. Despite the absence of such big names as Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Shehu Shagari, their successors as chieftains in the PPA and the NPN continued to dictate the tunes not along programs or issues-as Babangida wanted (or so he insisted)-but on the basis of the aspirations of various noveaux-riches presidential and gubernatorial aspirants. This trend allowed the usual bitter factional struggles to thrive. Yet the polarization of ethnicity did continue to dissipate in the emergent Third Republic. In particular, the early fear that the two-party system was bound to lead to a North-South or Muslim-Christian divide was not realized, as both parties showed strength among each of these sections of the country, even though dominant in certain states. In spite of the nicknames of "Northern Republican Convention and Southern Democratic Party" given to the NRC and the SDP, respectively, the evolution-interrupted from the previous two republics-of a more broadly national and competitive two-party system continued. Indeed, it reached unprecedented heights on 12 June 1993-only to be tragically interrupted a third time.

NOTES 1. Section 220(1) of the 1989 constitution provides: "There shall be only 2 political parties in the federation." 2. Richard L. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963). 3. John P. Mackintosh, Nigerian Government and Politics (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966). 4. Billy J. Dudley, lnstahilitv and Political Order (Ibadan: University of lbadan Press, 1974 ), and An Introduction to Nigerian Government and Politics (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1982). 5. Oyeleye Oyediran, "Political Parties: Formation and Candidate Selection," in Oyeleye Oyediran, ed., The Nigerian 1979 Elections (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1981).

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6. Oyeleye Oyediran and Babafemi A. Badejo, "The Progressive Peoples' Party and the Progressive Parties Alliance in Nigeria's Second Republic," ODU, no. 36 (July 1989). 7. See Oyediran, "Political Parties," p. 66. 8. See Dudley, An Introduction to Nigerian Government and Politics, p. 195. 9. See Newswatch. 21 November !988, p. 17. 10. See Newswatch. 30 October 1989, p. 22. 11. Ibid., pp. 14-15. 12. See, for instance, his keynote address to the Guardian Newspapers 1989 Lecture. 13. Adebayo 0. Olukoshi, "Nigerian Marxist Responses to the Formation of the Nigerian Labour Party (NLP)," paper submitted to the International Conference on Philosophy, Ideology and Society in Africa, Institute for Arts and Science, Vienna, 23-24 October 1989, pp. 19-20. 14. For a full account, see Newswatch, 22 May 1989, pp. 14-15. 15. Olukoshi, "Nigerian Marxist Responses," pp. 6-8. 16. Ibid., p. 8. 17. Ibid., p. 9. 18. The above account depends on ibid., pp. 11-12. 19. Ibid., p. 12. 20. See Daily Times, 5 May 1990. 21. See Newswatch, 17 July 1989, p. 16. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. See Daily Times, 26 September 1989, pp. 1, 14. 25. See Newswatch, 17 July 1989, p. 19. 26. National Electoral Commission, "Report and Recommendations on Verification Exercise for the Registration of Two Political Parties," mimeo, September 1989, p. 9. 27. See ibid., pp. 9-13. 28. See Afi·ic·an Guardian 4, no. 40 (16 October 1989): 21. 29. Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, "The Dawn of a New Socio-Political Order," an Address to the Nation on Saturday, 7 October 1989, p. 8. 30. Ibid., p. 12. 31. Ibid., pp. 9-10. 32. Ibid., p. 10. 33. Ibid., p. 11. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., p. 12. 37. Guardian, 13 October 1989, p. 6. 38. National Concord, 10 October 1989, p. 1. 39. African Guardian 4, no. 40 (16 October 1989): 19. 40. Ibid. 41. Guardian, 13 October 1989, p. 6. 42. Ibid. 43. Guardian, 9 November 1989, p. 12. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. Larry Diamond, "Constitutional Design of a Third Nigerian Republic," African Affairs 86, no. 343 (April 1987): p. 224. 47. Daily Champion, 9 October 1989, p. 14.

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48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. Newswatch, 23 October 1989, p. 20. 51. This section benefits from Babafemi A. Badejo, "Democratic Governance and the Party System in Nigeria: The Place of Ideology and the Challenges Ahead," paper presented at the State Seminar on the New Constitution and Transition to Civil Rule, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Lagos, 22~24 May 1990, pp. 10~ 11. 52. The Manifesw of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1989), p. 6. 53. The Manifesto of the National Republican Convention (NRC). (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1989), p. 6. 54. See Badejo, "Democratic Governance and the Party System in Nigeria." 55. See Nigerian Economist 3, no. 18 (11 June 1990). 56. See Newswatch 12, no. 4 (23 July 1990). 57. For the K wara State account, see ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. For a further account, see African Guardian 5, no. 28 (23 July 1990). 61. See Guardian, 23 July 1990, p. 1. 62. See Sunday Concord, 22 July 1990, p. 1. 63. See Daily Times, 25 July 1990, p. 1. 64. See Guardian, 27 July 1990, p. 8. 65. Classique, 16 July 1990. 66. Professor Osieke's victory did not last long, for he was disqualified on 3 August because he did not properly resign his university chair before elections. So Alexis Anielo, the PSP candidate, has since been declared national secretary. 67. For some of the developments, see This Week, 6 August 1990. 68. Ibid. 69. See New swatch, 24 December 1990. 70. Initial results from the 8 December voting produced 2,934 councillors for the SDP and 2,558 for the NRC, and an SDP lead in council chairs of 239 to 206. These totals grew with subsequent voting in some local government areas. Ibid.

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The Reorganization of Local Government Oyeleye Oyediran

The concept of incrementalism finds another affirmative case study in the development of local government in Nigeria. From 1950, when the then Eastern Regional Government blazed the trail in reforming the extractive local administration system contrived and bequeathed by the British colonial government, the local government system in Nigeria has come a long way. Save under the two civilian governments (1960-1966 and 19791983), when the structures of local government were abused and made to serve selfish political ends, each successive government in Nigeria has made appreciable efforts in making the local government system a development-oriented institution. Prior to the Babangida regime, the most concerted effort made at strengthening the Nigerian local government system was in 1976. The 1976 Local Government Reform was a watershed and has been comprehensively analyzed.! The Babangida era also witnessed another golden opportunity in the development of local government in Nigeria. Coming on the heels of an inept civilian regime and an autocratic military regime that supplanted it, the Babangida administration sought to be a "corrective regime."2 Early in its life, the administration pledged to give a new direction to the country politically, economically, and socially, "to bequeath to posterity a new political order that can endure stresses as well as contain the competitive demands in our national life.'' 3 As had the Mohammed/Obasanjo military regime, the Babangida administration realized that a solid foundation of political stability can only be laid on a sound local government substructure. The Political Bureau created by government in January 1986 to propose a political agenda for transition recommended that "the one-second photo-finish total handing over of all instruments of government at a parade must be avoided."4 It proposed a "supervised return to civilian rule," phasing in military withdrawal beginning with democratically elected governance at the grassroots. Its strong preference was for a broadly spaced 193

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transition in which "democratic government can proceed with political learning, institutional adjustment and a re-orientation of political culture, at sequential levels of politics and governance, beginning with the local government and ending at the federallevel."5 The same cautious approach informed the policies and reform measures introduced to strengthen the local government system. Early on, President Babangida signaled the priority he attached to local government in his address inaugurating the Constituent Assembly in 1988: This Administration believes that with the strengthening of local governments as the third tier of government, the often repeated argument of neglect will become a thing of the past. What you will have to do is to critically examine the issue of the division of powers among three levels of government and also relate it to the mode of sharing money.6

At the same time, he emphasized the importance in Nigerian federalism of all three levels of government, including state government. In the new system, local government would be expected "to ensure collective participation in government, motivate physical and economic development, create the conditions for employment opportunities and provide social services which can improve the well-being of our people."7

BACKGROUND TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Any appraisal of the.Babangida regime must begin with the Political Bureau Report. This is as relevant on the local government as the political front. It begins its findings on local government by acknowledging it as a viable instrument for rural transformation and for the delivery of social services to the people. These functions are considered best fulfilled by local government given its strategic location, proximity to the people, responsiveness, and simplicity of operation. Nevertheless, the bureau noted that the contribution of local government had historically been minimal. Reasons adduced for this included excessive federal- and state-government control and interference in the performance of local government as well as states' undermining the financial viability of local government by diverting their statutorily allocated grants and encroaching on their revenue-yielding functions like markets, motor parks, tenement rating, liquor licensing, and so forth. In its own findings, the Dasuki Committee Report of 1985 on the Review of Local Administration in Nigeria attributed the problems of local government on operational factors "arising directly from the behavior and attitudes of the persons who operated the system."8 These hindered equitable distribution of amenities within local government areas by weakening the whole local government

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system. The Dasuki Committee thus strongly proposed the decentralization of the services provided by local government, through establishment of development area offices that would be assigned responsibility for providing certain basic services. In its own observation, the Political Bureau identified the purely administrative conception of local government (for delivering services or maintaining law and order) as a source of ineffective performance. By ignoring the political objective of local government, it tended to regard efficiency as an end in itself. This enhanced "the eminence of the bureaucratic cadres of local government" but neglected political processes based on the mobilization of the people and on popular participation.9 A particular problem noted by the bureau in the effectiveness and legitimacy of government to date was the lack of democracy, which had reduced local government to instruments of regulation and control. Local governments have hitherto not operated as an instrument of mobilization, primarily because it has not been possible to install democratically elected local councils since independence. More often than not, sole administrators or management committees were appointed to run local governments.IO It its recommendations, the bureau agreed with the Dasuki report that the 301 multipurpose units of local government inherited by the Babangida administration should be retained. However, it proposed creating subordinate units so as to disperse government activities throughout the local government area. Each local government council area would be restructured into a pyramidal format, with the village and neighborhood committees constituting the primary units, linked by development area offices to the local government council at the apex. The bureau considered the dissatisfaction with local government performance to be related not to the adequacy of its statutory functions but to how well those functions were performed. Thus, it recommended retaining the functions listed in the Fourth Schedule of the 1979 constitution, and endorsed the Dasuki Committee's recommendation that priority be given to: (1) basic environmental sanitation and other aspects of preventive health; (2) maternity centers, dispensaries, leprosy clinics, and health centers; (3) roads and drains, excluding federal and state roads; (4) inland waterways; (5) rural water supply and extension of urban water supply; (6) community development; (7) agriculture and veterinary extension services; (8) construction, maintenance, and equipment of primary schools; (9) town planning; (10) markets, motor parks, parks, and gardens; (11) maintenance of law and order; (12) afforestation.!! To stimulate popular involvement in local government, the bureau further recommended delegating responsibility to the development area council and to the village committee (rural) or neighborhood committee (urban).

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The village, clan, autonomous community, or urban neighborhood was proposed to be the primary unit of local government, organized for productive and community action into various functional committees or associations, with voluntary membership. The suggested functional committees were: 1. a production committee responsible for village activities relating to agriculture as well as for crafts and cottage industries 2. cooperative societies to organize farmers for marketing of produce, agricultural credit, hiring of agricultural machinery, and distribution of agricultural units 3. community-development associations to plan community-development projects and mobilize the people to implement such projects 4. a women's association to assist in environmental sanitation, public and health education, home management, handicraft, and basic health-care delivery 5. a social services committee to take care of the old and the disabled, rehabilitate orphans and delinquents, monitor school enrollment and attendance, and organize literacy campaigns.12 The village or neighborhood committee, in turn, was proposed as the organ for overall governance of this primary unit of local government. Its tasks would be to coordinate all of the functional committees; to perform the functions delegated to it by the development area council; to control the allocation of rural land for agricultural and other purposes; to control the exploitation of natural resources and other minerals; to monitor the activities of public officers deployed to the village or neighborhood; and to submit reports and development proposals to the development area council. Members were to be selected by village or neighborhood residents, for only one two-year term, to ensure accountability and responsiveness. Each village or neighborhood committee was to elect a chairman. The Development Area Council was to be comprised of the chairmen of the village or neighborhood committees. Statutorily, it was recommended that one of the elected councillors in the local government council from the particular development area council should serve as the chairman, while the officer in charge of the development area should be the secretary. The body was intended to serve as a forum where the representatives of the people from the primary units of local government could meet, consult, and interact with officials of local government. Ultimately, the development area council was designed to be a "consultation chamber" and a "clearinghouse" for popular participation in local government. Decisions, recommendations and reports originating from the development area council would be forwarded to the local government council for action. Development Area Councils were to have responsibility for: works recurrent;

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markets and motor parks; registration of persons, including births, marriages, and deaths, revenue collection; cemeteries and burial grounds; distribution of fertilizers and seedlings; and slaughter slabs. In the scheme proposed by the bureau, the local government council was to be the apex organization. Each council was to be composed of between ten and fifteen directly elected members. This, the Bureau reasoned, is more likely to mobilize the people for national development and to fully integrate their voluntary and self-help efforts with the actions of government in national transformations. It is expected that this popular involvement will fundamentally transform popular perception of, and attitude to, government. Government will cease to be seen and regarded as distinct, separate and alien to the people. It is hoped that this scheme when fully implemented will enable the people to perceive government as an instrument which exists to serve their interests and welfare.l3

Operationally, the bureau determined that, more than anything else, inadequate finances accounted for the ineffectiveness of local governments. Previously, the Dasuki Committee had found that only a few states in 1983 had forwarded to the local governments the 10 percent of federal revenue allocated to them by statute; indeed, some states had even deducted, from source, forced contributions from local government for the provision of specific services like primary education. The bureau thus suggested strong measures to improve the financial viability of local government. The first was that the local government share of the Federation Account should be increased to not less than 20 percent and that states should be required to contribute 10 percent of their internally generated revenue. This would be supplemented by a "substantial amount of money," which would be made available to local communities through voluntary contributions. Another suggestion was that the federal government's statutory allocation to local government be paid directly to the local governments instead of through the State-Local Government Joint Accounts. On Federal/Local Government Relations, the takeoff point of the bureau again was the Dasuki Committee's report, which argued that local government is not exclusively the responsibility of state governments. Although the 1979 constitution had empowered state governments to legislate for the establishment, structure, composition, finance, and functions of local governments under democratically elected councils, local governments nevertheless derive their powers from the constitution and receive a substantial portion of their revenue from the Federation Account. As a result, the Dasuki Committee felt that federal government involvement in local government affairs should be acknowledged and appropriate institutional arrangements made to regularize this involvement. In this vein, the Dasuki Committee recommended, and the Political Bureau endorsed, creation of a National Local Government Commission, with the following functions:

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• to coordinate the intergovernmental aspects of local government affairs on a continuous and permanent basis • to advise on periodic reviews of structural arrangements in the light of demographic changes, boundary adjustments, and other related matters • to set standards and determine policies on local government training • to establish and manage a National Documentation Center on local government affairs.14 On the role of traditional leaders (the bureau saw the term traditional rulers as a misnomer). the bureau observed that "any attempt to accommodate them beyond the local level will not only undermine democracy; it will also create the impression of a deliberate attempt to impose feudalism on the country and thereby deepen the stratification of our society."15 It rejected the view that traditional leaders possess special qualities that could enrich the political system or instill moral rectitude in public life. At a time when Nigerians were demanding a truly democratic polity, it made little or no sense to the bureau to install in the political system people whose primary qualification is ascribed status. Finally, the bureau recommended that their role be confined to the local government areas within the communities where they have relevance. Even at that level, they should not be granted legislative, executive, or judicial functions.l6 Government's reactions to all of these propositions and recommendations were made known in its "White Paper" on the Political Bureau Report. Government merely noted the recommendations of the bureau on the structure and organization of local government administration, as well as the functions to be assigned to the subordinate units. However, it rejected outright the establishment of a National Local Government Commission and its list of functions. Government accepted the recommendations to retain the 30 l multipurpose local government areas and to establish within each a maximum of five development area councils. Other recommendations of the bureau that were accepted included the establishment of village or neighborhood committees in every development area council; delegation of specific responsibilities to the development area councils; and that chairmen of village or neighborhood committees be members of the development area council. Government further noted the recommendation that an elected member of local government council from the area be the chairman of the development council but did not accept the rotation of the chairmanship of the development area. While not agreeing yet to the figure of 20 percent for federal revenue allocation to local governments, the Babangida administration did acknowledge in its White Paper that "more funds should be allocated to the Local Government; states should contribute more funds to the Local Government Joint Account." 17 On the membership of local government councils,

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government claimed to have noted the bureau's recommendation. It accepted the bureau's position on the role of traditional leaders in governance and pledged to amend the constitution to reflect the decisions contained in the White Paper on the Dasuki report.

POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM MEASURES

In practice, local government did not develop during the transition exactly according to the formulated policy measures. Below, I analyze the reform measures actually undertaken during this period under six rubrics: creation of additional local government areas; elections into local government councils; strengthening local government autonomy; structural and institutional innovations; boosting the morale and productivity of local government personnel; and antidemocratic tendencies under the regime. Creation of Additional Local Government Areas

The bureau was not unanimous in its recommendation on the number of local government units. The majority position favored the 301 inherited by the regime, while two of the seventeen members advocated 450 local government areas based on the number of federal constituencies. In its response, government sided with the majority position; however, it was not long before government decided to go back on its word. It apparently found wisdom in the minority position when in May 1989 it announced the creation of 149 new local government areas, thereby bringing the number of local government units to 453. Rationalizing this reversal of position, President Babangida stated: [You will j recall the emphasis which this Administration has been placing on the evolution of a virile Local Government system as a third tier of government. Our plan is to have a well established Local Government system which should serve as a training ground for democratic politicking and governance and as a springboard for participation at other levels of government. It is for this purpose too that the Armed Forces Ruling Council has recently taken additional steps to create new Local Government Areas across the country.... Suffice it here for me to assure the nation that the cause of democracy and autonomous development would be tremendously enhanced by our ... decision. IS Government was, however, not yet done with the creation of additional local government units. In October 1991, it announced the creation of 140 more, bringing the total to 589. Thus, contrary to its initial stand, the regime virtually doubled the number of local government units in the country.

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The Babangida government also sought to make it difficult, if not totally impossible, to create further additional local government units under a civilian government. Existing local government areas were enshrined in the 1989 constitution (Part 1 of the first schedule). States accordingly lost their power under the 1979 constitution to adjust the number and boundaries of local government areas. Such action now requires constitutional amendment. 19 On the logic behind this new arrangement, President Babangida explained: The purpose of this amendment is to align the creation of new local government areas in the state to be analogous with the provision for the creation of new states in the Federation where the concurrence of majority of states in the Federation is a necessary condition. The creation of additional local government areas in a state affects the interest of others and they should be allowed to participate in the exercise. 20

By virtually doubling the number of local government councils, the Babangida administration not only changed its earlier position but also succumbed, as in other areas of policy, to political pressure and convenience, using the reform of local government to achieve other political ends. Not much thinking went into some of these policies. For example, it was only after the 1992 election to the National Assembly that it dawned on the administration that members elected into the House of Representatives represented inequitable proportions of the population. By using local government areas as the basis for the constituency of the House of Representatives, the administration gave some states with more than double the population of other states fewer members in this arm of the central legislature. For example, Lagos State, with a population of 5,685,781, had 15 members, while Niger State, with a population of 2,482,367, had 19 members in the House. On the other hand, Kano, which has about the same population as Lagos-5,632,040-had 34 members and Sokoto, with 4,392,391 in population, had 29; Ondo, with 3,884,485, had 28 seats, and Akwa Ibom, with a population of 2,359,736, had 24. In addition, it was after this election to the National Assembly that the regime realized that there are more members in the House of Representatives than Nigeria needs-593 compared to the 449 in the 1979-1983 legislature. As a result, the administration announced in March 1993 that this number would be halved in the 1996 election to the House. Yet plans for creating additional local government council areas were announced by the president. Fortunately, more critical political problems prevented General Babangida from embarking on those measures before he was forced out of office on 26 August 1993. Finally, by creating more local government council areas almost every year in the last three years of the life of the administration, the whole essence of a virile, stable, and economically viable local government system

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was undermined. As with state governments, more than 80 percent of the funding for local governments comes from the Federation Account. Any time there is a problem with the nerve of this account-i.e., petroleumthere is and will continue to be trouble for the functioning of local government. Excessive dependence on external funding is not healthy for local government to or any other level of government, for that matter. In this respect, the Babangida administration did serious damage to its original plan and to the future of local government in Nigeria.2I Elections into Local Government Councils Section 7(1) of the 1989 constitution guarantees a system of local government by democratically elected local government councils. Moreover, the responsibility for the conduct of election into local government councils shifted to the Federal Electoral Commission in place of state electoral bodies, as obtained in the Second Republic-which was in line with the recommendation of the Political Bureau. On membership, the bureau prescribed between ten and fifteen elected members for each local government council, while government ultimately set the range between ten and twenty. The recommendation on the recall system was accepted by government and enacted in Section 304 of the constitution. Elections into the local government councils occupied a prime position in the scheme of the entire transition process. The bureau had recommended that elections begin at the local government level and end at that of federal level. The first electoral step to the Third Republic began in December 1987 with the election of local government chairmen and councillors on a nonpartisan basis. The logic in this arrangement was that if the local government elections could be properly conducted, other electionsat higher levels of power-would follow smoothly and in a democratic spirit. If, on the contrary, the local government elections were manipulated, the democratic wish would have been subverted.22 President Babangida put it more bluntly when he asserted: A ... matter not adequately appreciated by some political aspirants is the implication of the sequence of elections in terms of the impact on the fortunes of political parties and candidates. What many people do not quite appreciate is the fact that those who want to provide leadership in 1992 at the national level should start to be involved in the setting up of grassroots organizations at the local government level. They should realize that their fortunes in the elections ... will have consequential effect on their electoral fortunes in the subsequent elections. In essence, we should learn to walk before we can run. In the same way, it should be emphasized that political parties should have a good grip of local and state government affairs before leaping to Federal heights. After all. all Nigerians virtually live within State and Local government jurisdictions whose policies and programs are more directly relevant to their daily lives.23

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The first local government elections in the transition period were held on schedule on 12 December 1987. This had been preceded by registration of voters (lasting from 12 October to 30 November) and the electioneering campaign (1 December to 11 December). Counting and announcing of results lasted two days, during 12-13 December. The expectation was that the nonparty basis of the arrangement would produce the best candidates, as the electors would vote for individuals based on merit rather than on political-party association. On the contrary, this turned out to be a tall hope. In many communities, former powerful and rich politicians who had been banned from participation set themselves up as clearinghouses for nominations, paid the expenses of candidates, and, with their supporters, campaigned vigorously for their anointed candidates.24 Moreover, communities agreed on which of their members would contest elections, particularly where several communities vied for one position. Traditional leaders were not left out in the scheming process; they used their network of influence to help their favored candidates. All these were symptomatic of the unworkability of the zero-party option in a developing society. At the end of the day, the election was canceled in 312 wards (169 of these were in Lagos State alone). Fresh elections were held in these areas on 26 March 1988. This repeat exercise was successful. The National Electoral Commission (NEC), under the chairmanship of Erne Awa, had been able to do its homework and correct the lapses in the earlier election. To quote one assessment: It is clear from the study of the 1987 local government elections that the Nigerian people are positively oriented towards the electoral process. In spite of their harrowing experience with that process and its irrelevance to the improvement of their lot they still have a deep-seated faith in it. This faith arises from their desire for democracy.25

Due to complications that arose in the transition timetable, the election into local government on a partisan basis could not be held in the first quarter of 1989 as originally scheduled. This was postponed to the fourth quarter of 1990. Another round of local government elections earlier scheduled for fourth quarter 1991 was canceled. By December 1990, when another round of local government elections was held, the ballot system had changed. Amid great controversy, the open-ballot system was introduced. Despite objections as to its undemocratic nature, the Babangida government stuck with the open ballot until after the National Assembly elections in 1992. However, after the debut of open ballot at the 1990 local government election, many modifications were introduced. The local government elections therefore provided opportunities for correcting electoral errors of omission and commission in preparation for elections to higher levels of government.

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Strengthening Local Government Antonomy

The Political Bureau had noted in its report that: The relationship which exists between state and local government is a superordinate/subordinate relationship. This is inevitable because of the power of control supervision which state governments have over local governments. A much more positive relationship is necessary and this is dependent on the evolution of mutually reinforcing relations. State governments should therefore be able to provide guidance, support and encouragement to local governments in the delivery of service. 26 As a follow-up to the Political Bureau's recommendations for local fiscal autonomy, government took some steps to relax state control on local governments. In his 1988 Independence Day address, President Babangida announced that local government councils would henceforth receive their revenue allocations directly from the Federation Account. In order to safeguard this measure after the departure of the military from the political scene, Section 160(4) of the 1989 constitution provides that: "Any amount standing to the credit of Local Governments in the Federation Account shall be allocated directly to the Local Government concerned .... " This stand was reiterated in the President's 1991 budget speech, in which he confirmed the federal government's intention to strengthen local government autonomy by making it undertake developmental programs that other levels of government do. He further pledged that the Revenue and Fiscal Mobilization Commission and the office of the accountant-general of the federation would ensure that local governments receive their periodic statutory financial allocation directly from the Federation Account. To cap everything, the share of local governments from the Federation Account was increased from 10 percent to 15 percent in 1991 and then to 20 percent in 1992, at the expense of the state governments. Additionally, states were required (beginning in July 1988) to contribute 10 percent of their internally generated revenue into the coffers of local governments, failing which the money would be deducted at source from the state allocation from the Federation Account.27 Also in the 1988 Independence Day address, the abolition of the Ministry of Local Government at the state level was announced. In its place, state governments were required to establish departments of local governments in the state governor's offices to assist, advise, and guide, but not control, local governments in the performance of their constitutional functions. 28 State governments were therefore required to hand off all the local government functions listed in Part 1 of the fourth schedule of the constitution. Lastly, as if to assure local governments that they now constituted a truly authentic third tier of government, they had thrust on them the responsibility of providing basic needs, including primary eduction.

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Specifically, local governments were charged with paying the salaries of primary-school teachers and managing primary education. Decree No.2 of 1991 gave legal backing to this policy. However, this had to be reversed by the federal government on demands by the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), backed up by a nationwide strike early in 1993. The argument by the NUT was that local government could not effectively provide this service. Accordingly, this step seemed likely to lead to an adjustment in the revenue-allocation formula. By mid-1993, there was a move to have each level of government contribute to the funding of primary education, but the details were never made public before the November 1993 coup. Another policy measure announced in the budget speech of 1992 was the abolition of the Local Government Service Commissions in all the states. Instead, each local government was given the power to recruit, promote, and discipline its own staff. However, six months after this announcement, government reversed its decision and announced the resuscitation of the state commissions. The Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) had vehemently opposed abolition of the commission. In the 1993 budget speech, government announced the creation of a Ministry of State and Local Government Affairs. However, details of the work of the new ministry were not immediately made known to the public. In the interim national government that took over from General Babangida's administration, a secretary (minister) for state and local government affairs was appointed in the person of Alh. Sule Unguwa Alkali. In the same vein, another body that would have an impact on the institution of local government was created toward the end of 1992. This was the National Council on Inter-Governmental Relations, with Jonah Elaigwu as its director general; its governing council was composed of representatives from national and state assemblies as well as local governments. Structural and Institutional Innovations

Structural adaptations and institutional reforms were needed to adjust local government to the new role envisioned for it. It was therefore hardly surprising that the structures of the local government were realigned in tune with the reforms. On 1 August 1988, the then chief of general staff (later renamed vice-president) Vice-Admiral Augustus Aikhomu inaugurated an eleven-member technical committee, headed by Humphrey Nwosu, on the application of the Civil Service Reforms to the local government service. In its recommendations, the committee cautioned that certain aspects of the reforms should be selected rather than as a wholesale application, because of peculiarities of councils. The following recommendations, inter alia, were made by the committee and accepted by the government: 1. The local government chairman should be the chief executive and accounting officer of his council. In this sense, he is accountable

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both while in and out of office, as are the minister and commissioner in the federal and state governments. The vice-chairman and supervisory councillors should become political heads of their respective departments-members of the Finance and General Purposes Committee-and in that position constitute the local government cabinet. The secretary to the council should remain a career officer with tenure of office, working conditions, and functions as provided in the local government employees service scheme; he should remain also the head of service of the council and chief administrative adviser to the local government and to the Finance and General Purpose Committee. Moreover, he should remain a signatory to council checks. Retention of the dual local government service, in which officers at level seven and above are to be recruited, promoted, supervised, and disciplined under the Local Government Service Commission while the other staffers are under the council. Councils should not have more than four other departments in addition to personnel management, finance, supplies, planning, and research and statistics. Emphasis should be on specialization and advancement to the top through hard work, while concrete measurable performance should determine rewards and sanctions. Establishment of a junior staff management committee (under the chairmanship of the head of personnel management) to determine personnel matters of council employees between levels 01 and 06. Creation of a local government department in each state governor's office, responsible for accounting codes and procedure, training, financial memoranda, and guidelines and circulars issued from the governor's office. Appointment of a qualified accountant as the council's internal auditor with functions similar to the auditors-general in the federal and state governments. Creation of audit alarm committees to perform identical functions as those at other levels.

In line with recommendation 9, the government promulgated Decree No. 25 of 1990. Section 34 provided for the appointment of the auditorgeneral of the local government by the state on the recommendation of the state Civil Service Commission. The decree vested in the governor the power to appoint such a person with the report of the audit of public account of a local government to be submitted to the governor. Perhaps the most radical structural innovation to local government under the Babangida regime was the introduction of presidentialism at this level, as in other tiers. This involved direct election of local government

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chairmen, a process introduced for the first time in 1987. The idea originated at the Constituent Assembly, as President Babangida acknowledged in accepting the Draft Constitution in April 1989: However faltering our first steps in the Presidential system of Government were, we Nigerians are agreed now that it provides for efficiency, effectiveness and accountability in the governance of the nation. I am glad that you have now extended this innovation to the Local Government level which is fast establishing itself as an essential third tier of government. This is indeed one of the silent innovations by this Constituent Assembly.29 As a prelude to this innovation, Decree No. 10 of 1990 was promulgated (becoming effective from 2 April 1991). The decree made the office of the secretary to the local government political (as against the recommendation of the Nwosu Technical Committee) and changed the designation of heads of departments from "supervisory councillors" to "supervisors." A supervisor could now be appointed from within or outside the elected councillors. An elected councillor, however, had to give up his position on his appointment as a supervisor. The chairman and his supervisors now constituted the executive arm of government at that level. This system was introduced on 6 February 1991 and elaborated in May 1991 (Decree No. 23 of 1991). It provided for a legislature at the local government level, known as the "local government council." This description used to refer to the entire geopolitical area, now known as the "local government area." The legislature was to be presided over by the leader and deputy leader, with powers parallel to the speaker and deputy speaker of a state house of assembly. The procedure of appointment and tenure was similar to what obtains at the state level. The executive (chairman, supervisors. and secretary) was referred to as the "local government." As at other tiers, the guidelines provide for separation of powers between the executive and the legislature. The local government council performed roles corresponding to those performed by the legislature at higher levels of government. Similarly, local government performed functions parallel to those of the cabinet at other government tiers. Local government has also taken on new significance as a constituent unit for state and national representation. The Political Bureau had recommended the use of local government areas as the basis for representation in state and federal legislatures. Each local government area was recommended to send one representative to the central legislature, and three to the state assembly. Although the Babangida government in its White Paper rejected this recommendation, it later proceeded to implement it, with the slight modification that each local government area return two (as opposed to the recommended three) members to the state house of assembly.

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Boosting the Morale and Productivity of Local Government Personnel

A plan to make a public institution development-oriented cannot be complete without paying attention to the morale and productivity of its personnel. The regime seemed to recognize this fact when it took steps to evaluate the training of local government personnel as well as their conditions of service. Recognizing the need to improve staff morale and to enable local governments to attract and retain the high-caliber personnel needed to execute their projects efficiently, government accepted the recommendation of the Dasuki Committee to appoint a committee to draw up a credible career structure for local government employees (comparable to that in the federal and state civil services). Stemming from the work of this committee, an Approved Scheme of Service for Local Government Employees in Nigeria was, for the first time in the country's history, adopted by the federal government and launched on 8 March 1988. 30 On personnel training, government appointed the Chief of General Staff Panel to Evaluate Local Government Training Programs at Ahmadu Bello University (Zaria), Obafemi Awolowo University (lle-Ife), and University of Nigeria (Nsukka). The panel was set up for the following purposes: (1) to examine the finances, facilities, and projects of each of the three local Government Studies Departments; (2) assess the adequacy of the funding system; (3) to undertake a comprehensive review of the course contents, the quality of staff and students, and the adequacy of facilities; (4) to reappraise the programs in their entirety as well as to carry out a performance evaluation of each of the three departments; (5) to determine the quality of the students so far produced by each department as indicated by their on-the-job performance; and (6) to look into other relevant issues and make appropriate recommendations.31 The panel made many useful recommendations in its April 1988 report, but government failed to respond to the report for undisclosed reasons. Antidemocratic Tendencies

Living up to its military character, the regime took some dictatorial steps in handling some affairs relating to local governments. Outstanding in this respect was the promulgation of the Local Government (Basic Constitutional and Transitional Provision) Decree No. 15 of 1989. This decree empowered the president to dissolve any local government during the transition period if he was not satisfied with its management-or for any other reason that he deemed appropriate. It was this decree that was invoked in July 1989 when the president dissolved all 453 elected local governments in the country. The excuse given was that the elected councils had been

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elected on a nonpartisan basis but were beginning to use the infrastructures of their offices to perform political functions, to the detriment of their official duties. On a more selective basis, however, some local government chairmen fell victim to this decree, among them Sam Orji of the Enugu local government and Bassey Eko Bassey of the Calabar municipal council. Another issue that should be highlighted is the reduction in the life of local government councils in the transition period. Section 283(2) of the 1989 constitution provides for a three-year tenure for an elected local government council. Government then enacted a decree in 1989 to the effect that, during the transition period, elected local government councils were to serve a two-year term. The first set of elected chairmen and councillors spent two years. However, due to intense lobbying by the National Conference of Local Government Chairmen, the tenure of the second set reverted to three years.

CONCLUSION

During the heyday of the Babangida regime's political transition program, it appeared that a Canaan of a fully democratized local government system in Nigeria is at hand and that it might not be long before we arrive there. In it I envisage that power relations at the local level would be tilted in favor of the masses; that local governments would be more effective in the provision of a wide-ranging of social amenities and would constitute a veritable academy turning out a crop of patriotic and upright leaders.32

Unlike many other aspects of democracy, local government in Nigeria has benefited greatly from military rule, particularly beginning with the Mohammed/Obasanjo administration. Though several faulty steps were taken under the Babangida administration, it would be unfair not to recognize its significant contributions to strengthening structurally local government in Nigeria. However, it is one thing to design structurally a development-oriented system of local government; it is another to get it functioning responsibly, responsively, and democratically. The last three years of local government in the Babangida administration were years of political and administrative decay, particularly for local government. We can only mention a few aspects of this decay. Corruption, which many commentators referred to as an established political ideology in Nigeria during the Babangida administration, pervaded local government: it was regarded as a way of life. Chairmen of local government councils, like state governors and the president, tended to regard the public purse as their private purse. Money, which came mainly from the Federation Account, was spent not for development of local government but for personal enrichment of chairmen

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and their cabals. This accounts in part for local government's inability to pay primary-school teachers for months at a time, particularly in the early months of 1993. As a result, schools were closed down due to work stoppage by teachers. Another problem area was the mushrooming number of local government areas. Increasing local government areas from 301 to 589 was a disaster, as most of these depend considerably on the Federation Account for financial survival. Internally generated revenue was virtually completely neglected by most local governments. One aspect of permanent damage done to this level of government is that it will be extremely difficult for the executive and the legislative branches to resuscitate vigorous taxation of their citizens. Even if as occurred during the transition, many capable and qualified people enter leadership positions in local government, how long will they be available when the Federation Account fails to allocate enough revenue to local government? With the tragic dismantling of all the emergent electoral institutions of the Third Republic-including all the elected local governments-after the November 1993 coup, the challenge of resolving the above contradictions and realizing the democratic promise of devolution of power remains unmet. Only time will tell whether a transition to a Fourth Republic can fulfill the imperative of making local government a truly viable, meaningful, responsive, and accountable level of democracy in Nigeria.

NOTES 1. See, for example, Alex Gboyega, Political Values and Local Government in Nigeria (Lagos: Malthouse, 1987); and Mac C. King, Localism and Nation Building (lbadan: Spectrum, 1988), among others. 2. See "The Justification for Change of Government," maiden address of President Babangida to the nation on assumption of office on 27 August 1985, in, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Portrait of a New Nigeria: Selected Speeches of !BB (Enugu: Precision Press, 1990), pp. 21-26. 3. Ibrahim Babangida, "The Search for a New Political Order," in ibid., p. 29. 4. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1987), p. 221. 5. Ibid. 6. "The March to a Viable Political Order," in Portrait of a New Nigeria, p. 49. 7. See his National Day broadcast of 1988. 8. See Report of the Political Bureau, p. 116; and Report of the Committee on the Review of Local Government Administration in Nigeria (Lagos: Federal Military Government of Nigeria, September 1984 ), henceforth referred to as the Dasuki Report (named after its chairman, Ibrahim Dasuki). 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., p. 118. 11. Ibid., p. 117. 12. Ibid., pp. 118-119.

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13. Ibid., p. 119. 14. Ibid., p. 121. 15. Ibid., p. 146. 16. Ibid., pp. 146~147. 17. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Government's Views and Comments on the Findings and Recommendations of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1987), p. 41. 18. See "Let Us Learn from History," in Portrait of a New Nigeria, p. 61. 19. Section 9(3) of the 1989 constitution stipulated that a bill for an Act of the National Assembly in respect to creation of a new local government area shall only be passed if l. a request supported by at least two-thirds majority of members (represent-

ing the area demanding the creation of the new local government area) in each of the following, namely: • the Senate and the House of Representatives • the House of Assembly in the respective area the local government councils in the respective area is received by the National Assembly 2. a proposal for the creation of the local government area is thereafter approved in a referendum by at least two-thirds majority of the people of the local government area where the demand for the proposed local government area originated 3. the result of the referendum is then approved by a simple majority of the members in each local government council in a majority of all the local government councils in the state 4. the result of the referendum is approved by a resolution passed by twothirds majority of members of each house of the National Assembly. Similarly, section 4 provided that a bill for an Act of the National Assembly for the purpose of boundary adjustment of any existing local government area can only be passed if 1. a request for the boundary adjustment supported by two-thirds majority of members representing the area demanding and the area affected by the boundary adjustment in each of the following, namely: • the House of Assembly in respect of the Area; and • the local government council in the respective area is received by the National Assembly 2. a proposal for the boundary adjustment is approved by a simple majority of members of the House of Assembly in the area concerned. 20. See "The Making of the Third Republic," in Portrait of a New Nigeria, p. 61. 21. But those who Jed local government councils-chairmen, in particularliked the opportunity these changes gave them. Their joy was shown in April1993, when local government chairmen from all over the country conferred on Babangida the title of Grand Redeemer of Local Governments in Nigeria. On the vice-president, they conferred the title Defender of Local Government in Nigeria, and, on the Sultan of Sokoto, Alh. Ibrahim Dasuki, the title Patron of Local Government in Nigeria. They requested at the awards ceremony the extension of their stay in office, an increase in local government statutory allocation from 20 to 30 percent, and the release of funds from the stabilization account to local councils. Their

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coordinator announced that the requests were granted by the president. See an indictment of these leaders in Guardian, 26 April 1993, p. 8. 22. Sam Oyovbaire and Tunji Olagunju, Foundations of A New Nigeria (Precision Press, n.d.), p. 49. 23. See ''Let Us Learn From History," p. 60. 24. Oyeleye Oyediran, ''N igcrian Local Government Election Process Under Military Rule. 1987 ,"paper prepared for presentation at the Fourteenth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., 28 August-! September 1988. Sec also no. 25 below. 25. Okwudiba Nnoli, "The 1987 Local Government Elections in the Eastern Zone of Nigeria: Plateau, Benue. Anambra, Imo, Rivers, Cross River and Akwa Ibom States,'' in Adele Jinadu and Tony Edoh, eds., The 1987-88 Local Gorcrnment Elections in Nigeria. ( 1990), Vol. I: Case Studies, Lagos National Electoral Commission, p. 71. 26. Report of the Political Bureau, p. 12 I. 27. Oyovbaire and Olagunju, Foundations of a New Nigeria. p. 50. 28. Ibid., p. 51. 29. See "Let Us Learn from History," p. 58. 30. Oyovbaire and Olagunju, Foundations of a New Nigeria. 31. Report of the Chief of General Staff Panel to Evaluate Local Government Training Programs at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Obafcmi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and University of Nigeria, Nsukka, April 1988, pp. 122-126. 32. Oyeleye Oycdiran, "Democratizing Local Government in Nigeria: We Have Sighted Canaan. How Do We Get There?" speech at the launching of Essays on Local Government and Administration in Nigeria, 26 April 1988.

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The State Elections of 1991 Dan Agbese & Etim Anim

On 26 January 1991, a :N: 5 million (5 million naira) fund for the newly created Nsukk:a diocese ofthe Roman Catholic Church was launched at the university town of Nsukka, eighty kilometers northwest of Enugu, the capital of what was then Anambra State. The chief launcher was a lawyer, Joe Nwodo, who donated :N: 20,000. Benedict Okwor, another of the launchers, gave :N: 16,000.00. But the biggest applause went to a third individual, Tony Mbah, who-almost as casually as if throwing a ten-kobo coin to a beggar by the roadside-announced a donation of :N: 100,000. There was nothing particularly strange or unusual in the fund-raising or the donations. Fund-raising is a familiar social event in all parts of Nigeria; huge donations are not unusual, either. There have been numerous cases of individual donations of more than four or five times the total amount of money donated by the three men at Nsukka that day. But 1991 was not just another year in Nigeria: it was the year of real politics-the first since the 1983 elections. The first election after 1983 was, of course, the 1987 local government election conducted on a nonparty basis. The second was the 1990 local government election, this time on a party basis. These, however, were mere dress rehearsals for the big political events of 1991-the state governorship and House of Assembly elections. At the beginning of that year, with everyone taking one cautious step after the other in the slow, winding lane of guided democracy in the country, few things were what they seemed. Almost all social events-fundraising, marriages, birthdays, and the conferment of chieftaincy titles-became more important than they usually were in the country, particularly because they provided opportunities for political meetings as well as a show of political muscle and rivalries. Politicians, careful not to beat the gun to the hustings, as it were, used those occasions to size up their political opponents, test the waters, and, more important, provide some indication of their financial strength-the last is quite important in Nigerian politics. 213

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Each of those three men at Nsukka that day knew the game. There was no question that their support for the Roman Catholic Church was genuine. But that the event gave them a chance to play politics did not detract from that support. Each had served notice in their political circles that he was interested in becoming the next governor of Anambra State. By January 1991, Nwodo, a member of the National Republican Convention (NRC), was hardly keeping his intentions a secret: he had begun jostling visibly for the party's nomination. Okwor and Mbah, both members of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), had served similar notice in their own party circles. Mbah's large donation for instance, was his firm, formal way of telling the people that he had the means and that he was ready for the political battle ahead. There was no doubt that, by January that year, each of the two political parties had drawn its battle plans-and it was going to be a big battle. The 1990 local government election, which saw the SDP in a clear lead, made 1991 a year of challenge for both parties, but the National Electoral Commission (NEC), which supervises the elections, kept a tight rein on them. By January, it had not formally approved open campaigns for the either governorship or the House of Assembly elections, which, according to the original transition program of the military, were to be held in August of that year. 1 But this did not stop the politicians. Across the country, young politicians-better known in the new political parlance as the "new breed," were working out their election plans. The nominations were the first hurdle each person had to jump-"horse-trading," was inevitable and had become the name of the game. Political struggles in Nigeria have always been conducted along an unclear ideological divide. Great pretenders to socialist ideas in the country have always mouthed the appropriate and familiar socialist slogans. But not even these have ever succeeded in creating clear ideological divisions for the conduct of elections and political business in the country. Partly to force such a clear division and partly to accommodate such pretensions, the Babangida administration foisted on the country the NRC and the SDP, defined inimitably as "a little to the right" and "a little to the left," respectively: the conservatives versus the progressives. The two parties were created by the government in 1989, when it rejected all of the thirteen political associations that sought registration as political parties. The military administration offered two main justifications for its action. First, it argued that none of the thirteen political associations recommended by NEC was free from the taint of politics of the First and Second Republics. Second, it said that the main weakness of the political parties in the first two republics was that they were largely financed by the rich and, therefore, had been hijacked by them to do their bidding. This time, it wanted political parties that provided equal opportunities for

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everyone and in which, to paraphrase the memorable words of President Babangida---everyone would be founders and joiners. The SDP, which was to the Left, became a rainbow collection of the unregistered political associations with such leanings. The two big ones were the People's Front of Nigeria (PFN) and the People's Solidarity Party (PSP). The PFN had a strong hold in the Northern parts of the country. Its main financier was the retired major-general Shehu Musa Yar'adua, who was chief of staff of the Supreme Headquarters in the Obasanjo administration from 1976 to 1979. The core PSP, on the other hand, was formed by the followers and leading political associates of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, leader of the Action Group (AG) in the First Republic as well as founder and leader of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in the Second Republic. PSP, therefore, derived its leading members from the South-particularly, the old Western Regions, including what was Bendel State. Birds of the same political feather flocked into the NRC, a fusion of the political associations with more centrist political leanings. The three big ones among them were the Liberal Convention (LC), which drew its main support from Northern conservatives; the Nigerian National Congress (NNC) and the Republican Party, both of which drew their main support from the South. If anyone expected the political parties to jockey for power along clearly defined ideological divide, they would have been sorely disappointed. But anyone so disposed must have had a few inaccurate notions about Nigerian politics. Cleavages-ethnic or religious-have always played a more decisive role in Nigerian politics than have ideologies. No one can deny that ideologies have always featured in political debates in Nigeria, but voting patterns have never reflected the impact of such arguments. In 1991, however, the ideological situation became a little murkier for Nigerian politicians with socialist leanings. Long before the formal demise of the Soviet Union later that year, the death knell for socialism had been ringing loud and clear. A new air of political freedom in the Eastern-bloc countries had become a gale throughout the world. As socialist regimes crumbled one after the other, it became increasingly and politically inadvisable to continue to mouth socialist slogans. Therefore, if the SDP had any intentions of pushing or selling its socialist ideals as preferred alternatives to the rightist policies of the NRC, it must have beaten a hasty retreat. Indeed, sometime in 1991, the national chairman of the NRC, Chief Tom Ikimi, appealed to the federal government to advise his SDP counterpart, Alh. Baba Gana Kingibe, to respect the dividing ideological lines and keep strictly to his own side of the field. When the governorship and House of Assembly election campaigns began in earnest, the NRC used the demise of socialism and the disintegration of its chief apostle, the Soviet

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Union, as a strong campaign weapon against the SDP. Certainly, the latter's loss of two supposedly safe states in the governorship election, Lagos and Katsina, to the NRC had little, if anything, to do with the misfortunes of socialism. Since the Second Republic, one factor in particular has become crucial in Nigerian politics: the sharing of political and elective offices in what is known as "zoning." Zoning was introduced, informally, into the politics of the country as a means of accommodating defined vested interests, mainly ethnic and religious; it is a type of political balancing act. In a sense, it predates the Second Republic. Perhaps it began with the First Republic, when, through a coalition or a working agreement between the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) and the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), Alh. Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a Northerner and Muslim, was prime minister and Nnamdi Azikiwe became president of the senate and, later, the first and-as it turned out-only indigenous governor-general. This balancing act was not known as zoning at the time. Indeed, Azikiwe might have held the positions he did as a result of the inevitable horsetrading endemic in politics, but there is no denying that it served the same political purposes that zoning does today. In the 1983 elections, zoning was a contentious issue in the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). It was the party's strength. Informed political analysts also suspected it would be its Waterloo. But the party and the nation, unfortunately, were prevented from witnessing the true test and place of zoning in Nigerian politics when the military staged a comeback in December 1983. If the military did not come back, the NPN would have had to contend with zoning as it affected the biggest political plum of all-the presidency-in 1987. Zoning does not feature in the constitution of any of the political parties. But it does feature as some form of "gentlemen's agreement." The major party offices at national and local levels have always been shared in strict compliance with the zoning policies of the parties. Most of the defections in the political parties are directly traceable to real or alleged breaches of faith in the implementation of the zoning policies. Its place must, therefore, be recognized in political discourse in Nigeria. The big party offices that are based on zoning are those of the party chairman and deputy, the secretary, and the treasurer. The elective offices affected are those of the president and vice-president, the senate president and deputy, speaker of the house of representatives and of the state assemblies, majority and minority leaders, and, in the case of states, governor and deputy governor. In some cases, the zoning policy affects the appointment of a chief judge of a state. Zoning, faithfully observed, ensures that every state (and, thus, every significant ethnic group) gets its fair political representation in the parties and the government. The party positions are usually less contentious than the elective offices.

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Interestingly, the military rulers have always recognized the political wisdom of zoning. For instance, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, as head of state, had the late vice-admiral Akinwale Wey as chief of staff, Supreme Headquarters. Gen. Murtala Mohammed, a Northerner and a Muslim, had Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, a Southerner and a Christian, as his number-two man. When General Obasanjo succeeded him, his number-two man was MajorGeneral Yar'adua, a Northern Muslim. Gen. Ibrahim Babangida continues along the same lines with his number-two men, First Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe and, later, Adm. Augustus Aikhomu, both Southern Christians. Perhaps only the short-lived regime of Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari ignored this tradition. He and his number-two man, the chief of staff, Supreme Headquarters, Maj.-Gen. Tunde Idiagbon, are Northern Muslims. Those instances show just how truly entrenched zoning is in the politics of Nigeria. Although zoning appears to be a simple sharing of party, elective, and appointive offices, a great deal of careful balancing of ethnic, sectional, and religious interests is required. Even in apparently monoethnic states such as the Igbo-, Yoruba-, and Hausa-speaking areas, or in monoreligious states such as Sokoto, Enugu, or Kano, zoning has to contend with other vested interests such as the long history of political fortunes or deprivations as well as the continuing need to reward political faithfulness or punish political deviance. ln multireligious states in which one religion clearly dominates the other, the number-one political slot, the governorship, is usually zoned to those of that religious persuasion while the deputy governorship goes to those of the subordinate one. This has always been the case in Plateau State, with the Christians taking the governorship and the Muslims the deputy governorship. Even here, the interests of the sections in the state must be taken into account. Thus, while the number-two slot in Plateau goes to a Muslim, such a Muslim must come from the Southern part of the state-the former Lafia, Keffi, and Nasarawa divisions. In multiethnic states, the major ethnic groups take the number-one political position. This has always been the case in Benue State, with the Tiv retaining the governorship and the Igala, the deputy governorship. These formulas were followed with some surprise modifications or deviations in some states, in 1991, either to satisfy traditional power blocs or to contend with emergent power blocs after the creation of additional states that year. In Oyo State, before the state was split into Oyo and Oshun states, the three traditional power blocs-namely Ife-Ijesha, lbadan-Ibarapa, and Oshun-contested the most important party and elective offices in the state. Ife-Ijesha produced the SDP chairman for the state, and the field was then left open for the other two to produce the governorship. That was fairly taken care of by the fact that Chief Layi Balogun, an industrialist from Ife-Ibarapa, had presidential ambitions, leaving the field for Oshun.

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In Kwara State, the minorities built pressure on the SDP power center to place one of their own into government house, arguing that it was their turn. In 1979, Alh. Adamu Atta, an lgbira, which was one of the major ethnic groups in the state as it was then, became governor under the platform of the NPN. In 1983. however, because of the acrimonious power tussle in the state, Chief Cornelius Adebayo of the UPN, a Yoruba, became the state governor. The minorities now felt it was their turn to rule the state. Their argument won the support of the state's most powerful power broker, Olusola Saraki, leader of the Senate in the Second Republic.Thus, Alh. Shaaba Lafiagi, a minority man from the Edu local government area, became the gubernational candidate of the SDP; he won the election. There were several instances of such maneuvering. In Benue State, both the SDP and the NRC zone the party chairmanship to the !gala-speaking area of the state. It is not clear if the wisdom of this action was dictated by the fact that the area did not produce a single party leader at the national level in both parties. It may, indeed, either have been a compensation, or the entire zoning arrangment in the state in 1979 must have been dramatically altered. In the Second Republic, for instance, the chairmanship of the NPN, NPP, and GNPP were zoned to the Idoma. The Tiv, the major ethnic group in the state, had the governorship and the Igala, the deputy governorship. We would never know now if the 1979 arrangement was going to be altered. because of the major political decision by the federal government that itself altered many a political arrangement. On 27 August President Babangida surprised the entire nation when he created nine new states, raising the total to thirty. Also, some middle-level ethnic groups became new majority ethnic groups in some states. The careful political equations were dramatically altered, and the parties had to go back to the drawing board to redraw the maps in the affected states. In that exercise, the second by his administration, the Igala area was excised from Benue State and returned to the old Kabba province from whence it came to join what was left of the old Benue province in 1976. The rest of the old Kabba province was taken out of K wara and became Kogi State. The lgala, the middle-level ethnic group in Benue State, now became the major ethnic group in the new state. The NRC and the SDP recognized this new development and accepted the tribe as the leading contender for the governorship. And, in Benue State, the ldoma moved up from the third to the second position and clinched the deputy-governorship candidacy of both parties. The other eight states, Kebbi (from Sokoto), Jigawa (from Kano), Yobe (from Borno), Taraba (from Gongola), Oshun (from Oyo), Delta (from Bendel), Enugu (from Anambra), and Abia (from Imo), as well as what was left of Bendel, renamed Edo and what was left of Gongola now renamed Adamawa State, contended with this new development in various ways. In Delta, for instance, the Urhobo became the new major ethnic group and the Ika-Ibo, the middle-level one.

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Power is a magnet for the ambitious. If the 1991 governorship contest was an indication of the political ambition of Nigerians, then the dearth of the ambitious is not one of the country's problems. By the middle of the year, as many as 400 persons, men and women, had begun to jostle for nomination as governorship candidates in the then 21 states. In the old Anambra State, there were 46 contenders as of July. In Akwa Ibom, a state with a population of 4.2 million, there were 14 candidates from both parties. Benue State had 22 split evenly between the two parties; Lagos had 21, 14 of them in the SOP, and Imo had 27, with 15 of them from the NRC. There were serious contenders, and there were those who did not need to be told they had no chance. The presence of the latter in large numbers was a reflection of the peculiar nature of Nigerian politics. Contending the highest party or elective office gives relatively unknown individuals a chance to become known and, in the inevitable horse-trading, to be duly compensated. Sometimes they are handsomely bought off by the more serious candidates. A welcome feature of the 1991 elections was the quality of candidates. People of varying educational backgrounds and experiences were magnetized by political power. There were university professors, retired civil servants, professionals from the public and private sectors, people of proven competence in various fields and disciplines, and wealthy entrepreneurs. In Akwa Ibon, every candidate had at least a bachelor's degree. Lawrence Ebong was a former rector of a polytechnic; Efiok Akpan held a master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley; Okon Amana was an alumnus of the Imperial College, London. In Bauchi State, Isa Dahiru was the executive chairman of a motor firm, Steyr Motors; Ibrahim Waziri was a computer technologist; Bappa Dali was the registrar of the College of Education, Gombe; Dahiru Mohammed is a retired director-general; Balarabe Tafawa Balewa and Ali Gombe were former ambassadors; and Ahmed Mu'azu was a lecturer in the University of Jos. In Anambra State, there were a nuclear physicist, an expert in international law, a retired permanent secretary, a medical doctor, and engineers. The former Bendel State paraded a former director-generaJ,2 a management consultant, medical doctors. and assorted other professionals. Benue State had a retired high-court judge and a law professor, while Kaduna had a banker and a former university vice-chancellor. Certainly, a university degree or a professional career in the public or the private sector was not a guarantee for good political leadership or competence. But, more and more, educated, competent, articulate, and seriousminded Nigerians no longer seemed to regard politics as a dirty game for the less successful and the less intellectually endowed compatriots. The emergence of such people perhaps owed to the ban on the politicians and public officeholders in the First and Second Republics. The military administration itself saw it as a salutary development as a consequence of its

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controversial ban. A week after the governorship election, on 14 December, so convinced was the government of the success of its policy of keeping out the old politicians from the new politics that it felt encouraged to lift the ban. It said that the transition process had gone too far to be reversed or hijacked by the old politicians. That rationale remained debatable, however. In fact, the widespread presence of accomplished Nigerians in politics was a continuation of the pleasant development in the Second Republic, when most of the governors were graduates and professionals.

THE PARTY PRIMARY ELECTIONS

Some things change slowly. Across the country, as the campaigns warmed up, it soon became clear that the country's politics remained firmly rooted in money and the tradition of tall promises rather than issues. The generous promises of the good things of life must have rung hollow in the face of the nation's economic difficulties. The resurgence of money politics came as a sore disappointment to the military. Part of the reason the military administration decreed the two political parties was to discourage money politics. It is a cruel irony that the transition politics may have perhaps been the most expensive in Nigeria's political history. None of the governorship candidates was willing to say anything about their campaign expenses, but some idea can be gleaned from this: in Delta State, intraand interparty candidates keenly watched one another's spending before and during the primaries. Each candidate worked hard to outspend the other. It was a bonanza as usual for the electorate. Money politics is not a harmless national game. It turned the governorship primaries and the subsequent election into a war. Indeed, politics has always been played like a do-or-die affair in Nigeria. This time, the struggle became unusually fierce within rather than between the political parties. In the old Anambra State, the struggle for nomination between Joe Nwodo and Hyde Onuaguluchi was so intense that it threatened to tear the NRC apart. Supporters of Onuaguluchi alleged that Nwodo was using a Lagos-based newspaper, the Broom, to wage a campaign of calumny against their candidate. To counter that, Onuaguluchi set up his own weekly newspaper, the Newsman, in Enugu. And this "war" was joined. When both men eventually went to the primaries, the results showed they were equally matched: in the first round, the score was virtually even; in the second, it was also a close call, but Nwodo clinched it. Charges of electoral fraud are endemic in Nigerian politics. Such fraud takes several forms before and during elections. As a prelude to the governorship primaries, NEC ordered a four-week-long registration of party members in May 1991. It turned up some surprising evidence of chicanery. Party supporters turned up in the 5,575 ward offices throughout the

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country only to find that there were no voter registers and cards. The registration had been hijacked, it was alleged, by some banned politicians and their new-breed cronies, who took away millions of registration cards. Some registration centers were moved to the homes of some wealthy kingmakers. Again, the old Anambra State provides a good example of the sort of things that went on. On 13 May, Nwodo waited for most of the day at the Enugu airport for the arrival of registration cards from NRC headquarters in Lagos. The cards did not arrive. Shortly before midnight, he telephoned Lagos only to be told that the cards had left at Lagos 3:00 P.M. by road in a party van. Nwodo quickly dispatched his supporters to the Niger bridge head at Onitsha. He sent another group to Achi, the hometown of his political rival. Two other teams were dispatched to monitor the homes of the state party chairman and the secretary in Enugu. It was all a fruitless mission; the cards had disappeared. In some states, party members accused one another of buying party cards. In Calabar, Cross River State, an SDP official claimed that his party spent 500,000 of party funds buying cards for their own chosen candidates. Naturally, the authenticity of the registration became suspect and a subject for intense intraparty crises. In Lagos State, Chief Yomi Edu, an SDP governorship candidate, threatened that his campaign headquarters would not accept the results of any election conducted by the party's state executive using the new registrar of its members. These new problems again raised tension within the parties. Some party stalwarts appealed to the NEC to intervene, but the commission refused. Its chairman, Humphrey Nwosu, argued that doing so would amount to "a referee in a football match taking over the match and scoring goals." One other problem confronted the two parties: the large number of governorship aspirants. To solve this problem, the SDP suggested that its candidates be short-listed. In Oyo State, where nineteen people were gunning for the party, six were short-listed. The remaining thirteen objected and formed a coalition to oppose the action. The problem was partly solved by the natural process of whittling down and partly by the creation of nine new states, which shifted the primaries scheduled for 24 August to a new date. But the candidates confronted one another, using every available piece of evidence to discredit and disqualify opponents. In Rivers State, for instance, three strong candidates, Rufus Ada-George, Zebulon Abule, and Pere Ajuwa. had emerged in the NRC. Abule appeared to be leading the others when his opponents uncovered the fact that he had served a oneyear jail term in 1968 for conspiracy, forgery, and stealing. He produced documents to show that he had received state pardon in 1984. But the stigma stuck. Such smear campaigns were common. In Oyo State, the ambition of another governorship candidate was scuttled when his opponent dredged up the information that twenty-five years previously he had raped a teenager.

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The struggles for nomination in the two parties were carried on under the looming shadows of the banned politicians. Government repeatedly warned that new-breed politicians found to be consorting with the banned politicians would themselves be banned. Newspaper cartoons showed newbreed politicians proclaiming independence in the day but paying homage and taking instructions from banned politicians at night. The government warnings had little effect. Everyone knew, to use a familiar cliche, that many of the new-breed voices were those of Jacob: only the hands belonged to Esau. This created problems in both parties. In Imo State, the fight for the SDP ticket was essentially between Fabian Osuji, former vice-chancellor of the state university, and Ezekiel Izuogu, an engineer. Izuogu belonged to the PSP faction of the party and Osuji, the PFN faction. Osuji was the chairman of Arthur Nzeribe Foundation. Chief Nzeribe, a former senator, boasted of being the kingmaker of the SDP in the eastern states. In contesting Osuji, Izuogu was clearly standing up to the party machinery controlled by Chief Nzeribe-he was taking on city hall! Katsina also presented an interesting scenario, again involving the SDP. Alh. Umaru Yar'adua and Alh. Abu Jalli were in the running. It was an unequal match: Alh. Yar'adua is Maj.-Gen. Shehu Musa Yar'adua's brother: the general was one of the party kingpins in the north. Alh. Jalli recognized what he was up against. He confessed: "The party officials are with him [Alh. Yar'adua] but the vast majority of party supporters are with me." The same situation drove Alh. Saidu Barda, a former permanent secretary, from the SDP into the warm embrace of the NRC in the state. Alh. Barda was Major-General Yar'adua's first choice for the party's governorship ticket. But the general later switched his support to his brother. Alh. Barda knew he could not win the SDP nomination, so he quit the party and joined the NRC. He was to create an upset for the SDP in the governorship election in December. By early August, the unhealthy intraparty rivalries and personality clashes had created an atmosphere so tense that President Babangida was led to read the riot act to them again. "Government," the president warned in no uncertain terms, "will not hesitate to deal decisively with anybody who violates the transition to civil rule decree or perpetrates violence in any of the parties." And government did throw all the races out of joint when it created new states and local governments on 27 August. It was an unexpected development. There had been renewed, vigorous campaigns for the creation of new states, which intensified as a buildup to the president's sixth anniversary in power. Previously, President Babangida had always used this anniversary occasion to make one surprise decision or another. But no one expected that new states would be created for two reasons. First, the president himself had promised, as far back as 1987 when he created Akwa Ibom and Katsina states, that his government

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would not create any more states; and, second, the creation of new states would affect the transition timetable. This new political development caught the politicians off guard, creating new political dynamics in the affected old states (most of the country). The creation of new local governments compounded the situation. The parties were forced to dissolve party executives in the affected states and local governments. This brought a new wave of intraparty crisis that was particularly strong in the SDP because members of the old executives refused to hand over to caretaker committees. To make matters worse, it was no longer clear when the party primaries would be held. NEC had rules that they would be held a week after the creation of new states and local governments. Both parties protested this. But there were some salutary developments as well. The hooliganism and violence that had begun to spread in the two political parties subsided, as politicians found they had to go back to the drawing board for new calculations. Governorship candidates who had found themselves overshadowed in the old states now found themselves in the number-one slot in their new ones. In the former Imo State, for instance, the struggle in the NRC had been between Obgonnaya Onu, a former university lecturer, and Chief Evans Enwerem, a businessman. Onu 's political strength lay in the Umuahia-Aba zone, while Chief Enwerem had on his side the support of the state party machinery and of Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the millionaire publisher of the Champion group of newspapers in Lagos, as wll as a leading member of the NRC and its major financier in the eastern states. Thus, Chief Enwerem clearly had the upper hand in the struggle. With the state split into two, however, Onu became the front-runner in the new Abia State, leaving Imo in the firm grip of Chief Enwerem. Both went on to win the governorship election in their respective states. One big political calculation went awry in at least three states. Going by the results of the 1990 local government elections, some states were thought to be safe seats for the SDP. With the split of such states in 1991, the party figured it would win an extra state in each case. This was the expectation in Adamawa and Taraba (from the old Gongola State), Kana and Jigawa (from the old Kana State), Benue and Kogi (from the old Benue and Kwara states), and Yobe and Barno (from old Barno State). The calculation was right only in Barno and Yobe states. It went wrong in Kano and Jigawa, where the NRC took Kano and the SDP won Jigawa. The split of Gongola into Adamawa and Taraba also gave the SDP one and not two states. It won the new Taraba State, and the NRC captured Adamawa State. SDP also lost Kogi State, despite all predictions. Kogi State, where the Igala became the largest single ethnic group (increasing from the number-two position they held in old Benue State), illustrates the change in the fortune of some ethnic groups with the creation of new states. Three of four serious contenders for governorship in the new

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state were Igala. The NRC had one-Alh. Abubakar. an Igala-who eventually won the election. The SDP had two lgala candidates-Stephen Achema, former chairman of the Idah local government, and Hassan Yakubu, a young graduate and son of a rich businessman. The third SDP candidate was Chief Silas Daniyan. a businessman from Kabba. NEC rescheduled the governorship primaries for 19 October. In the two political camps, serious horse-trading again became the name of the game. There was a realignment of political forces and groups. Concessions were wrested and freely traded. As the contests moved into top gear, the also-rans dropped by the wayside, clearing the stable for the serious candidates. Quarrels lingered and had to be patched up in many of the states. Some efforts in this direction failed and led to defections in the dying minutes of the game. The horse-trading generally succeeded in areas where a particular party felt its chances against its rival were slim. This was the situation in the NRC in Kano State. That state was regarded as a safe SDP stronghold because it was the home of the late populist politician Malam Aminu Kano and of Alh. Abubakar Rimi, governor of the state in the Second Republic and one of the godfathers of the party. The NRC succeeded in reducing the number of its candidates there to two in order to consolidate itself. The SDP had six candidates. In Lagos, the SDP had six candidates and the NRC, four. It was also believed that the NRC had no chance in that state either. The NRC, which felt confident of victory in Akwa Ibom State, had ten candidates to three from the SDP. When the final tally was taken on the morning of 19 October, there were 414 governorship candidates: SDP with 220 and NRC with 194. They were ready to go. But the entire thing was stalked by that fearsome bugbear of Nigerian politics: rigging. What happened at the intraparty voter registration shook the shaky confidence of many party members. They could not count on the neutrality of the party barons to conduct fair party primaries. This fear was further fueled by Jerry Gana, chairman of the mass mobilization for social justice and economic reconstruction, better known by its acronym, MAMSER. On 16 October, just three days before the primaries, Gana said that some candidates, with the backing of some party chieftains, had stockpiled party-membership cards and had illegally written false names in the membership registers. Some of the party members, therefore, objected to the parties' conducting of the primaries. Izuogu of SDP in Imo State was one of those who did not trust the party executives; they preferred that NEC conduct the election. Again, NEC refused to intervene. But the commission was worried. Nwosu, its chairman, in efforts to allay the public, called in security agents and posted 13,854 poll watchers to the 6,927 wards in the country-two poll watchers in each ward. Their duty was to monitor the commencement and close of voting, the recording of votes, and the

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behavior of accredited party agents. It seemed like a reasonable safety measure. And 19 October was the litmus test of that measure. Early reports indicated that the primaries were largely free and fair. There were no reports of major violence. Nwosu exulted: "Tam so impressed. I am so impressed. The orderliness, peace and harmony recorded during the exercise was unprecedented in the history of voting in Nigeria." He had spoken too soon. When the results began to come in on 22 October, they were heralded by a deafening chorus of allegations of rigging, ranging from vote switching, and the doctoring of figures to the intimidation of voters. Such protests and allegations are not uncommon in Nigeria; few losers accept their electoral defeats gracefully. But, this time, these allegations amounted to a painful national disappointment: despite all the preparations and the preachments for new-style politics and politicking, the nation was laboring under yesterday's shadows. The emerging picture was one of a massive electoral fraud in which all sorts of tricks had been employed to alter results. Worse, the smell of money in it all was offensive. On 24 October, the National Security Council was summoned into a prolonged session, where it received a detailed briefing on the conduct of the party primaries. The council learned that there had been massive rigging. Speculations were rife that the council would cancel the election. The initial reaction in the council tended to favor this option. In the end, however, the council felt it was wiser to shrug it off as a party affair and hope that things would improve. There was one sore point: the role of banned politicians and disqualified former public officeholders in the conduct of the primaries. The council learned that three of them, Chief Arthur Nzeribe, Maj.-Gen. Shehu Musa Yar'adua, and Olusola Saraki, had been openly involved in the primaries. Again, although the initial reaction in the council was that the three should be arrested in violation of Decree No. 25, after a long discussion the council resolved that they and others affected by the decree merely must now be more carefully watched. The government, however, felt it was necessary to let the parties know it knew what went on and that it was anything but pleased with the conduct of the primaries. On 13 November, the vice-president, Adm. Augustus Aikhomu, met with the national chairmen of the SDP and the NRC in Dodan Barracks and confronted them with the reports of fraudulent electoral practices in the conduct of the primaries that the government had received. He told them in no uncertain terms how disappointed government was over these. The vice-president pleaded with them to ensure that the game was played according to the rules laid down and assured them the government would not interfere in party affairs. Said the admiral: "We believe honestly that it (the primary election process) should be seen and left for the parties to develop and use their own conflict resolution mechanisms

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to deal with party members. There are clear dangers if the government and NEC were to intervene directly to conduct the primaries. The parties have taken off and they should be encouraged to develop confidence and a sense of responsibility." Government's efforts to stay aloof were soon put to a severe test by the unfolding drama. The ripples of protests had become a flood across the nation. Results of the primaries were disputed in virtually all of the states-even where candidates knew the odds were stacked heavily against them. There were merits in some, there were frivolities in others but the combination of the valid and the frivolous threatened to overturn the apple cart, so to speak. It is impossible to give full details of the extent of the rigging in the primaries. Only a few instances will, therefore, suffice to illustrate what the parties and the nation came up against in the new political game. The rigging took two main forms: outright inflation of votes and the questionable handling of results by the electoral officers. In Akwa lbom State, Chief Akpan Isemin had emerged as winner from the pack of ten NRC candidates. He had been so declared by the electoral officers-Lawai Bello, chairman of the party's electoral panel in the state, and Chrys Senlong, the returning officer. When the two men returned to Lagos, however, they filed a report now questioning the validity of Chief Isemin 's victory. They wrote to the party's national secretary, listing irregularities they claimed to have observed in the conduct of the election. They also endorsed the objections raised by the other nine candidates. They claimed that results were returned even in areas where voting did not take place, that they were not given an authenticated list of electoral officers, and that there were alterations of the results by returning officers at the local government level. "Finally," they wrote, "we would like to observe that the state chairman of the party and his executive were clearly in support of one candidate, i.e. Akpan Isemin, and used all state party machinery in support of the candidate. Indeed, we received little or no cooperation from the chairman and his executives. He was unable to hide his support for the candidate. Thus, we have no doubt in our minds that the presiding officers and returning officers were carefully handpicked by the state party executive to favor the candidate." They gave no indication that they were coerced into endorsing Chief Isemin's victory. They were not the only electoral officers who found it convenient, for reasons that could only be guessed, to repudiate themselves. In some cases, chairmen of the panels simply vanished for several days without declaring the results. This was the case in Adamawa State, where the returning officer, Ebere Osieke, was spirited out of town by one of the SDP candidates. He surfaced in Lagos forty-eight hours later to declare Atiku Abubakar winner of the SDP primary election. In other cases, electoral officers read out the results fully protected by the police, as in

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Abia State, where the result of the SDP primary election was hotly disputed. Supporters of Augustine Alaribe, who lost, clashed with those of Sam Eke, who won 52,811 to 24,262: late on election day, a group of dissatisfied party men descended onto party headquarters and set a party car on fire. Mohammed Umar, the chief electoral officer, and Ogbuji Ogbuji, a member of the party's caretaker committee, were guarded by a detachment of thirty armed policemen as they announced the results inside the halL Two truckloads of policemen also took positions outside. As soon as they finished their delicate task, they were escorted to their hotel and whisked off into safety. In Delta State, the result of the primaries pitted the NRC against itself. Eric Opia won in only four of the nineteen local government areas. His closest rival, Godwin Omamuli, won in ten local governments. But theresult showed the wonders of elections. Opia had 117,941 votes, almost twice the number of Omamuli-66, 129-an average of 6,612 per local government. He would have not accept any of it. In Kogi State, the SDP fought itself. In the October primaries, Achema had been declared winner. But, a couple of days later, the returning officer surfaced in Lagos and proceeded to repudiate himself. He declared the result inconclusive and claimed that he had declared Achema winner under duress. Yakubu and Chief Daniyan contested results in two local government areas. The party ordered a fresh election in those two disputed areas. When the result of the fresh election in Yagba West was released, it was a stunner: the local government area had a projected population of 52,000and there were 8,000 registered SDP members-but there was a total of 134,204 votes! Chief Daniyan "polled" more than 98,000 votes. Achema, the leading contender, polled fewer than 600 votes. A runoff was, incredibly, ordered between Chief Daniyan and Yakubu. The situation invited chaos. Sola Iji, the returning officer, was attacked with acid; his attackers disappeared into thin air. In the end, however, Achema went on to contest the election. But the damage to the party cohesion in the state had been done: he lost the general election. Perhaps the most famous case involved the SDP in Lagos State. Two towering figures in the state branch of the party, Chief Dapo Sarumi and Femi Agbalajobi, fought it out at the primaries. The latter was declared winner with 115,386 votes to Chief Sarumi's 114,848 votes-a close call. Interestingly, Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosumu, daughter of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who contested the primaries, could not even vote for herself. She was locked out of the venue when she went to sort out some problems with her supporters at another polling station. Her fate was part of the character of politics of Lagos State. Her defeat was not cause for crisis; Agbalajobi's victory was. Agbalajobi enjoyed the support of Chief Lateef Jakande, governor of the state in the Second Republic, who saw himself as the undisputed heir to the Awolowo political throne. Tokunbo Awolowo Dosumu did

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not appear to want to confer legitimacy on that claim, so she decided to chart her own political cause, using her father's name as compass. Chief Sarumi rejected the result. He claimed that the state party executives shifted the venue of the primaries in six wards unilaterally and without public notice. This, he claimed, denied his supporters the opportunity to vote for him. Matters came to a head when the SDP national chairman, Kingibe, declared the result incomplete. But the Lagos State executive disagreed with their national leader who had ordered a re-run in the disputed wards. The situation split the national executive. In the repeat primaries, however, Chief Sarumi was declared winner. Agbalajobi rejected the result and headed for the court. The courts soon became the last port of call for the aggrieved. The situation was particularly acrimonious in Enugu, Adamawa, and Lagos states. The National Security Council met again on 11 November and reviewed more reports from NEC and security agencies. It was not clear to government that unless something was done-and quickly, too-the December elections might not be held. The courts were being asked to grant injunctions, and many were obliging the requests. This threatened to put the transition program on hold. What was to be done? President Babangida pulled another rabbit out of the hat. He had gone to Spain on a state visit shortly after the 11 November council meeting. He now ordered a shock therapy. In a nationwide radio and television broadcast on the evening of 25 November, Nwosu announced a government decision to cancel the results of the primaries in nine states-Anambra, Enugu, Jigawa, Rivers, Imo, Kano, Lagos, Adamawa, and Kogi. The decision affected the NRC in four states-Enugu, Anambra, Jigawa, and Rivers, and the SDP, in all nine states. Even more drastic was the government decision to ban twelve candidates from further contesting the primaries. These were Nwodo and Onuaguluchi (NRC, Enugu); Zebulon Abule (NRD, Rivers); Alh. Atiku Abubakar and Bala Takaya (SDP, Adamawa); Okey Odunze (SDP, Anambra); Fabian Osuji (SDP, Imo); Alh. Sule Lamido and Alh. Yusuf Sani (SDP, Jigawa); Sergeant Awuse (SDP, Rivers); and Agbalajobi and Chief Sarumi (SDP, Lagos). Nwosu said the action was taken "to arrest the drift towards chaos, a situation which could be exploited by anarchists and mischief-makers." The country was stunned. The action came only twelve days after Admiral Aikhomu had pledged that the government would stay out of the crises generated by the primaries. But when the dust settled, many people felt the government had acted in time to avert a possible national disaster. The struggle had become a do-or-die affair characterized by confusion, isolated but disturbing cases of violence, and heightened tension. The national chairmen of both parties were, nevertheless, outraged. But the action brought some of the sanity back to the political environment.

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The government had now served notice that it would not tolerate attempts to stall the transition or cause drift. A week later, on 2 December, the government acted again. The inspector-general of police, Alh. Aliyu Atta, summoned twelve banned politicians to his office for what appeared to be a routine meeting. But, instead, they were instantly arrested. Six of them-Solomon Lar, Chief Lateef J akande, Alh. Abubakar Rimi, Chief Jim Nwobodo, Chief Bola lge, and Chief Christian Onoh-were governors in the Second Republic. The other big fish were Major-General Yar'adua, the number-two man in the Obasanjo administration, Chief Nzeribe, Saraki and Bello Maitama Yusuf, a minister in the Shagari administration. They were charged before the transition tribunal for participating in politics in violation of Decree No. 25 of 1987 and Decree No.9 of 1989. The tribunal ordered them to be remanded in police custody until 16 January 1992. Two days later, two other banned Second Republic politicians, Paul Unongo and Alh. Lawai Kaita, joined them in custody. The action was generally welcomed by the public, partly out of a sadistic satisfaction that the untouchables had been touched and partly out of a growing public feeling that government was showing increasing ineptitude in enforcing its own laws. The primaries held in the nine states between 25 November and 10 December were relatively more peaceful. The politicians were forced to patch up their quarrels. In some states, however, the action of the government clearly left the parties without strong candidates. This happened in Lagos State, where Chief Yomi Edu, who had trailed in the SDP primaries, now became the party's governorship candidate against the more mature and seasoned Chief Michael Otedola of the NRC.

THE STATE ELECTIONS OF 14 DECEMBER

The general elections on 14 December 1991 for state governors and houses of assembly were peaceful. These were the second major litmus test of the open-ballot system; and they were as free and as fair as could be expected in the circumstances. But the confusion and bitterness generated by the primaries had not gone away. The immediate consequence was gubernatorial upsets in relatively "safe" areas. This affected the SDP more than the NRC. Lagos, a stronghold of center-left politics since Chief Awolowo's Action Group had broken the backbone of the NCNC in the mid-1950s, and which was regarded as a very safe SDP haven, produced the first major upset for the party. The governorship election was won hands down by the NRC: Chief Otedola won 54 percent of the votes, having reaped the benefits of the crisis in the SDP. A few days before the election, SDP supporters were openly campaigning for Chief Otedola against their own

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candidate, Chief Edu. In the state assembly election, however, the SOP won twenty-six seats to the NRC's four. (See Table 9.1 at the end of this chapter for the full gubernatorial results.) Something else may have helped Otedola. It was unusual in Lagos State, but a few days before the election Chief Otedola, a devout Catholic, was being presented to the public as the first Christian who would govern the state. Chief Edu, his SOP rival, is a Muslim. The Catholic church in the state was said to be solidly behind Otedola, with the controversial Archbishop Olubunmi Okogie allegedly urging his flock to vote for Otedola, referred to in media hype as Sir Otedola, to break the Muslim hold on the Lagos government house. Another upset was in Katsina State, home of the SOP strongman Major-General Yar'adua, whose brother was the party's governorship candidate. The race went to the NRC's Alh. Saidu Barda. It was a protest vote against the alleged stage-management of the primaries in favor of Alh. Umar Yar'adua. In the assembly election, however, the SDP again showed it was the dominant party in the state, winning thirty seats to NRC's eighteen. (See Table 9.2 for the full state House of Assembly election results.) In Kaduna State, Ango Abdullahi of the SOP also lost to his NRC rival, Alh. Mohammed Debo Lere. Abdullahi, a member of the PFN faction of the party, had been locked in a bitter struggle with Adamu Maikori, a bigwig of the PSP faction. The latter went to court to challenge the former's nomination. The court injunction ordering Abdullahi, a professor, not to campaign was quashed only on 11 December-three days before the election. But it turned out to be a drubbing for the SDP too: the NRC won thirty-six of the assembly seats to the SDP's sixteen. Kano, like Lagos, produced a dramatic reversal of political tradition. In Alh. Aminu Kano's backyard, where the radical Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) and the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) had been dominant in the first two republics, the right-of-center party won the governorship. And it was not a fluke. The NRC also shattered the invincibility of the left in the House of Assembly election, winning thirty-five seats to the SDP's thirty-two. The party's loss was again a consequence of its schism along the PFN-PSP fissure. The kingpin of the party in the state was Abubabakar Rimi, the former governor of the state, who belonged to the PSP faction of the party. Alh. Rimi's disapproval of the choice of Alh. Ahmed Rufai as the running mate to the party's governorship candidate led to a split in the party leadership. Perhaps it was political history repeating itself so soon. In the Second Republic, disagreement between Alh. Rimi and Malam Aminu had caused a split in the PRP, led by the late venerable leftist politician. It is possible that the people of the state had not yet recovered from that crisis enough to regain their leftist political unity that dates back to the days of the nationalistic, left-wing NEPU, founded and led by the late Malam Aminu. Jigawa, luckily, showed that the leftist torch

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in the area had not burned out. It was won by the SOP, despite the disqualification of its gubernatorial candidate, Alh. Lamido, only two weeks before the election. In Enugu, Nwodo finally showed who was boss of the NRC in that state. His younger brother, Emmanuel, a pediatrician, won the governorship. Onuaguluchi had defected to the SOP. Both parties returned nine legislators each in the House of Assembly election. In neighboring Anambra, Odunze ·s disqualification increased sympathy for the SOP because people felt that the government, in disqualifying him, was stacking the cards in favor of the NRC. And Chukwuemeka Ezeife, a retired federal permanent secretary, won for the SOP. Here, again, was the influence of religious politics: the Anglicans in the state alleged that the Catholics were using the church as a support base for the NRC candidate. Ezeife, a Salvation Army member, must have benefited from this internal rift in the rival party, as he captured 51.7 percent of the votes. In several states, however, the results followed the familiar pattern. This was the case in Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Oshun, Edo, Kwara, Plateau, Yobe, Taraba, and Delta states where the SOP won hands down. Similarly, in Sokoto, Kebbi, Bauchi, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Cross River,3 and Niger, the NRC won the governorship election. Benue, controlled by the NPN in the Second Republic, went to the SOP. This seemed to retrace the state's leftist steps from the First Republic, when Joseph Tarka had led the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) into an alliance with Chief Awolowo's Action Group. The result in K wara showed deft political maneuvering by Saraki, the SOP kingmaker in the state. The state occupies a unique political position-a Yoruba-dominated state in the old Northern region. Alh. Shaaba Lafiaji, who beat the NRC's Abdulrasheed Salman, is Nupe, a minority ethnic group in the state. Efforts to rally ethnic support for Salman were shattered by Saraki's cold calculations. Salman did not even win the Yoruba-dominated Ilorin East and Ilorin West local government areas-his home base. Barno, which went to the NPN in 1983, was also retrieved by the left this time around, thanks largely to the efforts of the SOP national chairman, Baba Kingibe, in this, his home state. By contrast, the NRC chairman, Chief Ikimi, and his deputy chairman, Chief Stephen Lawani, lost the governorship and House of Assembly elections in their respective states-Edo and Benue.

CONCLUSION

In the end, the 1991 state-election results followed more or less the political patterns of the past. The core Hausa-Fulani Northern states voted for

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the NRC, the party a little to the Right. The East, also largely a Republican area, voted right. It went left in 1979 but since has tilted toward alliance with the dominant party of the North since the waning days of colonial rule. The old West and the old Mid-West, as usual, went a little to the left. The minority elements played it both ways-left and right. Those in the Middle Belt went largely left, but those in the East again, as in the Second Republic, went right. In the First Republic, the minorities had stayed more together. The first postcolonial federal government (1959) was a coalition between the NPC and the NCNC based in the Northern and Eastern Regions, respectively. The AG, which controlled the West and Mid-West, was in opposition. Radical Northern elements in Kano, the Middle Belt, and the North-East had their political parties and generally sided with the AG. The minorities in the East also did the same to protest NCNC "oppression." In the Second Republic, there was a realignment of political forces. Chief Tarka and the minorities in the East crossed over to the Right. But the minority elements in the North-East formed their own party, the GNPP (led by Alb. Waziri Ibrahim), which won that part of the country in 1979. And, of course, the late Malam Aminu Kano remained true to himself, with his own political party that controlled his home state and the executive in neighboring Kaduna State. Although the NRC won 16 governorships in 1991, to 14 for the SDP, the latter prevailed in the state House of Assembly elections, winning 629 seats to the NRC's 544. In addition to the 14 states where it won the governorship, the SDP also won legislative majorities in Katsina, Cross River, and Lagos states, making three NRC minority governors. There was not one SDP "minority" governor. SDP chieftains insisted that this was an indication of the popularity of their party. Perhaps: there was every evidence to support the view that, had the party not burned its own house, it could have coasted to certain governorship victory in Lagos and Katsina states. Predictably, both parties rejected the results in some areas. The SDP protested in ten states and the NRC, in three. Both parties took their case to the election tribunals.4 Despite the controversies and few anomalies, governorship elections were generally consistent with the predictions of political analysts that none of the two parties was strong enough to sweep the entire country.

Table 9.1 States Abia Adamawa Akwa-Ibom Anambra Bauchi Benue Bomo Cross River Delta Edo Enugu Imo Jigawa Kaduna Kano Katsina Kebbi Kogi Kwara Lagos

National Electoral Commission: Results of 14 December 1991 Gubernatorial Elections Total Votes Cast 424,495 627,574 1,013, 092 506,305 1,758,216 864,444 557,456 536,474 764,499 507,394 761,620 658,503 359,421 1,186,359 579,613 568,612 399,559 528,378 436,494 780,620

NRC Candidate

Percent of Vote

Dr. 0. Onu Alb. Abubakar Michika Isemin Akpan James N. Eriobuna Dahiru Mohammed Prof. I. Ayua Abba Gana Terab Clement D. Ebri Prof. E. Opia Lucky lgbenidion Dr. 0. Nwodo Chief E. Enwerem Alb. Buba Aliyu Alb. Dabo Lere Alb. Kabiru Gaya Alb. Barda Saidu Alb. Abubakar Musa Abubakar Audu Alb. Salimoni Chief M. Otedola

72.6 55.6 59.0 48.3 86.7 46.7 48.9 53.6 37.3 48.7 60.4 58.7 33.4 55.3 56.4 51.1 74.3 56.8 25.1 54.4

SDP Candidate Dr. S. Eke D. G. Mustapha Etuk Ekong Samson Emeka Ezeife Adamu Bulkachuwa Rev. M. Adasu Maina Ma'aji Lawan Ntufam M. Ojong Chief Felix Ibru Chief John Oyegun G. Gbazuagu Dr. Alex Obi Alb. A. S. B/Kudu Prof. Ango Abdullahi Eng. Magaji Abdulahi Umaru M. Yar'adua Alb. Abubakar Koko Dr. Steven Achema Alb. M. S. Lafiasi Yomi Edu

Percent of Vote

Winning Party

27.4 44.4 41.0 51.7 13.3 53.3 51.1 46.4 62.7 51.3 39.6 41.3 66.6 44.7 43.6 48.9 25.7 43.2 74.9 45.6

NRC NRC NRC SDP NRC SDP SDP NRC SDP SDP NRC NRC SDP NRC NRC NRC NRC NRC SDP NRC

(continues)

Table 9.1

continued

States --------·~

Niger Ogun Ondo Osun Oyo Plateau Rivers Sokoto Taraba Yobe

Total Votes Cast

NRC Candidate

--·-·----~----·--

499,287 410,041 562,551 442,851 593,451 1,309,803 1,856,389 587,618 834,635 232,387

·-·

Percent of Vote

SOP Candidate

Percent of Vote

Winning Party

42.2 72.0 66.6 56.7 57.5 59.2 48.0 17.3 57.9 55.0

NRC SOP SOP SOP SOP SOP NRC NRC SOP SOP

--

Dr. Musa lnuwa Chief Femi Coker A. Ogunlade Adebayo Salami Alh. A. Y. Ayoade Bagudu M. Hirse Rufus A. George Alh. Yahaya Abdulkarim Dr. A. S. Jalingo Maina A. Saddiq

57.8 28.0 33.4 43.3 42.5 40.8 52.0 82.7 42.1 45.0

Alh. Egba Enagi Chief S. Osoba B. Olumilua Isiala Adetunji Adeleke Chief K. Ishola Fidelis Tapgun Chief E. Eso Alh. Z. S. Magori Rev. Jolly Nyame Alh. Bukar Ibrahim

Table 9.2

Results of 14 December 1991 State House of Assembly Elections NRC

State

Abia Adamawa Akwa Ibom An ambra Bauchi Benue Bomo Cross River Delta Edo Enugu Imo Jigawa Kaduna Kano Katsina Kebbi Kogi Kwara Lagos Niger Ogun Ondo Osun Oyo Plateau Rivers Sokoto Taraba Yo be Total

Number of Seats

25 17 33 14 39 14 15 13 14 11 19 27 10 20 33 19 27 23 2 4 26 1 6 4 13 11 29 55 12 8 544

SDP Votes

252,824 303,809 609,196 249,847 1,007,316 406,441 265,059 254,708 312,293 245,084 369,485 351,665 141,546 581,781 273,603 274,893 262,833 290,857 115,428 306,561 276,643 108,791 196,714 155,923 246,409 549,605 939,753 439,854 401,351 106,325 10,296,597

Number of Seats

9 15 15 18 7 22 27 15 22 17 19 15 32 16 35 32 5 9 22 26 12 29 45 42 37 34 19 3 12 18 629

Votes

150,996 313,254 409,293 234,663 489,645 450,049 280,998 274,827 425,449 258,802 373,106 293,245 208,351 567,561 272,338 280,911 117,331 230,985 311,096 432,779 196,912 291,501 347,073 279,098 341,454 691,609 868,257 112,151 425,697 203,575 10,142,006

Total Number of Seats

34 32 48 32 46 36 42 28 36 28 38 42 42 36 68 51 32 32 24 30 38 30 51 46 50 45 48 58 24 26 1,173

Total Votes Cast

403,820 617,063 1,018,489 493,663 1,496,961 854,490 546,057 529,335 737,742 503,886 742,591 644,910 349,897 1,149,342 545,941 555,804 380,164 521,842 521,842 739,340 473,555 400,292 543,787 435,021 587,863 1,241,214 1,808,010 552,005 827,048 309,900 20,438,603

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NOTES

1. In the modified program, the governorship and House of Assembly elections were held on same day, 14 December 1991. 2. In the 1988 civil service reforms, permanent secretaries were redesignated director-generals. 3. In the House of Assembly election, the SDP won fifteen to NRC's thirteen. 4. At the time of writing, the tribunals nullified the election in Edo, Jigawa, and Abia states. Edo and Jigawa affected the SDP, and the NRC was affected in Abia State.

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The National Assembly Elections ofl992 Eghosa E. Osaghae

The importance attached to any election in Nigeria, as reflected by such indices as voter turnout, the level of interest it generates, and, of course, its outcome, is a function of how critical the election is perceived to be. By "critical," we mean here the extent to which, in popular perception, an election involves contestation for power of immense significance for the allocation of values among groups. 1 The higher the power is perceived to be, the higher the voter turnout is likely to be, thus making the election more critical than others. Therefore, it is not difficult to see why, in general, legislative elections under the presidential system in Nigeria have not been as critical as presidential, gubernatorial, and, now, local government chairman elections. However, perception of people that places legislative elections on a lower rung is itself a dependent rather than independent variable. To understand why these elections are not considered critical, we have to explain this perception of low importance. Two closely related reasons can be advanced. The first is the continued unfamiliarity with the executive presidential system that has prevented voters and politicians alike from appreciating the important role(s) of the legislature in this system. As a reporter noted in explaining the lack of enthusiasm on the part of high-caliber politicians for the 1992 National Assembly elections, "It was no doubt evident that not many Nigerian politicians know the importance of the National Assembly.... This was apparently so because every tom wanted to be ... president, such that the invaluable position of law makers was seen as not too good for them." 2 This was not the case in the parliamentary system that was operative in the country up until 1966. Because the executive derived its existence and power from the legislature, elections into the latter, as well as determinants of representation like census and political boundaries, were critical political issues.3 But in a presidential system that revolves around the chief executive, and in which executive and legislative elections are held separately, the focus has shifted to the executive. 237

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And this leads us to the second reason for the dec! ine of legislative elections in popular perception. Since the advent of military rule, government has increasingly come to be seen as principally an executive affair. As it is said, this is the era of executive government. 4 Thus, although the legislature in a presidential system functions to check and balance the executive-meaning that its importance has not necessarily declined from the parliamentary days-it is still perceived as subordinate to the executive. The situation is not helped by chief executives who treat the legislature as an unnecessary hindrance, having imbibed much of the authoritarian character of military governance. This unfortunate notion of legislative inferiority has, since the Second Republic, tended to tie the outcome of legislative elections to the pattern of executive control, or to the outcome of chief-executive elections. Indeed, where legislative elections have followed those of the executive, as happened in 1983, some form of bandwagon effect is usually assumed, and it is significant that where the former instead precede chief-executive elections, the same bandwagon effects are not assumed. What, then, was the ranking of National Assembly elections in the popular perception? From the experience of the Second Republic and that of the 1992 National Assembly elections, these elections ranked next to presidential and, to some extent, gubernatorial elections, as can be easily seen from the caliber of politicians who contested for the seats, vis-a-vis other elections. In spite of constitutional equality, the Senate was ranked higher in status than the House of Representatives (HOR) and attracted more eminent politicians.5 This may have to do with the fact that the president of the Senate was the number-three man in the federal government according to the 1979 and 1989 constitutions, but this point is not well acknowledged.

BACKGROUND TO THE ELECTIONS

The 4 July 1992 National Assembly elections, comprising elections into the Senate and HOR, were disoriented initially by the constant revision of the timetable of the transition to democratic rule. They were originally scheduled for the first quarter of 1992. Next, they were rescheduled for 7 November 1992, after the presidential election then scheduled for October. Then, finally, in March 1992, they were pushed back to 4 July. Placed within the larger context of the uncertainties that attended the democratic transition process-whose terminal date, structures, and categories of politicians qualified to contest elections were subjects of seemingly endless experimentation by the military government6-these shifts were bound to have disruptive effects on the National Assembly elections.

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One immediate effect of these confusing signals was the initial lack of enthusiasm by politicians to participate in the elections, contrary to a belief at the time that the National Electoral Commission (NEC) had moved the election further back in order to attract quality politicians. The lack of enthusiasm was accentuated by the scheduling of presidential primaries around the same period; most politicians were attracted to the primaries, which were open to all comers and were certainly more prestigious. This also explains why, compared to the categories of politicians who contested National Assembly elections in the Second Republic, there were fewer eminent ones in 1992, even though the effect of the ban placed on certain categories of politicians cannot be denied. But, even if eminent greenhorn or new-breed politicians were interested, the high advance deposits stipulated by NEC and the political parties, as well as other stringent requirements and screening processes, seriously narrowed the range of candidates. NEC imposed :N: 10,000 (10,000) naira and :N: 15,000 deposits, respectively, for HOR and Senate aspirants. In addition, the two parties required huge deposits: for the National Republican Convention (NRC), HOR aspirants were required to pay :N: 5,000 and senatorial aspirants, :N: 30,000; for the Social Democratic Party (SDP), HOR aspirants paid :N: 10,000 and senatorial aspirants, :N: 30,000. Then there were the qualifications for National Assembly aspirants listed in Sections 63 and 64 of the 1989 constitution. The procedure for nominating candidates was no less burdensome. The parties set up various committees to screen the aspirants and ensure that they met the requirements. Later, they were screened by the State Security Service (SSS) and by NEC itself. If an aspirant met all the requirements and passed the screening exercises, he or she was then qualified to take part in the party primaries at which candidates were elected. But, even when all these were completed, and the candidate had actually scaled the primaries, he was still subject to the omnipotent powers of NEC under Decree No. 48 of 1991 and Decree No.6 of 1992. Decree No. 48 empowered NEC to accept, cancel, or annul the result of any primary presented to it by the political parties. Specifically, NEC was at liberty to disqualify any candidate "whose loyalty, patriotism and attitude toward a peaceful and orderly democratic election are questionable ... whose participation in the democratic process may seriously put in doubt and jeopardy the legitimacy or credibility of such an election." NEC had invoked these powers in the past, notably in the gubernatorial elections, where twelve aspirants were disqualified a few days before the elections. In the case of the National Assembly elections, NEC not only disqualified twenty-eight candidates duly elected at primaries but also upturned some results of primaries submitted to it.? Actually, in deciding on those to contest, NEC, in a communication to the two party chairmen, identified six categories of aspirants:

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1. those who had passed all screening exercises and were eligible to contest 2. those declared losers in the primaries, but whom NEC field officers found to have actually won the primaries and who were therefore eligible to contest 3. those who won repeat primaries and were eligible to contest 4. those who won in improperly conducted primaries and had to take part in repeat primaries 5. those who won in the primaries, but whose documents were incomplete and, thus, who were given up until 30 June to produce them 6. those disqualified outright8 Of these categories, the one that proved to be most devastating came under (6), in which twenty-eight candidates were disqualified with only seven days to the elections. Ten of the twenty-eight were senatorial candidates, six SDP and four NRC, while eighteen were HOR candidates, with ten SDP and eight NRC. Most of those disqualified, especially from the senatorial elections, were among the "creme de la creme" of the aspirants, whose involvement conferred on the national legislature the attention and importance it deserved (see below). This last-minute action by NEC gave the replacement candidates (who had previously lost in the primaries) very little time to campaign; but one of the surprises of the eventual elections was that most of them still won. Given the rather rushed manner in which candidates emerged, and the short periods of campaign, very little time was afforded the voters to become familiar with, much less to adjudge thoroughly, the capabilities of the candidates. In fact, in many cases, except through posters and media advertisements, many of the candidates were unknown. Under the circumstances, party support became the crucial factor in deciding for whom to vote-which helps to explain why the replacements of original candidates made little or no difference, as is analyzed below.

THE PRIMARY ELECTIONS

Party primaries to select candidates for the general elections were initially scheduled to be held on 16 May but were moved to 23 May because of the revision of the voters register. That revision was necessitated by the need to tally voter populations with the new population figures that had been released earlier. The primaries for Kaduna and Kano states, however, were not held until 30 May, following the outbreak of riots. The primaries took the form of indirect elections, as only state delegates, not all members of the parties, voted. This narrowing of the electorate affected general interest in the National Assembly elections-which would in all probability

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have been higher if all card-carrying party members had been allowed to participate. There were also fears that fewer voters made it possible for aspirants to lay emphasis on monetary inducements. On the whole, more than two thousand aspirants took part in the primaries to select candidates for the 91 Senate seats and 593 HOR seats. Although they were generally peaceful, the primaries did not go without incidents, leading to cancellations in most cases. For example, the primaries in the Mushin, Isolo, and Oshodi local government areas of Lagos State were canceled because of the outbreak of violence, while those for the SDP in the whole of Niger State were canceled. The common problem everywhere was the unpreparedness of losers to accept that they had been beaten fairly. What factors influenced the outcome of the primaries? There were several, but we shall consider the most important and generalized ones. First was the support of the state governor and/or the state (in some cases, national) party executives. The aspirants so supported were successful in almost all cases. There was also the support of aspiring presidential candidates who saw the primaries and eventual elections as opportunities to test their popularity. These forms of support, which sometimes involved manipulations of party electoral machineries, did not go without protests by losers-and this had some effect on the results of the eventual elections. All over the country, allegations of bias in favor of particular candidates were made. In Bauchi State, Haman Bello Jambo, a defeated NRC senatorial aspirant, alleged that only loyalists of the state governor were allowed to purchase nomination forms. In Oyo State, SDP supporters of unfavored aspirants accused the party's state electoral body of bias. In Lagos State, SDP factions traded allegations of secret nominations, and, in the central senatorial district, three aspirants boycotted the primaries, alleging irregularities in favor of a particular aspirant. In Akwa Ibom State, the NRC state executive and the governor were accused of imposing their candidates on the party. In Enugu State, the SDP executive was accused of stage-managing the nomination of Sam Orji, who was returned unopposed as the candidate for the state's central senatorial district. In a few cases, where the primaries did not favor their candidates, the results were canceled and fresh primaries, ordered. This was how, for example, Chuba Okadigbo-who had earlier lost to Mike Areh in the Anambra south senatorial district SDP primary-was returned unopposed, and Iyorchia Ayu, earlier beaten by Valentine Iortim for the Benue State Senatorial Zone B SDP ticket, also won. The intervention of governors, presidential aspirants, and state/national executives precipitated intraparty crises in some states that, as we analyze below, affected the results of the general elections. Another crucial factor that influenced the outcomes of the primaries was the personality of the candidates themselves, their reputation in the

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community, previous political experience and affiliation, the means andresources available to them, and, finally, how much influence they wielded. The parties themselves placed a high premium on their abilities to get eminent politicians to contest, and deliberate efforts were made in some cases to ensure the victory of those who were well placed enough to win, especially in areas not controlled by the party. We have already alluded to how people like Okadigbo enjoyed party favor. There was also Sam Mbakwe, who declared membership of the SDP and joined the senatorial race in Imo State after nominations for the primaries had formally closed. As former governor of the state in the Second Republic, his entry was expected to turn the fortunes of the SDP around in the NRC-controlled state. On the basis of this calculation, pressure was put on the other aspirants to step down, and Mbakwe was declared the unopposed winner in the senatorial district primary. Other important factors that influenced the outcomes of the primaries included intraethnic conflicts over balancing political privileges in localities; religious conflict, specifically Christian-Muslim disagreements in most Northern constituencies where both groups were well represented; gender (a good number of the female aspirants won); and, finally (some would say most importantly), competitive payoffs that clearly favored the wealthy candidates.

THE CAMPAJGNS

The period between the conclusion of the primaries on 23 May (or in Kaduna, Kano, and other states, where fresh primaries were ordered and took place on 30 May) and the elections on 4 July was too limited to permit extensive campaigning. These limits were obviously most acute in those constituencies where candidates replacing the twenty-eight disqualified ones had only seven days to campaign. The parties themselves did not help matters, as their campaigns formally took off very late in the game: the SDP launched its campaign at Aba on 17 June, while the NRC launched its own in Kano on 21 June. Notwithstanding the time constraints, however, candidates undertook various forms of campaign, ranging from newspaper and radio/television advertisements to rallies in their constituencies. Generally, the contents of these campaign messages hinged the electoral fortunes of the candidates on extant strengths of the parties in the local and state elections. Indeed, media advertisements by the national executives of the two parties merely alluded to previous victories and urged voters to join the "winning party." This emphasis drowned the promises of "better life"better education, health, public transportation, and so on-which these messages also contained. Few references were made to the potential legislative competence and effectiveness of the candidates-in fact, some

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candidates demonstrated acute ignorance of legislative roles, promising to do things clearly beyond the powers of the legislature.9 Apart from media ads, campaign posters displaying the candidates' photographs, party, and National Assembly seat being contested were the commonest campaign medium. There were also rallies addressed by the candidates themselves, party executives and elders, governors, and other party notables, but the main campaign messages revolved around previous party victories and high-sounding promises. All this is not, however, to suggest that the campaigns were far-reaching. In fact, many voters simply did not know or have the opportunity to meet the candidates, some of whom concentrated on media and poster campaigns.1D The widespread disinterestedness that this would have bred among voters was probably mitigated by the sustained campaigns embarked on by NEC and the Directorate of Social Mobilization, which admonished people to vote and educated them on the process of voting. Social Mobilization officers carried these campaigns to virtually every locality and explained to the people the importance of the National Assembly.

THE CANDIDATES

To understand properly the nature of the campaigns, the possible int1uence of personality on the outcomes of the elections, and how much importance the National Assembly had in the perception of the politicians, we need to consider who the candidates were for the elections. At the initial stages, for a number of reasons already discussed-including uncertainties over how the assembly was going to function alongside the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC)-not many "quality" politicians were attracted. But, over time-and with prodding by the federal military government, party executives, governors, presidential aspirants, and other influential people-leading politicians joined the competition for assembly seats. II There was, however, a marked difference in the caliber of politicians who entered the senatorial contest and those in the HOR contest. On average, the more reputable and experienced politicians were interested in the Senate, leaving the HOR to new-breed. relatively inexperienced ones. To the former category belonged a former governor (Sam Mbakwe), former senators and HOR members (Ameh Ebute, Sunday Iyahen, Ahmadu Ali. G. Okpozo ), party leaders and top government leaders from the Second Republic (Wahab Dosunmu, Ebenezer Babatope, Chuba Okadigbo, Ibrahim Tahir, Uba Ahmed), a former vice-chancellor (Wande Abimbola), defeated gubernatorial aspirants (BaJa Takaya, Silas Daniyan, Hamman Jambo, Ebenezer Ikeyinna), retired military officers (Wing Commander Isa Mohammed, Air Vice-Marshal Yisa Doko), and notable publishers/journalists (Chris Okolie, Nduka Obaigbena).

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HOR aspirants, by contrast, were mostly new-breed politicians and a few Second Republic state House of Assembly members. The distinction between both sets of candidates is well made in the words of Newswatch magazine: "Unlike most of the Senatorial aspirants ... many of the HOR aspirants are young professionals still struggling to make their mark in their various fields. Some are recent university graduates who have had no luck in finding employment elsewhere."l2 Part of the explanation for this distinction lies in the widely held belief that the Senate is the upper chamber of the National Assembly. But, in general, the spate of banning and unbanning of politicians by the military government put off many experienced politicians. One striking observation about the National Assembly aspirants is that, compared with the aspirants in the Second Republic who were predominantly lawyers, they were more mixed in their professional backgrounds. Expectedly, most of the well-known and experienced politicians were victorious in the primaries. But they also constituted the bulk of the twenty-eight aspirants disqualified only seven days to the election, and the fact that many of those qualified were Second Republic politicians made many believe that the military government was still averse to the participation of some categories of former politicians. If this was the case, it helps to explain why the array of National Assembly candidates was not as robust as would be expected.

STATE OF THE PARTIES

The final background we shall consider is the state of the parties themselves just before the elections, how their situations affected the processes leading up to the elections, and the ways in which these were likely to affect the outcomes of the elections. The parties took the elections very seriously because they were the first real test of national strengths at the federal level. Previous executive and legislative elections took place at the local and state levels, and although the outcomes of these elections were a good measure of the strengths and weaknesses of the parties, the National Assembly elections provided the opportunity to consolidate and extend support frontiers in the federation. The parties also recognized how important control of the National Assembly was for the president, whose election was scheduled for later that year. The experience ofthe Second Republic in which the president's party (National Party of Nigeria) failed to secure control of the assembly taught the lesson that no matter how powerful a president is, he could have serious problems if his party does not also control a majority in the National Assembly.I3 Consequently, each party approached the elections with every seriousness, hoping thereby to secure a safe legislature if it eventually won the presidential elections. The presidential aspirants themselves were also

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keenly interested and involved in the assembly elections, both to test their popularity and to create legislative bases. In fact, some of the aspirants are believed to have been sponsored by these aspirants as well as by governors and party executives. These overriding concerns did not, however, forestall intraparty crises in the states, especially following allegations of favoritism in the primaries made by losers. At the national level, especially on the part of the SDP however, efforts were made to prevent a repeat of the party's experience in the gubernatorial elections in which states regarded as strongholds like Lagos, Katsina, and Kaduna were lost to the NRC due to intraparty crises. Ad hoc reconciliation committees were set up by the national executive of the SDP to visit states such as Lagos, Imo, Cross River, Katsina, and Benue, where factions had emerged within the party following what some regarded as unfair primaries. The main point in the messages from the national executive was the need to close ranks to prevent the mistakes of the past. The NRC, on the other hand, also engaged in fence-mending among members and factions, though, in scope and depth, the SDP was generally more afflicted with intraparty crises. The eventual victory of the SDP in the elections was as much enabled by the successful resolution of intraparty conflicts as it was by other factors.

THE ELECTIONS

On 4 July, the Senatorial and HOR elections finally took place, in a generally peaceful fashion. There were a few unexpected results (as discussed below), but the results largely followed predictable patterns and generated few of the controversies for which elections in Nigeria have become famous. There were some logistical problems on the part of NEC, leading to late arrivals of voting materials in polling stations and mix-ups in voters' registers while party agents and supporters disagreed violently in some constituencies. These, however, did not detract from the relative peace that attended the elections and declarations of results. Many observers attributed this to the open-ballot system of voting, which reduced the scope for electoral malpractices. The fact that candidates recorded victories in constituencies already controlled by their parties also had a lot to do with it. Nevertheless, following alleged malpractices, NEC ordered by-elections for 18 July in two senatorial districts in Bauchi and Katsina states, and one HOR constituency each in Akwa lbom, Borno, Katsina, and Yobe states.

VOTER TURNOUT

Voter turnout is perhaps the best index for assessing a number of related elements that underlie the conduct and function of elections. These include

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the level of political participation, the degree of political efficacy of citizens, the importance of the election(s) in popular perception, the suitability of the electoral machinery, the popularity or acceptance of the candidates, the degree of validity and legitimacy of the political system, and the validity of the democratization process. For our purpose here, we take voter turnout to be an index of the perceived importance of the elections, the validity of the political system and the democratization process, and political participation. In view of the uncertainties and rushed manner in which the elections took place, the low-key campaigns, and the fact that the importance of the National Assembly was not fully appreciated, the aggregate as well as individual state turnouts were relatively high. Compared to aggregate national turnout in the 1979 elections, for example (25. 7 percent for senatorial elections, 31.0 percent for HOR elections, 32.4 percent for gubernatorial elections, and 34.6 percent for presidential elections), the 1992 turnouts were higher, as Table 10.1 shows. Except for Jigawa, Kano, and, to some extent, Yobe states, turnout was generally high everywhere and especially so in Rivers, Plateau and Taraba states. The situation in these three high-turnout states can be attributed to the images of the candidates and the depth of interparty rivalry. Certainly in Taraba and Rivers states, interparty competition was quite acute and the levels of mobilization by the two parties were quite high. One striking observation from Table 10.1 is that although elections into the two chambers took place simultaneously, the turnouts for the HOR elections were slightly higher than for the senatorial elections. This was not unexpected, considering that there were by far more HOR seats and candidates (there were 1,186 HOR candidates to 182 senatorial candidates) and that whereas HOR constituencies were single local government areas, senatorial constituencies were groups of contiguous local government areas, which, in some cases, were as high as ten. HOR candidates were thus likely to have more concentrated votes in their localities, while senatorial votes were more diffused, except in rare cases where candidates were equally popular in all of the localities making up the constituency. Even so, the case of Taraba State, where the turnout for HOR elections was nearly 100 percent more than that for senatorial, was most unusual. There were, however, seven states in which turnouts for the senatorial election were higher: Akwa Ibom, Benue, Borno, Delta, Imo, Katsina, and Sokoto. In fact, in Imo State, the total turnout was 25 percent higher in the senatorial than in the HOR election. The situation in these states was definitely unusual as compared to the 1979 figures, for example, in which every state recorded a higher turnout for the HOR elections. Probably, people took a keener interest in the senatorial elections because the candidates involved were more popular than those for the HOR elections and because particular senatorial elections mobilized diverse forces. This was most

The National Assembly Elections

Table 10.1 ------

of 1992

• 247

1992 National Assembly Elections: Voter Turnout -----~-

~~-------

Turnout of Registered Voters (percentage)

State

Total Registered Voters

Senatorial Election

HOR Election

34.3 46.8 54.3 31.1 35.1 51.1 32.9 59.1 48.6 48.1 50.1 41.4 17.5 53.0 12.7 30.2 48.0 47.1 56.4 33.7 33.0 31.4 36.7 30.1 37.4 60.0 71.0 36.7 66.1 25.1 36.0 40.4

34.6 47.2 51.0 33.0 57.0 51.0 32.5 6!.0 48.1 48.2 54.0 33.0 17.6 53.3 13.0 30.1 51.0 47.2 56.7 35.5 44.1 40.0 37.0 39.8 37.6 61.0 71.7 36.3 96.0 33.1 36.3 43.6

~~-~~

Abia Adamawa Akwaibom Anambra Bauchi Benue Borno Cross River Delta Edo Enugu Imo Jigawa Kaduna Kano Katsina Kebbi Kogi Kwara Lagos Niger Ogun Ondo Osun Oyo Plateau Rivers Sokoto Taraba Yobc FCT Total

991,469 955,822 1,()32,955 1.248,226 2,048.627 1,296,331 I ,222,533 876,599 1,154,563 912,680 1,110,430 1,141,364 1,621,211 1,279,614 2,583,057 1,661,132 824,254 973.019 664.625 2,327,239 1,022,173 941,939 1,774,666 1,056,690 1,583,049 1.503,001 1.902J\73 1,636,1!9 701,327 665,299 153,450 38,866,336

likely true for Imo State where Nzeribe, Mbakwe, lwuanyanwu, and Governor Enwerem were locked in tests of popularity in the senatorial election, and Katsina State, where two presidential candidates, Shehu Yar'adua (SDP) and Lemma Jubrillu (NRC), struggled to consolidate their home bases.

ANALYZING THE RESULTS

Most efforts at analyzing election results in Nigeria and, indeed, Africa, assume a large measure of predictability.l4 If voters are not propelled by ethnic, religious, regional, or other sectional loyalty, then the electoral

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processes are manipulated to install favored candidates by incumbent authorities, or the wealthiest candidates-the so-called money bags. In fact, election results are sometimes so predictable that analysts have, in exasperation, concluded that some outcomes simply need no explanation! But even when the predicted happens, we need to explain why the surprising did not. The predictability of legislative elections in Nigeria is, however, slightly different from that of most other elections. By often involving candidates from similar ethnic, religious, and regional backgrounds, these elections tend to narrow predictability to extant patterns of party control, especially when they come after state and national (and, of course, now, local) chief-executive elections. As it were, the predictability of legislative elections is hinged on the assumption that the party that controls the state (or locality) will most likely clinch the seats, or at least a majority of them. This, as the premise goes, makes legislative elections what Wiatr calls "safe elections"15 for the parties in their areas of control, though the incipient explanation lies in the power of incumbency. It was in terms such as these that West Africa described the results of the 1992 National Assembly elections as a matter of "consolidating old patterns."16 From time to time, however, legislative elections produce unexpected results for a variety of reasons, which range from personality and local conflicts to intraparty conflicts. How much did these factors attend the National Assembly elections in 1992? Exactly how expected were the results? Table l 0.2 presents the results of the senatorial and HOR elections. It shows that the SDP won more than half of the seats in each election. To begin with, were the results really a matter of consolidating old patterns? From previous elections held since the local government elections in 1990, the first contested by the two parties, the SDP consistently performed better than the NRC in national aggregate results. In the 1990 elections, the party won 3,765 council seats to NRC's 3,360, winning a majority of the local councils in fourteen of the then twenty-one states, while it produced 315 chairman to NRC's 274. In the state legislative elections, the SDP won a total of 626 seats to the NRC's 541 and secured controlling majorities in eighteen of the thirty states. The party was only beaten by the NRC in the gubernatorial elections, where the latter won in sixteen states and the SDP in fourteen. As Agbese and Anim explain in their chapter, this gubernatorial flop by the SDP was largely the consequence of deep-seated intraparty crises that cost it control of Lagos, Katsina, Kaduna, and Cross River states, which were otherwise "safe" states for the SDP. In Katsina State, for example, it lost the gubernatorial election in spite of winning threequarters of the local government elections and thirty of the forty-eight House of Assembly elections. In Lagos State, the assembly was almost monolithically SDP, and all of the local government councils were controlled by it.17

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Table 10.2 1992 National Assembly Elections: Results -----

Senate Seats Won State

NRC

Abia Adamawa Akwalbom Anambra Bauchi Benue Bomo · Cross River Delta Edo Enugu Imo Jigawa Kaduna Kano Katsina Kebbi Kogi Kwara Lagos Niger Ogun Ondo Osun Oyo Plateau Rivers Sokoto Taraba Yobe

SDP

NRC

SDP

12 14 19 4 22 1

5 2 5 12

2

3

I

10

3 3

3 2 13

18 4 16 12 6

2 3 3 3 3 3

1 2 2 3 I

2 I

1

2 1 2 2

3

2

I 3 3

3 3 3 3 3

3 3

Total

38 --------

----

I 17

18

3

3

18

7

ll

16 20 16 9

18 6

18

3

FCT

HOR Seats Won

7

12 14 1 15 22 22

4 1 3

22

3

20

18 29

6

3 3 1

3

9

l 3

12

53

276

317

1

-------

The gubernatorial flop did not erase the wider national acceptance of the SDP, though every observer of the Nigerian political scene recognizes how formidable a governor's power of incumbency can be in elections. The results of the National Assembly elections nevertheless confirmed the SDP's wider acceptance, as shown in Table 10.2. The party won comfortably in all states controlled by it, including Lagos, where the divided SDP closed ranks shortly before the elections. In Katsina State, the SDP managed to win two of the three Senate seats but was beaten badly in the HOR election, suggesting that the NRC state government had consolidated its hold on that state. In Kaduna State, although the NRC won two of the three Senate seats, it lost a majority of the HOR seats to the SDP-which showed that the struggle for supremacy would only be resolved through further elections.

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Parties & Politics

The NRC, likewise, won convincingly in the states it controlled, though its hold on Kogi, Enugu, Cross River, and Abia states remained as tenuous as it had been in previous elections. It did not do as well as the SOP in extending its frontiers to the opponent's territory, though it managed to retain a foothold in Anambra, Borno, Delta, Edo, Jigawa, and Taraba states. Another striking difference in the patterns of victories was that support for SOP was more monolithic and solid than that for NRC. Thus, the SOP won all three senatorial seats in each of fourteen states, while the NRC only recorded that feat in eight states, and the SOP's HOR majorities in the states were more overwhelming. Let us now analyze the results on the basis of the predictability thesis that hinges electoral support on sectional affiliations and extant patterns of party control. The historically relevant sections and cleavages are NorthSouth, North-East-West, Yoruba-Igbo-Hausa-Fulani as well as several other ethnic and subethnic cleavages and, recently, Christian-Muslim. Although the military government partly justified its imposition of a twoparty system and its founding, nurturing, and direction of the two parties by claiming that the new parties would bestride sectional politics, both the politicians themselves and the ordinary people found it expedient to build on old identities or, better still, to realign new identities around old ones. IS This resurrection of old identities greatly influenced party affiliation and support. The SOP was seen in several parts of the country as the new party of the old "progressive" front comprising the alliance of the West, Middle Belt, and Borno minorities, the new progressive core North (KanoKaduna-Katsina) and the recrudescent progressive East, but whose solid base was the Yoruba West. The NRC, on the other hand, was the old "conservative" front built around the Hausa-Fulani bloc and including the lgbo East, minorities, and "core" Northern states. Evidently, these categorizations influenced voter preferences, but the early (especially pre-Second Republic) days of fixed and clear-cut sectional support for parties were gone. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the National Assembly election results and, indeed, the results of all elections contested by the two new parties, was the national spread of their victories. Notwithstanding, certain old patterns of ethnoregional bloc support could still be discerned, as Table 10.3 shows. The "west," including Edo and Delta states, was solidly SOP, as were the Middle Belt and Borno areas, and the new progressive North (Kano, Jigawa, and, to some extent, Kaduna states). The core Hausa-Fulani states (Sokoto, Kebbi, Bauchi, and Adamawa) and most lgbo and southeastern minority states were NRC. In supporting the "Northern"-based NRC, southeastern minorities were simply continuing their Second Republic resolve to maximize their political benefits by aligning with the party most favored to clinch federal power. 19 In the case of the Igbos, although there have been previous attempts to forge a southern front with the Yoruba West,20 "aspectival" preferences

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• 251

1992 National Assembly Elections: Sectional Patterns of Party Victories

Table 10.3

----

----

----------

Senate Seats Won

HOR Seats Won

--------

Northern States Hausa-Fulani Bauchi Jigawa Kaduna Kano Katsina Kebbi Sokoto Minority Adamawa Benue Bomo Kogi Kwara Niger Plateau Taraba Yobe FCT Total Northern States

NRC

3 I 2 1

SOP

2 1 2 2

3 3

3

3

1 2

2 I 3

SOP

22 3 7 16 20 16 29

1 18 11

14

2 17 18 7 12

I 3

9

18

6

18

1

20 9 12

1

3 3 I 3

26

168

153

3 3 3

3 23

NRC

I

East Southern States ---------

Igbo Abia Anambra Enugu Imo Minorities Akwa Ibom Cross River Rivers

2 2 3

I

12

5

3

4

1

13 18

12 6 3

3

19

2

10

5 4

3

18

6

West Southern States ---------

----------

Yoruba Lagos Ogun On do Osun Oyo Minorities Delta Edo Total Southern States

3

14

3

3 3 3

15

4 I

3

15 22 22 22

3 3

2

16 12

27

108

164

3

have always led them to ally with the core North under properly negotiated conditions.21 Left with no pedestal in the two-party system, therefore, it was not surprising that most lgbo voters and politicians supported the NRC.

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Parties & Politics

Other "traditional" support patterns were no longer as obvious, largely because the two-party system reduced the scope for ambitious trade-offs. Certainly the North-South cleavage was melted by the results as, in fact, the SDP won more Senate seats than the NRC in the latter's supposed "Northern" base. It was only in core-North states like Kebbi, Sokoto, and Bauchi and core-West states like Ogun, Lagos, Osun, and Oyo that strong regional support could still be seen. The results also suggest an attenuation of conflicting electoral alignments between majority and minority groups, in which ethnic minorities historically opposed the party identified with their erstwhile oppressor majorities in the former regions. Thus, Edo and Delta states went along the Yoruba West, and the Eastern minorities and Igbo majority voted along similar lines.22 Minority dissenting politics seemed to persist only among the Northern minorities in Benue, Plateau, Borno, and Yobe states, and among the "marginals" in Kwara State. On balance, then, although the parties were perceived to be new wine in old bottles, so to speak, and some sectional support patterns could be discerned, the results of the National Assembly elections suggest that the only truly predictable element was the pattern of party control. To a large extent, the parties were simply consolidating their support bases, especially because, as we have said. the National Assembly elections were the first at the federal level in the transition program.

EXPLAINING ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR

How do we explain the results of the National Assembly elections? From the preceding analysis of the patterns of party victories, we concluded that perhaps the most important factor was extant party controls. But underlying the power of incumbency were the efforts of governors, local-government chairmen, party executives, and presidential aspirants to consolidate their constituencies and justify their claims to power. Other political leaders whose states were controlled by the rival party also had to demonstrate that they had support constituencies. This was the lot of Tom Ikimi, the national chairman of the NRC, whose state of origin, Edo, as well as local government of origin, Esan East, were controlled by the SDP. The NRC's two HOR seats won in the Esan area of Edo State came largely through the sustained efforts of Ikimi and the state NRC chairman, who was also Esan. In the Eastern states, which were NRC-controlled, Arthur Nzeribe struggled to establish an SDP foothold to advance both his presidential ambition and his design to establish an Eastern bloc that could be in a position to bargain well with other blocs. The incumbency advantage did not work in all cases, however. Perhaps most striking was the loss of the Borno State central senatorial district by Kolo Kingibe, wife of then SDP national chairman, Baba Gana Kingibe, despite the strong SDP control of the state and its victory in

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seventeen of the twenty HOR seats and the two other senatorial seats in Borno. Local factors appear to have outweighed incumbency and state party control in Kolo Kingibe's case. The NRC controlled three of the seven local government councils in the senatorial district. Furthermore, the father of Modu Sheriff, the NRC candidate, was reputed to be very influential in the Dikwa emirate, whose three councils the NRC controlled. Religious (Islamic) inhibitions, which do not encourage female involvement in politics, may also have worked against Kolo Kingibe. Another key variable in explaining the results is personality. There were several personalities involved in the elections: the candidates themselves, and numerous "kingmakers"-governors, party executives, presidential aspirants, and powerful local leaders. Earlier in this paper, the point was made that senatorial candidates were more experienced and notable than HOR candidates, who were mostly new-breed "greenhorns." While many senatorial candidates had personal records and experience to fall back on, most HOR candidates rode on the backs of political "godfathers" and party control. But, in general, local notables and presidential aspirants played crucial roles in getting people to vote for their favored candidates. This was true of Shehu Yar'adua's candidates in Katsina and other states such as Edo and Delta, Olusola Saraki 's candidates in K wara State, Lamidi Adedibu's candidates in Oyo State, and Solomon Lar's candidates in Plateau State. In a few cases, however, identity with some influential leaders placed the candidates at a disadvantage. This was certainly true of the Bini areas of Edo State, where the NRC candidates were believed to be sponsored by Gabriel Igbinedion, who, at the time, was at loggerheads with the oba of Benin, the powerful Bini monarch. This explains why the NRC HOR candidates in Ovia West and Ovia North-East, which had consistently voted NRC in previous elections, lost. Economic and social issues such as alleviating poverty, important as they were, did not play great roles in determining voter preferences, partly due to illiteracy of most electors and a failure to understand the critical role of the National Assembly. More importantly, perhaps, issues have rarely determined electoral outcomes in Nigeria, as personality differences and other circumstantial calculations even in supposedly critical presidential and gubernatorial elections like ethnicity, religion, and payoff inducements are the major determinants of voter preferences. These factors were important in the 1992 National Assembly elections. Try as government agencies, including NEC, did to reduce or eliminate money and other material inducements from the electoral process, they remained the most common electoral strategy of both the parties and candidates-pervasive even though mostly covert. Ethnicity was important where a senatorial district had more than one ethnic group or, in the case of monolithic local governments, where there were intragroup crises. Religion, particularly the Christian-Muslim cleavage, was important, especially in the Northern states where a series of

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violent conflicts in the 1980s and early 1990s heightened the political relevance of this cleavage (see the chapters in this volume by Suberu and Ibrahim). For example, the losses by Bala Takaya, former gubernatorial aspirant, and Jonathan Zwingina, former director of Social Mobilization (both Christian candidates), in the senatorial contests in Adamawa State were attributed to a Muslim fear of being undermined. In Bauchi South senatorial district, Uba Ahmed had an easy victory over Gaius Achana, a Christian. In the Southern states, religion was not a major issue. In fact, an Igbo Muslim, Umar Maduagwu, won the HOR seat for Orlu, Imo State, which, like the rest of Igboland, is predominantly Christian.

CONCLUSION

The question may be asked, would the outcome of the 1992 National Assembly elections have been different if those for the Senate and HOR had been held separately as in the Second Republic? The analysis we have undertaken in this short paper does not suggest so. Party control would have remained a critical factor, as indeed there was little variation in the results for the two chambers. The factor of party control would also have been important even if the presidential election had been held before the National Assembly elections. The supremacy of this factor should be seen as symptomatic of the perception of the legislature in general as a dependent arm of government, a view also evidenced in state and local assembly elections. This perception tends to render the influence of other important variables of electoral behavior, such as personality and issues, equally dependent. Thus, even where voter turnout is high, as it certainly was in the 1992 National Assembly elections, it should be seen more as the consequence of successful party mobilization than as an indication that the assembly elections were critical.

NOTES 1. For discussions of the meanings of critical elections, see V. 0. Key, Jr., "A Theory of Critical Elections," Journal of Politics 17 (February 1955); Billy J. Dudley, Instability and Political Order: Politics and Crisis in Nigeria (lbadan: The University Press, 1973); and Patrick E. Ollawa, "The 1979 Elections," in Peter P. Ekeh, Patrick Dele-Cole, and Gabriel 0. Olusanya, eds., Nigeria Since Independence: The First 25 Years 5: Politics and Constitutions (lbadan: Heinemann, 1989). 2. West Africa, 8-14 June 1992, p. 954. 3. See Dudley, Instability and Political Order, and An Introduction to Nigerian Government and Politics (London: Macmillan, 1982).

4. For a good historical account of the decline of legislatures in relation to the executive in general, see K. C. Wheare, Legislatures (London: Oxford University

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Press, 1963). For African and Nigerian experiences of this decline, see Bereket H. Selassie, The Executive in African Governments (London: Heinemann, 197 4), and Eghosa E. Osaghae, "The Federal Cabinet, 1951-1984," in Peter P. Ekeh and Eghosa E. Osaghe, eds., Federal Character and Federalism in Nigeria (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1989). 5. This point was not too visible at the beginning of presidentialism in 1979. But after the Senate succeeded in foisting a superior status in the following years. the caliber of politicians differed in 1983. 6. Initially. a blanket ban was placed on all politicians who participated in the First and Second Republics as well as those who had taken part in government since independence. This ban set the stage for new-breed politics, but, by 1992, the ban was lifted-though "old brigade" politicians had to be cleared to participate in competitive politics. 7. The disqualified candidates were as follows: for the Senate, they were Umaru Mohammed (SOP, Bauchi), Sam Mbakwe (SOP, Imo), Wahab Dosunmu (SOP, Lagos), Ebenezer Babatope (SOP, Osun), Chris Okolie (SOP, Delta), Isa Mohammed (SOP, Plateau), Ibrahim Tahir (NRC, Bauchi), Umaru Yaro Bida (NRC, Borno), C. C. Anyanwu (NRC, Imo), and M. Agbaso (NRC, Imo). The HOR aspirants were Isiaku Tala (SOP, Adamawa), Effiok Uboh (SOP, Akwa lbom), Mohammed Shanaki (SOP, Bauchi), Bobo Haruna (SOP, Bauchi), Aliyu Adamu (SOP, Bauchi), Garba Saleh (SOP, Bauchi), K. S. Akom (SOP, Cross River), Kolawole Alawode (SOP, Osun), Samuel Obafemi (SOP, Kogi), James Baitachi (SOP, Niger), Yahaya Tasu (NRC, Adamawa), D. I. Akpagher (NRC, Benue), Agbo Ella (NRC, Benue), William Umo (NRC. Cross River), Mohammed Garuba (NRC, Kaduna), Mohammed Rimi (NRC. Kogi), Innocent Masi (NRC, Rivers), and Abdullahi Illo (NRC, Kebbi). 8. African Concord. 13 July 1993, p. 23. 9. One disturbing feature of campaigns in Nigeria in general is the tendency of candidates to be most insincere and unserious in their promises, which are deemed to be simply vote-catching devices. 10. One notable case was the press war between Chris Okolie and Nduka Obaigbena, both news-magazine publishers and contestants for the Delta East senatorial seat. It was obvious this war had little influence on the grassroots electors, because, even with the disqualification of Chris Okolie seven days to the election, Justice Arinze, the replacement candidate, still defeated Obaigbena. 11. In a few cases, candidates were alleged to have been "drafted" into the race by President Babangida himself, who was quite interested in the composition of the National Assembly, particularly the Senate. 12. Newswatch, 4 May 1992, p. 23. 13. In 1979, the NPN found it expedient to enter into an accord with the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) to secure a "safe legislature." 14. Cf. Fred M. Hayward, ed., Elections in Independent Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987); Oyeleye Oyediran, ed., The Nigerian I979 Elections (Lagos: Macmillan, 1981 ); and Richard A. Joseph, "The Ethnic Trap: Notes on the Nigerian Campaign and Elections, 1978-79," Issue 11, nos. 1 and 2 (1981). 15. J. J. Wiatr, "Elections and Voting Behavior in Poland," in A. Ranney, ed., Essays on the Behavioral Study of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962). 16. West Africa, 13-19 July 1992 (headline). 17. The major problem was the attempt by many politicians to shake off the control of Lagos politics by Lateef Jakande, Second Republic governor. 18. This was actually a process of reducing cognitive dissonance and indicates that historical cleavages will continue to influence political identities and alliances for a long time to come.

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19. See Ollawa, "The 1979 Elections." See also Eghosa E. Osaghae, "Do Ethnic Minorities Still Exist in Nigeria?" Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 24, no. 2 (July 1986). 20. In 1964, the United Parties Grand Alliance (UPGA) was formed by the NCNC (lbo East-based) and the AG (Yoruba West-based) while in 1982-1983, the Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA) was formed by the NPP and the UPN. 21. As a result of the realignment in the East, however, the minorities and lgbos became locked in a battle over which group really represented the region. 22. Nzeribe actually organized the CARlA (Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Imo, Abia) states for this purpose, but, in May 1992, CARlA was banned along with other ethnic and regional groupings.

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The 1993 Presidential Election Imbroglio Bola A. Akinterinwa

The Babangida administration succeeded in organizing on 12 June 1993 a presidential election adjudged to be the most peaceful, fair, and free in Nigeria's postindependence political history. The government was praised, particularly for evolving an original method of election that took into account the problems of political chicanery and thuggery hitherto characteristic of Nigerian politics. The election ought to have constituted the crescendo of the government's political transition program begun in 1987 and, therefore, the new foundation for a democratic polity and transfer of power to the democratically elected president. However, the government announced the "cancellation" of the election and compelled the Nigerian people to choose between a fresh election and acceptance of an Interim National Government (ING) without giving any convincing rationale. When the executive members of the political parties accepted to constitute an lNG subject to some conditions and contrary to the wishes of the electorate, the government turned that choice down and insisted on fresh elections-which the electorate also kicked against, considering that the organization of fresh elections would be costly and would further delay the handing over of power to an elected government. The position taken by the government raised a number of disturbing questions, generated much controversy and anxiety, and created a political imbroglio. For instance, was there any presidential election at all? Sani Kontagora, publisher of the Kaduna-based Hotline Magazine, maintained that there had been a court injunction preventing the NEC from conducting the June 12 election but that the NEC disregarded it. Consequently, "[T]here was no election."! This argument is a denial of history and therefore untenable. Can an election that already took place be canceled? Was the election invalid because of NEC's disregard for the court injunction? If the election was invalid, why did the government allow the announcement of the election results from fourteen states before "canceling" the election and the results?

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In 1986, General Babangida pledged that this "administration will not stay a day longer than it is absolutely necessary."2 In 1987, he said that the year "1992 will be the final year of disengagement, all things being equal."3 In 1991, he reassured again that "if we have problems in elections-for example, in local government areas, or maybe states, subsequently, and we have to cancel one election and try to do others-we will try to accommodate them, within the transition period."4 But when would "all things be equal?" Why did General Babangida find it difficult to "accommodate" the 1993 presidential election and return the country to democracy? This chapter provides some possible explanations for the government's attitude and the resulting political imbroglio. These may be stated at the outset. 1. The fair and orderly character of the elections did not indicate any preparedness by General Babangida to conclude the transition program, raising fundamental questions about the sincerity of the program. 2. The long stay of the military in power considerably increased the country's level of political awareness and enabled the people to come to know the weaknesses of the military much more acutely. They saw the top military officers as uncontrollably corrupt, willfully wasteful, and repressively dictatorial, while the junior officers harassed people constantly and with impunity. This realization greatly heightened the preparedness of the people to resist military dictatorship and to deny legitimacy to any government that takes power by force. This is why the people were able to challenge General Babangida and ultimately compel his retirement from office in August. 3. Nigeria's political impasse was not a priori a consequence of the 12 June presidential election but of the so called national question about which political leaders continually talk but have not done anything. For instance, Chief Phillip Asiodu, energy secretary in the 1993 interim government, acknowledged this when he said that Nigeria's problem is political: constitutional and institutional questions, top political offices, and the share-out of the effective power that "will enable orderly, legitimate and generally accepted transfer of power from the first post-military civilian president to another civilian successor." He further noted that it should not be assumed that the result of the 12 June election had swept away the dichotomies that have plagued Nigerian politics since independence.5 4. The position defended by the SDP National Executive Committee that there was no better alternative to the interim-government proposal, or that it was the only option for easing out the military on 27 August, 6 missed the point completely. The crux of the stalemate was not simply making the military surrender power but, more important, also making it begin to learn and accept the democratic will of the people. Teaching and

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proposing democracy without trying and accepting to live by example can at best be a self-mockery. • 5. The Babangida administration could not have truly envisaged returning power to the civilians, even though it had to organize the 12 June presidential election and (probably involuntarily) ensure its success. Witness its November 1988 intervention in the selection of a new Sultan of Sokoto, overturning the selection of Muhammadu Maccido, the son of the deceased sultan, in favor of Ibrahim Dasuki, who was regarded as General Babangida's political godfather. This decision provoked fierce antigovernment demonstrations in which more than ten people died and a building owned by Ibrahim Dasuki was burned. This high-handedness-not to mention all the previous cancellations and manipulations of the transition process before June 1993-showed that government was not prepared to respect a popular mandate it did not like. 6. If the Babangida administration truly intended to hand over power to the civilians, there is nothing to suggest that it wanted to do so objectively. Bashorun M. K. 0. Abiola was generally believed to have won the fairest, freest, and most peaceful election in Nigerian history, yet General Babangida refused to hand over to him, thus raising the sensitive, longstanding question of North vs. South: Was General Babangida prepared to hand over power to any Southerner? 7. Another interpretation is that the main problem to address was "Babangidocracy"-that is, democracy as conceived and understood by General Babangida alone. Babangidocracy became more or less a personalized dictatorship. 8. Babangidocracy-and the political crisis and impasses it spawnedwas made possible in Nigeria by the utter lack of any moral and democratic principles on the part of the politicians. Many of them are opportunists without strong political bases that would force them to render account of their service. They have little independent means of livelihood and survival and therefore seek to win their political offices by all means. As a result, Nigerian politicians readily accepted Babangida's whims and caprices, and the military president was always able to exploit their financial and political weaknesses to the maximum. As Nigerians themselves are not used to confronting the military vigorously, General Babangida also took for granted their acquiescence. 9. This situation does not allow for political stability. Because the image of the military has been soiled and yet the military does not want to leave with ignominy-and, more important, because the Nigerian military has become another, unregistered political party and very politicized to the detriment of military professionalism-the likelihood of the military shying away from seeking political power in the future is very remote. In this case, the November 1993 coup should have come as no surprise. Failure to reverse the annulment of the 12 June election-and the deadlock

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and intrigue among the country's politicians-only paved the way for that military comeback. 10. Finally, Nigeria's 1993 presidential election constituted a national dilemma that was informed more by Babangidocracy and North-South considerations than by allegations of electoral malpractices, political corruption and clash of personalities. The voting pattern on 12 June suggests that the election was not based on religious and ethnic bigotry. However, the annulment of the election appeared to have been motivated by ethnic considerations. The remainder of this chapter analyzes the 12 June presidential election and the imbroglio into which Nigeria was plunged as a result of the strong, unexpected resistance of the people. The first part examines the political environment of the election, as shaped by the growing frustration of the people before June 12. The second part assesses the modus operandi of the election, showing that it was orderly, fair, and nationally and internationally accepted. The third part focuses on the imbroglio created, particularly the court orders, counterorders, and disorders. The conclusion considers the implications for the future.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT OF THE ELECTION

The political environment surrounding the 12 June presidential election is crucial to understanding the attitude of the government both in organizing and then in scuttling it. As posited earlier, it is not likely that General Babangida truly intended to hand over power by organizing the election. It was the hostile political environment that compelled him at least to appear to be doing so by going forward with the election. This environmental factor can be explained at the national and international levels. At the national environmental level, the people were already frustrated psychologically, economically, and sociopolitically. Psychologically speaking, three main events of national significance occurred between June 1992 and June 1993. In the first instance, a generation of senior military officers, consisting mainly of majors, lieutenant commanders, and squadron leaders (ninety-eight from the army, fourteen from the navy, and twelve from the air force)?lost their lives in an NAF C-130 aircraft that crashed into a swamp on Saturday, 26 September 1992, in Ejigbo, a Lagos suburb. Second, the historic Independence Building, in which the Ministry of Defense was housed, was gutted in an inferno in May 1993. Third, the relationship between the government and the university lecturers became so unprecedentedly irreconcilable that the government sacked all of them& in an ongoing labor dispute, which prevented any graduation, admission of students, or National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program in the entire

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1992-1993 session. These events greatly intensified the ill feeling among the people. Economic frustration also deepened. The National Rail Workers, for instance, did not receive salaries for nine months (September 1992-June 1993) whereas "a few Nigerians are billionaires from the lifting (stealing) of our (Nigerian) petroleum money."9 Per capita GNP declined from U.S.$800 when General Babangida seized power in 1985 to $320 in 1992. Total external debt ballooned from $18.348 billion to $30.959 billion in the same period. Debt service as a percentage of GNP sharply increased from 17.8 percent to 108.4 percent_Hl Although the volume of trade and export earnings increased, by 1990 and 1991 it was already apparent that the Babangida regime's Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) was failing to produce a stable and diversified economy. While the proportion of exports accounted for by oil dipped briefly in the late 1980s, by 1991 it was back up to 96 percent, virtually identical to the figure in 1985.11 Anxiety was heightened by the increasing number of armed robberies. In the Lagos area, not fewer than two hundred cases of armed robbery were reported in the first two weeks of October 1992 alone.l2 As one individual grimly observed, "[S]o many Nigerians are so morally debased that they can sell their own mother for a dime."13 In politics, confusion reigned. Most Nigerians were bitterly condemning the Babangida administration, some particularly for its corruption. Chief Akinyede pointedly expressed this intense public cynicism in explaining why elections were no cause to rejoice: We shoot those who smuggle a jerry-can full of petrol but worship and acclaim those who steal a shipload of our petrol. ... The chief executive at the Local Government, who being corrupt. invests millions of council money with finance companies at 40%, pocketing the upfront interest paid .... At the Federal level ... ex-military top-brass are now running airlines or building Tower of Babel storey in Victoria Island .... What are we jubilating for?14

On the other hand, the protagonists of "Babangida Must Not Go," generally believed to have been sponsored by the government itself, shamelessly campaigned for the general to stay on. The future National Republican Convention (NRC) presidential candidate, Alh. Bashir Othman Tofa, advocated a military president to rule Nigeria until the year 2000 because a military president is better.15 On 4 June 1993. the Arthur Nzeribe-led Association for a Better Nigeria (ABN) asked an Ahuja high court to postpone the 12 June election until199716 because "civil rule is crue1."17 Chief Nzeribe himself confused the people of Nigeria and also tried to destabilize the nation by asking the people to support Chief Abiola, on the one hand, 18 and then asking the same people to accept the nullification of his election, on the other.

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This political confusion was further compounded by the calls for areview of the basis of Nigeria's federal system and unity. The chairman of the Movement for National Reformation (MNR), Chief Anthony Enahoro, had, on several occasions, called for a national conference to address the deepening problems of national unity on return of power to the civilians. The government believed this was not necessary, since the National Assembly represented all the different groups in the country. Leaders from the seven Eastern states, who met under the auspices of the "Eastern Progressives" in Owerri, Imo State, also called for a "national dialogue through a national conference to be organized by the incoming democratically elected government immediately after being sworn in on August 27."19 There was also the question of ethnic minorities. Alfred llenre, general secretary of the Ethnic Minority Rights Organization of Africa, suggested that existing nation states are unworkable, having been forcefully put together to serve colonial exigencies, and that to make nation states workable, the various ethnic groups would need to sit down together to determine the basis of their coexistence.20 In fact, the Ogoni people of Rivers State boycotted the 12 June election to protest the exploitation of the immense oil resources of theirs without the proceeds sufficiently accruing to them; they lack pipe-borne water, electricity, and decent roads, they protested, and yet they are always the first victims of oil spillage and pollution. The behavior of the political parties was rough and violent. Since the creation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the NRC in 1989, party politics had been characterized by a breakdown of law and order, thuggery, and bitterness. The campaign coordinator for an NRC presidential candidate, Alh. Bamanga Tukur, was murdered in Niger State. Three people died and about one hundred others were injured as a result of intraparty disagreements and clashes in Nembe, the Brass Local Government area of Rivers State. "Four members ... received matchet cuts and acid burns while the chairman, Oredo Local Government, Edo State was shot dead allegedly by political rivals."21 This situation might have informed the thinking of General Babangida that the political class was still hopelessly fragmented, ill prepared for the return of power to it, and vulnerable to further manipulation. Thus, he was able, with surprisingly little resistance, to dissolve the executive committees of both parties at all three levels of government and to cancel the presidential primaries in October 1992. In the meantime, as politicians scrambled and election dates were constantly postponed, the Nigerian people became increasingly frustrated and impatient. At the level of the international environment as well, dictatorship was no longer cherished or condoned as the wind of democratization was blowing in all directions. With the end of the Cold War, democratization received a greater emphasis as a precondition for foreign assistance from developed countries. And Africans themselves increasingly recognized it as a principle necessary for maintaining political stability and enhancing

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economic development. Indeed, by 1991, the continent had caught a "democratization fever." It was in this context that the 12 June presidential election was conducted. General Babangida thought he could always maneuver. The people, though dissatisfied with violent politicking, were determined to bring military rule to an end, but the Ahuja government took the passive and was accommodating the resistance of the people until then taken for granted. It was not until a political impasse was created that the government recognized the seriousness of the problem and then had to face stiff challenges for which it had never bargained.

THE ELECTION: FROM CANCELED PRIMARIES TO "ANNULLED" ELECTION

The election began with the process of nomination of presidential candidates on I August 1992. Forty SDP and 23 NRC candidates nursed the ambition to be president. But when the NEC and the political parties imposed their conditions, the number of aspirants decreased sharply. For instance, the SDP and the NRC imposed an eligibility levy ofN 400,000 (400,000 naira) and N 500,000, respectively. The NRC presidential aspirants were also required to have the signatures of party members from the existing 589 local governments before their nomination forms could be valid and acceptable,22 etc. With these conditions, only twenty-one aspirants were left-twelve from the SDP23 and nine from the NRC.24 The National Electoral Commission (NEC) required these candidates to contest the two-party primary elections in all the thirty states, which were divided into six groups of five states each. With voting restricted to party members, the primaries were to be held on every Saturday, beginning 1 August in each group of states.25 A candidate needed a plurality of votes and one-third of the votes cast in not less than two-thirds of all the states before he or she could be declared a winner. In the absence of a clear winner, the first two candidates with the highest number of votes were to face one another in a runoff election, with the winner to be determined by a simple majority vote. The presidential primaries began as scheduled on 1 August 1992 but were plagued with fraud and rescheduled for three successive weeks in September. These contests, too, were characterized by violence and malpractices that General Babangida described as "a rape of democracy." The NEC found the politicians guilty of use of money by aspirants to buy votes or achieve undue advantage, falsification of figures, allocation of votes where elections did not take place, favoritism on the part of parties' executive committees ... non-serialization

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Parties & Politics of accreditation slips ... arbitrary cancellation of results by returning officers to favor candidates, mutilation of election results, issuance of fake accreditation slips and voting by non-accredited persons, voting by under-aged and non-party members.26

Consequently, the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) first suspended the primaries and authorized the NEC to investigate the allegations by presidential aspirants against the party executives.27 Following NEC's findings, the AFRC, at its meeting of 15 October 1992, decided to cancel the other rounds of the primaries. It dissolved the executive committees of the two parties at all levels, disqualified all of the presidential aspirants, ordered the immediate auditing of the accounts of the two political parties, and provided for the establishment of caretaker committees to run the affairs of the parties. The AFRC also directed the NEC to evolve "a relatively trouble-free selection process" of producing a nationally acceptable president. The process, the AFRC advised, must take into account the need for a nonconventional political approach to secure Nigeria's unity and cohesion in light of the unusual time in the country.28 Reactions to these measures were mixed.29 However, in compliance with the directives, the NEC proposed eight options, out of which the government showed preference for option A4. Option A4 was a Nigerian electoral method of selecting the t1ag bearers of the political parties through a Modified Open Ballot System (MOBS)30 (the "open-secret ballot") in a four-staged (ward, local government, state, and national) contest in which only the winners at each stage would be qualified to compete in the next stage. Thus, the option had a built-in principle of elimination, which also applied when there were no aspirants, particularly at the ward and local government levels. Before the new primaries, the two political parties established their lists of party members between 4 and 10 January 1993. Prospective aspirants who had submitted their applications to NEC through the National Caretaker Committees between 11 and 17 January were all screened. The ward congresses-that is, the first stage of the contest-took place on 6 February. The process of nomination was "direct closed": only registered party members were allowed to participate in the accreditation of ten representatives to the ward congress. In this context, all party members aspiring to be delegates to the ward congress contested in a direct election. The pictures of the contesting aspirants were pasted on a board in the polling stations, and party members filed in front of the picture of their choice. The first ten aspirants with the highest number of votes were elected. These elected delegates and the members of the executive committee of the political parties at the ward level then voted for a presidential candidate of their choice through the "open-secret ballot" system. The elected candidates in each ward then proceeded to the next stage of the contest.

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At the local government level, congresses were held on 20 February. The primaries were "indirect closed": only selected members of the political parties who were delegates to their congress participated in the primaries. In this case, all the elected aspirants at the ward level were the contestants at the local government level. Only the elected executive members of the party at the ward level, as well as those constitutionally designated as delegates to the local government, were eligible to vote. All voters were accredited before voting. All the candidates with the highest number of votes were elected as presidential candidates for their different local government areas. The same process was repeated at the state level. The contestants were the winning candidates from the local government areas and the four area councils of Ahuja. All eligible delegates were also accredited before voting. At the final stage, the national level, the primaries took place from 27 to 29 March for the NRC, but until 31 March for the SDP. There were sixty-two candidates in all, each party having a candidate in each state and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). All the delegates to the national conventions were accredited. Also, a provision for two rounds of balloting was made. Before the first round, each of the thirty-one candidates in each party was allowed three minutes to address the convention on his or her program. After these addresses, delegates were required to vote for three candidates. The first three candidates with the highest number of votes were eligible to participate in the second round of voting. They were each given fifteen minutes to address the convention. The candidate with the highest number of votes was elected in each party. It was on the basis of this option A4 that Chief M. K. 0. Abiola and Alh. Bashir Othman Tofa emerged the flag bearers of the SDP and NRC, respectively, after a very rigorous competition. At the end of the national conventions, the Caretaker Committees responsible for the conduct of the election were dissolved, party executives were elected, and electioneering campaigns began on 19 April, lasting until 11 June. The methods of campaign were innovative and impressive. In fact, the two flag bearers faced a panel of interviewers on 6 June in a nationaltelevision-network program-an event unprecedented in Nigeria's electoral politics. In that televised debate, Chief M. K. 0. Abiola appeared clearly better prepared and more articulate a candidate than Alh. Bashir Tofa. Chief Abiola enjoyed not only the massive support of the press but also the competence of his campaign team, which did a commendable job-to the extent that "Abiola" became a household name. On 12 June 1993, the long-awaited presidential election took place using the modified open-ballot system. Ballot boxes had to be provided to 110,466 polling stations. Voters were accredited between 8 A.M. and 10 A.M. and were obliged to queue up thereafter in a single line. In contrast to

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the pure open ballot previously used, this made it difficult to know the choice of a voter through the queue joined; the actual vote was cast by secret ballot. The sorting-out of voting cards and the counting of votes were carried out in all the different polling booths in the presence of the representatives of the NEC, the political parties, and the voters. The national and international monitoring groups also had their representatives in some polling stations and collation centers. In fact, the number of voters was counted aloud by everyone before voting, and the number of votes scored by each party was also publicly reconciled with the number of voters before the results were entered into the Declaration of Result Sheet on the spot. With this system, the election was peaceful and electoral fraud became very difficult if not impossible. On Tuesday, 15 June, the NEC released the results from fourteen states, including that of the FCT. These showed the SDP candidates, Abiola and Kingibe, with a substantial lead. On 16 June, the Abuja High Court ordered that further announcement of the results be suspended. The National Defense and Security Council (NDSC) also summoned the NEC chairman, Humphrey Nwosu, to explain his next line of action in the light of the Abuja High Court's order. Nwosu said that the results would be suspended. He later went to court to file a reference asking for the correct interpretation of Section 19( I), which he believed empowered his commission to conduct the election. He also decided "to challenge the right of the Abuja High Court to enter contempt proceedings against the Commission or any of its officers."3I In any case, the NEC complied and did not release further results, whether as a result of the court's or of the NDSC's directive. However, as evidenced in the results already released by the NEC (see the asterisked states in Tables 11.1 and 11.2) and those collated by the local and foreign monitoring groups, the NRC, and the SDP, Chief M. K. 0. Abiola indisputably won the election. Of the 14,293,396 total votes cast, Chief Abiola and Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe won 8,341,309 (58.36 percent). NRC's Alhaji Tofa scored 5,952,087 votes (41.64 percent). The SDP victory was unprecedentedly national in scope. Only in two of the thirty states (Sokoto and, just barely, Kebbi) did Chief Abiola fail to obtain the one-third of the votes required in two-thirds of the states in order to be elected. (The NRC missed in seven states.) This was an indication of the popularity of the SDP flag bearer, which cut across ethnic and linguistic barriers. By contrast, Alhaji Tofa's scores in the states where he could not meet the one-third of the votes requirement were very low-well below 25 percent in the six predominantly Yoruba states of Ogun, Osun. Oyo, Lagos, Ondo, and K wara. Most striking of all was Chief Abiola's victory in Tofa's home state of Kano, in sharp contrast to Tofa's dismal performance in Abiola's home states (Ogun and Lagos). In fact, NRC votes in Kano State only accounted for 2.6 percent of the overall NRC votes in the country.

The 1993 Presidential Election

Table 11.1

State

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12 June 1993 Presidential Election: Pattern and Order oflmportance ofVoting on State Basis, SDP Percent Number of Number of SDP Registered Turnout of Registered Votes Voters Voters

2,397,421 Lagos* 1,767,896 Ondo 1,579,280 Oyo* 941,889 Ogun* 1,513,186 Plateau* 1,614,258 Kaduna* 1,908,878 Rivers 1,056,690 Osun 2,048,627 Bauchi 1,155,182 Delta 669,629 Kwara 1,291,750 Emugu 1,297,072 Benue 978,019 Kogi* Akwa Ibom* 1,032,955 1,248,226 Anambra* 912,680 Edo* 876,599 Cross River 1,661,132 Katsina 2,583,057 Kano* 1,141,630 Imo 1,222,533 Borno* 954,680 Adarnawa 1,230,215 Jigawa 1,002,173 Niger* 663,297 Yobe 991,569 Abia* n.a. Taraba 1,636,199 Sokoto 824,254 Kebbi FCT (Ahuja)* 152,686 38,353,578 Total

43.1 59.2 40.6 51.5 44.7 46.2 52.3 41.4 42.2 40.9 52.6 42.4 33.4 49.9 40.1 29.7 33.9 39.1 26.6 12.6 31.1 23.1 32.3 18.6 35.7 26.5 25.9 n.a. 28.7 26.1 25.1

883,965 883,024 536,011 425,725 417,565 389,713 370,578 365,266 339,339 327,277 272,270 263,101 246,830 222,760 214,787 212,024 205,407 189,303 171,162 169,619 159,350 153,496 140,875 138,552 136,350 11,887 105,273 101,887 97,726 70,219 19,968 8,341,309

Percent of SOP Votes (State)

Percent of State in Total SOP Votes (National)

Ranking

85.54 84.42 83.52 87.78 61.68 52.20 36.63 83.52 39.27 69.30 77.24 48.09 56.94 45.60 51.86 57.11 66.48 55.23 38.70 52.28 44.86 54.40 45.72 60.67 38.10 63.59 41.04 61.42 20.79 32.66 52.16 58.36

10.60 10.59 6.43 5.10 5.01 4.67 4.44 4.38 4.07 3.92 3.26 3.15 2.96 2.67 2.57 2.54 2.46 2.27 2.05 2.03 1.91 1.84 1.69 1.66 1.63 1.34 1.26 n.a. 1.17 0.84 0.24

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Sources: National Electoral Commission; SOP Secretariat; International Observers' figures. Note: Asterisks indicate those election results (fourteen total) released by the NEC prior to the Abuja High Court order suspending any further announcement.

The election was characterized by a new pattern of voting, nonseriousness of the NRC presidential candidate, and a low percentage of voter turnout, particularly in the Northern states. As evidenced in Tables 11.1 and 11.2, the Southern states took the election more seriously, as the percentage of voter turnout was generally higher there than in the North. Ondo recorded the highest percentage, with 59.2 percent. Kwara came second, with 52.6 percent, while Rivers, Ogun, and Kogi were placed third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, with 52.3 percent, 51.5 percent, and 49.9 percent. Striking, again, was the NRC performance in Tofa's home state of

268 Table 11.2

Parties & Politics

12 June 1993 Presidential Election: Pattern and Order of Importance ofVoting on State Basis, NRC ----

State

----------------

Number of Percent Number of Registered Turnout of NRC Voters Registered Votes Voters

Percent of NRC Votes (State)

Percent of State in Total NRC Votes (National)

63.37 60.73 79.21 47.80 51.91 61.30 54.40 38.32 6L90 48.14 55.14 43.06 54.28 15.58 42.89 47.72 44.77 58.96 14.46 30.70 67.34 45.60 16.48 33.52 39.33 22.78 16.48 38.41 38.58 12.22 47.84 41.64

10.77 8.82 6.24 6.00 4.77 4.59 4.48 4.36 3.72 3.35 3.29 3.13 2.81 2.74 2.68 2.60 2.58 2.54 2.51 2.44 2.43 2.16 1.78 1.74 LSI 1.35 1.21 1.08 1.08 1.00 0.31

Ranking

------

Rivers 1,908.878 Bauchi 2,048.627 1,636.119 Sokoto Kaduna 1.614.258 Enugu 1.291,750 Katsina 1.661.132 Kogi 978,019 Plateau 1,513,186 Niger 1,002,173 Akwa Ibom 1,032,955 Imo 1,141,630 Benue 1,297,072 Adamawa 954,680 On do 1,767,896 Anambra 1,248,226 2,583,057 Kano Cross River 876,599 991,569 Abia 2,397.421 Lagos 1,155,182 Delta 824,254 Kebbi 1,222,533 Borno Oyo 1.579,280 912.680 Edo [,230,215 Jigawa Kwara 669,625 Osun 1,056,690 Yobe 663,297 Taraba n.a. Ogun 941,889 FCT (Abuja) 152,686 Total 38,353,578

52.3 42.2 28.7 46.2 42.4 26.6 49.9 44.7 35.7 40.1 3Ll 33.4 32.3 59.2 29.7 12.6 39.1 25.9 43.1 40.9 26.1 23.1 40.6 :H9 18.6 52.6 41.4 26.5 n.a. 51.5 25.1

640.973 524.836 372.250 356.860 284.050 271,()77 265,732 259,394 221,437 199,342 195,836 186,302 167,239 162,994 159,258 154,809 153.452 l s 1.227 149,432 145.001 144.808 128,684 105,788 103,'i72 89.836 80,209 72,068 64,061 64,001 59,246 18,313 5,952,087

2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Sources: National Electoral Commission; SDP Secretariat; International Observers' figures.

Kano, where turnout was only 12.6 percent. Ironically, it was in the South, in Rivers State, that the NRC scored its highest number of votes. Overall, however, the Southern states accounted for 62 percent of total SDP votes, while the Northern states accounted for 56 percent of total NRC votes and 38 percent of total SDP votes. Thus, the old multiethnic sentiment characteristic of the pattern of voting appears to have given way to a more national outlook. For instance, the predominantly Yoruba states of Lagos, Ondo, Oyo, Ogun, and Osun accounted for only 37.1 percent of total SDP votes. This was not only an indication of the diversification and plurality of the votes but also a pointer toward a better political entente in the country.

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As regards nonseriousness, NRC presidential candidates could not vote for themselves but expected others to vote for them; they did not have valid voting cards.32 This apart, some state commissioners tore election result sheets simply because their party, the NRC, could not win the election in the Nkanu Council of Enugu State.33 Moreover, the NRC vice-presidential candidate, Sylvester Ugoh, was unable to win in his home area.34 The NRC lost both the electoral battle and the electoral war but tried to save face by arguing in the court that the elections were illegally conducted, and that they were unconstitutional and undemocratic. According to Arthur Nzeribe, less than 30 percent of the registered voters came out to vote.-'5 But this in itself is no evidence that the elections were illegally or improperly conducted, or that A biola won only because most of the registered voters did not tum out to vote. Chief Nzeribe suggested that the lowpercentage voter turnout was clue to the refusal of some 25 million people, who wanted General Babangida to hold on to power, to come out.36 Many Nigerians, including Chief Abiola, 37 also posited that petrol shortage contributed to the restriction of movements. These arguments are not at all tenable, apart from the revelations by Chief Abimbola Davies, a former official of the unregistered Association for a Better Nigeria (ABN), that this was all a specious claim;38 would the 25 million people have voted for the NRC if they had chosen to vote? Where is the evidence that they abstained out of preference for General Babangida, rather than more diffuse political exhaustion, cynicism, or confusion? The reasons for the low turnout have to be understood and explained in the context of the electoral system and the geopolitical situation in the country at the time of the election. In this case, we have noted earlier that the MOBS in particular and option A4 in general had built-in principles of elimination and discipline. These principles were to a great extent responsible for the low turnout. Firstly, Nigerians were not used to quickly taking anything seriously. They suffer from mental "African time" diseases. Consequently, while the electoral regulation allowed for two hours of accreditation, many Nigerians went late to the polling stations and were turned away. Apart from that, many of them had already misplaced their voting cards. Secondly, many voters have changed residences and have not reregistered themselves (in their new localities). As movements from one polling station to the other and inter-ward movements were prohibited, it was impossible to come out to vote. Thirdly, many voters did not renew their cards in January 1993. Their old cards were not acceptable for the 12 June election. Fourthly, there was what Doyin Okupe, the NRC's former publicity director, called "a perplexing apathy and non-committal disposition of party leaders particularly from the North .... "39 It was not only in the NRC and in the North that there was apathy. Many Nigerians were already frustrated with the way General Babangida would call for political associations only to dissolve them thereafter, organize primaries only to cancel them midway,

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and so on. Consequently, many voters around the country thought it was a waste of time. Finally, the Ahuja High Court's injunction of 11 June, restraining the conduct of the election the following day, could also have contributed to the apathy and confusion. However, there could not be any good basis for voters to accept the court injunction, in that it was based on the demands of the ABN, which had already been outlawed by a Lagos High Court before then (see below). In terms of the geopolitical situation in the country, the Ogoni community in Rivers State protested against the pollution of their air, and exploitation of their lands by oil companies, by refusing to take part in the voting. Additionally. unlike the elections for local governments, state governors, and the National Assembly-in which many candidates were involved, directly mobilizing numerous distinct groups of supporters-presidential elections do not often directly involve most people. Voters are generally more concerned about the immediate political leaders to whom they will be more directly accessible. Thus, the low turnout of voters cannot be an acceptable reason for disqualifying the electoral victory of the SDP. The SDP's electoral success is ascribable to several factors, particularly to personality of Chief Abiola and the role of the Nigerian press. The creation of more states in the North appears to have broken that region's solidarity, strengthening local- and state-level identities at the expense of the region. Similarly, the creation and restriction of the parties to two compelled the many political associations to regroup and reconcile their minor differences. The two-party system provided a platform for more tolerance and confidence building as well as development of greater consensus among political elites, who, as a result, decided to avert the bitter experiences of the past. It has also been suggested that the perception of Chief Abiola's independence from the military (particularly in contrast to his less experienced and distinguished opponent) might have been what won him the election. 40 Beyond all these factors, however, Chief Abiola was clearly a more effective candidate than Alhaji Tofa. In the words of the NRC's own Okupe, he was "too well known and possessed an overwhelming good will nationwide that made him stand shoulders higher than our own candidate." 41 In fact, the first presidential television debate seriously damaged the image of the NRC flag bearer in two ways: first, he was ill prepared, and secondly, the members of his panel worsened the matter by adopting a good but wrongly implemented strategy. Tofa's panel tried to portray Chief Abiola as a dishonest businessman, by referring to some insinuations in foreign newspapers; as a nonpatriot, by asking the percentage of his investments in Nigeria compared to his investments abroad; and as an impatient individual, by seeking to provoke him. They probably thought that, since Chief Abiola stammers a bit, he could be destabilized by provoking him and engaging him into a lengthy discussion. But Chief

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Abiola provided them with unexpected, short answers, insulted most of them for inadequate preparation, and showed the audience at home that he understood the problems of Nigeria. Apart from this, the campaign organization of the SDP as a whole was innovative, more disciplined, and better funded. By contrast, the NRC campaign was poorly coordinated and poorly planned. In addition, the press in general, gave active and positive coverage to Chief Abiola's campaigns. His position as a publisher appeared to have contributed substantially in this case. More significant, Chief Abiola was seen as a candidate of change-a means of changing over from Northern to Southern leadership, and a vehicle for easing the military out of power. Abiola also benefited from his image as rich, courageous, hard-working, and altruistic; as a Pan-Africanist; as the chief crusader for reparations to Africa for the slave trade and as a generous philanthropist. The Presidential Election (Basic Constitutional and provisional) Decree No. 13 of April 1993 further strengthened the determination of the people to be peaceful. According to the decree, the NEC could call off elections if "there is a reason to apprehend that a serious breach of the peace is likely to occur." But there was not any serious breach of the peace. The national environment was peaceful. All these factors and attributes contributed to the decisive election victory of Chief Abiola. But ironically, too, it is probably because of these factors and attributes that he was seen as a major threat to military and regional interests and thus blocked from assuming the presidency. This is why Nigeria's political impasse went much deeper than the 12 June election itself.

BEYOND ELECTORAL QUESTIONS: POWER SHARING AND BABANGIDOCRACY

We have observed earlier that an imbroglio was created following the annulment of the 12 June election, that this imbroglio did not result directly from the annulled election nor from any religious or ethnic bigotry but mainly from North-South considerations and Babangidocracy. The longstanding central issue in the context of North-South misunderstanding is power sharing. Babangidocracy only amplified the problem. For the purposes of our analysis, therefore, there is the need to distinguish between two elements of the electoral imbroglio: an accidental type and a nonaccidental, deep-seated type. The immediate genesis of the first type can be traced to the annulment of the 12 June presidential election and suspension of the announcement of the results. In this context, it should be underscored that the annulment of the election results did not constitute a problem per se. The imbroglio resulted from government's inability to persuade

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Parties & Politics

the electorate of any convincing rationale for rejecting the popular will. What General Babangida emphasized was that the decision to annul the election had been taken and was "irrevocable." From the unsigned statement read by the press secretary to the vicepresident, Nduka lrabor, on 23 June, the basic reason for the annulment of the election was to save the Nigerian judiciary from "intra-wranglings" and "ridiculous charade. "42 To do this, the annulment was limited not only to the election but also to l. all court proceedings pending or to be instituted and appeals thereon in respect of any matter touching, relating, or concerning the presidential election of 12 June 1993 2. the repeal of the Transition to Civil Rule Political Program Amendment No. 3, Decree No. 52 of 1992, and the Presidential Election Basic Constitutional and Transitional Provisional Decree No. 13 of 1993, thus invalidating all acts or omissions done under the decrees 3. the suspension of the NEC as well as the nullification of all acts and omissions of its agents and officers.43 By implication, the National Assembly was also affected. But, following immediate public outcries, Nduka Irabor, in another statement, explained that the repeal of Decree No. 52 of 1992 did not affect the National Assembly and that the state governors would be held responsible for any breakdown of law and order in their states.44 On 26 June, in an address to the nation,45 General Babangida gave additional reasons for the cancellation of the election: 1. tremendous negative use of money during the party primaries and presidential election 2. documented and confirmed conflict of interest between the government and both presidential aspirants, which would compromise their position and responsibilities were they to become president 3. to proclaim and swear in on the basis of the 12 June election, a president who encouraged a campaign of "divide and rule" among Nigerian ethnic groups would be detrimental to the survival of the Third Republic. In this context, General Babangida explained that he had proof of the electoral manipulations "through offer and acceptance of money and other forms of inducement against officials of the NEC and members of the electorate" as well as "evidence of conflict in the process of authentication and clearance of credentials of the Presidential Candidates."46 However, these problems were overlooked in the light of the NDSC's determination to hand over power on 27 August 1993 and in spite of the fact that "these were the same bad conduct for which the party presidential primaries of

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1992 were canceled." But when these political conflicts and breaches 47 were carried to the courts and the courts became "intimidated and subjected to the manipulation of the political process and vested interests," the government considered that the "entire political system was in clear danger" and that there was the need to keep the judiciary as the "bastion of the hopes and liberties of our citizens." It was, therefore, primarily because of the judiciary that the election had been canceled-or so it was claimed. The problem, however, is that the government did not see any need to show political leaders or the general public, through their representatives, the concrete proof supposedly in its possession. If this failure to justify its actions was to maintain peace and security, it instead created a situation of insecurity, which was not helped by the vitriolic government propaganda orchestrated by Information Secretary Uche Chukwumerije against the principal victim of the annulled election, Chief Abiola. When the main reason for the cancellation of the election-safeguard of the good name of the judiciary-is examined, it is difficult to understand how the government could ignore an injunction by a Lagos High Court but respect that of an Abuja High Court on the same issue. Dolapo Akinsanya, a Lagos High Court judge, had already given an interim injunction restraining the ABN, its members, and its agents "from carrying out all or any part of their program of actions or any activity by whatever term called to campaign for or urge General Babangida to remain in power as President of Nigeria beyond August 27."48 The ABN disregarded this order, shifted its base from Lagos to Abuja, and asked the Abuja High Court on 10 June to postpone the 12 June election until 1997. This request was granted by Justice Bassey Ikpeme. The enigma here is that the ABN only applied for registration for the first time on 17 June 1993. 49 By implication, the ABN could not sue or be sued by the time it was granted an injunction restraining the NEC from conducting the election. Even when the chief judge of Abuja, Justice Dahir Saleh, granted another court injunction on 15 June to Chief Abimbola Davies on behalf of the ABN, restraining the NEC from announcing the election results, the ABN was not yet registered and was to be under the court obligation given by the Lagos High Court. How do we explain or understand the position of the government for not calling the Abuja High Court to order? It should be recalled here that Section 7(1) and Section 7(3) of Decree No. 19 of 1992, governing the transition program, obliged the government and all its agents to ensure that the transition program was not derailedby ensuring the implementation of the political program. Section 8 of the same decree places sanctions on any attempt to frustrate the program. As provided in Section 8(1): any person who organizes, plans. encourages, aids, cooperates or conspires with any other person to undermine, prevent or in any way do anything to forestall or prejudice the realization of the political program as

274

Parties & Politics set out in the schedules to this Decree shall be guilty of an offense punishable under the provisions of subsection 4 of this Section. 50

The provision of Section 8(3) further strengthened this point: any person who does or attempts to do any act to counsel, persuade, encourage, organize, mobilize, pressurize or threaten another person to join with him or with any other person or persons to misrepresent, accuse or distort the details. implications or purports of any items of the political program as contained in schedules l to 6 to this Decree shall be guilty of an offense punishable under the provisions of subsection 4 of this Section.

The Arthur Nzeribe-led ABN, without any doubt, flagrantly acted against these provisions by campaigning against civil rule and asking General Babangida not to surrender power. The point of emphasis here is that the government was silent over the activities of the ABN contrary to the requirements of Section 7. Even though there were other court injunctions asking the NEC to release the results,st the government showed little or no concern. How could the government claim to seek to protect the judiciary-which it did not seek to respect? The government appeared to have other reasons for its action-involving a nonaccidental and deep-seated element of the imbroglio. The genesis of this second element of conflict can be traced to hostility to Abiola as an individual and to the ethnicization of the stalemate. Chief Abiola was said to have "stepped on powerful toes" by refusing to serve as prime minister under General Babangida as president; by considering that the economy could not sustain an expenditure of about* 35 billion (U.S.$1 billion) on Ahuja on an annual basis; by refusing to retain the Octopus Construction Company as official construction company; 52 and by questioning or opposing the government on other issues as well. It was also suggested that because the government still owed Chief Abiola's company, ITT, about U.S.$200 million, Chief Abiola, as president, might seek to influence the payment of that debt. More important, Chief Abiola is from the Yoruba tribe, which the "Hausa-Fulani accuse of controlling both the economy and the bureaucracy."53 Chief Abiola was also said to have opposed the posting of Christian military officers to predominantly Muslim states, to the extent that he insulted one of them, Chris Gamba, the former governor of Bauchi who later became a major-general and general officer commanding (GOC), 82d Division of the Nigerian army. Another source of tension with the military occurred on 25 January 1988, when Air Vice-Marshal Nura Imam tried to appeal to Abiola following the use of violence by some NAF officers to solve a minor road-accident case in which Chief Abiola's son and one NAF car were involved. In this case, the Air Vice-Marshal said his officers

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had the instinct of a "mad dog," but Chief Abiola said publicly: "any mad dog that bites the owner deserves to die." In addition to this incident was the "eaglet governors" affair of 23 January 1988. In this case, Chief Abiola was said to have described some governors as "eaglets," or inexperienced people. But when the said eaglets became major-generals and members of the NDSC, such as Governor Olurin, the election provided an opportunity for revenge.54 Above all these considerations was the question of power sharing between the North and the South. The desire to have political power, by all means, informed the adoption of a "do-or-die" policy by many presidential aspirants in the 1992 primaries. Attempts by Baba Gana Kingibe, then SDP chairman, to impose Maj.-Gen. Shehu Musa Yar'adua as the party's flag bearer led to the boycott of the primaries by the other ten contending SDP aspirants. In the eyes of Prince Adesuyi Haastrup, deputy governor of Osun State, a situation where the positions of the party flag bearer and party chairmanship are both zoned to the North was unacceptable to the Southern electorate. In this context, Major-General Yar'adua could be acceptable and the problem of "sectional balancing will have been solved if Kingibe resigns" as SDP chairman.ss The problem of this national question attracted much attention56 and had led to calls for a national conference. Andy Akporugo wrote in October 1992, after the cancellation of the presidential primaries, that the assertiveness with which the average northerner of today claims political power as compensation for the great ascendancy which the south has attained in the acquisition of skills and economic clout, is of course absolutely pathetic. Yet the "birthright complex" has become systematically entrenched. And around it, an elaborate system of leverages has been fostered. perhaps accidentally, by the fact of so many North-dominated administrations since independence. 57

When the 1992 primaries were canceled, the issue of power sharing versus national conference was "set aside" until the time of annulment of the 12 June 1993 elections, but the government continued to encourage the ethnicization of politics in Nigeria, as evidenced by its partisan positions in the Tiv-Jukun and Zango-Kataf conflicts. Different regional groups (Eastern Forum, Middle Belt Elders, Northern Consultative Group, Western Leaders Forum, Eastern Progressives, etc.) emerged and tried to sectionalize the stalemate. While the Southerners protested against the government decision, most Northern leaders stayed mute. In fact, the government introduced another ethnic dimension by proscribing only dailies belonging to Southern proprietors and state governments. In the view of the Western Leaders Forum, the Yoruba people "have been governed by others in a united Nigeria" and "should not be denied the right of governance in an undivided Nigeria." The forum also

27 6

Parties & Politics

rejected "as oppressive and discriminatory the closure and subsequent proscription of certain media houses (including Abiola's own Concord group), all in the Western Zone from Benin City to Lagos. It is interesting that the proscription order left out the Abuja News Day and the Reporter which were initially closed down along with the Western papers."58 In addition, the Edo, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, and Ondo state governments said that the proscription of the newspapers was "the most provocative of all assailment on the Nigerian Federal System" and "the fact that one government is seizing the properties of another Government in a Federal System like ours is very provocative, repugnant, illegal, and does not encourage the type of cooperation needed inter-governmentally."59 Chief Abiola himself declared his belief that he was not wanted by General Babangida because he is "not from his own part of the country."60 Although many suggestions have been made as to how the problem of power sharing could be solved,61 a serious psychological problem has been created. This is the belief by the Yoruba people that one of their own can never be president of a united Nigeria-even when he wins an election judged by the Nigerian Election Monitoring Group (NEMG) and the International Observers as the freest, fairest, and most peaceful ever held in Nigeria.6 2 From the foregoing, Nigeria's present political stalemate should a priori be seen as the manifestation of the unresolved power-sharing question. The cancellation of the 12 June election only created a platform for the stalemate, but the difficulty in arriving at a compromise is a function of the problem of power sharing.

CONCLUSION

From the above analysis, it will not be wrong to say that the enthronement of democracy in Nigeria has been difficult, not necessarily because of the alleged electoral malpractices but primarily because of the feeling of injustice created by the lack of power sharing. Although General Babangida finally handed over power to his handpicked Interim National Government, the fundamental problem is not that of reconstituting or reshuffling the membership of government but how to evolve and uphold the principles of fairness, equity, and justice in a federal Nigeria. The fundamental centrality of this problem of power sharing was evidenced in the 22 April 1990 coup d'etat-when the coup plotters ostracized the five "gateway" Northern states in their announcement-no less than in the cancellation of the 12 June election and its widespread interpretation as a deliberate attempt to prevent a Southerner from winning national power. Failure to resolve the political stalemate on the basis of the

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12 June election threw into doubt the cooperation of Southerners, particularly the Yoruba people, in future presidential elections-and thus the legitimacy of any future presidential election. What could have been a great step forward for Nigeria-a free and fair election, culminating in the inauguration of the first civilian president from the South in the country's history-was needlessly overturned, further eroding the country's prospects not only for democracy but for political stability of any kind.

NOTES l. Tell (Lagos), 27, 5 July 1993, p. 24. 2. Address delivered at the inauguration of the Political Bureau in Ahuja on 13 January 1986. See Political Bureau Report, 1987. 3. Sec his Address to the Nation on the Transition Program to Civil Rule in Lagos, 1 July 1987. 4. See his interview granted to the Daily Champion, 12 August 1991. 5. BBC Network Africa, 6 August 1993; and Daily Times, 7 August 1993, p. 4. 6. SOP's advertisement in Sunday Guardian, 8 August 1993, p. 84. 7. Nigerian Trihunc, I October 1992, p. 1. 8. Guardian. 30 June 1993. p. 3. 9.Guardian,l0June 1993,p.l4. 10. World Bank, World Development Report 1987 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), and World Dc1·elopment Report 1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 11. Central Bank of Nigeria Annual Reports for the relevant years; and Guardian, 26 June 1993, p. II, for Nigeria's exports from 1970 to 1991. 12. National Concord, 16 October 1992, p. I; and Guardian, 19 October 1992, pp. I, 2. 13. Razor, 11-17 August 1993. 14. Guardian, 10 June 1993, p. 14. 15. Daily Times, 21 May 1990. 16. Daily Times, 5 June 1993, p. 3. 17. Guardian, 10 June 1993, p. 1. 18. Daily Times, 9 April1993, p. 11; Sunday Guardian, 20 June 1993, p. B7. 19. Guardian, 14 August 1993, pp. 1, 2. 20. Tell (Lagos), no. 27. 5 July 1993, p. 29. 21. Sunday Guardian, 18 October 1993, p. A5. 22. Vanguard(Lagos), IOAugust 1992,pp. I, 14. 23. SDP aspirants: Olusola Saraki, Maj.-Gen. Shehu Yar'adua, Chief Olu Falae, Mahmoud Waziri, Alh. Lateef Jakande, Jerry Gana, Layi Balogun, Chief Arthur Nzeribe, Datti Ahmed, Abel Ubcku, Chief Bisi Durojaye, and Sarah Jubril. 24. NRC aspirants: Alb. Umaru Shinkafi, Alh. Adamu Chiroma, Alhaji Saleh, Alhaji Sambo. Emmanuel lwuanyanwu, Alb. Shehu Musa, Bamanga Tukur. Lema Jibrilu, and Alh. Irma Wana. 25. Group Date States 1 1/8/92 Katsina, Borno, Kwara, Delta, Abia 2 8/8/92 Sokoto, Jigawa, Oyo, Anambra, Edo

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States Kaduna, Yobe, Ogun, Benue, Imo Kogi, Lagos, Adamawa, Cross River, Plateau Rivers, Bauchi, Enugu, Kebbi, Ondo 5 Kano, Taraba, Niger, Akwa Ibom, Ogun, Federal 6 Capital Territory 26. See the text of General Babangida's speech at the press conference on the outcome of the AFRC's deliberations on the NEC's Report in Sunday Concord, 18 October 1992, p. 25. 27. Guardian, 7 October 1992, p. 25. 28. Sunday Concord, 18 October 1992, p. 28. 29. See Daily Times, 24 October 1992, pp. 13, 14. 30. The MOBS enables a voter to use the voting card, make a choice secretly, but cast the vote in the open. 31. Newswatch (Lagos), 28 June 1993, p. 9. 32. Republic (Lagos), 14 June 1993, p. 1. 33. Guardian, 15 June 1993, p. 5: and Daily Times, 15 June 1993, back page. 34. Daily Satellite, 14 June 1993. p. 1. 35. Guardian, 15 June 1993, p. 5. 36. NTA Network News, 15 June 1993, 9:00P.M. 37. Interview with the CNN in Weekend Concord, 26 June 1993, p. 14. 38. Nigerian Tribune, 17 July 1993, p. 13. 39. National Concord, 8 July 1993, p. 8. 40. Newsweek, 19 July 1993, p. 9. 41. National Concord, 8 July 1993, p. 8. 42. Daily Times, 24 June 1993, pp. 1. 20. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid., p. 1. 45. Sunday Magazine (TSM) (Lagos), vol. 7, no. 12, 4 July 1993. pp. 25, 26. 46. Ibid. 47. General Babangida identified five basic prerequisites that constitute an irreducible minimum for democracy: free and fair election; uncoerced expression of voter's preference in elections; respect for electorate as an unfettered final arbiter of elections; decorum and fairness on the part of electoral umpires; and absolute respect for the rule of law. In this case, General Babangida explained that the election had been canceled because these five prerequisites had been breached. 48. Guardian, 16 June 1993, p. 2. 49. Sunday Concord, 20 June 1993, pp. 1, 19. 50. Subsection 4 provides for a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years without an option of fine. 51. For Benin High Court, see Daily Times, 17 June 1993, p. 3, for Jos High Court, see Sunday Times, 20 June 1993, p. 7, and so forth. 52. Saturday Punch. 3 July 1993, pp. 4-5. 53. Newswatch, 12 July 1993, p. 9. 54. Ibid. 55. Dailv Times and Nigerian Tribune, I October 1992, pp. 3 and 2, respectively. 56. See "The Calls for National Conference," National Concord, 2 October 1992, p. 7; Nigerian Tribune. 30 September 1992, p. 6, and 4 October 1992, pp. 14, 16; Punch, 16 July 1993, p. 8. 57. Guardian, 25 October 1992. p. AS. 58. See their full page advertisement, Sunday Guardian, 29 August 1993, p. A6. Group 3 4

Date 15/8/92 22/8/92 29/R/92 5/9/92

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59. Guardian, 1 September 1993, p. 2. 60. Sunday Magazine, 11 July 1993, p. 13. 61. For example: (I) a rotational presidency in the alphabetical order of the states within a geographic belt or region (i.e. East, West, North, etc.), in such a way that an incumbent president will rule for about four years by consensus and by at least 80 percent of the Presidential Council (See F. A. 0. Alade's article, Sundav Vanguard, 1 August 1993, p. 14); (2) zoning of the presidency: The country should be divided into about six zones such that each zone would elect a vice-president who would be part of a presidential council with the president as chairman. This was aimed at enabling everyone to be represented; (3) introduction of a ThreeVice-Presidential System (See Daily Times, I October 1992, p. 3); (4) organization of a national conference to examine the problem and make proposals. 62. Guardian, 16 June 1993, p. 1.

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12

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Crisis and Collapse: June-November 1993 Rotimi T. Suberu

Nigeria's tortuous transition to a democratic Third Republic finally came to a pathetic denouement on 17 November 1993, with the reimposition of full military government by the new administration of Gen. Sani Abacha. The infamous and seemingly interminable twists and turns that buffeted the ill-fated seven-year transition program since it was unveiled by military president Ibrahim Babangida in 1986 cannot be exhaustively recounted here. Instead, this chapter is devoted mainly to a discussion of developments during the final traumatic six months of the stillborn Third Republic. As will be gleaned from the ensuing narrative, these often complex and contradictory developments were shaped largely by the destructive interplay of five factors-namely the treacherous character of Babangida's redemocratization program, the politicization and corruption of the military hierarchy, the fragmentation of the civilian political class, the debilitating dynamics of competitive ethnicity, and the ruinous intensity of the competition for political power and its material rewards.

PRELUDE TO THE POLITICAL CRISIS

The political crisis that culminated in the collapse of the Third Republic was precipitated by General Babangida's cancellation of Chief Moshood K. 0. Abiola's decisive victory in the virtually flawless presidential election of 12 June 1993. Yet, as previous chapters in this volume have demonstrated, this annulment of the results of a free and fair contest was merely the most dramatic and tragic of several assaults that Babangida had unleashed on the redemocratization program in order to perpetuate his rule. Previous ones included such maneuvers as the postponement of the deadline for the military's disengagement on three occasions, the arbitrary banning and unbanning of political aspirants, the denial of registration to prospective independent political parties, the imposition and revocation of 281

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the open ballot, and the sacking of all the executive officers of the country's sole political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SOP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC), after the corrupt and contentious conduct of the August-September 1992 presidential primaries. To be sure, by 1993, the political program had already yielded the semblance of democratically constituted governments at local and state levels as well as an elected bicameral National Assembly at the federal level. Yet the ultimate impact of the repeated interruption and revision of the political program was to fuel pervasive doubts not only about the viability of the foundations being laid for the Third Republic but also about the sincerity of Babangida's intentions to relinquish the power he had seized in a palace coup in August 1985. The skepticism regarding Babangida's motives was reinforced by various dissolutions and reorganizations of the military power structure and governmental machinery that served primarily to concentrate authority in the person of the president in a manner unprecedented in Nigerian history.! By the beginning of the series of ward, local, and state primaries that culminated in the revised national primaries and conventions of the parties in March 1993, the electorate had become deeply dispirited-and the civilian political class humiliated, and depleted-by the violent gyrations and elongations of the transition program. Notwithstanding the air of pervasive cynicism, however, the rescheduled primaries were conducted without any major incident or controversy. Moreover, the emergence of Abiola, a Southern Muslim, as SOP presidential candidate effectively extinguished the bogey of Northern hegemony that had been evoked by the overwhelming domination of the abortive 1992 primaries by Northern Muslim aspirants. Indeed, given the relative obscurity of the NRC candidate, Alh. Bashir Tofa, it was widely conjectured that the popular, if enigmatic, Abiola could achieve a historic geopolitical victory in the presidential election, scheduled for 12 June. As a Southerner, Abiola symbolized the fervent desire of several elements in the South to break the virtual Northern monopoly on national political leadership. Yet, as a prominent Muslim, Abiola did not excite the traditional Northern Muslim antipathy for "southern infidels" and could count on the support of several moderate and progressive politicians in the North who were willing to concede power to the South in the interests of equity and national unity. Despite a dubious Ahuja High Court injunction on 10 June that sought to restrain the National Electoral Commission (NEC) from organizing the contest, the 12 June presidential election passed peacefully, freely, and fairly. Indeed, the election marked a watershed in Nigerian history. A phlegmatic public, the two-party limitation on balloting, the NEC's tight regulation of the voter-registration process, the general apprehension against providing Babangida with a pretext to manipulate or prolong further the transition deadline, and the presence of local and international

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monitors all combined fortuitously to render the election free of the violence and violations that had dogged Nigeria's electoral history. More important, partial results announced by the NEC on 14 June indicated that Abiola had garnered a historic victory that bridged the country's traditional ethnic, regional, and religious fracture lines. However, the mood of national "conviviality"-as the federally owned Daily Times put itevoked by the peaceful presidential election and Abiola's decisive lead was soon consumed by the resurgence of the wanton chicanery and treachery that had previously dominated and disfigured the political transition.2 On 16 June, after a two-day lull in the publication of voting returns, the NEC announced that it was suspending further action in accordance with another ruling of the Abuja High Court. This court injunction was swiftly countered by High Court rulings in Benin, Tbadan, Lagos, and Awka and was challenged by NEC itself at the Kaduna Court of Appeal. On 21 June, however, the Abuja High Court invalidated the presidential election on the grounds that it had been conducted in defiance of a court order. On 23 June, when a hearing was scheduled to commence on NEC's action at the Kaduna Court, the federal government intervened abruptly and decisively to suspend the NEC, annul all actions and judicial proceedings on the presidential election, and revoke all relevant legislation relating to the transition program. In an apparent attempt to preempt the convulsive repercussions of its daring action, the government then warned that it would hold state governors responsible for any breakdown of law and order in their domain and would not hesitate to declare a state of emergency in any states where there were disturbances over the annulment. Subsequently, in a national broadcast on 26 June, Babangida affirmed and defended the annulment of the presidential election on all manner of threadbare, contradictory, and puerile grounds. Any doubts about the federal military government's role in this final and fatal sabotage of the transition program were extinguished by two events. First, on 16 June, the editor of the influential Kaduna-based newspaper the New Nigerian resigned his post over the government's imposition on the journal of an editorial comment that condemned the NEC's conduct of the presidential election, whipped up Northern opposition to the balloting, and virtually endorsed the "Babangida Must Stay" campaign being orchestrated by Chief Arthur Nzeribe 's Association for a Better Nigeria (ABN). "I find it unacceptable to my conscience and against the interest of my country," claimed editor Yakubu Abdulazeez in his resignation letter, "to continue to affix my imprint to a newspaper which has suddenly begun to pursue policies that can lead to Nigeria's disintegration.''3 Second, and finally, on 16 July, the ABN's director of organization, Abimbola Davis, delivered a press statement that implicated Babangida's closest military and political allies in the association's orchestration of the "organized judicial confusion'' that preceded, and provided the pretext for,

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the government's 23 June intervention aborting the presidential election.4 In blatantly manipulating and abrogating the democratization process, however, the government was risking severe international denunciations and isolation as well as internal convulsions and rebellion.

THE DESCENT INTO POLITICAL TURMOIL

Indeed, the quashing of the June presidential poll provoked turbulent reactions from the international community and the Nigerian civil society and military establishment. The United States predictably played the preeminent role in underlining the international community's opposition to Nigeria's apparent backsliding from the worldwide trend toward democracy. On the eve of the election, the Nigerian government had issued an expulsion order on Mike O'Brien ofthe U.S. Information Service in Nigeria and had withdrawn accreditation to U.S. election monitors, in apparent pique at O'Brien's declaration of the United State's opposition to any "postponement of the election" following the 10 June Ahuja High Court injunction against the conduct of the poll.5 When the election was finally annulled, the United States reacted by suspending nonhumanitarian assistance to Nigeria, reducing the level of military-personnel exchange between the two countries, reviewing all new applications for exports of defense articles and services to Nigeria, imposing restrictions on the issuance of U.S. diplomatic visas to Nigerian officials, and advising prospective U.S. visitors to avoid Nigeria. 6 Britain reacted in a similar fashion. It suspended all its military courses for Nigerian officers, withdrew a British military advisory team, cut down on new aid, and suspended or reduced visa opportunities for members of the Nigerian armed forces and their families as well as federal and state government officials.7 Canada suspended Nigeria's eligibility for Canadian-sponsored military and police training, canceled an upcoming visit to the country by a delegation from the Nigerian Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, and advised Canadians to defer all travels to Nigeria. 8 In line with the policies of the United States and Britain, in particular, the European Community (EC) reacted to the annulment of Abiola's victory by suspending all military aid and training programs and canceling visas to Nigerian military personnel and their families.9 All these sanctions were carefully targeted at those believed to be most responsible for the election annulment-the Nigerian military hierarchy-rather than at the generality of the Nigerian populace. The sanctions gave partial satisfaction to demands by the Campaign for Democracy (CD), a federation of forty-odd pro-democratic and humanrights organizations, that the international community should isolate the Babangida government economically and politically. Led by the president

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of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR), Beko Ransome-Kuti, the CD was even more effective in organizing a campaign of domestic "civil disobedience and mass action" designed to make the country ungovernable and force the government to reverse the cancellation of the presidential poll. On at least four different occasions, from June to October 1993, the CD announced and organized antigovernment strikes and demonstrations that successfully paralyzed commercial and social I ife in some of Nigeria's major cities for three consecutive days. Despite the detention of Ransome-Kuti (along with such other noted activists as Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana, and Segun Maiyegun) and the killing of more than one hundred demonstrators by security forces during July 1993, the CD's civil-disobedience strikes and demonstrations remained a prominent and persistent pivot of political opposition during the postelection crisis. This campaign of civil disobedience was bolstered by the fervent support of such associational groups as the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADL), the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ). The involvement of the NUJ, in particular, in the pro-democracy campaign reflected the severe repression to which the press was subjected by the government during the postelection crisis. In the final days of the Babangida administration, for instance, the government closed down four media organizations, proscribed more than ten publications, promulgated a particularly obnoxious press-registration law, confiscated thousands of printed copies of publications, and detained dozens of media practitioners who had openly criticized the government.JO The NUJ eventually declared a state of emergency in the media industry and went on strike during early September, to protest this unprecedented siege on news organizations. II Much of the mobilization or opposition against the annulment of the presidential poll, however, remained confined largely to the South-Western states of Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo states. This geographical bias, in part, reflected the special sense of ethnic injustice felt by the populace in the South-West at the aborting of the presidential victory of a Yoruba candidate by a Northern-led government. This ethnoregional grievance ultimately contributed to a resurgence of the sectarian sentiments and resentments that A biola's nationwide victory appeared to have momentarily transcended. Indeed, as the postelection crisis deepened, the Nigerian nation was increasingly confronted with the ugly specter of ethnoregional violence and national disintegration. As Africa Watch described the situation in a statement in August 1993: The tragedy of the present crisis is that Nigerian citizens, who in the election seemed to have overcome a legacy of ethnic conflict by crossing ethnic and regional barriers to vote for Mr. Abiola, have been forced once

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again to narrow their sights and put their ethnic identities first, rather than their citizenship as Nigerians .... In the past few weeks, tens of thousands of Nigerians have fled the cities for their home villages, fearing the outbreak of widespread ethnic violence. Southern rage has been ignited, and anti-Hausa sentiments are increasingly given voice. In the north, Hausas who supported Mr. Abiola have been stung by the recent anti-Hausa backlash and are withdrawing back into their ethnic and regional identities.l2

Part of the responsibility for this ethnicization of the election imbroglio lay with the belated and ambivalent response of the national federation of trade unions, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), to the political crisis. Contrary to all expectations, and its own deep stake in the pro-democracy movement, the NLC failed to galvanize nationwide opposition to the government's assault on the democratization process. Instead, a widely publicized June strike threat by the labor movement was subsequently repudiated by the NLC president, Pascal Bafyau. A "moderate" unionist and apparent crony of the Babangida administration, Bafyau had, in fact, once advocated the extension of the transition program.l3 In essence, it was left to the state branches of the NLC, and such radical affiliates of the Congress as the fifty thousand strong National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), to mobilize mainly Southernbased segments of the labor movement behind the antimilitary campaign. The convulsion and polarization engendered by the voiding of the presidential election resonated sharply within the military establishment itself. The retired general Olusegun Obasanjo has argued that while Babangida "acted almost alone in canceling the election," he was subsequently able to get "a substantial number of senior military officers'' to endorse the annulment.l4 It is, however, now widely known that the Nigerian military hierarchy held sharply divergent positions on the voiding of the presidential election. The most enthusiastic supporters, if not instigators, of the annulment of the 12 June election were the so-called Babangida ultra-loyalists, such as Generals Joshua Dogonyaro, John Shagaya, Aliyu Mohammed, David Mark, Anthony Ukpo, and Chris Gamba as well as Colonels Abdulmumini Aminu, Lawan Gwadabe and John Madaki. These elements had enjoyed tremendous patronage or held strategic and/or lucrative positions under the Babangida administration and had become deeply committed to the perpetuation of Babangida 's presidency in particular and military rule in general. A leading figure in this group was Babangida's head of military intelligence, Brig.-Gen. Halilu Akilu (who is alleged to have been involved in the 1986 assassination of Newswatch editor Dele Giwa). Described by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka as "the virtual power behind Nigeria's security services" and "Mephistopheles to Babangida's far more inept Faust," Akilu not only provided covert state support for the ABN but had reportedly also boasted openly that "Abiola will be president over my dead body."I5

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Fearing for their future under an Abiola presidency, many of the more politically ambitious and corrupt of the Babangida ultra-loyalists had also reportedly threatened to launch a coup in the event of the installation of the civilian president-elect. However, several other officers in the military intensely opposed the voiding of Abiola's electoral mandate, which presumably included a majority of the barracks vote. At least thirty of these officers threatened toresign their commissions rather than acquiesce in what was, in effect, a preemptive coup against Abiola. Broadly representative of this group of officers was Col. Abubakar Umar of the Armoured Corps. An erstwhile governor of the strategic Kaduna State and crony of Babangida, Umar denounced the political chicanery of the dictator and his cohorts in a widely publicized resignation letter in June 1993: Having watched recent political events in the country, I have come to the conclusion that the Nigerian military as represented by our present leadership has become a stumbling block to the development of the nation's democracy. It is apparent now that the present leadership has always been intent on clinging to power to the detriment of national unity and development. ... I took an oath, on being commissioned, to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria and aid her civil power to maintain law and order. I declare that it is impossible for me to do so while our leaders are actually the ones who are bent on destroying the integrity of the nation . . . . I have therefore cleciclecl to apply... for voluntary retirement from service. 16 But neither the Akilu clique nor the Umar Opposition could lay claim to any overriding influence within the military hierarchy. Rather, the most influential and credible faction within the military consisted of a third group of officers who, for a variety of personal, institutional, and geopolitical reasons, felt constrained to accept Babangida's annulment of the presidential poll as a fait accompli. Nevertheless, these officers insisted that the corporate cohesion and reputation of the military required that Babangida honor his thrice-postponed handover to a civilian government on or before the 27 August deadline for the transition program. The most prominent officers in this third group were the nation's service chiefs, Gen. Salihu Ibrahim, Air Marshal Akin Dada, and Vice-Admiral Preston Omatsola. All three officers were effectively dragged along by Babangida into forced retirement on 26 August, "for being unable or unwilling to ensure the armed forces' support for his continued stay in power."17

THE FRANTIC SEARCH FOR A POST-BABANGIDA FRAMEWORK

The crystallization of external and domestic opposition to any further extension of Babangida's rule, and the dictator's unflinching insistence on

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the irreversibility of the 23 June annulment, invariably engendered a frantic search by the Nigerian political class-military and civilian-for an acceptable arrangement for the immediate post-Babangida era. The major political options, as dictated by Babangida himself, were the instant organization of fresh presidential nominations and elections or the establishment of an interim national government simultaneously with the dissolution of all elected bodies at local, state, and federal levels. The ostensible reason for the stipulation of the dissolution of all elected bodies as a precondition for the inauguration of an interim government was the need to avoid a potential conflict of legitimacy between the elected bodies and the unelected interim government. However, Babangida's preferred option had consistently been for a fresh presidential contest, and the idea of dissolving elected bodies was no more than a sack threat designed to stampede the politicians into a potentially ruinous and rancorous election that would have provided an unassailable pretext for the extension of his rule. There were at least three reasons, apart from sheer logistical difficulties, why the proposal for the conduct and conclusion of a fresh presidential poll before 27 August appeared, at best, to be a "delightful delusion" and, at worst, to be a devious stratagem. IS First, given the failure of the administration to proffer any convincing reasons for the annulment of the June poll, the idea of a fresh election was regarded with extreme contempt and cynicism by even the most disinterested of observers. Second, such an election would most certainly have been massively boycotted and indeed violently obstructed or disrupted by SDP supporters and CD activists. Third, and finally, in proposing a fresh contest between the NRC and a cheated and dispirited SDP, Babangida figured on an NRC victory, "which he would then cancel thereby making the parties even and paving the way for his own perpetuation in power."I9 Yet, reflecting the fatal fragmentation of the civilian politicians, a class "riddled with too many contestants and too much competition," the NRC agreed to participate in Babangida's farcical fresh poll.20 Indeed, even before the 23 June annulment, the NRC had demanded the disqualification of Abiola, the cancellation of the 12 June election, and the organization of fresh balloting on the grounds that Abiola had violated electoral regulations by adorning the SDP logo on election day, that the election had been mired in serious irregularities (rigging, bribery, and intimidation, and so on), and that the NEC had failed to mount effective publicity to counteract the confusing impact on most NRC supporters of the Abuja High Court injunction that had sought to stop the election. A few members of the NRC who sought to concede victory to Abiola were either increasingly isolated from the party or, if they were Yoruba, were denounced for introducing "ethnicity and sectionalism into the conduct of the affairs of the party."21 In short, rather than accept its obvious defeat or even seek redress of its grievances at the Justice Bolarinwa Babalakin

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1993 Presidential Election Tribunal, the NRC was willing to collude with Babangida in the manipulation of the political transition. If the role of the NRC in the postelection crisis was that of an accomplice in the abortion of the democratic process, the SDP's role was hardly less ignominious. While the SDP unanimously opposed any proposal for the immediate conduct of fresh elections, it broke into two main factions over the government's proposals for the establishment of an interim national government (ING). The factions were the pro-Abiola group, which remained unflinching in its insistence on the sanctity of the 12 June election, and a pro-ING group, which argued that the establishment of an interim administration was the most realistic way of making Babangida relinquish power and of getting the nation out of the postelection cul-de-sac into which it had been plunged by the dictator. The stance of the pro-Abiola group was eloquently stated by Abiola himself: I am the custodian of a sacred mandate, freely given, which I cannot surrender unless the people so demand ... the idea of an Interim Government rests essentially on the pretense that the election of 12 June did not take place, or that if it did, no winner emerged from it. Neither assumption is tenable. An Interim Government is a scheme designed to replace the sovereign will of the electorate as clearly expressed on 12 June with the self-serving will of some powerful individuals.22 Although supported by the pro-democratic movement, the pro-Abiola group was constrained by at least three factors. The first obstacle was Babangida's apparent determination not to reverse the annulment of the presidential election in spite of all strictures, sanctions, and dangerous omens of national disintegration. The cancellation, the Babangida government stated in a statement on 20 July, was "final and irrevocable" and the politicians "should not deceive their supporters into believing that the government would change its stand on the matter." 2 -' A second problem involved the continuing opposition of the NRC to an Abiola presidency. The fifteen NRC governors in the North and East, in particular. stridently denounced Abiola and sought cynically to mobilize ethnoregional opposition against him, accusing the apparent president-elect of trying "to become president at all costs, even if it involves the destruction of Nigeria."24 The third and final constraint was Abiola's unwillingness or inability to spearhead any popular political movement against the government's abrogation of his electoral mandate. Instead, he sought a resolution of the postelection crisis through the courts as well as personal negotiations with Babangida and, subsequently, appeals to foreign governments and (in constant transcontinental telephone calls) individual military officers around the country. Increasingly, Abiola isolated himself from key elements in the SDP and the pro-democracy movement. Fearing for his personal safety and freedom, he fled the country on 3 August, campaigning from abroad for his own inauguration

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while thousands risked their own security on his behalf. His prolonged absence cost him dearly. Belatedly, he returned some fifty-four days later with his image and legitimacy gravely eroded. All of this enabled the pro-ING faction to seize the initiative in the SDP. The position of this group, which comprised the party's principal national officers, was tersely stated by National Publicity Secretary Amos ldakula as follows: "We saw the futility of insisting on 12 June and the futility of a fresh election and, since this country must survive, we opted for the interim arrangement. "25 This position was heavily shaped by the bitter rivalry between Abiola and the retired general Shehu Musa Yar'adua, the SDP's most influential Northern member and former leading presidential aspirant. Yar'adua still seethed with anger over Babangida's "annulment" of his imminent victory in the bungled 1992 primaries and subsequent disqualification from the presidential contest, as well as over A biola's apparent endorsement of this earlier manipulation of the transition process. As a way of mollifying Yar'adua after besting his favored SDP presidential candidate and then shunning Yar'adua's recommendation for an SDP running mate, Abiola had accepted Yar'adua's nominees for chairman and most other top party posts in April 1993. However, what seemed in the aftermath of a potentially ruinous intraparty struggle a way of uniting, the SDP placed its machinery in the control of Abiola's arch rival, paving the way for the party to abandon Abiola formally at the peak of his struggle (and for Yar'adua to repay what he no doubt still saw as an earlier betrayal by Abiola). For Yar'adua, the lNG offered a means not only of easing Babangida out of power but also of revisiting and rectifying the anomalies that had led to the arbitrary exclusion of several would-be candidates from the 12 June presidential contest. Yar'adua's attitude came to be widely shared by such other notable casualties of the 1992 primaries as Adamu Ciroma, Umaru Shinkafi, and Bamanga Tukur of the NRC. These elements provided the backbone of the Northern Consultative Group, which mobilized considerable support in the North for the ING and, by implication, the annulment of the 12 June election. In essence, a tripartite committee comprising representatives of the federal government and the two parties approved the establishment of a civilian-dominated interim national government to succeed the Babangida presidency on or before 27 August. The interim administration's remit was to conclude the democratization process by organizing local government elections during late 1993 (subsequently moved to 1994) and fresh presidential balloting in early 1994. Although the tripartite committee had recommended a tenure of between twelve and eighteen months for the interim administration, the Babangida government ultimately decided on a shorter tenure of some seven months (26 August 1993-31 March 1994) in order to facilitate the rapid conclusion of the transition program. Most important, while the initial proposal for the lNG had envisaged the dissolution

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of elected bodies, the final consensus on the matter was that these institutions should be retained as a legacy of the protracted transition process and as the basis of democratic legitimacy for the interim administration. Indeed, the powers of the national assembly, hitherto effectively circumscribed under Babangida's rule, were now to be fully restored to signal the formal transition from a federal military government to a civilian-led national executive. These decisions on the ING had all the appearance of a veritable compromise solution that yielded significant concessions to all concerned interests, without giving any single group an overriding advantage. The ING effectively ended Babangida 's eight-year military presidency but legitimized his annulment of the 12 June election and enabled him to hand-pick virtually all the members of the interim administration, including the socalled representatives of the parties. While the NRC did not get the instant fresh elections it wanted, its members were allocated some of the more strategic ministries in the thirty-two-member TNG, and its rival, the SDP, was effectively denied the presidency. And although the SDP was apparently the party most shortchanged by the whole arrangement, the ING gave satisfaction to those members of the party who were willing to sacrifice Abiola's presidency for the ostensibly higher ideal of a peaceful national compromise-or who wanted a second opportunity to bid for the presidency themselves. In essence, the lNG came to be defended by its protagonists as the "pragmatic non-violent way by which we put an end to military leadership of our nation given the firm determination of the military to annul the presidential election and the obvious lack of consensus among the [civilian] political class in their response."26 To most elements in the prodemocracy movement, however, the lNG was nothing more than the illegal and illegitimate contraption of an arrogant military dictatorship and a bankrupt civilian political class. Indeed, far from resolving the political impasse, the installation of the ING, on 26 August 1993, touched off the ultimate phase of contention and polarization in the political transition process.

THE TRAVAILS OF THE INTERIM NATIONAL GOVERNMENT

Headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan, the erstwhile chairman of Babangida's transitional Ministerial Council (January-August 1993), and (like Abiola) a Yoruba from Ogun State, the ING faced severe challenges from inception. An initial, and ultimately fatal, problem was the profoundly dubious legal basis for the interim government. This legal conundrum arose from several sources, two of which were particularly important.27 First, unlike previous regimes in Nigerian history, the instauration of the lNG was not

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the result of the execution of a successful coup d'etat or the consummation of a process of political succession through democratic elections. The ING, therefore, represented something of a constitutional and legal anomaly in Nigeria's political and jurisprudential history. Second. and more important, Decree No. 61 (the Interim Government Basic Constitutional Provisions Decree of 1993) by which the military administration sought to give legal backing to the ING, was pointedly contradicted by Decree No. 59 of 1993, which effectively ended the authority of the military and/or President Babangida to make laws for the order and good governance of Nigeria or any part thereof. Apparently, in an attempt to sustain the facade of the military's disengagement from the political process, and to present the lNG as a civilian replacement for Babangida's military junta, the former dictator had severed the ING 's constitutional umbilical cord, thereby plunging the interim administration into a legal void. This lacuna was to provide enormous ammunition for Abiola and his supporters in their legal battles to redeem the 12 June election and/or force the ING out of power. The frenzied attempts by the lNG to redeem its legality by reversing the precedence of Decree No. 59 over No. 61 in the federal gazette, and proclaiming Decree No. 61 as the supreme law of the country, only served to portray the government as desperate, fraudulent, and morally bankrupt. The confusion regarding the legal foundations of the lNG accented the profoundly problematic relationship between the military and the government throughout the interim administration's eighty-two-day span in office. For Chief Shonekan, the "withdrawal of General Babangida as president and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces ... signaled the final disengagement of the military from government."28 But the lNG had been installed by the military and, lacking any independent popular mandate, remained dependent on the military for survival. Moreover, although Shonekan was the titular commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, effective control of the military remained ultimately with Gen. Sani Abacha. Abacha, the defense minister under Babangida-and the sole serving military officer in the interim regime-had been named as the ING's deputy head and secretary of defense in order to provide the necessary military prop for Shonekan's vulnerable government. Believed to have sought to head the ING himself, and to have opposed Shonekan's designation as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Abacha soon established himself as the most powerful member of the ING by demoting or purging the military of some of Babangida's more prominent ultra-loyalists, without any consultations with Chief Shonekan. Increasingly, therefore, the ING came to be portrayed as the civilian glove for Abacha's military fist. and the general's political ambitions were widely seen as the key to the ING's future. These observations were to prove prophetic.

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Politically, the lNG was also besieged by conflicting pressures from Babangida and his allies, from the pro-Abiola or pro-democracy movement and from the anti-Abiola elements. No matter how much it tried, the lNG could not escape insinuations that it was an extension of Babangida's discredited military dictatorship. Indeed, Obasanjo, an erstwhile supporter of the interim arrangement, was to lament early in November that "the lNG headed by Ernest Shonekan can never successfully lead the country to democracy as its members were hand-picked by former president Babangida."29 In particular, two of Babangida's closest civilian allies, Comrade Uche Chukwumerije and Chief Clement Akpamgbo, continued in their positions in government. Chukwumerije, the secretary for information, was held in wide contempt for his attacks on the press and his reckless and sectionally provocative propaganda in the immediate aftermath of the annulment of the June poll. Akpamgbo, the secretary for justice as well as chief architect of Babangida's numerous repressive decrees, had an equally deplorable public image. As a member of the lNG, Akpamgbo continued to draw the ire of the public by his threats to have Abiola arrested and to outlaw any public discussions of the 12 June election. Undaunted, however, the pro-democracy movement persisted in demanding the installation of Abiola and in challenging the legality and legitimacy of the lNG. The inauguration of the lNG in August was greeted with several days of strikes and demonstrations by the CD and by affiliates and several state branches of the NLC. As Frank Kokori, the secretarygeneral of the radical oil workers' union, NUPENG, put it: "We refuse to be part of a conspiracy to build peace on fraud and injustice .... The issue is 12 June and we are ready to do anything to restore it."30 Late in October, the intensity of opposition to the lNG was brought into sharp relief when an urban gang, the Movement for the Advancement of Democracy (MAD), hijacked a Nigerian Airways plane and forced it to land at the Niamey International Airport in Niger Republic. Among other demands, MAD asked for a probe into political and economic abuses perpetrated by the Babangida government and the resignation of the lNG. The democratic opposition to the lNG predictably drew extremely strong support from the populace and governments of the South-Western states, despite Shonekan's own prominent roots in this region. The lNG was virtually isolated by the SDP governments in Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo states, who denounced the interim administration as "undemocratic, unconstitutional, illegal, illegitimate, immoral and unacceptable. "31 The voter-registration-review exercise undertaken by the government during November 1993, in preparation for the February 1994 local government and presidential elections, was massively boycotted in these states as well as Lagos. Given this continuing regional antipathy to the ING's political

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mandate and program, the government came under intense pressures from a broad spectrum of concerned leaders and politicians in the federation to shelve its plans to conduct the February 1994 elections. The lNG sought to contain the opposition to its rule through a combination of retaliatory and reconciliatory measures. Thus, leading prodemocracy activists were intermittently harassed, while pro-democracy demonstrations were often brutally dispersed. And, early in November 1993, the interim administration tacitly supported the hasty and obviously illegal impeachment of the anti-lNG Senate president Iyorchia Ayu. "The Interim National Government may be a child of circumstances," Chief Shonekan declared to the National Assembly after Ayu's removal, "but it is high time we come to terms with the reality of our circumstances."32 For the most part, however, Shonekan pursued a policy of reconciliation with the opposition. One of his first actions in office was to release the pro-democracy activists and journalists detained by the Babangida administration. He also sought to get the National Assembly to repeal some of Babangida's repressive decrees. He toured the country, and held consultations with several interest groups and influential traditional rulers, in order to mobilize support for the lNG. Ondo, one of the belligerent Yoruba states, was pacified with promises of federal developmental patronage. While Abiola had been effectively barred by the Babangida administration from contesting in the proposed 1994 presidential election, Shonekan said that the unofficial winner of the 1993 presidential poll would be allowed to participate in a fresh race. Most significant, after initially claiming that "12 June has become history ... and it is advisable that we let it remain so," Chief Shonekan subsequently conceded that the annulled election had remained "a contemporary political issue. "33 Consequently, in October, he established a high-powered eight-member Commission of Inquiry, under the former appeal-court president Mamman Nasir, "to investigate the circumstances leading to and including the annulment of the 12 June presidential election and its aftermath."34 But the commission's role was believed to be largely academic, as its recommendations were not expected to redeem the 12 June election. Rather, Shonekan explained that the commission would document the 12 June crisis for posterity and make recommendations that might help to avert a repeat of the imbroglio. Not surprisingly, the establishment of the commission was denounced as a ruse by the 12 June lobby, including Abiola and his running mate, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe. Conservative elements in the NRC and the Muslim North also opposed the establishment of the Nasir commission, albeit for a different reason. To these elements, any concession to the 12 June group was anathema, and the voided presidential polJ was better consigned to history. The NRC governors, for instance, declared that, "As far as we ... are concerned, the 12 June election has been annulled and any attempts to take

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any action based on 12 June or revisit the issue under any guise will only invite chaos, bloodshed and catastrophe ... "35 Concerned Northern groups eventually challenged the legality of the Nasir commission at the Kaduna and Ahuja high courts. On 18 October, the Abuja High Court granted an interim injunction restraining the commission from performing its duties. As if these legal and political challenges were not enough, the ING had to contend with the country's severely troubled economy. The Shonekan interregnum had inherited from the profligate and corrupt Babangida government an economy that was reeling from collapsing petroleum export revenues, heavy international indebtedness and debt arrears, huge budgetary deficits, unprecedented inflation (approaching an annual rate of 100 percent), massive undervaluation of the national currency, deteriorating socioeconomic services and public infrastructures, and growing unemployment and social misery. One major impact of this economic privation was to fuel popular opposition to government proposals to remove or reduce the huge and financially costly and unsustainable subsidy on domestic fuel consumption. On the eve of its departure, the Babangida administration had announced that it was introducing a new. refined grade of petrol to be sold at :N: 7.50 per liter against :No 0. 70 for the existing older grade. This tacit plan to remove the oil subsidy via a two-tier petrol price system was eventually shelved by the Shonekan administration in the face of massive strike actions by the trade unions and acute fuel shortages in most parts of the country. Nevertheless. the issue of the petroleum subsidy (estimated at about :No 60 billion annually) remained an important item on the ING's troubled policy agenda. "The issue," according to Shonekan 's chief adviser and National Planning Commission chairman, Isaac Aluko-Olokun, was "the greatest challenge of economic policy making since the end of the 1967-70 civil war. "36 Bereft of constitutional credibility and political legitimacy, however, the lNG could only confront this explosive but imperative subject at great risk to its own survival.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE lNG AND THE RETURN OF THE MILITARY

On 8 November, the lNG raised domestic fuel prices by more than 600 percent. In effect, the costs of petrol rose from* 0.70 per liter to :N: 5.00. gas oil, from* 0.50 to* 4.50; and kerosene, from* 0.55 to* 4.75. These steep increases in fuel prices provoked a 200-300 percent hike in road-transport fares, tumultuous riots and protests in major urban centers, and an ultimatum by the NLC for the government to withdraw the increases or face an indefinite strike action. On 10 November, two days after the fuel price rises, the ING suffered another fatal setback when it was proclaimed illegal by Justice Dolapo

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Akinsanya of the Lagos High Court. This ruling, though instantly challenged by the lNG at the Court of Appeal, was widely believed to be the prelude to another ruling by Akinsanya, fixed for 18 November, that would have invalidated Babangida's annulment of the 12 June election. On 17 November however, following inconclusive government talks with the striking labor federation and pressures from the military hierarchy, Chief Shonekan relinquished his position as head of the lNG and commander-inchief of the Armed Forces and was replaced by Gen. Sani Abacha. In his maiden broadcast to the nation on 18 November, Abacha announced the reimposition of military rule, the scrapping of all democratic institutions, and the replacement of the lNG by a Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) and Federal Executive Council (FEC). His declared agenda, which was ominously reticent about a timetable for the military's political disengagement, included the establishment of a "Constitutional Conference" with "full constituent powers ... to determine the future constitutional structure of Nigeria" and the reform and reorganization of the military, police, judiciary, key public parastatals, and the banking and educational sectors.37 (The promised Constitutional Conference was a gesture to the long-standing demand of pro-democracy groups for a national conference to determine the country's future political and constitutional structure.) While predictably disappointing those who had expected him to intervene to install Abiola as president, Abacha's initial political moves and maneuvers included such populist measures as the unbanning of proscribed media organizations (including Abiola's own Concord group), the mollification of the labor movement and urban groups through a downward review of the hiked fuel prices, and the establishment of a "rainbow" cabinet that encompassed a breathtaking array of veteran politicians from the Second Republic and protagonists in the pro-democracy movement, including Abiola's running mate Baba Gana Kingibe as foreign minister. But Abacha's attempts to generate public support for his coup could hardly eclipse the pervasive feeling of despair over the collapse of a transition project that had gulped an estimated :W 30 billion and over the return of the military against all considerations of its ruinous political legacy in the past ten years. In the words of a group of enraged Third Republic senators who denounced the military for treating "Nigerians like a conquered people" and who put up a dramatic, if feeble, resistance against the Abacha coup: "Every military administration justifies its takeover with claims to have the ability to clean up the society, but ends up being more corrupt than the preceding one."38

CONCLUSION

To reiterate, Nigeria's stillborn Third Republic fell casualty to at least five things. The first was a dubious, tortuous, and ultimately ruinously contentious

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transition program that was designed less to produce or institute democracy than to prolong or institutionalize Babangida's rule. The second factor was the greed and hubris of a politically overexposed military hierarchy that was ultimately unwilling to abandon its lucrative, if institutionally divisive, political interventionism. A third element was a civilian political class that was fatally beset by dissension and that actively collaborated with the military in subverting the democratization process. In the words of Kingibe, "The behavior of the political class, of which I am a part ... did not give one hope that we can build consensus around democratic principles ... and a sense of justice."39 More specifically, according to SDP stalwart (and close Abiola adviser) Ojo Maduekwe, "By colluding with General Babangida to insult the integrity of millions of Nigerian voters who dutifully and faithfully exercised their political responsibility to vote, the leadership of the political class committed [an] abomination and so signed their death warrant. "40 The fourth factor in the Third Republic's collapse involves what novelist Chinua Ache be has described as "the Nigerians' greatest weaknesstheir inability to face grave threats as one people instead of as competing religious and ethnic interests."41 For all the talk about Abiola's unprecedented nationwide mandate, the reaction to the annulment of his victory was ultimately consumed in a stifling process of sectionalization that virtually polarized the nation along ethnic and regional lines. Fifth, and finally, the Third Republic, like its predecessors, fell victim to the brazen and pervasive corruption engendered by the craving, among all segments of the political class, for political power and the enormous economic opportunities available to those in power in the Nigerian setting. The sense of anguish evoked by the Third Republic's collapse should not detract, however, from two positive elements of the postelection crisis that culminated in Abacha's coup. The first was the apparent humiliation and ultimate defeat of Babangida's extraordinarily manipulative and cynical dictatorship by a disparate coalition of forces within and outside the military. The second is the survival of the Nigerian federation in spite of the sectarian tensions inflamed by the wanton annulment of the victory of the first Southerner to be elected head of government in the nation's thirty-four-year history. The resilience of the Nigerian nation should not be overestimated, however. With growing popular antipathy against perceived sectional monopolization of federal political power, and the increasingly incendiary character of ongoing debates over the "national question," Nigeria's unity had become, by the time of the Abacha coup, contentious and precarious.

NOTES 1. For more on the ups and downs of the transition program, see "Nigeria Contradicting Itself: An Undemocratic Transition Seeks to Bring Democracy

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Nearer," Africa Watch 4, no. 5 (Aprill992); and Larry Diamond, "Nigeria's Search for a New Political Order," Journal of Democracy 2, no. 2 (spring 1991). 2. Daily Times (Lagos), 15 June 1993, as cited in West Africa (London), 28 June-4 July 1993, p. 1,080. 3. See Newswatch (Lagos), 28 June 1993, p. 13. 4. See Abimbola Davis, "Coup Against The Civilians: My Role; My Regrets," statement to the World Press delivered by the national director of the Organization of the Association for a Better Nigeria, Ikeja, on 16 July 1993. 5. Newswatch, 28 June 1993, p. 14. 6. Sec West Afi·ica, 5-1 I July 1993, p. 1, 139; and "Testimony of the Assistant Secretary of State George E. Moose Before the Africa Subcommittee of The House Foreign Affairs Committee on Nigeria's Political Crisis on August 4, 1993." 7. West Africa. 5-11 July 1993, p. 1,139. 8. See "Canada Imposes Sanctions on Nigeria," Xinhua General Overseas News Service, 21 August 1993. 9. Sec "Nigeria: Foreign Minister Denies European Community Sanctions," Inter-Press Service, 23 July 1993. I 0. The banned media organizations were the Concord, Observer, Punch, and Sketch groups of newspapers. The affected publications included National Concord, Weekend Concord, Sunday Concord, African Concord, Daily Observer, Sunday Observer, Daily Punch, Saturday Punch, Sunday Punch, Daily Sketch, Sunday Sketch, and The News. 11. See "The Press Under Siege," Guardian (Lagos), 20 August 1993, p. 10; and Mohammed Sani Zoro, "Anti-Press Decrees and the National Assembly," Guardian, 4 October 1993. p. 37. 12. See "Human Rights and Political Developments in Nigeria" (testimony of Holly Burkhalter of Africa Watch Before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on African Affairs on 4 August 1993), p. 6. 13. See "Nigeria Contradicting Itself," p. 22. Ironically, Bafyau had also been a leading contender for selection by Abiola as his vice-presidential running mate. 14. See A.fi"ican Guardian (Lagos), 8 November 1993, p. 32. 15. See Wole Soyinka, "Nigeria's State of Purgatory," Independent (London), 29 June 1993, p. 19; and Africa Research Bulletin (London), 1-30 June 1993, p. 11,042. 16. Newswatch, 12 July 1993, p. 14. 17. Sec Ima Niboro, "Stepping Back to Power?: The Calculations, the Odds," Afi"ican Guardian, 20 September 1993, p. 22. 18. See "Our Only Way Forward," Newswatch, 4 October 1993, p. 17. 19. As suggested by Olusegun Obasanjo in African Guardian, 8 November 1993, p. 32. 20. Cf. Naomi Chazan, "Africa's Democratic Challenge," World Policy Journal 9, no. 2 (spring 1992): 302. 21. Newswatch, 28 June 1993, p. 17. 22. See New swatch, 5 July 1993, p. 9; and Tempo (Lagos), 9 August 1993, p. 12. 23. See Foreign Broadcast Information Service (Sub-Saharan Africa), 21 July 1993, p. 24. 24. Newswatch, II October 1993. p. 11. 25. West Aji·ica, 6-12 September 1993, p. 1,577. 26. Chief Ernest Shonckan in Washington Post (Washington, D.C.), 27 September 1993, p. A 15. 27. See Ima Niboro, "A Strange Kind of Government," African Guardian, 25 October 1993, pp. 12-15.

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28. Newswatch, 13 September 1993, p. 15. 29. Newswatch, 8 November 1993, p. 20. 30. See Foreign Broadcast Information Service (Sub-Saharan Africa), 29 October 1993, p. 27, and 12 November 1993, p. 18. 31. Newswatch, 13 September 1993, p. 11. 32. West Africa, 22-28 November 1993, p. 2,108. 33. See Newswatch, 13 September 1993, p. 14, and 11 October 1993, p. 13. 34. West Africa, 18-24 October 1993, p. 1,882. 35. Newswatch, 11 October 1993, p. 11. 36. West Africa, 22-28 November 1993, p. 2,108. 37. See Newswatch, 29 November 1993, p. 18. 38. New York Times (New York), 21 November 1993, p. A6. 39. Foreign Broadcast Information Service (Sub-Saharan Africa), 26 November 1993, p. 26. 40. West Africa, 29 November-S December 1993, p. 2,155. 41. Chinua Achebe, "The High Price of Patience," New York Times, 27 July 1993, p. 13.

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The Rise and Fall of Structural Adjustment in Nigeria Thomas Biersteker & Peter M Lewis

During the late 1980s, Nigeria was Africa's most visible and important example of a country pursuing economic and political reform simultaneously. Shortly after seizing power in August 1985, Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Babangida outlined a program of structural adjustment, in tandem with a planned transition to democratic rule. Nigeria had a long postindependence history of statist development policy and military rule, but Babangida announced a sweeping reform agenda within months of assuming the presidency. His attempt to manage the twin programs raised implicit questions about the compatability of economic and political liberalization.! International donors generally contended that the reforms should be mutually reinforcing: the beneficiaries from economic restructuring would provide a social base for continued liberalization, and a growing economy would create a more conducive environment for democracy. Critics in Nigeria and abroad argued that the social costs of adjustment would create strains that could only be quelled through authoritarian means. Alternatively, there was the possibility that structural adjustment and democratic transition were essentially separate realms-which a clever and determined political leadership could manage on separate tracks. Viewed in comparative perspective, Nigeria's joint reforms were distinctive. In many Latin American and East Asian countries, economic restructuring preceded political liberalization. In most of Eastern and central Europe, the later emergence of simultaneous economic and political reform was largely unplanned and circumstantial. Nigeria embarked on a unique agenda of adjustment and democratization. Given Nigeria's size, its strategic position, the amount of attention (and resources) it received from international financial institutions, its historical significance as a role model for the rest of the continent, and the important precedents it continues to set, it is important to understand the course of this venture. In the early years of the Babangida regime, economic and political reform appeared to be mutually reinforcing. As the government defined its 303

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programs, Babangida employed both political manipulation and repressive tactics to diffuse opposition to liberalization. Initially, the Nigerian public anticipated future benefits from reform and accepted government arguments that authoritarianism and austerity were temporary expedients. These expectations, along with the leadership's political dexterity in balancing the two programs, helped to sustain a course of reform for several years. Over time, however, the programs became increasingly contradictory, as political liberalization coincided with the implementation of harsh economic measures in the absence of favorable economic performance and/or successful efforts to create a new political coalition. Lingering economic hardship prompted growing opposition to the adjustment program, and it elevated the material attractions of political office. The regime responded to popular restiveness by suppressing dissent, while slowing or retreating on some economic-reform policies. The military also sought to contain political uncertainty by tightening control over the political transition program. 2 Meanwhile, Babangida placated key constituencies through the disbursal of public patronage and favors. These practices had the effect of weakening economic performance, fueling resentment toward the unequal costs of the adjustment program, and raising the stakes of political competition. The rise and fall of Babangida's economic adjustment program generally paralleled the changing fortunes of the political transition. After 1990, when the government was shaken by successive political and fiscal shocks, economic management deteriorated markedly. A waning commitment to liberalization in both realms was evident by the early 1990s, as the government sought to avoid the political costs of austerity and to impose order on an unraveling political base. While the Nigerian authorities moved forward with aspects of the adjustment program, fiscal and monetary controls were virtually abandoned and relations with external creditors became increasingly strained. By late 1992, the economic-reform program was in disarray, and a little more than a year later it was essentially scrapped. The political agenda wobbled along through mid-1993, when Babangida defaulted on the democratic transition, leading to General Abacha's reimposition of authoritarian rule. Since the course of the political transition is treated extensively in this volume, we will focus mainly on the economic dimension. After a brief discussion of the background to adjustment, we discuss the evolution of economic policy under Babangida as well as the political management of reform. We conclude with observations about the nature of coalition management, the interaction of political and economic liberalization, and lessons from the Nigerian experience.

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BACKGROUND TO ADJUSTMENT: DECLINE AND STABILIZATION (1981-1985)

The proximate causes of the severe economic downturn experienced by Nigeria in the early 1980s were the belated and ineffective responses of the civilian government (the Second Republic, inaugurated in 1979) to a dramatic decline in the country's petroleum earnings.3 Beginning in 1981, large fiscal shortfalls, accumulating trade deficits, and falling external reserves generated growing pressures on Nigeria's balance of payments. These were briefly eased by external borrowing. During four years in office, the Shehu Shagari government accumulated U.S.$12 to U.S.$16 billion in new debt, much of which was short-term, and derived from private, commercial sources. In spite of the new credit, industrial production began to fall, work stoppages increased, and as petroleum revenues continued to decline, the manufacturing sector was starved of inputs vital for its highly import-intensive production. The Shagari government introduced Nigeria's first austerity budget in 1982. However, by the time it began to respond to the economic problems, Nigeria had fallen behind in its short-term debt repayments, and its trade arrears began to accumulate. It was soon clear that something would have to be done, and the government cautiously initiated the first of what became three distinct periods of economic austerity and adjustment in Nigeria. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was first approached in April 1983 for a loan to cover balance-of-payments shortfalls, but negotiations stalled because of the Shagari government's refusal to agree to the IMF's conditions for a devaluation of the naira, trade liberalization, and a removal of the petroleum subsidy.4 When the military regime of Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari ousted the Second Republic on 31 December 1983, it faced a number of significant (and worsening) economic problems. Oil income was down, from U.S.$25 billion in 1980 to less than U.S.$10 billion in 1983; the country's debt service ratio had climbed from under 5 percent in 1980 to nearly 35 percent in 1984; and its foreign-exchange reserves were virtually drained. Domestic inflation was running at a level of 23.2 percent, and industrial production was sharply off.5 The immediate prospects for a rapid recovery of either oil income or domestic production were dim. In response to the deteriorating situation, the Buhari government launched a radically deflationary stabilization program of economic austerity, coupled with a creative attempt to raise more foreign-exchange earnings and refinance the country's accumulated debt. This was the second period of austerity in Nigeria. Tight fiscal and monetary policies were introduced, as public expenditures were reduced, money supply was constrained, interest rates were increased, new taxes were levied, and the cost

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of many social services was passed on to consumers for the first time. Strict import licensing was extended to nearly every category of imported goods in an effort to cut import levels back to their lowest levels (in current terms) in ten years. At the same time, the government devised anumber of schemes to increase foreign-exchange earnings, mainly by exceeding its Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production quota and experimenting with countertrade arrangements.6 Finally, the military government entered into a major effort to refinance the country's accumulated debts. The Buhari government began negotiations for a rescheduling of Nigeria's backlog of short-term trade debt, but its efforts faltered when it came to reaching agreement on the balance of U.S.$20 billion in external obligations. Progress here was dependent on the state of negotiations with the IMF, and the Buhari government hesitated when confronted with the same three conditions that had prevented the Shagari government from reaching an agreement with the IMF.7 The military regime creatively tried to bypass some of the operational rules of the international financial system by attempting to negotiate London Club agreements without Paris Club or IMF approval, but these efforts ultimately failed. In the final analysis, the Buhari government imposed a severe stabilization package on the country, without receiving any of the potential benefits of IMF financial assistance. Its austerity program and other policy measures brought inflation down to relatively low levels (to around 5 percent in 1985), increased oil production levels. improved external balances, and slowed the accumulation of debt pressures. However, the economic policy was not without substantial costs: real growth rates continued to decline, thousands of civil servants were laid off, real wages fell precipitously, urban unemployment skyrocketed, and industrial-sector activity was drastically curtailed. The economy had been stabilized, but at a considerable cost to the Nigerian people both in terms of standards of living and in terms of heretofore-unprecedented levels of political repression.

ACCEPTING ADJUSTMENT (AUGUST 1985-SEPTEMBER 1986)

Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Babangida came into office sharply critical of his predecessor's autocratic political style. as well as his management of the economy, which he characterized as "austerity without adjustment."8 In his first speech on assuming power, Babangida promised to continue discussions with the IMF, while expressing concern about debt service levels and suggesting reductions in the role of the public sector. The initial appointment of a former World Bank employee, Kalu Idika Kalu, as minister of finance clearly reflected a changing sentiment about economic policy, as did early statements from senior members of the governing military council.

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In October, Babangida promulgated a National Economic Emergency Decree, providing himself with sweeping discretionary powers to take measures to improve the economy over the next fifteen months. This effectively launched the third period of austerity since 1982. Soon thereafter, the government decided to stimulate public discussion on the merits of an agreement with the IMF and launched its celebrated national "IMF debate·· on the issue. At the outset, it appeared that the government was already predisposed toward some kind of agreement with the fund and that the debate was simply a way of generating and mobilizing popular support for the tough conditions that would follow.9 The debate itself consisted of a flurry of public speeches, individual pronouncements, street demonstrations, public-affairs discussions, and special reports and interviews in the media. It provided a unique glimpse into the configuration of supporters and opponents of agreement with the IMF. The fund was still holding out for a substantial devaluation, fiscal and monetary restraint, and the strengthening of market mechanisms including trade liberalization, the removal of petroleum subsidies, cuts in allowances and loans to parastatals, financial deregulation, and increased agricultural producer prices.IO It did not take long for a broad-based opposition to the IMP's program to emerge. Organized labor declared the program (and the Babangida government) "anti-worker" and contended that the rich would benefit at the expense of the poor. Labor was joined by a number of urban professionals, already affected by austerity, who expressed concern about the disruptive implications of a major devaluation. Students, academics, and several journalists also joined in the coalition opposed to agreement with the fund. A few beneficiaries of the import licensing scheme spoke out against trade liberalization, while a number of prominent Northern Nigerians were concerned that greater reliance on market mechanisms would disrupt the fragile regional balance in the country. II Support for an agreement with the IMF came primarily from prominent indigenous entrepreneurs in the Lagos area, a number of professional economists, and the Lagos Chamber of Commerce. The World Bank also began to play a prominent role in the debate. The resident World Bank representative in Nigeria, Ishrat Husain, was a frequent and occasionally outspoken participant during the public debate on the IMF. Nevertheless, there were a few reservations about an IMF agreement within the Nigerian business community, especially among industrialists who, despite a general interest in opening the economy, feared the competitive effects of rapid trade liberalization. Supporters of an agreement were drowned out by the majority opposed to a loan from the fund. Public opinion grew increasingly hostile throughout the latter months of 1985.12 After years of experiencing one corrupt government after another, Nigerians were increasingly suspicious

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of the ability of their leaders to manage the economy properly. Many argued that if more loans were obtained, the money would disappear just as quickly as it had in the past and that the country would be better off without the loan. 13 Others expressed concerns that an authoritarian regime would be required to implement the program, a number were wary of diminishing national sovereignty, 14 and several argued that there were few successful examples of adjustment elsewhere in the world. IS If Babangida had been attempting to use the public debate to build a coalition on behalf of an agreement with the fund, he had clearly failed. In the wake of growing public discontent, major strikes planned by both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and students' organizations, and further disputes within the ruling military council, Nigeria broke off talks with the IMF on 13 December 1985. At this point, the World Bank representative, Husain, drafted a private memo to Babangida offering an alternative (and face-saving) plan. The World Bank would finance a structural adjustment program to which the IMF would give its seal of approval-but no direct commitment of financial support. Thus, Nigeria would be in a position to embark on its rescheduling process at both the London and Paris Clubs without giving in directly to IMF conditionality, and the World Bank would serve as intermediary in the process. Significantly, these discussions coincided with the drastic reduction in oil prices from average levels above U.S.$27 per barrel in December of 1985 to futures market prices under U .S.$9 per barrel projected for May 1986.16 The 1986 budget, announced at the beginning of the year, contained virtually all of the seeds of Nigeria's subsequent structural adjustment program. It effectively introduced the most sweeping reversal of macroeconomic policy in Nigeria's postindependence history. Babangida invoked nationalist sentiment by declaring that Nigeria would limit its debt servicing to 30 percent of total exports and called for self-reliance, an inwardlooking development strategy, and a reversal of international dependence. However, this was not to be self-reliance of the autarkic sort. The principal objectives of the government's economic-recovery program were export diversification, fiscal and balance-of-payments equilibrium, and stable, noninflationary growth.I7 To achieve these objectives, the budget speech identified a number of different mechanisms, including the "adoption of a realistic exchange-rate policy," "further rationalisation/restructuring of the customs tariffs," and "the adoption of appropriate pricing policies especially for petroleum products and public enterprises. "18 In effect, this meant a major devaluation of the naira, trade liberalization, and a reduction of most (80 percent) of the government subsidy on domestic petroleum prices, precisely the three substantive issues that had blocked previous efforts to reach agreement with the IMF.

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The president's nationalist rhetoric was well received by the Nigerian public. Babangida's references to two of the most controversial of the fund's conditions (devaluation and trade liberalization) were vague, especially since the effective consequence of adopting a "realistic" exchangerate policy was not evident to most of the Nigerian public. However, even more significant was the unusual close to the annual budget speech. Rather than concentrating exclusively on economic issues, President Babangida ended his address with a major announcement about the political future of the country. He stated a decision to hold yet another public debate, this time on the country's future political system. He also created a Political Bureau to design a more viable political and economic structure for the country and lay the groundwork for a return to civilian rule. He affirmed his intention to return power to civilian authorities.19 The net effect of the new political transition was to divert public attention from economic issues, and from the recent controversy surrounding an agreement with the IMF. Starting in late January, the Political Bureau went to work in the public arena, canvassing popular opinion, holding open meetings, and setting up the national debate on political forms (see Chapter 3). At the same time, between January and June of 1986, the government worked quietly with the World Bank, drawing up the broad design for Nigeria's comprehensive structural adjustment program. The main features of the Babangida government's Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), inaugurated in July 1986, included a plan to strengthen demand-management policies, liberalize both trade and foreign-exchange regimes, rationalize and restructure the tariff system, reduce administrative controls to allow a greater role for market mechanisms, adopt measures to stimulate domestic production, institute market-determined pricing policies, and encourage privatization.2o This meant that Nigeria created mechanisms to accomplish all five of the principal components typically associated with orthodox structural adjustment.21 First and foremost, it established a mechanism to institutionalize real exchange-rate adjustment, initially by way of a currency auction system, the Second-Tier Foreign Exchange Market (SFEM), and later by way of the unification of multiple exchange rates (FEM). Second, it pursued major fiscal-policy reform by reducing and/or constraining the rate of growth of government spending and by phasing out or reducing government subsidies on petroleum and fertilizer. Third, there were mechanisms to liberalize trade by eliminating trade licensing, replacing quantitative restrictions with tariffs, and gradually lowering tariff levels. Fourth, there were plans to pursue financial-policy reform, by liberalizing foreignexchange controls and reducing or eliminating subsidized credit. Finally, there was a variety of other policy-reform measures, including the upward adjustment of cash-crop agricultural prices, the elimination of six commodity marketing boards, and the pursuit of privatization. Additionally,

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there was a series of complementary programs such as export incentives and the creation of a Directorate for Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI), designed to remove potential structural barriers to the distribution and marketing of rural produce. On balance, therefore, Nigeria adopted a fairly orthodox structural adjustment program. In comparative terms, until 1990, Nigeria was a fairly disciplined, and relatively "good," reformer.22 The language and rhetoric used to present the SAP to the Nigerian public in June again invoked nationalist symbols and images. Like the earlier budget framework, the adjustment program was characterized as having been "made in Nigeria by Nigerians," and it proceeded from the same logic of the rejection of the IMF loan. Significantly, as President Babangida himself pointed out, one of the key factors that would ultimately determine the success or failure of the program was "enduring political understanding and mass support."23 Because the official program had a twoyear time horizon (July 1986-June 1988), most of the Nigerian public came to believe that the measures would be temporary. Thus, during the initial period of the dual transitions in Nigeria, the two processes appear to have been mutually reinforcing. By simultaneously launching the economic-adjustment program and the return to civilian rule, the military government was able to distract public attention from the fact that it had agreed to the very IMF conditions that had garnered so much opposition. As attention shifted from the nature of the economic order to the emergent political one, the government itself became increasingly concerned with mobilizing the theoretical beneficiaries of the economic program. The very vagueness of the initial announcement of the most controversial economic measures, as well as the way in which they were made to seem temporary, diffused potential opposition to the economic reforms even further.

"EASY" IMPLEMENTATION (SEPTEMBER 1986--DECEMBER 1987)

The most critical component of the adjustment program, the devaluation of the naira, first went into effect in September 1986. By December, the weekly auction system, the SFEM, had stabilized the value of the naira at between 3 and 3.5 naira to the U.S. dollar, yielding an effective devaluation of 57 percent. Provisions in the new foreign-exchange regime delayed the impact of devaluation for businesses with goods in the pipeline, buffering the effects of I iberalization for several months. One of the immediate outcomes of exchange-nte liberalization was a break in the deadlock on the rescheduling of Nigeria's external debt. By the middle of November 1986, the IMF offered its seal of approval on the

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SAP and declared Nigeria eligible for a $540 million standby loan. To no one's surprise, the loan was refused. However, IMF approval made it possible for Nigeria to reach rescheduling agreements with its private creditors at the London Club and with its official government creditors at the Paris Club. By the end of 1986, the Babangida government was able to deliver on its earlier pledge that Nigeria's debt/export ratio would be limited to 30 percent. In his 1 January 1987 budget speech, President Babangida announced the creation of several new institutions designed to reduce the social costs of the SAP. Agencies were created to promote employment, facilitate food storage and distribution, and provide credit to small farmers, while increased funding to DFFRI would expand rural infrastructure. 24 Though the budget continued significant constraints on government spending, the speech had an optimistic tone and stressed that Nigeria was moving from austerity to a phase of consolidation and growth.25 The president's remarks also encouraged the widespread perception that the difficult adjustment measures would be temporary and that the worst of the economic austerity was already behind the country. By early 1987, the government dismantled or deregulated many of the institutions that had dominated the economy of Nigeria at least since independence. With the advent of the currency auction arrangement, the elaborate import-licensing system was formally abolished. The commodity boards for seven groups of agricultural products (cocoa, coffee, palm produce, rubber, cotton, ground nuts, and grain) were similarly dismantled. An export-incentive scheme was established, and the airways were effectively deregulated with the provision of infrastructural support to assist privately owned airlines entering into competition with state-owned Nigeria Airways. Shortly thereafter, in March of 1987, the Political Bureau submitted a draft of its report, and the attention of the government shifted increasingly from the economic to the political domain. Babangida presented the outlines of the transition in a major speech he delivered in July.26 Significantly, the return to civilian rule was postponed from 1990 to 1992, and one of the reasons for delaying the transition was to give the government sufficient time "to bring the economy under orders."27 The military government explicitly rejected the Political Bureau's recommendation that socialism be the governing ideology of Nigeria as well as its suggestion that the privatization program be reconsidered. Throughout 1987, leading officials were clearly concerned with the relationship between the economic- and political-reform programs.28 The political transition was geared toward mobilizing the theoretical beneficiaries of the economic-reform program, especially agricultural producers. By holding local-level elections first, revising the federal government's revenueallocation formula in favor of local government areas, and providing new

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resources to the rural sector at a time of continued economic austerity, the military government was apparently engaged in an attempt to create or forge a new social coalition on behalf of adjustment. The effort may have been crude, and it was clearly imposed from above. However, it was probably the only way to provide a basis for the institutionalization of the economic-reform effort. Throughout this period, the government continued to implement the core components of the SAP. The two foreign-exchange markets were merged into a unified market (or FEM) in July of 1987, a 20 percent increase in transportation fares went into effect the same month, and interest rates were deregulated in August. Domestic airfares were raised, freight rates were increased, and at least one partial privatization took place. Fragmentary evidence about the performance of the economy was also encouraging. Chief Olu Falae, then secretary to the federal military government, reported that there was evidence of conversion in the production processes of some of the largest food processing plants in Nigeria, some diversification of exports (most notably from increases in cash crop sales), and an expansion of service and maintenance activities.29 The government was also fortunate in that aggregate levels of inflation were relatively low during the first year of implementation, largely as a result of enhanced food supplies. However, all was not entirely well in the political economy of Nigeria. The first signs of unrest appeared in May, when the labor minister was heckled at a May Day rally in Lagos. Rioting by traders, butchers, and the unemployed broke out in Minna (in Niger State) during July.30 In the same month, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria's (MAN) semiannual report on the Nigerian economy stated that industrial-capacity utilization declined during the the first half of 1987 (from 30 percent to 25 percent), that industrial closures plagued many small-scale industries, and that manufacturing employment had dropped by 14 percent due to a reduction in working shifts.3I More rioting broke out in November, this time in Lagos, where three people died after a disputed traffic arrest provoked disturbances directed against the police (and apparently anyone else in authority). In December, the NLC held rallies in all nineteen states to protest the proposed increases. The State Security Service (SSS) responded by detaining top officials of the labor confederation.

STALLED IMPLEMENTATION, INCREASED REPRESSION (JANUARY 1988-JUNE 1989)

The first evidence of any significant stalling in the implementation of the structural adjustment program emerged in Babangida's 1988 budget speech. The president implied that the worst was already past and that Nigerians could look forward to an expansionary, reflationary budget in

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the year ahead.32 Interest rates were to be lowered, recurrent expenditure would be increased by 10 percent in real terms, a special reflationary fund was to be established, and the wage freeze in place since 1982 was finally going to be lifted. Even more significant, the petroleum subsidy was to remain in place, at least for the time being. In taking such measures, the government was responding to the growing chorus of domestic criticism of its adjustment program, which now included such "establishment" figures as the former military head of state Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo. Nigeria's one-year standby agreement with the IMF was up for renewal at the end of January 1988, and both the World Bank and the IMF had an immediate opportunity to express their deep concern about the budget, which indicated a significant retreat from orthodox structural adjustment.33 The joint World Bank and IMF team visiting Nigeria in February to review the quarterly performance targets for the SAP expressed concern that the budget would prove highly inflationary. Accordingly, the IMF refused to endorse the government's fulfillment of the adjustment program for the second and third quarters of 1987, and the World Bank delayed a projected U.S.$500 million trade and investment policy loan. Some aspects of the new budget satisfied the international financial institutions, including revisions in the tariff structure, further deregulation of agricultural marketing, and a privatization agenda. The oil subsidy was relaxed slightly in April of 1988. In May, Alb. Abubakar Alhaji (a fiscally conservative former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Finance, popularly known as "Triple A") assumed the leadership for economic policy, as minister for budget and planning. The World Bank and the IMF were pleased at the emergence of a figure who could return Nigeria to the path of orthodox adjustment. President Babangida declared that the SAP would be sustained after the program officially came to an end in July of 1988 and that it would remain "the foundation for the reconstruction of the Nigerian economy."34 From June to August 1988, a new industrial policy designed to deregulate and liberalize the country's investment environment was announced, an export incentive scheme was created, an ambitious privatization decree was formally promulgated, and an Industrial Development Coordinating Committee was established to minimize the problems faced by foreign investors. The government announced the use of debt/equity swaps to reduce its accumulated debt burden, and there was serious talk about liberalizing the country's economic nationalist indigenization legislation of the 1970s. 35 By September, after Nigeria made guarantees about a revised budget, the country successfully negotiated a new rescheduling agreement with its private creditors at the London Club. The January 1989 budget announcement confirmed that Nigeria was back on the path of conventional structural adjustment. The program revealed the conservative influence of the recently appointed minister of

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budget and planning and outlined an agenda of tight fiscal and monetary policies. It also included another (43 percent) increase in domestic oil prices. Shortly thereafter, the government proceeded to implement its privatization program, with the sales of several prominent state-owned firms in flour milling, petroleum marketing, and air transport. Throughout 1988 and early 1989, there were signs that the structural adjustment program was starting to have the desired effects in some areas of the economy. Nigeria's creditworthiness with the international financial community had clearly been restored from its abysmally low standing in 1984 and 1985.36 The country's balance-of-payments position had been favorable ever since the military resumed power in 1984, and there had been notable increases in foreign-exchange reserves. There were reports of substantial growth in the domestic production of cotton and cocoa, a general increase in agricultural production, a resurgence of the oil palm industry in the eastern portion of the country, and a dramatic rise in non-oil exports. The textile industry was described as a "national model of backward integration," recording an unprecedented 250 percent increase in output and a 300 percent increase in total revenues in 1987.37 However, the economy registered mixed performance. The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria indicated that the depreciation of the naira had forced a number of import-intensive assembly plants to close. He was also disappointed that despite the reforms carried out to improve the investment climate in the country, actual foreign investment had been "rather modest if not disappointing."38 More significant, there were disturbing indications of an upward spiral in food prices. Indeed, as anticipated by the international financial institutions, inflation was up sharply by the end of 1988.39 There were shortages reported in staple food production, and cocoa prices began a steep fall in August of 1988, which soon reversed the progress Nigeria had made in diversifying its export portfolio. There was also evidence that the program was faltering in other respects. While banks and financial services were enjoying a renaissance in the wake of deregulation. their activities were not always directly productive. A lively interbank market allowed foreign exchange to be sold up to four times: a bank would purchase hard currency at auction and then sell it to an "approved" customer under credit guidelines channeling funds for productive activities. The customer would then "flip" the money (at a premium) to a second bank, which would then sell to its customer, usually with a supplementary charge. 40 In this way, scarce foreign exchange intended for productive economic activities was diverted to importers of finished goods who passed the costs of the transaction on to consumers in the form of higher prices. The social costs of adjustment were beginning to have a distinctive class character. Nigeria's per capita income had fallen to levels that made it eligible for International Development Association (IDA) lending from

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the World Bank. Increasing public commentary, reflected mainly in the press, was also exemplified when the Constituent Assembly, which was meeting to draft a new constitution, expressed concern that the poor were becoming poorer under structural adjustment. Members recommended that Nigeria establish a welfare state after the return to civilian rule in 1992. There was also growing evidence that compensatory policy measures necessary for the effective operation of structural adjustment were not being fully implemented. Loans from the Nigerian Agricultural and Cooperative Bank intended for small farmers were allegedly ending up in the hands of military officers moving into farming for the first time.41 DFFRI, the government's principal mechanism for ameliorating the social costs of adjustment, also came under increasing attack for corruption and inefficiency. Nigeria's Structural Adjustment Program was becoming increasingly politicized. Strike activity and explicit opposition to the adjustment program grew substantially during 1988 and early 1989. After the NRC sacked ten thousand workers in August 1988, the national railway experienced a series of crippling strikes. In February 1989, health workers threatened a national strike, and protests over the creation of new local government areas took place throughout the country during May. The military government responded to the growing unrest with an increased use of repression, directed initially against the Nigerian labor movement. The Nigeria Labour Congress was formally dissolved by the federal military government and had its bank accounts temporarily frozen in February 1988. The government appointed an administrator to oversee the NLC's affairs, pending elections for a new union leadership. Labor leaders protesting fuel-price increases were detained, and the labor ministry set up a "Tactical and Anti-Terrorism Squad," essentially an antistrike unit, to maintain essential services.42 The military's use of the catch-all security law, Decree No. 2, to curtail labor activism drew criticism from humanrights advocates. The government augmented these measures by harassing union officials and announcing new penalties for economic crimes. The regime also began to show its hand with regard to the political transition. To minimize the potential influence of wealthy Nigerians on the political process, the government decided that it would fund the two political parties itself. During March 1989, it warned the Nigeria Labour Congress not to attempt to form a political party or to engage actively in partisan politics. Shortly afterward, the NLC renounced any political aspirations. When the president officially promulgated the new constitution in May, he declared that the clauses on fundamental objectives of state policy (including the establishment of a mixed economy) had made further debate on ideology "irrelevant" in Nigeria.4l In spite of all of its efforts to restrict the labor movement, the government was not able to contain the growing opposition to its stringent economic

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program. Just as the government lifted the ban on political activities in May 1989, the most serious unrest directed against the Structural Adjustment Program broke out when the "SAP riots" spread throughout the Southern cities of the country. The protests began in the universities but quickly spread to major urban areas of the country, where the students easily won converts to their protests against SAP. At least twenty-two people died in the rioting, although there were unconfirmed reports of as many as fifty deaths.44 A new, more virulent phase of authoritarianism was about to begin.

"LIMITED DEMOCRACY" AND WAVERING ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT (JUNE 1989-APRIL 1990)

The Babangida government was severely shaken by the SAP riots of May and June 1989. Up until this time, it had skillfully managed to guide an ambitious transformation of national economic policy despite growing opposition to many of its policies. The unrest highlighted a widening sentiment that the burdens of adjustment were not being shared equally by all Nigerians. As one observer commented, "[I]n the midst of starvation, nothing can be more provocative to the masses than the vulgar life styles of some of our government functionaries, who have been known and seen to have been building mansions all over the country, whilst people are starving."45 The military as an institution was increasingly identified as one of the principal beneficiaries of the SAP, and its leadership was accordingly being called into question along with the program of economic reform. President Babangida responded to the unrest-and the implicit reproach to the military-with three initiatives, including heightened repression, cosmetic relief measures, and a rhetorical campaign designed to shore up the adjustment program. The repression was quick and severe. As the initial source of the unrest, the universities were the first targets of the military government's anger. Six more universities (all located in the Southern part of the country) were closed during June 1989 in an effort to preempt further unrest. The Babangida government made it increasingly clear that it would not tolerate any uncontrolled discussion of alternatives to structural adjustment. When a coalition of human-rights activists and labor leaders organized a conference to discuss "The Alternative to SAP," police and security forces barred them from entering the NLC headquarters in Lagos. Subsequently, dissident lawyer Gani Fawehinmi was arrested, along with two prominent labor leaders and the prominent social activist Tai Solarin. They joined a growing list of opponents, or potential critics, of structural adjustment who had been detained under the provisions of Decree No. 2.

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A growing number of newspapers in the country were also becoming targets of the repression, especially if they reported stories that might reinforce the public's perception that the burdens of adjustment were not being shared equally by the military leadership.46 In 1988, the government promulgated Media Council Decree No. 31, which was increasingly employed to constrain press opposition to structural-adjustment policies. Besides the use of overt repression, the military government responded to the SAP riots with a number of emergency policy measures designed to ease the immediate burden of the Structural Adjustment Program. The secretary to government, Olu Falae, announced that the National Directorate of Employment had been instructed to provide immediate employment for sixty-two thousand individuals. Pharmaceutical companies were to be given easier access to foreign exchange to produce essential drugs; import duties on commercial vehicles, buses, and spare parts were to be eliminated for the rest of the year (to ease the acute transportation problems in the urban areas of the country); and the social-security scheme for the elderly and unemployed was to be resuscitated. Later in the year, the government established the People's Bank of Nigeria, a financial institution created to concentrate on loans to smallscale informal-sector businesses. As a symbolic indication that the most intense and comprehensive phase of repression was over, Tai Solarin, the prominent social activist briefly detained in June, was appointed chairman of the board of the new bank. Finally, the military government embarked on a rhetorical campaign to mobilize support for its Structural Adjustment Program, contending that there was "no viable alternative" to its package of economic policies. By September 1989, the immediate political threat to the Structural Adjustment Program had abated. However, the government's threefold response to the SAP riots contributed to other problems that were to surface again. The closing of the universities was viewed widely as "anti-South" and fueled continuing concerns that the military government had a Northem regional bias. Moreover, immediately following the unrest, President Babangida cited the business community, the politicians, and other private interests as among those standing in the way of reform.47 When these groups were added to the students, urban unemployed, and groups of farmers critical of the program, it was difficult to identify the real or intended beneficiaries of structural adjustment. 48 It was apparent that it would be increasingly difficult to mobilize a broad-based constituency on behalf of the program. It was precisely this task, however, to which the military government now turned. With the immediate crisis behind it, the government proceeded with its political transition and began a tightly managed process designed to construct a "limited democracy" in Nigeria. The term limited

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democracy is borrowed from O'Donnell and Schmitter's comparative work on transitions from authoritarian rule and is used to describe instances where once democratization has begun and its prudent advocates fear the excessive expansion of such a process or wish to keep contentious issues off the agenda of collective deliberation, they may well continue old, or even create new, restrictions on the freedoms of particular individuals or groups who are deemed insufficiently prepared or sufficiently dangerous to enjoy full citizenship status.49

During October, the military government signaled its clear intention to construct a limited democracy and manage the transition to civilian rule.so The Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) rejected the six political associations vying to form political parties that had been recommended to it by the National Electoral Council (NEC). The AFRC decided to establish its own two political parties and directed the NEC to produce a constitution and party manifesto for each of them (see Chapter 7). The differences in economic policies of the two parties were slight, and both clearly supported the continuation of a mixed economy in Nigeria. President Babangida's shake-up of senior military officers at the end of December served to bolster his control of the government and enhance his control of the political-transition process still further. However much the government tried to manage the political transition process and institutionalize critical economic reform measures, a number of emerging problems made its task more difficult. First, there was continued failure in the implementation of policy. Second, there was a widespread perception throughout the country that corruption in the military was endemic and that it had been engaged in a diversion of the proceeds of structural adjustment. There were also increased reports of corruption and mismanagement at the People's Bank, in the Better Life for Rural Women scheme, and in DFFRI.Sl Third, the transition program made it increasingly difficult for the average Nigerian citizen to participate effectively in the political process. The party manifestos drafted by the NEC were received with little enthusiasm, and the initial reports from the party conferences in mid-1990 suggested that it was Nigerian politics as usual. In spite of the conspicuous efforts to mobilize the population and refashion the political culture of the country (Chapter 6), the political transition was being managed from the top, with little effective grassroots participation. Whatever designs might have initially existed in the minds of the military leadership about mobilizing the beneficiaries of structural adjustment through the political process appeared to have been forgotten completely. Fourth, and most damaging of all, it was increasingly difficult to identify any tangible accomplishments after four years of continued economic austerity and orthodox structural adjustment. Debt service was more manageable, reasonably normal credit channels were reopened, the country's

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balance-of-payments position was improved, and there was evidence of a shift in domestic consumption patterns. However, most Nigerians focused instead on the disappointing pace of recovery. Inflation was a major problem, industries were running at only a fraction of their installed capacity, and, most damaging of all, agricultural production had not taken off as anticipated. Even farmers, supposedly the main "winners" from structural adjustment, were squeezed by high costs for imported inputs, rising labor costs, and unstable producer prices. In short, there were few beneficiaries from which to fashion a new support coalition.

SHOCKS AND UNCERTAINTY (APRIL 1990-0CTOBER 1992)

These pressures created growing tensions in the government's reform strategy, and events during 1990 proved to be pivotal for the direction of both programs. On the heels of a failed coup d'etat, the government experienced a brief but opportune revenue windfall brought on by the Gulf crisis. The succession of political and fiscal shocks shifted the leadership's priorities and derailed the course of both economic restructuring and democratic transition. Responding to greater political insecurity, Babangida moved toward a decidedly repressive and venal style of rule.52 In the course of 1990, he accentuated his authoritarian guidance of the political program while setting aside important elements of economic reform. The abandonment of economic reform was an incremental process. During much of the year, the government generally maintained orthodox adjustment policies, and the economy registered decent performance. With a new IMF standby agreement in place, Nigeria adhered fairly consistently to its stipulations. As with the first facility, the government did not draw down available credits, but it attempted to meet the IMP's guidelines on monetary and fiscal targets, and on exchange-rate management, while pushing ahead with the privatization program and liberalization of the financial sector. The IMF offered a satisfactory rating of the nation's economic performance in its quarterly reviews. The president's 1990 budget speech suggested that both reform programs were firmly on track. Babangida explicitly linked the political transition to the SAP and outlined a new three-year "rolling plan" (which would supplant the previous five-year planning framework), focusing on the consolidation of gains from structural adjustment.53 Policies to promote restructuring toward productive sectors of the economy would be stressed, along with investments in infrastructure and compensatory programs to relieve the social impacts of austerity. The president expressed concern about the continued erosion of the value of the naira and the accompanying inflationary effects. He pledged continued fiscal and monetary restraint. On 22 April, the regime barely averted an attempted coup d'etat, apparently led by a group of junior officers from the South-Eastern states.

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The nominal leader of the revolt, Maj. Gideon Orka, siezed the radio in the early morning hours and read a broadside against the painful social impact of structural adjustment as well as the hegemony of Northern Muslim elites. He threatened to "excise" five Northern states from the federation until they agreed to respect the political rights of the Christian South.5 4 Skirmishes around Lagos, including a tank assault against the presidential compound, took a bloody toll. Babangida eluded the rebels, and the mutiny was suppressed within hours. However, the reverberations of the abortive plot were extensive. The failed coup was deeply disconcerting to the regime. It revealed a number of dangerous fissures, which were not confined to the military. Aside from the evident generational resentment toward the senior armed forces' leadership, the coup exhibited a volatile populist backlash against the economic program alongside equally inflammatory ethnic and regional tensions. With the echoes of the "SAP riots" still in mind, the regime reacted sharply. In the aftermath of the revolt, Babangida took decisive actions to shore up his control over the military and the civilian political arena. He also increased the diversion of state resources for both personal and political purposes. During the next several months, security agencies detained or interrogated several hundred military personnel as well as dozens of civilians suspected of abetting the plotters. The government announced the execution of forty-two alleged conspirators in July, and twenty-seven more in September. Domestic intelligence capabilities were strengthened, and security organizations were given a relatively free hand. Several journalists were questioned after the coup, and the government temporarily closed five publications for "irresponsible" reporting.ss Against this backdrop, the regime nonetheless went forward with scheduled phases of the politicaltransition program, holding a series of internal party elections beginning in May and convening party conventions at the end of July. In August, Iraq's invasion of Kuwait disrupted world petroleum markets, sending international prices from about U .S.$16 per barrel before the crisis, to more than U.S.$33 by October. By January 1991, the market had adjusted to the supply changes, and prices settled around U.S.$17. The price shock created a brief windfall for most oil producers, and Nigeria garnered additional revenues of about U.S.$5 billion.56 Although the government publicly acknowledged that the bounty was only transitory, its subsequent fiscal practices continued to emphasize discretionary use of oil income. In effect, Babangida seized upon the "mini-boom'' as a respite from budgetary constraints. A series of effects ensued from the revenue windfall. First, senior officials institutionalized the diversion of oil earnings to nonbudgeted uses. Enormous receipts were never even recorded in the national accounts. The World Bank estimated that the central bank underreported petroleum revenues

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by at least U.S.$2.1 billion in 1990.57 In addition to this shortfall, the government increased its diversions to so-called dedicated accounts earmarked for specific activities such as the president's office, several industrial projects, the new capital at Abuja, and Nigeria's participation in peacekeeping activities in Liberia. There was no reporting mechanism for these funds. In mid-1994, a study by the Okigbo Commission into the organization of the Central Bank of Nigeria, reported that about U.S.$12.2 billion had been diverted to off-budget accounts since 1988-an amount equivalent to a fifth of recorded oil revenues for the period. 58 Meanwhile, the government registered growing fiscal deficits as a variety of special items made claims on the treasury, including the political transition, the regime's compensatory economic programs, the creation of new states, and the Liberian intervention. During the year of the windfall, the deficit was already high, at 8.3 percent of gross domestic product. By the following year it had risen to 11.3 percent, and, in 1992, 10.1 percent. The presidency financed these shortfalls mainly through advances from the central bank, setting into motion a chain of monetary growth, depreciation of the naira, and rising inflation. The money supply (Ml) rose by 43.5 percent in 1990, increasing to 66.4 percent two years later.59 Inflation was temporarily slowed by the government's 1989 decision to withdraw the accounts of government companies from the commercial banks, which severely contracted liquidity. However, this could not offset the effects of expansionist monetary policies. Also, despite government contentions that it was sterilizing the 1990 windfall by building external reserves, much of the inflow was monetized, creating additional inflationary pressures.60 Inflation, which bottomed out at 7.4 percent in 1990 (largely a reflection of the earlier contraction of liquidity), nearly doubled the next year and rose to 45 percent in 1992.61 Fearing the public reaction to price increases, the regime was slow to adjust rates for electricity, fertilizer, and fuel. The renewal of subsidies added to the budget deficit. Excessively low prices for domestic petroleum products (which were well below the cost of production) also encouraged widespread smuggling of Nigerian fuels to neighboring African Financial Community (CFA) countries, where rates were many times higher. Consequently, the region's largest oil exporter experienced persistent domestic-fuel bottlenecks, which raised fares for public transport and aggravated the deterioration of public services. 62 The government repeatedly cited its high debt-service burden (which had exceeded 25 percent of export revenues since the inception of the SAP) as a source of continued deficits and sluggish recovery.63 Despite an insistence on the need to reduce its repayment obligations, Nigeria's leaders were ambivalent in their relations with the international financial institutions throughout 1990. Following the expiration of the second IMF standby agreement in April, no new compact was pending, and Minister of Finance Falae bargained aggressively (and unsuccessfully) for generous

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terms from the London and Paris clubs. After Falae's replacement by Abubakar Alhaji in August, Nigeria and its creditors were inclined to defer negotiations until the fiscal effects of the "mini-boom" were clear. While year-end results for most economic indicators were acceptable, there were troubling signs of widening budget gaps, accelerating monetary expansion, and rising debt service. The 1991 budget was cognizant of these problems, calling for a fiscal surplus, an end to domestic borrowing by the government, and a continued ceiling on debt service of 30 percent of export earnings.64 The international financial institutions were anxious to fortify support for orthodox policies. In January 1991, the government initialed a third IMF agreement, which opened the door to renewed negotiations with the creditors' clubs. A substantial deal with the London Club allowed Nigeria to repurchase U.S.$3.4 billion of its commercial debt at a 60 percent discount on the international secondary market. In addition, the banks canceled U.S.$1.2 billion in promissory notes and swapped U.S.$2 billion in debt for collateralized par bonds.65 The Paris Club also rescheduled U.S.$3.2 billion in bilateral debt. After the agreements, Nigeria's total debt stock, which stood at nearly U.S.$34 billion in 1990, temporarily declined to U.S.$27.5 billion. By mid-1991, however, it was evident that the government was unable to resist myriad pressures on spending, to institute greater budgetary accountability, or to restrain monetary growth. These problems worsened rapidly, as inflation quickened and exchange-rate distortions increased. Official management of the auction system stabilized the nominal rate for the naira, but the spread with the parallel market increased. Government controls on interest rates, imposed at the beginning of the year, were also commonly skirted by financial institutions. These "hidden" sources of inflation aggravated the slowdown of the economy by making capital and foreign exchange more costly and raising prices throughout the economy. The gross domestic product grew at only4.3 percent in 1991, about half the growth rate of the previous year-and barely positive in per capita terms.66 Babangida was increasingly distracted from economic affairs by the impending political transition, and, in the early months of 1992, there was general recognition that the economic-adjustment program was in jeopardy. The IMF withheld endorsement of Nigeria's performance in its midterm review, and the existing standby agreement lapsed.67 Although Nigeria still did not accept IMF funds, the impasse blocked further rescheduling with the Paris Club as well as concessional finance from the World Bank. In a bid to redeem its relations with the international financial institutions, the government abruptly liberalized the foreign-exchange regime at the beginning of March. The cumbersome managed-auction system was abolished, and the naira was effectively floated. This yielded a rapid 55 percent devaluation, as the naira formally moved into line with its market rate. For

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a few weeks, the central bank attempted to stabilize the currency through large injections of foreign exchange into the market, but this was unsustainable and could not prevent further erosion of the naira. 68 The exchange-rate reform failed to stabilize the economy or to win overall ratification from the donors. Although regarded favorably by the international financial institutions, the measure could not obscure the persistent shortcomings in other areas of economic management. In particular, the government's reluctance to curb off-budget spending, or to increase fuel prices, precluded agreement on a new IMF facility. In the absence of rescheduling, Nigeria managed its growing debt-service obligations by accumulating arrears. By early 1993, the country was behind on at least U.S.$3 billion in external payments, owed mostly to the Paris Club, and scheduled debt service was more than 60 percent of export earnings.69 The currency liberalization had significant inflationary effects, as the government's monetary policies created surplus demand for foreign exchange, and the naira steadily depreciated. Seeking to arrest the slide, the government issued a large tranche of stabilization securities to siphon liquidity from the banking system, while also attempting to fund fully the calls for foreign exchange. By the beginning of 1993, the CBN had set the prevailing rate of twenty-two naira to the U.S. dollar as a tacit benchmark and reinstated the auction system. The reemergence of a second foreignexchange window created a new gap between formal and parallel market rates. The contradictions between political control and economic reform had become increasingly open and acute. Popular restiveness escalated in the face of continued austerity, listless economic performance, and glaring inequities in the burdens of adjustment. Antigovernment protests erupted with regularity, provoked by anything from price rises to petty arguments. Campus demonstrations led to a virtual shutdown of several universities, while ethnic and religious clashes increased throughout the country. Many of these disturbances had distinct economic undertones. A particularly strong manifestation of social volatility came in May 1992, when the government was shaken by two days of anti-SAP riots in Lagos, followed shortly by religious clashes in Kaduna.?O Civil violence also surrounded the creation of new states as well as the elections for state governments and national legislative posts in 1991 and 1992. Amid growing economic hardship, these problems revealed fierce contention over the control of resources. Babangida continued to employ diverse tactics in his efforts to salvage his programs and preserve the regime's control. While the government intensified its repressive measures against popular dissent, it once again also pursued a set of distributive strategies in an effort to allay resentment. Federal authorities persisted with the funding of redistributive economic programs, and the revenue-allocation formula was shifted to increase outlays

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to local governments. In addition, the president created two new states in 1990, and nine more the following August. The regime courted elites with special favors and patronage. As the privatization program was implemented, the divestiture of federal and state companies was rife with insider trading and private placement of assets. The president's office supervised the allotment of bank licenses, which offered lucrative positions in foreign exchange and money markets. After 1991, when new banks were no longer authorized, the CBN continued to act as a gatekeeper for access to hard currency through its supervision of auction arrangements and its regulatory discretion over the banking industry.71 In addition, the government sought to placate the military through a housing program and the provision of hundreds of cars to middle-rank officers. Politicians were appeased with cash payments. These relatively overt forms of patronage were accompanied by a widening realm of illegal activities, which were either sanctioned or actively fostered by the regime. Petroleum smuggling, narcotics trafficking, and commercial fraud flourished in the final years of Babangida's rule, enriching an influential circle of military officers and/or their civilian cronies.

THE COLLAPSE OF REFORM (NOVEMBER 1992-JANUARY 1994)

As the political-transition deadline approached, Babangida showed increasing hesitancy to relinquish power. In early 1992, the government announced a second deferral of the transition date, from October 1992 to January 1993, in order to alleviate administrative problems. Following the contentious presidential primaries in August and October 1992, Babangida again postponed the handover date until August 1993. This was the third deferral of the transfer of power, and it fueled public criticism that Babangida was pursuing a "hidden agenda" to hold power indefinitely.n In order to assuage such concerns, in December the president appointed a civilian transitional council to act as a caretaker leadership until the following August. The transitional council was headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan, a prominent Southern businessman. Although Shonekan and some other members of his circle were said to favor a return to orthodox adjustment, the council lacked the formal mandate or the political weight to determine policy. In the absence of effective authority for economic administration, the adjustment program languished as the political transition occupied national attention. Nigeria remained at odds with the international financial institutions throughout the year. The military leadership publicly ruled out any increase in fuel prices, which essentially precluded agreement with the donors. Internal controls on government financial operations dissipated, as

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central elements of the adjustment program stalled. Public spending and borrowing were spiraling out of control, while the backlog of overdue debt payments built up steadily. Year-end figures revealed a fiscal deficit equaling more than 15 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)J3 Implementation of the privatization and commercialization program tapered off, and regulatory agencies failed to address signs of widening distress in the banking system. On the eve of the scheduled presidential elections, inflation was running more than 70 percent, while the naira sold on the parallel market at more than double the auction rate posted by the central bank. Interest rates in the interbank money market topped 100 percent, as borrowers scrambled to finance bidding on foreign exchange. The 12 June presidential election, slated as the final stage in the tortuous democratization schedule, was conducted in an atmosphere of heightened expectation and widespread ambivalence. The Nigerian public, though broadly skeptical about the motives of military leaders and civilian politicians alike, cautiously awaited the generals' abdication from power. The poll was generally regarded as fair and legitimate, and early returns suggested a solid win for Chief M. K. 0. Abiola, the prominent Yoruba Muslim business magnate. President Babangida stunned the nation days later when he annulled the election, citing logistical and legal complications. The announcement sparked widespread resentment, sporadic protests, and civil violence, especially in the volatile Yoruba states of the South-West (see Chapter 11 ). The ensuing political turmoil aggravated the economic downturn. For several weeks, activity in money and securities markets halted, a run on the banks served to aggravate distress in the financial system, and the naira weakened further as people sought a safe haven in foreign currency. Political uncertainty and a drought of capital restricted trade, and the resulting shortages of imported inputs curtailed productive activities. The central bank reported that the manufacturing sector registered a 14 percent drop in output during the third quarter of the year.7 4 Babangida ultimately bowed to assorted pressures, including urging by elements within the military, protests from diverse societal groups. and admonitions from the international community. On the eve of the August 1993 transition deadline, he stepped down and hastily designated Shonekan's council as an interim national government. Lacking a clear mandate, or a timetable for future political transition, Shonekan's committee ruled without legitimacy or direction. The predominantly civilian government quickly found itself in contention with Gen. Sani Abacha, a senior Babangida associate who was installed as minister of defence. In the weeks following Babangida's departure, Abacha consolidated his hold on the military, and soon he played his hand. Shonekan sought to restore an agenda for political transition and to revive negotiations with the donors. Shortly after assuming office, he proposed

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new elections and commenced talks with the IMF and the World Bank. The petroleum subsidy emerged as a central sticking point for the multilateral institutions, and in November the government attempted to break the impasse by announcing a sevenfold increase in fuel prices. The Nigeria Labour Congress reacted to the decision by calling a general strike. and within three days General Abacha forced Shonekan 's resignation and assumed power. Abacha quickly ended speculation about his political intentions when he dissolved all civilian institutions and abandoned the transition program. However, he shrewdly unveiled a new cabinet comprised mainly of civilians, including several veteran politicians, a prominent human-rights activist, and a noted publisher. Kalu I. Kalu, Babangida's original finance minister and a leading figure in the formation of the original SAP, appeared again in the finance slot, prompting anticipation that the regime might return to orthodox policies. Given the dilapidated state of the economy, many observers believed there were few other choices. The 1993 economic figures revealed a situation as bad as that of the early 1980s. When the debt burden and the decline in real incomes were considered, the picture was bleaker. The GDP increased by only 2.3 percent in 1993, yielding negative per capita growth for the first time in a decade.75 Agriculture also registered negative output per capita. while capacity utilization in the manufacturing sector slipped to 36 percent, from 39 percent the previous year. Private-sector observers estimated inflation at more than 80 percent, higher even than the somber official figuresJ6 As political and economic instability pushed the financial system into crisis. dozens of banks were recognized as insolvent or distressed. Government debt service continued to lag, and arrears on external debt surpassed U.S.$5 billion. However, the announcement of the January 1994 budget eliminated any expectations that these adverse conditions would prompt a return to orthodox structural adjustment. The greater portion of Abacha's cabinet championed a populist economic program. Kalu was quickly sidelined, and the head of state's budget speech unveiled aU-turn on economic strategy. The policies associated with the SAP were replaced by a statist and nationalist package, emphasizing administrative controls on finance, trade, and foreign exchange. The exchange rate was fixed at twenty-two naira to the U.S. dollar (in contrast to a prevailing market rate of about fifty), and all foreign exchange was to be allocated directly by the Central Bank of Nigeria. The parallel foreign-exchange market was formally proscribed. Interest rates were also fixed, tariffs were increased, and import bans were extended. The country had come full circle, as interventionist policies, military authoritarianism, economic stagnation, and international isolation evoked the conditions of the early 1980s.

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CONCLUSION

Shortly after taking power, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida outlined an ambitious scheme of simultaneous economic and political liberalization. Few countries, before or since, have embarked on deliberate, linked transitions in this way. Nigeria's programs were implemented during a period of widespread democratic change and economic reform throughout the world, and the military government's initiative had high visibility in the region and beyond. The rise and fall of reform in Nigeria pose important questions about the compatibility of structural adjustment and democratic transition. Were these programs inherently contradictory, and was their collapse inevitable? It is difficult to envision a counterfactual scenario in which both agendas could have been pursued harmoniously; the enterprise was certainly fraught with risk. Yet it would also be inaccurate to conclude either that structural adjustment "caused" the failure of democracy or that democratization inevitably undermined economic reform.77 The character of the military regime, and Babangida's approaches to both economic management and political transition, ultimately decided the outcome of the reform agenda. Despite Nigeria's adoption of prominent reforms advocated by the multilateral financial institutions. there was little consistent adherence to an orthodox structural-adjustment package between 1985 and 1993. The Babangida government was effective in carrying out stabilization measures during its early years, but it lacked the administrative faculties or social base to implement a more far reaching adjustment program. Exchange-rate reform and trade liberalization were probably the most sustained policies carried out by the government, but even these measures wavered over time. Fiscal and monetary management, price policies, privatization, and financial liberalization were all subject to hesitation, revision, or even reversal. Domestic-policy instability was accompanied by a weak response from foreign investors and creditors, which further hindered economic performance. The sluggish recovery, combined with the painful effects of austerity, soon incited public frustration and resistance. In the early years of his government, Babangida was able to use the prospective democratic transition both as a diversion from the economic program and as a means of encouraging a new coalition in support of liberalization. As it became apparent that such a coalition would not emerge, the regime turned to a more conventionally authoritarian strategy. While suppressing popular dissent, the military administration tightened control over the emergent civilian political process. Babangida also cultivated support from key military and civilian elites through the lavish use of state patronage and favors.

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Since the regime was so closely linked with its Structural Adjustment Program, the Nigerian public came to associate growing inequality, corruption, and repressiveness with economic liberalization per se. There was understandably little distinction in the popular eye between the ostensible goals of orthodox reform (which were not well appreciated by most Nigerians) and the harsh realities of Babangida 's SAP. Economic reform lost the legitimacy it may have had in the regime's early years, and the process of political opening provided greater opportunity to mobilize against the adjustment program. In consequence, the economic and political programs became increasingly contradictory. Moreover, economic scarcity and restrictive institutions tended to narrow the focus of aspiring politicians on the material benefits of office. This increased the contentiousness and disarray of civilian politics, offering an additional rationale for obstructing the transition program. The growing insecurity of the military government after April 1990, and the apparent salvation offered by the subsequent oil "mini-boom;· proved to be decisive for the course of reform. Amid the growing tensions surrounding the economic and political programs, Babangida and his senior military associates turned from a forward-looking agenda of transformation toward a more immediate strategy of regime stabilization and selfaggrandizement. At this point, political and economic decay became mutually reinforcing, and the reform project was highly susceptible to collapse. In 1993, the botched transition, the hasty transfer of power, and the resumption of a venal military autocracy culminated the degenerative course of Babangida's regime.

NOTES l. These debates are reviewed by Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman, The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). 2. On the course of the transition, see Larry Diamond, "Nigeria: The Unci vic Society and the Descent into Praetorianism," in Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset. eds., Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy, 2d ed. (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995), and the various chapters in this volume. 3. On economic policy and performance in the early 1980s, see Tom Forrest, Politics and Economic Development in Nigeria, rev. ed. (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995). 4. Thomas J. Biersteker, "Nigeria, 1982-1986: Reaching Agreement with the Fund," in Thomas J. Biersteker, ed., Dealing with Debt: International Financial Negotiations and Adjustment Bargaining (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993). 5. The figures are taken from the Central Bank of Nigeria, Annual Report, 1984 (Lagos: CBN, 1985). 6. The programs of the Buhari regime are discussed by FotTest, Politics and Economic Development in Nigeria, and by Adebayo Olukoshi and Tajudeen

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Abdulraheem, "Nigeria: Crisis Management Under the Buhari Regime," Review of African Political Economy no. 34 (December 1985): 96-97. 7. See Biersteker, "Nigeria 1982-1986." 8. Special broadcast by Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, president and commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria, following the coup of 27 August 1985, West Africa, 2 September 1985, p. 1,792. 9. Yusuf Bangura made this point in "Structural Adjustment and the Political Question," Review of African Political Economy, no. 37 (1987): 32. 10. On the issues in the debate, see T. A. Oyejide, A. Soyode, and M. 0. Kayode, Nigeria and the !MF (Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books, 1985), esp. chap. 4. II. Northern technocrats and intellectuals have historically favored a stronger state role in the economy to counteract the competitive superiority of the southern bourgeoisie. See, especially, Thomas J. Biersteker, Multinationals, the State, and Control of the Nigerian Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), for a discussion of this phenomenon during the 1970s and early 1980s. 12. It is significant that the public debate was largely concluded before the December 1985 oil price collapse, a factor that might well explain the government's subsequent policy. 13. The arguments for and against taking an IMF loan are summarized in Oyejide, Soyoden, and Kayode, Nigeria and the IMF. 14. Ibid., pp. 42-44. 15. Ibid., pp. 49-50. 16. Ishrat Husain, "External Debt Reschedulings and the World Bank: A Case Study of Nigeria," paper presented at the South Conference on Nigeria: Prospects and Possibilities, London, 30-31 March 1987, p. 3. 17. Address by Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, president and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, on the 1986 budget, 31 December 1985, p. 6. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid., p. 27. 20. Federal Government of Nigeria, Structural Adjustment Programme for Nigeria (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1986), pp. 8-9. 21. Thomas J. Biersteker, Dealing with Debt: International Financial Negotiations and Adjustment Bargaining (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993), pp. 6, 13. 22. World Bank, Adjustment in Africa: Reforms, Results and the Road Ahead (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1994), pp. 58, 138. Among twenty-nine subSaharan African countries covered in the report, Nigeria was ranked among six with "large improvements" in macroeconomic policies during the 1980s. However, in international comparative terms, the bank rated Nigeria's general policies in 1990-91 as "fair." 23. "Nigeria: The Babangida Reforms," West Africa, 7 July 1986, p. 1,404. 24. Address to the nation by Maj.-Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, president and commander-in-chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, on the 1987 budget, 1 January 1987, pp. ix, xvii-xviii. 25. Ibid., p. ix. 26. See the Introduction to this volume. 27. West Africa, 28 September 1987, p. 1,901. 28. These views were expressed in various speeches and remarks by Babangida and other leaders. See West Africa, 28 September 1987, p. 1,699; and 19 October 1987, pp. 2,067-2,068. 29. West Africa, 27 July 1987, pp. 1,428-1,429.

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30. The rioting was directed primarily against symbols of authority, especially the police, who were criticized for using extortion of the public as a means of supplementing their incomes. 31. Manufacturer's Association of Nigeria, Half-Year Report, July 1987. 32. See "Babangida's Budget of Hope," West Africa, 11 January 1988, p. 7. 33. Interview with World Bank officials, April 1989. 34. Quoted in West Africa, 29 August 1988, p. 1,567. 35. The Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decree (NEPD) was formally revised in January 1989. 36. Thomas J. Biersteker, "Nigeria's Structural Adjustment Program in Comparative Perspective," unpublished manuscript, 1990. 37. West Africa, 18 April 1988, p. 704. 38. Quoted in West Africa, 9 May 1988, p. 846. 39. To be fair, however, this inflationary outcome was not entirely the product of the reflation of the economy undertaken at the beginning of 1988. The lagged effects of the devaluation of the naira undertaken in 1986 and 1987 also contributed to the growing problem of inflation. 40. This general procedure was described in an article on banking in West Africa, 5 September 1988, p. 1,607. See also Peter Lewis and Howard Stein, "Shifting Fortunes: The Political Economy of Financial Liberalization in Nigeria," World Development, January 1997. 41. West Africa, 31 October 1988, p. 2,032. 42. Reported in West Africa, 20 November 1988, p. 2,162. 43. Quoted in West Africa, 15 May 1989, p. 783. 44. Newswatch, 12 June 1989, p. 18. 45. Chief Sowemimo, interviewed in the Sunday Vanguard, 18 June 1989, p. 11. 46. The editor of Gaskiva Tafi Kwabo was detained for two weeks in February, under Decree No. 2, for highlighting the grumbling of the people against SAP. Newswatch, 24 July 1989, p. 41. 47. West Africa, 19 June 1989. 48. Some senior members of the indigenous business community were visited by security agents after they publicly criticized aspects of the adjustment-policy measures introduced by the government. Interview with indigenous businessman, July 1990. The critical statements of farmers are reported in West Africa, 17 July 1989. 49. Guillermo O'Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions About Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 9. 50. This reshaping of the political landscape is detailed in Chapter 7, but the highly constrained nature of the transition, and of the "democracy" to which it was giving birth, is a principal theme running throughout the chapters of this volume. 51. Financial Times, 19 March 1990, p. I. 52. See also Peter M. Lewis, "From Prebendalism to Predation: The Political Economy of Decline in Nigeria," Journal of Modern African Studies 34, no. 1 ( 1996). 53. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Budget 1990 (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1990), pp. 3-28. 54. See Julius 0. Ihonvbere, "A Critical Evaluation of the 1990 Failed Coup in Nigeria," Journal of Modern African Studies 29, no. 4 (1991): 601-626. 55. Africa Confidential3l, no. 14 (13 July 1990): 6-7. 56. Financial Times, 27 June 1991.

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57. Other observers placed this figure closer to U.S.$3 billion. Financial Times, 1 July 1991. 58. Business Times (Lagos), 17 October 1994. 59. Figures on the budget deficit and money supply are provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria, Annual Report, various years. See also Perspectives of Economic Policy Reforms in Nigeria (Lagos: Research Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria, 1993). 60. This claim was made in the President's budget speech, contained in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Budget 1991 (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1991), p. 5. 61. Central Bank of Nigeria, Perspectives of Economic Policy Reforms in Nigeria, p. 20. 62. The World Bank estimated that smuggling of fuels to neighboring countries in 1992 equaled as much as 20 percent of domestic consumption. World Bank, Nigeria Structural Adjustment Program: Policies, Implementation, and Impact (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 13 May 1994), p. 57. 63. There was considerable justification for this claim. As the Financial Times (16 March 1992) observed, debt service payments constituted 57 percent of the 1991 deficit. 64. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Budget 1991, pp. 9-13. 65. Economist Intelligence Unit, Nigeria Country Report 1, 1993, p. 4. 66. Central Bank of Nigeria, Annual Report 1991 (Lagos: CBN, 1992). 67. Africa Research Bulletin (Economic Series) 29, 4 (1992): 10,802. 68. See T. J. Ntekop, "Foreign Exchange Market in Nigeria," Bullion 16, no. 3, p. 30. 69. The government remained current on its debt service to the World Bank and to holders of par bonds. A tacit discrimination was made between the "lenders of last resort" and other creditors. The debt-service ratio was reported by the Central Bank of Nigeria, Annual Report 1994 (Lagos: CBN, 1995), p. 124. 70. Independent (London), 21 May 1992. 71. See Peter M. Lewis, "Economic Statism, Private Capital, and the Dilemmas of Accumulation in Nigeria," World Development 22, no. 3 (March 1994). 72. This is detailed by Larry Diamond, "Nigeria," pp. 454-457, and is arecurrent theme in this volume. 73. Central Bank of Nigeria, Annual Report 1994, p. 53. 74. Ibid., p. 88. 75. Central Bank of Nigeria, Annual Report 1993 (Lagos: CBN, 1994). 76. The CBN estimated inflation at 57 percent for the year. Private estimates are found in the Economist Intelligence Unit, Nigeria Country Report, 2d quarter 1994, p. 16. 77. The former view is argued by Jibrin Ibrahim, "The Transition to Civilian Rule: Sapping Democracy," in Adebayo Olukoshi, ed., The Politics of Structural Adjustment in Nigeria (London: James Currey, 1993).

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Indigeneity, Ethnicity, and Federalism Daniel C Bach

The case of Nigeria reveals a unique attempt in Africa to promote equitable access to state resources through mechanisms of statutory codification and consociational engineering. This approach, initiated in the late 1960s as a response to one of the most bitter civil wars ever to afflict the continent, has been subsequently accentuated and systematized thanks to expanding resources made available by the oil rent. Today, this trend of evolution appears to have successfully overcome the zero-sum style of competition that prevailed before and immediately following Nigerian independence. Nigeria's outstandingly successful reconciliation toward the former "Biafran" secessionists should be treated as a corollary to the capacity of Nigerian elites to establish a new modus vivendi. Since 1970, access to state resources has been regulated along lines transcending the previous pattern that made secession and violence the only alternatives to lack of control over the federal center. While such a paradigm remains predominant in most African states, Nigeria can boast of spectacular and lasting achievements that even South Africans have been closely monitoring. This chapter analyzes the component elements of Nigeria's experience in codifying access to state resources, taking into account both its virtuous and its boomerang effects. The latter will be studied particularly with reference to the treatment of ethnicity and indigeneity ("state of origin," in Nigerian parlance) insofar as they affect the nation-building process.! Indeed, far from being of marginal significance, these interactions shape the paradigm of a consolidation of the Nigerian state through recessive integration. As we shall see, this is the result of a trend toward increasingly centralized control of the state and local government resources undermined by a purely distributive approach to federalism and a growing segmentation of the polity.

FROM FEDERALISM TO CONSOCIATIONAL ENGINEERING

As it currently functions, Nigerian federalism has very little in common with the political system inherited from the colonial period. This is due to

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the emergence of new patterns of intraelite competition during the 1970s, a trend that has developed independently from the replacement of a Westminster model by an executive presidential system or the alternation between civilian and military regimes. At the time of independence, Nigerian federalism presented three major structural-functional features.2 Dominant was the tripolar regional division of the country with an in-built asymmetry resulting from the physical, demographic. and constitutional dominance of the Northern parts.3 The second characteristic was a formally open and competitive political system together with regionally based political parties and a tendency for them to establish single-party systems through their control of the regional governments and parastatals. A third feature was Nigeria's revenue-allocation formula, based on the derivation principle favorable to those regions deriving substantial resources from exportable commodities or crude-oil deposits. This naturally created discrepancies in the resources available to the regions as well as varying degrees of autonomy vis-a-vis the federal center's financial grants. There is little need to emphasize that this cluster of parameters generated uneven access to political and economic resources at the federal leveL This became a source of tension that eventually led to outbursts of violence and the first coup d'etat of 15 January 1966. Constitutional reforms envisaged to palliate the excesses of "regionalism" and "tribalism" only exacerbated preexisting cleavages and led to the outbreak of a civil war that caused more than a million deaths. Twenty-five years later, Nigerian federalism has radically departed from its initial modus operandi. The establishment of new states, initially prompted by the onset of the war (under the pressure of the Middle West and the South-East minority groups), has considerably broadened the interplay of geoethnic forces. This previously vigorous zero-sum game has been overtaken by far more fluid patterns of alignment as the number of territorial units progressively increased from 12 (1967) to 19 (1987) to 21 (1976) to 30 (1991) for the states, and from 301 (1976) to 450 (1988) to 589 (1991) for local governments. Such a trend is indirectly related to the oil windfall that has enabled the Nigerian government to pay marginal attention to the notions of productivity and profitability in the reshuffling of federal-state relations. 4 The watershed in this respect dates back to 1970 with the change operated in the revenue-allocation formula that, ever since, has emphasized the principles of equality and demography at the expense of derivation.s This has enabled the creation both of new states and of local governments independently from their internal revenue-generating capacity as well as a lowprofile consolidation of federal dominance over the other levels of authority. The Irikefe panel on the creation of new states emphasized in 1976 the need

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not to attach undue emphasis on the requirements for economic viability ... [since] all the existing states except possibly Lagos are heavily dependent on the Federal Government for a substantial percentage of their revenue ... The clear implication here is that the more states created, the lower the percentage will be of internally raised revenue."6 A third and much-quoted feature of Nigeria's current approach to federalism is the emphasis on "Federal Character," loosely defined as the need to ensure that "there shall be no predominance of persons from a few States or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government [of the federation] or in any of its agencies."7 The reference to Federal Character was one of the most innovative features of the 1979 constitution and has been fully retained in the revised 1992 constitution. It is explicit with reference to the formation of political parties,& the electoral process,9 the composition of the presidential cabinet, the presidential appointments, the composition of the officer corps and other ranks of the armed forces, and recruitment to the public service and federal institutions.IO Within each state, the principle is balanced by a symmetrical constraint "to recognize the diversity of the people within its area of authority" in the composition of the government and the conduct of its affairs.ll In all respects, Nigeria's trend of evolution is related less to the dynamics of federalism than to the introduction of resource-sharing mechanisms strongly reminiscent of Arend Lijphart's proposals for the management of deeply divided plural societies.l2 An attempt to associate "all significant segments of the society"13 with the country's management ("grand coalition" principle) can be found in constitutional provisions designed to ensure a broad basis for the constitution of parties, the election of the president or governors, the composition of his cabinet (not to mention zoning of party and state functions), and so forth. The protection of "vital minority interests," a second feature of the consociational model, was explicitly referred to when creating new states (designed to "allay the fears of minorities") or appointing cabinet ministers from each of them. Guarantees offered to "minority interests" are also of a financial nature thanks to the preeminence of the equality criteria in the sharing of Federation Account revenues-a minimum level of resources is de jure guaranteed to all states and local governments. A third key feature of the consociational model is the emergence of proportional rule as "the principle standard of political representation, civil service appointments, and allocation of public funds."l4 There is little doubt that the increasing formalization of the Federal Character principle through quota policies and pressure toward "zoning" political functions is totally attuned with such an approach. As represented by Lijphart, consociationalism also requires "a high degree of autonomy for each segment to run its own internal affairs." Such

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internal autonomy remains a feature of the Nigerian state-although, since the civil war, the country has been moving toward a unitary system. Indeed, a major corollary to Nigeria's increasing consociational approach to politics is the consolidation of the federal state's territorial control: Nigeria has been evolving toward a unitary state with a strong decentralizing component as a result of the concentration of resources at the federal level, the multiplication of states and local governments, the abandonment of the derivation principle and, since 1988, the payment of federal grants directly to the local governments. IS Such a trend is not really surprising, considering the roots of Nigerian federalism and its development through fissiparity rather than aggregation. Unlike the classical models, federalism in Nigeria never operated by association or incorporation of external units with an initial core. Nigeria's external boundaries were set by the colonial powers and the country's number of regions/states grew as a result of the fragmentation of an initial territorial entity. Once divided, the regions/ states were endowed with rigorously identical functional characteristics, hence the reference to fissiparity. In the United States, Canada, or India, new states or provinces have from time to time been carved out in a similar fashion, but this was never so systematic as in Nigeria, where the multiplication of units has become unrelated to internal revenue-generating capacities.

INTRAELITE CONSENSUS VERSUS NATIONAL INTEGRATION

On 22 May 1990, Alh. Mamman Dike, commonly known as Deke, died at the (self-estimated) canonic age of 127 years in Sokoto. He had lived in the city since he had brought the first car to the Native Authority workshop during the reign of Sultan Mai-Turare (1919-1924). In the following year, he had become a servant to successive sultans up to Abubakar III (19381989), who came to like him particularly because "he could keep secrets." As the sultan's most trusted servant, Deke had the keys to his private apartments and was in constant attendance on his master whenever he returned to his bayara.16 There would be nothing special to such a relationship had Deke not been an Igbo, born in Asaba on the Niger River. In Sokoto, he clearly identified with the community where he had settled: he became a Muslim, married two Hausa women by whom he had eleven children,17 and remained in the city throughout the civil war. This remarkable case of intimate association and social promotion of a stranger into a community totally different from his own was not unusual for precolonial societies. As Skinner puts it, "[I]n traditional political systems, migrants were ... either absorbed as individuals or units into local wards, lineage and communities, or treated as special communities in clientage or vassalage to the local state." Similarly, L. Ciroma observes:

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Today, while [since independence] local autonomy has been restored through state and local governments, the territorial basis of political participation is still to be fully recognized by both parties. There is the need for deliberate efforts to involve all residents in the articulation, promotion and protection of local interests. To be truly part of their local communities, they should fully share their rights and obligations. IS

The current modus operandi of indigeneity (referred to as "nationality" in the Cookey report) deserves special attention because it exemplifies the boomerang effects of Nigeria's brand of federalism and social engineering. As Eme Awa, a long-standing student of the issue, once emphasized, [T]he problem of the indigene is one of the most intractable forces militating against national integration. The strictures that people pour at statism indicate that many critics are entirely oblivious of the fact that indigeneity . . . is the root of the problem; we condemn statism while embracing warmly ... the value which gives rise to it.l9

Present-day Nigeria is characterized by a narrowing of the latitude offered to Nigerian citizens wishing to merge into a community external to their "state of origin." This is partly due to the biological definition of indigeneity formally inserted in the 1979 and (revised) 1992 constitutions. This adoption, one is often told, occurred almost accidentally. as a result of two scattered and uncoordinated references "grafted"20 onto the text so as to enable the implementation of the Federal Character principle. Indeed, Section 135(3) of the 1979 constitution prescribes that "the President shall appoint at least one Minister from each State, who shall be an indigene of such state [emphasis mine]." Further, Section 203(2)b showed a similar concern that the members of the executive committee or other governing

body of political parties should "reflect that their members should "belong to different States not being less than two-thirds of all the States comprising the Federation." A legal definition of "belong to" was then supplied in the ultimate sections of the constitution, under the general heading "Interpretation, Citation and Commencement." Amid a dozen or so other explanatory comments, it was stated that '"Belong to' or its grammatical expression when used with reference to a person in a State refers to a person either of whose parents or any of whose grandparents was a member or of a community indigenous to that State." 21 In other words, any acquisition of indigenous status through marriage or residence was precluded. Nigerian citizens have no right to indigeneity outside the state ascribed to them on the sole basis of their genetic antecedents. A Nigerian who marries a fellow citizen from another state has no indigenous status there, although their children can claim indigenous status in any of their parents' communities of origin even if they have never lived there. The inconsistency introduced by the reference to "indigeneity" in one case, to "belong to" in the other, is purely formal: as we shall see later, it

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is an unforeseen effect of the redrafting that followed a reference to the issue by the Constituent Assembly. The use of the terms cannot be considered as an unfortunate "lapsus" on the part of the constituents. It reflects, much more deeply, the explicit reference to a notion that, although it previously existed, was not perceived as crucial to the modus operandi of Nigerian federalism. In this respect, the issue of indigeneity constitutes the tip of an iceberg. The formal distinction between indigenes and nonindigenes goes back to the regionalization of the Nigerian civil service in 1954. "Non-indigenes," then known as strangers, were loosely defined as "any Native who is not a member of the native community living in the area of its authority."22 Indigeneity was conceived in cultural terms and, as in precolonial societies, related to the capacity of an individual to integrate into a community. This did not necessarily have to be of his parents or grandparents, as stated in the current definition. Neither the 1960 constitution nor its 1963 version contained any reference to indigeneity. The 1963 constitution was, however, amended so that while forbidding any discrimination against "a particular community, tribe, place of origin, religion or political opinion," the implementation of regional policies could take place. The regions were explicitly entitled to establish "restrictions with respect to the acquisition or use ... of land or other property" or impose "any disability or restriction or ... any privilege or advantage that, having regard to its nature and to special circumstances pertaining to the persons to whom it applies is reasonably justifiable [sic l in a democratic society."23 Discrimination between indigenes and nonindigenes was made legal. T. 0. Elias, the attorney-general, commented, "as a temporary concession to expediency, latitude is given to any Region that may wish to protect its inhabitants' rights to employment and to land within its borders as against those who hail from other Regions."24 Until the early 1970s, the instrumentalization of "indigeneity" as a filter remained confined to the level of regional/state governments, where it sometimes substantially affected access to pensionable employment and promotion in the public services, the judiciary, or the parastatals. The individuals adversely affected were few, since the territorial span of the regions was much broader than the states today. The relevance of the indigeneity criterion was strongest in the Northern Regions due to the scarcity of skilled "indigenous'' labor and long-standing concern that Nigerianization should not be equated with Southernization.25 Since the Southern Regions had a surplus of highly skilled labor, all available positions were easily filled by indigenes and the issue did not arise in the same terms. Although regional/state universities existed, they tended "to draw their student intake from practically all the states in the federation," 26 unlike those established during the Second Republic. At the federal level, the indigeneity criterion had equally little formal bearing: quota policies applied

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explicitly only in the armed forces where the Nigerian government decided in 1961 that 50 percent of the military cadets should originate from the North.27 From the end of the civil war. quota policies were progressively extended so as to cover a widening array of federal activities. The civil service, statutory corporations, public enterprises, parastatal organizations, the various federal institutions in the field of education, the judiciary, cabinet executives, and lawmaking organs were subjected to the principle by the time power was transferred to a civilian regime on 1 October 1979. 28 With the acknowledgment of Federal Character as a key principle, the new constitution encompassed the postwar spirit of managing Nigeria through consensus and group representation.29 lndigeneity was approvingly perceived by elites as a crucial filter for the operation value of the Federal Principle doctrine, a perception that would eventually result in the adoption of a constitutional definition of indigeneity that was far more restrictive than that inherited from 1954. As the Constitutional Drafting Committee completed its work in 1976, the purely biological definition contained in the draft was denounced by Segun Osoba and Yusuf Bala Usman. In their widely circulated Minority Report, the two dissenting members noted that state citizenship [i.e., indigeneity] ... is even more stringent and biologically determined than national citizenship in the sense that it does not make on state citizenship comparable provisions to those on national citizenship by registration or naturalization ... no matter how long a Nigerian has resided in a state of Nigeria of which none of his parents is an indigene, such a Nigerian cannot enjoy the right to participate fully in the public life of that state. 30

The appeal was ignored by the federal military government, although it did not ignore the issue. During that same year, the military governor of Plateau State had announced a decree designed to soften the effects of the ethnic approach to indigeneity in his state: Nigerian citizens could claim more than twenty years of residence in the state were to be entitled to full indigenous rights. Protests from '"true indigenes" subsequently reached such a pitch that the project was abandoned.31 When the Constituent Assembly (CA) discussed the draft during 1977-1978, only one speaker, Omo Omoruyi, specifically took up the issue of "the introduction of state citizenship through the back door as a result of the federal character principle being formalized."32 Participants from Anambra or Imo state did complain about the discriminatory policies to which Nigerian citizens could be subjected outside their state of origin,33 but none suggested revising the definition of indigeneity.34 Most of the constituents were aspiring politicians and clearly appreciated that their territorial bases for power, accumulation, and enrichment should be insulated

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from nonindigenous competition. This was, in fact, the view explicitly expressed by Umaru Dikko, who requested a clearer definition of indigeneity so as to remove any possible ambiguity concerning the phrase "belong to." His concern was that "in appointing Ministers you must ... look at the indigenes of that State, otherwise there is nothing to stop the President from choosing people who belong to one ethnic group if he wants to, because we are free to live in any part of the country."35 There were no objections, and the CA chairman announced that the issue would be referred to the legal draftsman so as to ensure that "belong means the son of the soil of that particular State."36 This was done with respect only to this specific context, hence the above-mentioned discrepancy in the final document. As the states gained more autonomy during the Second Republic, the Nigerian constitution provided a legal basis for the implementation of discriminatory policies. In some states, the implementation of party programs on free education, access to health, and cheap housing schemes excluded nonindigenes, although they equally paid their tax; in others, "entry forms into federal institutions like the armed forces, the Nigerian Defense Academy, Federal Government Colleges, as well as federal scholarships ... went only to their indigenes."37 After the collapse of the Second Republic, the necessity of redefining the statutes of indigene and nonindigene was taken up by the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA). Its members-who, as academics, often personally experienced this problem-resolved that ''Nigerians should have full citizenship rights wherever they reside within the country."38 The Political Bureau formed a year later included several political scientists who belonged to the association and had written on this issue. Possibly for this reason, a chapter in the final report discussed the relationship between "Citizenship and Nationality" and recommended the attribution of "FULL RESIDENCY RIGHTS [sic]" to all Nigerian citizens resident for at least ten years in a state.39 This was clearly a decisive departure from the definition of nationality on the sole basis of jus sanguinis. A few months later, a constitutional endorsement of this recommendation seemed well on its way when the federal government "took note" of the recommendation in appreciative terms: a national policy on this matter is desirable, especially for those who are forced by nature of their occupation to move from one part of the country to another. Government will immediately set up the necessary machinery to evolve this within the framework of a united federal system. "40 Yet Nigeria's revised 1989 constitution endorsed the previous definition of "indigeneity" without any change. Owing to its direct implications for the Federal Character doctrine, the AFRC seemed to backtrack. Some timid innovations were introduced-e.g., a twelve-month residency requirement for voters-but discriminatory measures adopted within the twenty-one (then thirty) states remained unaffected and perfectly legal. In

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the field of education, state governments are free to operate distinctions as long as they fund the institutions concerned,41 Whether their parents pay their tax locally or not, nonindigenous Nigerian pupils may accordingly be required to pay higher school fees in some states; in others, discrimination is more discreetly applied against nonindigenes when vacancies in primary or secondary schools are limited.42 For Nigerian citizens, the impact of the definition of indigeneity is becoming increasingly significant not only because of the tendency toward a codification of the Federal Character but also because of the contraction of the geopolitical entity where they qualify as indigenes. As a result of the multiplication of new states, Nigerian citizens are nowadays strangers in twenty-nine out of the thirty states of the federation. In the late 1970s, a survey on recruitment practices at the state level noticed undue sensitivity about extending state facilities to personnel of different states of origin. Top appointments were reserved for the "sons of the soil." Non-state citizens were openly discriminated against in appointment, secondment and utilization. Where sons of the soil were not available, preference was accorded to expatriates who would accept contract employment any way.43 The author also observed that discrimination against nonindigenes was building up as a growing impediment to the development of migration and contacts outside one's state of origin. Despite the dire needs of certain states, the mobility of skilled labor was discouraged and often unadvisable for those concerned. Faced with the state governments' refusal to employ ''qualified persons of non-state origin on regular and equal terms with the state indigene," many Nigerians responded with "sheer unwillingness ... to work in states other than their own."44 Even if they so wished, nonindigenes cannot integrate into the state where they work, pay their tax, and may even have been born. Their access to land is restricted, they tend to be confined (as in colonial times) to specific residential quarters that constitute easy targets in the case of social, religious, or communal unrest. Thus, in the aftermath of the coup attempt of 22 April 1990, many "nonindigenous" Nigerians established in the Northern states feared a backlash and left hastily for their "home" states in the Middle-Belt or the South.45 Being a nonindigene is clearly a source of economic and physical insecurity despite Section 12(2)b of the constitution, which prohibits ''discrimination on the grounds of place of origin." In practice, the operational value of such a commitment remains to be proven. There is no doubt that, in practice, the definition of indigeneity can still accommodate a fair margin of subjective appreciation: many are the "nonindigenous" Nigerians who, particularly in Northern Nigeria have come to be considered as indigenes by the village chief or local government

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officials despite the clearly established "non-indigenous" origin of these individuals. Indeed, in many states, nonindigenes were appointed commissioners or permanent secretaries during the Second Republic and under the subsequent military regimes. These instances are, however, becoming fewer as the size of the states is reduced and access to (scarcer) resources becomes more precisely codified. Again and again, the Federal Character doctrine surfaces as a key factor for legitimizing such a trend. Yet the principle's implementation is flawed by structural problems that deeply undercut its operational value.

THE PITFALLS OF THE FEDERAL CHARACTER DOCTRINE

The effects of the Federal Character doctrine have always been a source of controversy, deepened by the scarcity of reliable data on the issue and the difficulty in monitoring performance. Support for the Federal Character system is usually justified on the basis of the lack of a genuine alternative (federal service based on merit is considered illusory) or the dangers of returning to the past experience (referred to as "winner-takes-all political competition") of the 1960s.46 Critics of the doctrine concentrate on the structural implications of the doctrine's implementation: First of all, federal character attacks standards and professionalism. Its unrestrained application in the civil service and other public services, usually without respect for minimum standards, has meant that professionalism is in danger in the public services of the Federation .... In this, the Nigerian political system is weakened, not strengthened ... . Secondly, the doctrine of federal character allows the elites from disadvantaged areas to exploit the political system ... it pays to hail from an impoverished area in terms of personnel. ... Thirdly. the introduction of federal character politics has disrupted the emergence of national elites, which had been growing gradually, beginning with the Yakubu Gowon years.47

More fundamentally, the Federal Character doctrine appears unable to establish legitimate criteria capable of meeting its stated objectives. After nearly ten years of formal implementation, Federal Character appears to have sharpened lines and sources of cleavages on a narrowing territorial basis given the multiplication of the number of states. State representation cannot guarantee that within the relevant state all groups will be allocated a fair share of the federal resources, hence persistent pressure for the creation of new entities.48 Taking into account the number of states for the establishment of quota policies does not bear much legitimacy either, since certain regions have been more divided than others: Since its creation in 1963 as the Midwestern Region, what is now known as Bendel State has remained ... virtually intact. In the interim, the

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Northern Region has been carved up into ten states; the Eastern Region into four states; and the Western Region into three states ... the argument that the Bendel State has a disproportionate share of exiting federal appointments is as absurd as it is untenable. If anything, the Bendel State has suffered and is suffering inverse discrimination.49

Such complaints had played a role in the division of Bendel State and several others in 1991. The Federal Character doctrine has become an intrinsic feature of Nigerian politics although the weight of preexisting lines of cleavages has not been reduced in any fashion: the old wazobia versus "minorities" distinction, the North-South divide, or the religious criteria of division remain available for reactivation if need be by those groups who may be served. Whereas Federal Character was the hope of the 1980s, zoning and rotational presidency seem to be that of the 1990s on the basis of the definition of new lines of partition (clusters of states). This, or the trend toward bipolarization of politics on a religious basis, so reflects on the inability of the Federal Character principle to act as an effective mechanism for resource sharing and conflict regulation.

ETHNICITY VERSUS CITIZENSHIP

The progressive reduction in the territorial size of the states (and local governments) and the expanding scope of activities subjected to geoethnic arithmetic bring ethnicity to the forefront as a criterion for the identification of Nigerian citizens, independently of their merit, their area of residence, or their readiness to associate with a different community. As Chinua Achebe emphasized in his famous pamphlet The Trouble With Nigeria: A Nigerian child seeking admission into a federal school, a student wishing to enter a College or University, a graduate seeking employment in the public service, a businessman tendering for a contract, a citizen applying for a passport, filing a report with the police or seeking access to any of the hundred thousand avenues controlled by the state, will sooner or later fill out a form which requires him to confess his tribe (or less crudely and more hypocritically), his state of origin.51

There is, thus, growing awareness and monitoring of the state of origin of employees in federal public services, parastatals, universities, and newspapers as well as in the larger private commercial and industrial ventures contributing to a further politicization of ethnicity. Current plans for a computerized-identity-card scheme may further reduce the margin of maneuver that still exists when Nigerians established in a state change their names for indigenous ones or become de facto adopted by indigenous communities. Defining indigeneity on the sole basis of jus sanguinis constitutes

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a clear incentive to the hardening of lines of segmentation created by state and local government boundaries. The process is neither new nor specifically Nigerian in the sense that it preserves the colonial tradition of ethnogenesis. However, because of Nigeria's current formula for resource allocation, ethnicity is intimately intertwined with demands for the creation of new states or local governments. Since the 1970 reform, Nigeria's federal revenue-allocation mechanisms represent a self-sustaining incentive for creating new states or local governments; once established, they are guaranteed statutory revenues proportionally higher than those previously received by the area from which they were carved out.5 2 Whereas during the 1960s demands for the creation of new states came exclusively from the "minorities," elites everywhere now canvass for the division of their states. 53 Due to the revenueallocation formula and the Federal Character principle, the division of a state, far from victimizing its elites, increases their capacity for accumulation while improving their position and guarantees of representation at the federal level. 54 Creating a new state also means the establishment of a new local civil service, a new legislature, the distribution of contracts for the construction of a new secretariat with its roads and infrastructures, a new hospital, staff schools and houses, possibly a university, not to mention the establishment of parastatals, a television station, and a newspaper. Agitation for the establishment of new states reached unprecedented virulence during the Second Republic, and the federal legislature was overwhelmed with proposals aimed at the transformation of Nigeria into a federation of anything up to fifty-seven states! Initially, the military coup froze all discussions. Member of the Political Bureau could not agree on a single recommendation in their report to the AFRC. As we have seen, the subsequent creation of two more states in 1987 and 149 local governments a year later55 did not put an end to the issue, and even with thirty states and 589 local governments, agitation for further balkanization continues. 56 State creation depends largely on the capacity of the elites to define a coherent and specific ethnic approach to their territorial claims. The process of ethnogenesis is largely self-perpetuating, as the division of a state generates concomitantly a modification of alliance networks among the elites of the new entities. "New majorities emerge while new minorities prepare to organize to make demands for further fragmentation," observed the Irikefe panel in 1976, adding that "more minorities seem to have sprung up from the creation of 12 states than during the existence of the first regions."57 The politicization of ethnicity, the ethnicization of politics (already inherent to the Federal Character doctrine), and the manipulation of sociocultural and historical data58 can prove vitally important to local power brokers in search of cleavages likely to justify the creation of a future entity. In all respects, Ema Awa is right in stating that "the purity of ethnic groups and the relation of each to a particular territory are

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contrivances of recent historical periods."59 The biological definition of indigeneity tends to consolidate such a trend at the expense of a common citizenship and, ultimately, a constructive nation-building process.

STATE BUILDING THROUGH RECESSIVE INTEGRATION

Contrary to the ideals of the consociative model, taking into account the plural nature of Nigerian society does not per se constitute a factor of stabilization of inter- and intracommunity relations. Nigeria's model of political regulation has been successful in containing violence and preventing the dissolution of the federation. It is, however, the vector of a recessive integration that undermines the nation-building process and generates a purely distributive approach to Nigerian federalism. The evolution of the Nigerian state toward a unitary system largely relies on its capacity to distribute resources presently drawn from the oil rent. This decisively shapes the patterns and legitimacy of its consolidation at the expense of the states and local government. Over the past twenty years, federal-state relations have tended to be increasingly confined to the politics of redistributing federally collected revenues. Thus, during the Second Republic, the federal legislature was primarily concerned with the creation of new states or local governments, the revision of the revenueallocation formula. and the consolidation of the Federal Character doctrine. This purely distributive approach to Nigerian federalism is exemplified by such famous analogies as "sharing the national cake" or the "I chop, you chop" motto of "Comrade Chief (Dr.) Alhaji Sir Candido" on the eve of the 1979 elections.60 The extensive development of corruption and nepotism are reminders that the Nigerian state does not depart from neopatrimonialism as identified by J. F. Medard. 61 Intraelite competition and patterns of access to resources are simply more codified due to the introduction of consociational mechanisms. The consolidation of the Nigerian state carries a process of recessive integration that undermines the nation-building process. Nigeria's younger generation is being socialized into indigeneity, which state and local governments identify as crucial parameters for the definition of their future prospects. Parochial strategies are encouraged (and imposed on individuals) at the expense of national values, a disturbing tend that General Obasanjo himself now acknowledges: A man from Gongola Stale working for the Nigerian Railways in Abcokuta and whose children cannot secure places for schools in his place of work and where he pays his tax, just because he is not an indigene of the State where he works, will find it almost inconceivable to see himself as a Nigerian. Rather, he must feel his primordial loyalties and primary ties more relevant to his social reality.... The consequent internalization of

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Problems of Governance this ill feeling will undoubtedly be passed on to his children who are victims of these estranging acts by state or local governments in Ogun state even though, those children were born in Ogun state. These children will be further ensnared in the destructive throes of ethnicism if on being sent to Gongola state they obtain admission to schools without much ado and just because their father is an indigene of Gongola state.62

With the states. local-government geopolitics are also being built into a formal constraint for appointments in the civil service and the parastatals-or even for the allocation of contracts and economic projects. Indigenes face, within their own state, measures that reproduce at a lower level those affecting them when they live outside their "state of origin." In all cases, the constitutional definition of indigeneity and the endorsement given to the "federal" or "state" character principles provide a perfectly legal basis for the discriminatory policies that they may face. 63 After being confronted in the 1950s and 1960s by secessionist attempts originating from each of the three regions, Nigeria today faces a much more insidious trend: namely, the increasing segmentation of its policy, a purely distributive approach to federalism, a politicization of ethnicity, the hardening (on a bipolar mode) of tensions and conflicts, and, ultimately, a shrinking concern for the preservation of the country as a meaningful entity.

NOTES

1. A more general perspective is presented in Daniel C. Bach, "Managing a Plural Society: The Boomerang Effects of Nigerian Federalism," Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 27, no. 2 (July 1989): 218-245. 2. For a detailed description, cf. Sam E. Oyovbaire, Federalism in Nigeria (London: Macmillan, 1985). 3. The Northern Region accounted for 79 percent of the territory of the federation, 55 percent of its population (1955 census), and half of the seats in the legislature. 4. Cf. Akin Iwayemi, "Le Nigeria dans le systeme petrolier international," and John Ohiorhenuan, "Critique de la planification nigeriane," In Daniel C. Bach, Johnny Egg, and Jean Philippe, eds., Le Nigeria: Un pouvoir en puissance (Paris: Kathala, 1988), pp. 19-38, 131-148. 5. Under the Babangida regime, the states received 32.5 percent of the Distributable Pool Account revenues: 2.5 percent were directly distributed to the mineral-producing states; the remaining 30 percent were shared on the basis of the equality of states (30 percent), the demography of states (40 percent), the direct primary-school enrollment (11.25 percent), the inverse primary-school enrollment (3.75 percent), and the internal-revenue efforts (5 percent). Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1987), pp. 165-166. 6. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Panel Appointed by the Federal Military Government to Investigate the Issue of the Creation of More States and

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Boundary Adjustments in Nigeria (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, December 1975), pp. 39, 41-42. 7. Federal Republic of Nigeria, The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigerian 1979 (Lagos: Federal Ministry of Information, n.d.), p. 8; also Anthony Kirk-Greene, "Ethnic Engineering and the 'Federal Character' of Nigeria: Boon of Contentment or Bone of Contention?" Ethnic and Racial Studies 6. no. 4 (1983): 457-476. 8. Under the 1988-1992 transition program toward civilian rule, parties were required to be "well established in the federal and the state capitals and in the headquarters of all the local governments of the federation [emphasis mine]." They must also ensure that their "organization at each level of government reflects the Federal Character of Nigeria except ... in the case of local government areas"; Federal Republic of Nigeria, National Electoral Commission, Main GuidclinesFormation of Political Parties (Lagos: 1989), pp. 2, 4. 9. To win the presidential election in the first round, a candidate must secure a third of the votes and not less than a third (against 25 percent in the 1979 constitution) of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states. Comparable dispositions rule the state governors' elections (through the local governments' vote). I 0. See in particular Section 217 of the 1989 constitution. II. Section 15(4) of the 1989 constitution. 12. Cf. Bach, ''Managing a Plural Society," pp. 239-242; for a detailed survey of the implementation of consociational mechanisms by Nigeria's successive regimes, see L. Adele Jinadu, "Federalism, The Consociational State, and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria," Publius 15 (spring 1985): 71-91. 13. Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 27. 14. Ibid. 15. These funds were previously being channeled through the states' accounts. 16. I am indebted to Jean Boyd for supplying this information in a letter where she also indicates that "when a mysterious intruder entered the Palace in the late 1970s and made as if to attack the Sultan, Deke-no more than five feet two inches in height and by anybody reckoning an old man-launched himself at the attacker and saw him off. Deke was wounded and the town buzzed with the news of his bravery." 17. Daily Times, 25 May 1990; and Daily Champion, 30 May 1990. 18. Eliot P. Skinner, "Strangers in West African Societies," ;1fi·ica 33, no. 4 ( 1963): 307-320; Limon Ciroma, "Review and Conclusions," in Ukwu I. Ukwu, ed., Federal Character and National Integration (Kuru: NIPSS, 19X7), p. 185. 19. Erne 0. Awa, National Integration in Nigeria: Problems and Prospects (Ibadan: NISER, Distinguished Lectures No.5, 1983), p. II. 20. Ibid. 21. Constitution Drafting Committee draft in Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Constitution Drafting Committee Containing the Draft Constitution l, (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1976 ), Sections 123(2), 20(1 ), 329(1 ). 22. The Native Authori tv Law, 1954, Appendices, Part III, 4 7 (I). 23. Sections 2X(2)c and 29(2)d, in Federation of Nigeria Official Gazette 50, no. 71, September 1963, p. A II 0. 24. Taslim 0. S. Elias, Nigeria: The Development of Its Laws and Constitution (London, Stevens, 1967), p. 154. 25. G. 0. Olusanya, The Evolution of the Nigerian Civil Service, 1860-1960 (Yaga: University of Lagos, 1975).

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26. A. Yoloye, "Federal Character and Institutions of Higher Learning," in P. P. Ekeh and E. E. Osaghae, eds., pp. 61-63. 27. J. Bayo Adekanye, "The Quota Recruitment Policy: Its Sources and Impact on the Nigerian Military," in Peter P. Ekeh and Eghosa E. Osaghae, eds., pp. 232-237. 28. Ibid., p. 233; Ladipo Adamolekun and S. B. Ayo, "The Evolution of the Nigerian Federal System," Pub/ius 19 (winter 1989): 171. 29. Ladipo Adamolekun, The Fall of the Second Republic (Ibadan: Spectrum, 1985), p. 15. 30. Osun Osoba and Yusuf BaJa Usman, "A General Report on the Work of the Constitution Drafting Committee," vol. 1 (Lagos: August 1976, mimeo), p. 15. 31. Awa, National Integration in Nigeria, p. 11. 32. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Constituent Assembly Report, vol. 1 (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1978), p. 642. 33. S. A. Ubani-Ukoma in ibid., p. 248; Sam U. Ugoh in ibid., p. 671; the fate of the so-called abandoned properties of the Igbo in the Rivers and Cross River states was a particularly sore point. Cf. Sam Mbakwe in ibid., p. 218; F. 0. Nwafor in ibid., p. 276; R. I. Olumba in ibid., p. 502; C. C. Onoh in ibid., p. 574. 34. An earlier memorandum sent by the East Central State (formerly Imo and Anambra states) to the CDC actually suggested that "for a party to be [deemed] national ... 50% of its members [should] be indigenes of a state; Report of the CDC, vol. 2, p. 178. 35. Constituent Assembly Report, vol. 2, cols. 2,357-2,358. 36. Ibid. col. 2,358; this led to replacement of "belong" by "indigenous" in section 135(3) of the 1979 constitution. 37. Eghosa E. Osaghae, "The Problem of Citizenship in Nigeria," inS. 0. Olugbemi, ed., Alternative Political Futures for Nigeria (Lagos: NPSA), p. 69. 38. Nigerian Political Science Association, "Communique of the Seminar to Mark the Silver Jubilee of Nigeria's Independence," Journal of the Nigerian Political Science Association 4 (1985): 27. 39. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Political Bureau, p. 198. 40. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Government Views and Comments on the Findings and Recommendations of the Political Bureau (Lagos: Federal Government Printer, 1987), p. 67. 41. See J. Aminu in National Concord, 8 January 1986. 42. Personal inquiries in May 1990; in April 1990, Bauchi State announced a 100 percent increase of school fees for nonindigenes; Guardian (Lagos), 6 June 1990. 43. A. Aderinto, "The Efficient Utilization of High-Level Manpower in Nigeria," in U. I. Ukwu, ed., Federal Character and National Integration in Nigeria (Kuru: NIPSS, 1987), p. 168. During an early session of the 1977-1978 Constituent assembly debates, A. Durosomo regretted that "people tend to think that once a new State has been created, non-indigenes of the State should pack bag and baggage and go." Justice Udo Udoma, who chaired the assembly, commented that this was indeed "the common man's view"; Constituent Assembly Report vol. 1, p. 439. 44. For a detailed survey, cf. Aderinto, Federal Character and National Integration in Nigeria (Kuru: NIPSS, 1987), pp. 174-177. 45. In the course of their short-lived attempt, the coup plotters announced their decision to excise five Northern states from the federation; cf. Newsbreed, 28 May 1990, pp. 4-10. 46. Cf., for instance, T. Olagunju, "Federal Character and National Integration: An Overview," in U. I. Ukwu, p. 33-42.

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47. Peter Ekeh, "Introduction," in Ekeh and Osaghae, Federal Character and National Integration in Nigeria (Kuru: NIPSS, 1987), pp. 37-38. 48. Cf. the case of Kwara State presented by Emmanuel E. Osaghae, "Federal Character: Past, Present and Future," in Ekeh and Osaghae, p. 450. 49. R. A. I. Momoh, "State and Ethnic Interests," in U. I. Ikwu, Federal Character and National Integration in Nigeria, p. 56. 50. Encouraged by the OIC controversy, by the Shari'a debate in the Constituent Assembly, and by the establishment of an institutionalized two-party system. 51. Chinua Achebe, The Trouble with Nigeria (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1983), p. 7. 52. This is due to the weight of the parity principle. 53. For detailed examples, cf. Bach, "Managing a Plural Society." 54. Chinua Achebe thus virulently denounced a "Murtala MohammedObasanjo conspiracy by which [in 1976] four states and a considerable interest in a fifth were given [sic] to the Yoruba while their Igbo competitors of about equal population got two"; Achebe, The Trouble with Nigera, p. 49. A similar complaint is formulated by the Bendelites. 55. This move, which was followed by an increase in their share of the DPA, was expected to alleviate pressure for the creation of new states. 56. Cf., for instance, Y. Mohammed, "Let's Have More," Newswatch, 27 May 1991, p. 42. 57. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Panel Appointed by the Federal Military Government to Investigate the Issue of the Creation of More States and Boundary Adjustments in Nigeria, p. 45. 58. Obane lkime, In Search of Nigerians: Changing Patterns of Inter-Group Relations in an Evolving Nation State, Presidential Inaugural Lecture delivered at 30th Congress of the Society, l May 1985 (Ibadan: Impact Publishers, 1985). 59. Erne Awa, "Federalism in Nigeria: Agenda for Its Future Development," The Centrefor the Study of Federalism Notebook (Philadelphia) 16, no. 3 (winter 1991): 14. 60. New Nigerian, 13 November 1978, quoted in William Graf, Elections 1979 (Apapa: Daily Times, 1979). 61. Fundamentally characterized by the lack of distinction between private and public domains; cf. Jean Fran