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Afr.j. polit. sri. (2002), Vol 7 No. 1

Transitions from Democracy in Nigeria:

Toward a Pre-emptive Analysis

Ehimika A. Ifldon*

Abstract
Two 'fully fledged' democratic administrations in Nigeria have been terminated
by military coups d'etat since independence in 1960. Having, in addition ruled
for about 30 out of over 40 years of sovereign existence, the military has been
described as the obstacle to the consolidation of democracy. But what a critical
reading of Nigeria's political history would reveal is that the elected govern-
ments were in the throes of death almost from their inauguration, while the
state had virtually collapsed by general election time. The military coup, thus,
became a kind of euthanasia. In both cases of breakdown, there was a repeated
pattern of transition from democracy marked by depluralization, state appro-
priation, delegitimation of regimes, inter-hegemonic conflict and, finally, mili-
tary coup. These are argued as consequences of the peculiar political and inter-
group environment of Nigeria and character of the state. Therefore, every future
democratic administration is susceptible to the same trajectory. Yet, the pro-
gressively degrading tenor of life under military rule has highlighted the intrin-
sic value of democracy. This article, therefore, attempts to create, from a genetic
analysis of the collapse of democracy in Nigeria, the groundwork for a pre-emp-
tive analysis.
Transitions from Democracy in Nigeria:
Toward a Pre-emptive Analysis
The more comprehensive our knowledge of the past is, the farther into the
future we can predict the consequences of our behaviour in the present, the
greater are the goals we set ourselves (Kautsky, 1988: 465).
The task of assessing the prospects for democratic instability in Nigeria
clearly suggests that we try to pin-point the particular conditions and contro-
versies that were associated with the traumas of the past on the one hand, and
that are relevant to the new approaches implicit in the newly inaugurated polit-
ical system on the other (Whitaker, 1979: 6).

* Department of History, University of Benin, Nigeria.

1027-0353 c 2002 African Association of Political Science

110 Ehimika A. Ifidon

The Necessity for Democracy

If any conclusion can be drawn from the political history of post colonial Africa,
it is that multi-party democracy has been as unsuccessful, as the military coup
d'etat has been the favoured mode of regime change. Although the 'one party
democracies' have held out for much longer, they too have not been immune to
military takeovers; and neither have the successor military governments. The
general instability of political life is evidenced by the fact that forcible change
of government occurred, on the average, in between two and three states in
Africa every year between 1960 and 1980 (Welch, Jr., 1987: Table 8. Al; Doro
1974). In the 1990s alone, Africa managed to produce seven civil wars and a
genocide. The kind of international interest generated by these conflicts, and the
consequent refugee problem, have tended to portray the states of Africa as polit-
ically immature and in need of external recolonization. Even though the idea of
recolonization, whether by the international community or African hegemons,
may appear extreme, the underlying sentiment that 'things worked better under
colonial rule' is quite widespread (Mafeje, 1995a, 1995b: Mazrui, 1995a,
1995b). Ake (1994: 2-3) also concludes that, based on "several critical indica-
tors, the average African is worse off today than she was 30 years ago".
More widespread and devastating is the progressive degeneration of economic
life in Africa, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The privatization of the state
with its resources and general economic mismanagement, and the crises which
structural adjustment programmes were, theoretically, designed to respond to,
have impeded the expansion of a rational private sector and encouraged the
growth of a peculiar cash capitalism for which neither production nor a market
was necessary. Thus, European refugee camps are littered with refugees and asy-
lum seekers from Africa whose real horror is not political victimization or the
scourge of war but decline, or feared decline, in the quality of life.
If the Nigerian problem were to be described merely as an instance of this
African situation, it would be because of the common features of decay, dis-
malness and helplessness. But a particular trajectory would seem to be dis-
cernible, an almost recurrent pattern of events (Ifidon, 1998). When Herring
(1962: 242-243) concluded that the prospects for democracy in Nigeria were
more promising than in most developing countries, he visualized a country
where economic production kept pace with population growth, where the
abundance of natural and human resources created the potential for a viable
economy, and where the parliamentary heritage from Britain seemed to have
taken root. But, by 1964, that democracy, with all its promises, had virtually
ceased to exist, paving the way for a military coup and three years of civil war.
The pattern of collapse would seem to have been replicated in the second dem-
ocratic regime between 1979 and 1983. The third attempt at democracy in 1993
was stillborn.
 Transitions from Democracy in Nigeria 111

It is tempting to make the correlation that, since military coups terminated

Nigeria's democratic administrations in 1966 and 1983 and frustrated the 1993
transition, Nigeria therefore has a military problem, that the military is "the
major obstacle to democracy" (Rotimi and Ihonvbere 1994: 685). But this would
be too superficial; it implies a certain element of unexpectedness and spon-
taneity of democratic collapse. What a historical analysis of these democratic
episodes will reveal are elected administrations in their death throes (with the
state exhibiting sure signs of failure), their lives mercifully terminated through
military coups to prevent the state from expiring. In other words, democracy had
collapsed before the coups, and it was the failure of democracy that inspired the
coups.
These observations are important in order to properly characterize the pro-
gressive transformation of democratic structures into instruments of authoritar-
ian control. If, as Huntington (1991: 29) has noted, democracies always exhibit
"moderate and incremental", and hardly precipitous, changes, the notion of a
transition from democracy1 encapsulates the cumulative degradation of the
institutions of democracy.
Supportive of the myth of 'the military problem' is the attempt to establish a
distinction between civil or political and military elites (Onimode, 1983:
198-200; Ihonvbere and Shaw, 1988: 135). But, in terms of political behaviour
and the structure of the relationship with the masses, a clear cut distinction can-
not be sustained between civil and military administrations in Nigeria. They
have both been characterized by arrogance, violence, poor managerial capacity,
predation and inter-ethnic rivalry.
Originally, hailed as corrective, as helping to reset the democratic clock, mili-
tary rule in Nigeria has always been personal rule. But the dictatorships of
Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993) and Sani Abacha (1993-1998) represented its
culmination. Real and imagined sources of challenge were eliminated; private
armies and assassination squads were created; and the revenue of the state be-
came the revenue of Nigeria's dictators, who also became grand patrons of or-
ganized crime. The poverty bracket widened commensurately, while individual
liberties were in abeyance. The Nigerian state had been feudalized. In no time,
and with predictable alacrity, intellectuals, and political scientists were in the
forefront. Oyediran (1993) and Salih (1993) consider only the idealistic dimen-
sion of the production of legitimating ideas by Nigerian intellectuals. But, the mo-
tivation for involvement of social scientists in the administrations of Babangida
and Abacha was at the same time pecuniary, opportunistic, denigrating and
predatory. They expounded an ideology of 'Nigerianism' which was anti-out-
siders, supportive of the new dispensation and extolled the virtues of Nigeria's
traditional political values of complete obedience to authority (and elders), and
advertised an indigenously crafted political technology. But Abacha died suddenly
and, with him, the dream of crafting a peculiar Nigerian state form.
112 Ehimika A. Ifidon

A qualification could be appended to the conclusion that so called democratic

administrations have been as 'unrepresentative" and violent as their military
continuations. In the very early days of these administrations, with an intense
and almost aggressive desire amongst Nigerians for democracy, there was 'real'
democracy to the extent that pledges of accountability, justice, equity, personal
liberties and good governance were made by administration officials. But as
they settled in and predation began, quickly followed by the pressure of retain-
ing power, the democratic state became distant from its mass base and progres-
sively ceased to be democratic. No wonder there was much jubilation whenever
a democratic administration was unseated by the military. Indeed it was the
delegitimation of the democratic administrations, in the eyes of both the public
and. their operators, that provided the initial legitimacy for the coups and sub-
sequent military rule. This also indicates that military administrations, in their
early days, held out hope of a better deal. However^ the recent experience under
Babangida and Abacha demonstrates how easily-military rule can degenerate
into tyranny. If only the liberal momentum of the early days of elected admin-
istrations could be sustained, then the democratic regime would be certainly
preferable.
It is this hope that has made the continued recourse to democracy alluring in
spite of its very many imperfections in Nigeria. Joseph (1991: 4) has argued that
the pursuit of democracy is driven by the urge amongst Nigeria's ethnic groups
not to be excluded from government. However, this problem has traditionally
been expressed in federalist agitations. The direction of the development of dem-
ocratic ideology in Nigeria since the 'no taxation without representation' phase
of anti-colonial nationalism has, therefore, been toward individual liberties and
empowerment. How can these, and the umbrella democratic regime, be guar-
anteed beyond the inaugural phase of an elected administration? How can the
drift toward inter-group conflict and state collapse characteristic of elected gov-
ernments in Nigeria be avoided? These questions are in urgent need of answers
if the current momentum of redemocratization is to be sustained.
The approach adopted in this essay is to generate an early warning sequence,
very feasible since the transitions from democracy have not been sudden.
Outlining the processes by which this transition occurred twice in the past is,
possibly, to be able to anticipate and monitor contingent occurrences and, hope-
fully, safely and deliberately steer Nigeria away from the now traditional trajec-
tory. Such a possibility is premised on the existence of fairly stable and recur-
rent patterns of political mobilization and competition, of inter-group relations,
and of the relationship of groups to the state. A genetic analysis of the collapse
of elected governments in Nigeria would, reveal five stages in the transition from
democracy: depluralization, state appropriation, regime delegitimation, inter-
hegemonic conflict and military coup. It is in their succession and cumulation,
however, that they acquire an almost irreversible fatality. These components of
 Transitions from Democracy in Nigeria 113

genetic analysis, because of the historical character of the state and inter-group
configuration, have been recurrent and, therefore, also components of an early
warning analysis.
Aspects of a Futurological Science
Hegel (1956: 6) certainly captured the tragedy of the human condition by the
observation that the true lesson of history is that neither peoples nor their gov-
ernments have learnt anything from history, "or acted on principles deduced
from it". However, this is not proof enough that experience or 'similar circum-
stances of the past' cannot be relevant in explicating, elucidating or unravelling
present difficulties. Machiavelli (1970: 1-39), too, notes the recurrence of the
human tragedy which, however, he attributes to the neglect of historical stud-
ies and misreading of the results of such studies, where available. But, he con-
tinues, "if one examines with diligence the past, it is easy to foresee the future
of any commonwealth, and to apply those remedies which were used of old".
This optimism in the value of history (or experience and memory in other
dimensions) is however oversimplified. This is not to minify the worth of his-
tory as a basis for futurological undertakings. At least, that no human event as
it occurs is ever completely unexpected, unforeseen or 'new' is proof of this.
However, such a claim is merely a matter of perspective and does not yet sug-
gest a methodological framework for anticipating, much less engineering, future
outcomes. The notion of 'similarity' or 'resemblance' of events could, however,
be refined to form the basis of such a framework.
Traditionally, the notion of similarity of events has been attached to singular oc-
currences and its value contested and defended on the basis of the extent to which
similar events could mean recurred events. This level of considering the problem
is restrictive, however. Rather than characterizing singular events, the notion of
similarity should define a relationship among events to which a 'causal necessity'
can be ascribed, even if only in a reflective sense. By necessity is not to imply a
predetermination or predestination of events. It is meant to indicate how particu-
lar outcomes, choices or decisions are facilitated by particular conditions and
therefore become more likely before their occurrence, but inevitable afterward.
The sphere of human activity is not anarchic. Individuals, and then groups,
in the course of interacting with one another and sustaining themselves have,
over time, created discernible and fairly stable patterns of relationships that are
impersonal to the extent that they seem to stand above the particular individual
or group. Such relationships are ordered as if by a superintending or underly-
ing logic that bears a causal relationship to, and explanatory significance for,
the action of the specific individual or group. These inadvertent patterns of
social, political or economic relations (or of thought), systems or structures pro-
vide by causal necessity the contextual constraint on individual action2 (Easton
1990: 147-148).
114 Ehimika A. Ifidon

It Is with the notions of structure and causal necessity that Popper's (1960:
110-111) objection to the possibility of recurrence, or periodic occurrence, of
similar events that "instances of repetition involve circumstances that are vastly
dissimilar" must be met. It is only on the basis of these notions that experience
can be of any value: "Only if the same cause is always followed by the same
effect does learning from the experiences of the past make sense" (Kautsky,
1988: 470). In fact, it is in terms of the generation of "discernibly similar social
practices ... across varying spans of time and space and which lend them
'systemic' form" that Giddens (1984: 17) defines "structure" or "structuring
properties". Ultimately, it is the emancipatory imperative that justifies any
science of futurology.

A Structuralist History of Transitions from Democracy

in Nigeria
Between independence and 29 Mayl999, Nigeria had two democratic adminis-
trations. The first, modeled on the British parliamentary system, was headed by
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (1 October 1960 to 15 January 1966). The second, an
adaptation of the American presidential model, was headed by Shehu Shagari (1
October 1979 to 31 December 1983). Although the demise of these administra-
tions appears to be the consequence of a struggle for control of the state by
Nigeria's major ethnic groups (and coalitions), based on the assumption that
colonialism introduced capitalism into Nigeria, these transitions from democ-
racy have been attributed to conflict among bourgeois factions (Sklar,1971;
Nnoli, 1978; Lawal, 1972; Dibua, 1988). This class perspective has tended to
view the symptomatic ethnic mobilization as merely instrumental, thus split-
ting what were but regional elites, instead of economic production class, from
their empirically inseparable masses. But Nigeria's political problem derives
from the ethno-regional configuration generated by the territorial framework for
British colonial political administration.

The Colonial Prelude

The single most important conclusion of structuralist political historians of colo-
nial Nigeria is that the pattern of relationship among the British colonial offi-
cials of the north and south (of Nigeria), and the socialization of the emerging
Nigerian leaders to this pattern have been at the root of political conflicts in
Nigeria since independence (Heussler, 1968: 80, 170-174; Nicolson, 1969:
302-304; Okonjo, 1974: xvi). The extent of the impact of colonial administrative
practices has been dramatically expressed by Kirk-Greene (1968: 37, n.34),
who, recalling the antagonism between northern and southern colonial offi-
cials, remarked that "if all Nigerians had withdrawn from the country, there
would have been a civil war between the groups of Europeans". Class and
nationality differences among the British officials have been adduced for the
 Transitions prom Democracy in Nigeria 115

bifurcation of colonial administrative practices in Nigeria. As Nicolson (1969:

126, also p42) describes this phenomenon as, "the projection into Nigeria of the
great schism in British or, specifically, English life, with Northern Nigeria
attracting the attention of the consciously 'superior' classes, the officers and
gentlemen - and that helped to repel and antagonize the rest, the traders and
missionaries busy and influential in the South".
Although Nigeria was amalgamated in 1914, the north and south continued
to be administered as separate territories. In 1939, Southern Nigeria was split,
by Benard Bourdillon, into western and eastern provinces. But it was Arthur
Richards who, in 1945, thought that the ensuing three regions were Nigeria's
natural divisions and, therefore, gave the "purely administrative arrangement"
constitutional recognition (National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons
1945:12). While this decision might have had an innocuous intent, the fact that
the second half of the 1940s represented the period of the crystallization of
ethnic nationalism in Nigeria, particularly in the south, meant the creation of
territorial administrations that coincided with the home base of each of
Nigeria's three main ethnic groups. The west became coterminous with the
Yoruba ethnic group, the east with the Ibo, and a residual north with the Fulani-
Hausa ethno-political cluster.3 These three territorial regional administrations
were transformed into territorial, ethno-political and regional identities, with
the Ibo Federal Union (to become the ethnic organizational basis of the erst-
while nationalist party, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons
which dominated in the east), Egbe Omo Oduduwa, in 1948, (the Yoruba cul-
tural organization which later became the Action Group - AG in 1951, the party
of the west) and, in 1949, the Jamiyya Mutanem Arewa (the pan-northern cul-
tural association that became the Northern Peoples Congress - NPC in 1951, and
the party of the north). 4 They were the conflict units with which the Yoruba,
Ibo and the Fulani struggled for the exclusive domination of the Nigerian state,
the control of which was soon to be relinquished by Britain.
Thus emerged the most significant structuring factor and basis of continuity
in Nigeria's political history. Early consequences of this pattern of relationships
were the successful Yoruba conspiracy to exclude the Ibo Azikiwe from going
into the central legislature from the electoral college of the Western House of
Assembly, and the apparent alignment of the east and west against the north on
the question of self government for Nigeria in 1953. The constitutional review
exercise of 1954, a response to the latter problem, weakened the center impor-
tantly by giving residual powers to the regional governments. Nigeria virtually
became a federation of the Ibo, Yoruba and Fulani and the stages in the transi-
tion from democracy became the stages in the crystallization of ethno-hege-
monic conflict.
116 Ehimika A. Ifidon

The First Transition from Democracy, 1960-1966

The result of the federal election of December 1959, by which power would be
transferred from Britain to a Nigerian government, confirmed the tri-ethnic
framework of Nigerian politics. Of the 312 seats contested, the NPC won 134,
all of them won from the Northern region; the NCNC won 89 seats, 58 from its
Eastern region base, and 31 from ethnic and political minority groups in the
north, west and Lagos; the AG won 73 seats, 33 from its ethnic support base in
the western Region, 25 from northern minorities, 14 from eastern minorities,
and 1 from Lagos; other parties and independent candidates took the rest 16
seats-.
The British Governor General, James Robertson, thought the north would not
accept a government made up from a coalition of the southern parties and so,
asked the NPC to form a government (Robertson 1974: 234). Nevertheless, the
AG's active support for minorities in the north and east already made a coalition
of the NPC and NCNC likely. The NPC went into coalition with the NCNC, and
the AG became the opposition. By the pattern of thinking about politics, this
meant an Ibo-Fulani coalition against a Yoruba opposition. Considering the ani-
mosity between the AG, on one hand, and the NCNC and NPC on the other, the
pattern of alignment appeared exclusionary. But the more frightful import of
this pattern for the AG was the possibility of using central executive power to
intervene in the west and undermine its ethnic and political base. It was to fore-
stall such an eventuality that the executive council of the AG in mid September
of 1960 established a tactical committee. While this move represented a ten-
dency to consolidate the status of the AG as a regional force with the hope of
capturing central power, another tendency, symbolized by the deputy leader of
the AG, Samuel Akintola, emerged that favoured cooperation with the coalition
government and partaking in the distribution of political and economic
resources.
A wide ideological gulf separated the NPC and NCNC. The NPC was conser-
vative and isolationist; the NCNC socialistic and pan-Africanist. However, they
had the resentment of the AG, with its leader, Obafemi Awolowo, in common.
That was the true basis of the coalition. Two developments followed from this.
The conflicting tendencies within the AG created factional problems which led
to a political crisis in the Western region in May 1962, and the opportunity for
the coalition to intervene and eventually confirm its AG supporter, Akintola, in
power. By mid 1963, with the conviction of Awolowo for treasonable felony, and
the excision of a Midwest region from the west, the influence of the AG in
regional and national politics had been virtually destroyed (Sklar, 1991).
An initially quiet struggle for supremacy between the coalition partners had
become evident by the beginning of 1961 (Dudley, 1982: 63, 64 ff; Ingham,
1990: 72, 73 ff). As the AG went down, this became progressively pronounced
 Transitions from Democracy in Nigeria 117

and came to determine the direction of the politics and stability of the Nigerian
state. Their disagreement over the 1962 census figures, the proposed basis for
delimiting constituencies for the 1964 federal election, heightened and nation-
alized this rivalry and, ultimately, led to the formation of two broad alliances -
the United Progressive Grand Alliance and the Nigeria National Alliance.
Although representing the south and north respectively, they thinly concealed
the struggle between the NCNC and the NPC or, more accurately, between the
Ibo and Fulani, to control central executive power. The federal elections of
1964/65, contested on the platforms of the alliances, were as uncompromisingly
fought as they were manipulated. The NNA, and thus the north, won. It was in
the midst of the clamor for eastern secession and the violent aftermath of the
election in the west that the military struck on 15 January 1966.
The Second Transition from Democracy, 1979-1983
The tri-regional configuration of Nigeria was first altered in 1963 with the estab-
lishment of a Midwest region and then, in mid 1967, a 12 state structure
emerged. Ten years later, the states became 19, a situation that seemed to
Diamond (1990: 365) "likely to weaken the ethnic and regional solidarities that
had cursed the First Republic and to generate a more fluid and shifting pattern
of alignments, with state interests representing an independent and, at least
occasionally, crosscutting line of cleavage".5 But identities, once constructed, do
endure; since the states established were not sovereign, the sense of peoplehood
has become trans-territorial and residual. The 1979 election result demonstrated
this.
Awolowo and Azikiwe, two key players in the 1959 election, again emerged
as leaders and presidential candidates of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and
the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), respectively. Of the 4.9 million votes polled
for Awolowo nationwide, 4.2 came from the successor states of the Western
region (or 84 percent of total votes cast in these states). Azikiwe polled 2.2 mil-
lion of the 3.7 million votes nationwide from the successor states of the Eastern
region (or 58 percent of total votes cast in these states). While Awolowo polled
53.2 percent in the non Yoruba but western state of Bendel, Azikiwe got only 11
percent of the votes from the non Ibo areas of the former east. The three other
parties, Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP)
and the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) were led by persons from the north.
But the NPN most represented the outlook of the northern political elite. Its can-
didate was Shehu Shagari, a Fulani and NPC minister in the early 1960s. He got
3.9 million of his 5.7 million votes nationwide from the successor states of the
Northern region (or 48.3 percent of total votes cast in these states; the other two
northern candidates had a total of 39 percent of northern votes). The old tripod
had re-emerged and the voting pattern in 1979 was as ethno-regional as in 1959
(see the table for comparison).
118 Ehimika A. Ifidon

Comparison of Patterns of Voting in 1959 and 1979 Transitional Elections

(million)
1959 Northern Eastern Western 19791
Region Region Region
NPC(AhmaduBello 3 -Fulani) 1.99 - .03
3.99 1.19 .58 NPN (Shehu Sagari - Fulani)
3
NCNC(NnamdiAzikiwe -lbo) .53 1.25 .82
.55 2.15 .16 NPP(NnamdiAzikiwe-lbo)
3
AG (Obafemi Awolowo - Yoruba) .56 .45 .98
.53 .11 4.22 UPN (Obafemi Awolowo - Yoruba)
Other parties/Independent Candidates .18 .24 .16
3.16 .20 .05 Other Candidates4
Notes
1. The votes for the Federal Territory of Lagos are included in that of the Western region.
2. In 1979, Nigeria was a federation of nineteen states, however, they corresponded to the old regions as set out
below.
Northern Region: Sokoto, Kano, Kaduna, Gongola, Borno, Bauchi, Benue, Kwara, Niger, Plateau.
Eastern Region: Anambra, I mo, Rivers, Cross River.
Western Region: Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Lagos, Bendel.
3. Nigeria between 1960 and 1966 operated a parliamentary system, so the votes represent the total for each
party's parliamentary candidates. In 1979, the votes cast were for the individual candidates.
4. The other candidates in 1979 were Aminu Kano (PRP), a Fulani, and Waziri Ibrahim (GNPP), a Kanuri, both
from the north.

Although Shagari won, a formal alliance was deemed necessary to facilitate the
passage of presidential nominations and bills through the federal legislative
houses. On 27 September 1979, the NPN-NPP accord, providing for the sharing
of ministerial, board and legislative positions between the two parties, was
signed. It took effect from 1 October when Shagari was inaugurated as
President. Awolowo again acted out the role of opposition for which the gov-
ernments of the western successor states were 'victimized' by the federal admin-
istration. A semi-formal association of the nine UPN, PRP and GNPP Governors,
the 'progressives', emerged in response to the NPN-NPP accord. It was this asso-
ciation that formed the basis of a fleeting anti-NPN alliance, the Progressive
Parties Alliance (PPA), when the accord was terminated amidst mutual recrim-
inations in July 1981.
Although the NPN won 20.3 percent of southern votes, accounted for in par-
ticular by votes from the two non Ibo and former eastern regional states of Cross
River and Rivers (25 percent of all votes cast in the eastern states), it was essen-
tially a northern party, a re-creation of the NPC. According to Nnoli (1989: 104),
 "Ransitions from Democracy in Nigeria 119

The NPN began in various forms and names in 1978 to mobilize first and
foremost the Hausa-Fulani petty bourgeois within and outside the ethnic home-
land for support. The core of that mobilization effort was the so-called Kaduna
Mafia — the group of civil servants now turned businessmen who served under
the late Sardauna of Sokoto. Their perception of Nigeria is patently ethnic-ori-
ented with the consideration of the interest of the Fulani in particular and the
rest of the petty-bourgeoisie of other northern peoples uppermost in their
minds. The formation of the Yoruba solidarity front within the party over the
frustration of Moshood Abiola's bid for the party chairmanship and candidacy
was a response to its regional character (Okoli 1983).
With a poor economic management record and tenuous control over his
appointees who privatized and openly pillaged the state, Shagari was renomi-
nated as party presidential candidate in June 1982. Although, at its summit
meeting in October 1982, the PPA agreed on general principles to share federal
electoral offices among its four parties, ethnic and personal animosities, partic-
ularly between Azikiwe and Awolowo, prevented the emergence of a fully
fledged electoral coalition. Yet, the fact that the UPN was the least factionalized
party made Awolowo to provide the most potent electoral challenge to Shagari.
Meanwhile, the desperation with which the parties fought against political
exclusion for their candidates made the exercise to review the voters' list in the
second half of August, at best, farcical. At the end of the review exercise, an
incredible 35.7 percent increase over 1979 was recorded, Kaduna and Rivers
states recording the highest change (93.6 percent and 89.1 percent respectively).
Months before the August 1983 presidential election, it was already feared
that there was going to be a succession crisis via election rigging and thuggery.
Okoli (1982: 31,95) had observed the nervousness with which Nigerians pre-
pared for the 1983 election and two general fears about the election aftermath:
"a total breakdown of law and order as a result of election-rigging", and "mili-
tary intervention as a temporary measure". Both of these came to pass (Diamond
1988a: 71-78). Like the 1979 election, voting in the presidential election of 1983
followed an ethno-regional pattern.6 Shagari was again declared winner and
inaugurated President but the air was thick with political conspiracy and rebel-
lion. On 31 December 1983, the military again struck, completing another
process of transition from democracy.

Toward a Pre-emptive Analysis

There have been general studies of the transformation of democratic institutions
into instruments of oligarchic control in Africa. Chazan (1993: 83; cf. Legum,
1986: Table 18.1) highlights the "dismantling of competitive institutions" and
the "expansion and strengthening of the central administration" as the two com-
ponent processes of the "transition to authoritarianism" in Africa. The latter is
a consequence of an emergent statist elite political culture (Chazan et al, 1992:
120 Ehimika A. Ifidon

38). For Diamond (1988b: 2-3), the "transition from political pluralism to
authoritarianism", marked most significantly by the elimination of political
competition, was the result of the tenuous political base, and therefore political
insecurity, of Africa's leaders. But the process of breakdown of democracy in
Africa was not a one time phenomenon; it has become recurrent. It is this fact
of recurrence that makes such general studies inadequate, for neither a statist
proclivity nor elite insecurity arising from tenuous political base could explain
recurrence.
For Nigeria, the conditions that structure the recurrence of democratic break-
down have their origins in the pre-independence period. First, the character of
the colonial state, being authoritarian, extractive, mercantile and functionally
interventionist, precluded the flowering of an active private sphere. Because it
excluded the forces it helped to liberate, it remained alien. But the post colonial
state has remained alien to the extent that cultural groups could be ranged along
an in-out continuum. Second, the prospects of taking over the colonial state at
the onset of colonial transition led to the emergence of mobilized groups and a
tri-hegemonic rivalry involving ethnic coalitions built around Ibo, Fulani and
Yoruba identities. Consequently, the post colonial state remained pro-colonial
because it continued to be instrumental and appropriative. Hence Ake (1997:
300) insisted that what British colonialism bequeathed was "not so much a state
as a state project", "an exploitable resource, a contested terrain where all strug-
gle to appropriate and privatize some or all of the enormous powers and
resources of the state" (1997: 305). Thus, just like the colonial state, which the
indigenous elite conveniently inherited rather than liquidate, the post colonial
state in Africa lacks autonomy and is susceptible to instrumental use (Ake 2000:
115). It is the consequent crisis and fragility of the state that retards the progress
of democratization. "No state, no democracy" (Linz and Stepan 1996: 15).
These factors have created a necessary succession in the stages of the transi-
tion from democracy. For each episode of democratic breakdown, the stages of
succession have been cumulative, every stage adding to create a conflict situa-
tion.7 This is what Nnoli (1995b: 2) has characterized as "an increasingly
intense spiral of self-confirming hostile suspicious actions and counteractions
and expectations which open up the possibility of inter-ethnic violence".
Since the appearance, in the 1940s, of the trichotomous struggle to, at the
maximum, exclusively dominate the inchoate Nigerian state and, at the mini-
mum, be associated with the dominating group, it had become evident that
democratic politics could only be possible, or at least instituted, under the direc-
tion of a non-democratic regime. The democratic pretensions of the nationalist
movement notwithstanding, democracy was instituted in Nigeria by the colo-
nial administration. Subsequently, only an authoritarian military framework
has guaranteed safe politicking, significantly fair elections and, ultimately, suc-
cessful transitions to civil rule. Immediately inauguration on 1 October formally
 Transitions from Democracy in Nigeria 121

terminated authoritarian rule, the transition from democracy commenced. The

stages of the recurrent transition from democracy can be empirically and logi-
cally sketched.

1. Depluralization and State Centralization. The early days of a democratic

administration, even though not entirely calm, have always been promising.
Largely because the transfer of power is organized by the military, the
incoming government possesses some internal legitimacy. But complaints
about the pattern of political appointments are usually reminders of the exis-
tence of a competitive inter-group structure. Within the ruling party, the
dominant ethnic coalition asserts itself, seizes strategic administration posi-
tions and to consolidate its hold on power, expands the state by establishing
new parastatals outside the traditional bureaucracy. Two consequences fol-
low. Firstly, appropriation of the state by the dominant ethnic coalition such
that the state is identified with it or with its interests and, secondly, preda-
tion, through award of inflated or 'inexecutable' contracts to fellow ethnics
(and sympathisers from other groups) and direct pillaging of state resources
to the extent that the non-rational allocation of resources accounts for nega-
tive economic growth.

2. Regime Delegitimation. The operating assumption usually is that any of the

major groups will, for the period in which it is dominant, treat the state as
its property. So there are always two excluded groups to whom the state is
as alien as the colonial state, against which acts of subversion may be justi-
fied and from which loyalty can be withheld. On the one hand, excluded
groups feel estranged from the state and, on the other, because of financial
disempowerment, the oil rich state becomes quite poor. In both cases, the
bloated state becomes very weak. Yet, the incumbent administration would
wish for a second term.

3. Inter-Hegemonic Conflict and Coup. It is not strange at this point for (eth-
nic) opposition elements to make contact with fellow ethnics in the military.
But, generally, the acceptable response is to seek change through the ballot
box. The question arises: why should a dominant group with the political
and financial resources of the state at its disposal consent to relinquish
power to another group that will dominate it? So the ruling party and ruling
group use the state to ensure its return to power in a usually violence ridden
and farcical election. The non acceptance of the result in non ruling group
areas diminishes the territory under the control of the state. At this point, it
is proper to pronounce the collapse of the state. Predictably, the military
seizes power and there is much jubilation, although mostly so among the
excluded and marginalized groups.
122 Ehimika A. Ifidon

Conclusion
The stages that have been described do not stand alone. Nor does it appear that
the process can be arrested once started. Collective memories of past 'wrongs'
combined with the reactivation of ethnic stereotypes and symbols ensures that
everybody and not just a political elite is drawn into the struggle for ethno-polit-
ical supremacy. This would seem to limit the possibility of this scheme becom-
ing an early warning analysis with the possibility of intervention or early
response. There is no doubt that appropriate early response or 'preventive'
action should be part of an early warning analysis (George and Hall, 1997: 9)
but in, a situation of recurrent crisis, perhaps, "pre-emptive action", removing
the source of recurrence, is to be recommended (Renner, 1999: 53). It appears
more feasible to prevent the occurrence of the cumulative episodes than attempt
to stem their development once started. However, if emphasis were to be shifted
from trajectory and mechanism of succession to the object of the struggle, pre-
emptive intervention becomes possible.
Put simply, the source of recurrence of the transition from democracy in
Nigeria is the struggle by mobilized groups, defined in ethnic and regional
terms, to exclusively control a Nigerian state that is, considering its history and
character, authoritarian and pre-modern. The simple response seems to be that
the state should be reconfigured: decentralized, weakened and rendered less vis-
ible, that is, transformed into a kind of minimal state with abundant opportu-
nities for genuine local self government.8 However, like the initiation of the
democratic regime itself, this can only be effected by an authoritarian govern-
ment. Since democracy fails because the state does, restructuring the state thus
appears a more urgent objective than democratization.
The democratic administration inaugurated on 29 May 1999, has not exactly
conformed to the traditional Nigerian pattern. Although the new president is a
Yoruba, he was not a Yoruba candidate and he received insignificant electora
support from the Yoruba. The significant role played by a section of the north-
ern political elite in creating a pre-election platform for him has led to specula-
tion that he will indulge the north with the presidency. For a former military
ruler of Nigeria (1976-1979), and an international crusader for transparency
and accountability in governance, perhaps such speculation was unfair.
However, there has been a recrudescence of the tri-ethnic political rivalry,
with the Fulani north and Ibo east already screaming 'marginalization and
exclusion', and the Yoruba west campaigning for regional autonomy in the
guise of restructuring of the federal state. The ethnic violence in 2000 between
the Yoruba and the northern community in the Yoruba town of Sagamu and
northern city of Kano, between Yoruba ultra-nationalists of the O'dua Peoples
Congress and Ijaw elements in Lagos, the Zamfara state Sharia law controversy,
and the ethnic situation in the Niger Delta are all expressions of the struggle for
 Transitions from Democracy in Nigeria 123

inclusion in, or domination of, the state and are indicative of the extent of the
authority and legitimacy of the state. They make the current effort at democra-
tization look futile. Shariff (1999: 26) has contended that "considering the agi-
tation and movement towards a break-up of the polity, if care is not taken,
Nigeria may as well be on the road to Moscow [i.e. disintegration]". So far, more
effort has been expended on conciliating ethno-regional interests and stabilizing
the central state than on restructuring the state or democratization. But, because
the mechanism for the effort at conciliation has been idiosyncratic rather than
systematic or structural, the durability of solutions cannot be guaranteed
beyond the life of this administration. In relation to security and the economy,
the Nigerian state continues to struggle to assert its authority and has, so far,
had only limited success. At the levels of the component states and local gov-
ernments, where autocracy, graft and personal rule are pervasive, democratiza-
tion is yet to commence. Yet, not until the Nigerian state is widely perceived to
defend and project the interests of an ethnic group can the self sustaining
sequence commence.
Notes
1. For Legum (1986:177), it would appear, the question of a transition from democracy
does not arise since there was really no democracy in the first instance: "No single
African country was a democracy at its independence, while most had a semblance
of democratic forms of government, all lacked the content, or even a skeletal frame-
work of a true political democracy." True, the enthusiasm for democracy among
African nationalists did not outlive European colonial administrations, however, the
application of the label 'democratic' to elected governments in Nigeria, irrespective
of democratic content, is taken for granted.
2. Structure is not the "timeless, inalterable, constraining arrangement of social rela-
tions" that Bottomore (1976: 170-171) argues is incompatible with historical analy-
sis. It is the mesh from which individual strands emerge. In this sense, history is the
"interaction of structure and action" (Abrams 1982: 6, 108).
3. The demographic basis of this dominance is indicated in the table below:
Ethnic Group Region % of Regional Population % of Nigeria's Population
Yoruba West 70.7 16.2
Ibo East 68.1 18.0
Fulani/Hausa North 50.6 24.4
Source: Department of Statistics (1953, Tables A & B).
4. The leader of the NCNC, Nnamdi Azikiwe, had in July 1946 recognized and warned
against the structural consequence of Richards' trichotomous framework: "The
Richards Constitution divides the country into three zones which are bound to
departmentalize the political thinking of this country by means of the bloc vote.
Whether Richards intends it or not, it is obvious that regions will now tend more
towards Pakistanization than ever before, and our future generations will inherit this
legacy that is born out of official sophistry. If, therefore, there spring forth schools
124 Ehimika A. Ifidon

of thought tomorrow, making requests of a parochial nature which would ordinar-

ily rend this country into a multiplicity of principalities, mark it down,... as one of
the crops to be harvested from this curious constitution of a curious political regime
..." (Harris 1961: 100).
But compare Nnoli (1995a: 31): "In spite of the abolishment of the three regions
(North, East and West) as political-administrative units with the creation of states
designed to accommodate the interests of the minor ethnic groups in 1967,1976 and
1991, the boundary between the old North and old South has not been disturbed."
Ethno-Regional Pattern of Voting in the 1983 Presidential Election (million)
North East West
Total Votes 11.9 5.4 8.2
Shagari 7.8 2.4 1.9
Azikiwe 1.3 1.9* 0.2
Awolowo 1.1 0.8 5.9
* Azikiwe got 1.7 of his 1.9 million votes from the Ibo states of Anambra and Imo, the rest 0.2
from the non Ibo eastern states of Cross River and Rivers.
This pattern is claimed to have been absent hi the presidential election of 12 June 1993.
Because Ibrahim Tofa (Kano Kanuri) of the National Republic Convention (NRC) got
his highest vote in the southern-eastern state of Rivers, performed slightly below
Moshood Abiola (Yoruba) of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in his home state of
Kano, and the predominantly Yoruba states of Lagos, Ondo, Oyo, Ogun and Osun only
accounted for 37.1 percent of total SDP votes, therefore, it has been argued, "the old
multi-ethnic sentiment characteristic of the pattern of voting appears to have given way
to a more national outlook" (Akinterinwa 1997: 292). In spite of the fact that a two
party system was imposed on an essentially ethno-regional political environment (with
the result that there was no Ibo candidate) and Tofa's relative obscurity in northern pol-
itics, it was not accidental that Abiola received 37.1 and 43.5 percent of his total votes
from southern Yoruba states and the old Western region, respectively, as against Tofa's
9.2 and 13.4 percent; or that Tofa got 56.6 percent of his total votes from the north,
while Abiola got 61.6 percent of his from the south (see table below).
Pattern of Voting in the 1993 Presidential Election (million)
North East West
Total Votes 11.9 5.4 8.2
Shagari 7.8 2.4 1.9
Azikiwe 1.3 1.9* 0.2
Awolowo 1.1 0.8 5.9
Total Votes 6.6 3.3 4.4
Abiola 3.2* 1.5 3.6
Tofa 3.4* 1.8 0.8
* While 60 percent of Abiola's 3.2 million votes came from the non Hausa/Fulani dominated
states of Adamawa, Benue, Borno, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Plateau, Taraba, Yobe and Abuja, of
Tofa's 3.4 million votes, 56.8 percent came from the»core Hausa/Fulani states of Bauchi,
Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, and Sokoto.
 Transitions from Democracy in Nigeria 125

7. According to Smelser's (1962: 14) "logic of value-added", further elucidating the

structuring of conflict and the mechanism of critical cumulation, each social envi-
ronment generates its peculiar trajectory of conflict, the basal condition for cumu-
lation appearing as the outcome of a particular combination of factors: "Every state
in the value-added process...is a necessary condition for the appropriate and effec-
tive addition of value in the next stage...As the value-added process moves forward,
it narrows progressively the range of possibilities of what the final product might
become."
8. Ake (1991a: 37-38) has drawn attention to the difference between the size and
strength of the state in Africa. To consolidate democracy, he argues, it is the former
that must be reduced since, in any case, the African state is already weak. There is
no doubt that a strong state may be able to contain further sectional differentiation
but the possibility of a neutral state is unthinkable. Even then, the Nigerian state is
not generally weak; it is only selectively and instrumentally strong. But destatiza-
tion, as Ake argues elsewhere (1991b: 328), could be a strategy to reduce the eco-
nomic rewards of political power and thereby guarantee democracy. Nozick (1974:
272) provides the theoretical connection: "The minimal state best reduces the
chances of such takeover or manipulation of the state by persons desiring power or
economic benefits, especially if combined with a reasonably alert citizenry, since it
is the minimally desirable target for such takeover or manipulation."

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