The study examines the place of the military in the unprecedented ten-year survival of Nigeria’s democracy. Two competing hypotheses are presented. Was democratic stability a product of (1) improvements in democratic governance or (2) characterized with the Nigerian armed forces? Although neither hypothesis can be rejected, military factors appear to provide the strongest explanation.
See for example, the cluster of articles by Richard Joseph, H. Kwasi Prempeh, Joel D. Barkan, and Larry Diamond under the title, ‘‘Progress and Retreat in Africa,’’Journal of Democracy19, 2 (April, 2008): 94-149.
2.
Daniel N. Posner and Daniel J. Young, ‘‘The Institutionalization of Political Power in Africa,’’Journal of Democracy18, 3 (July, 2007): 126-40.
3.
Richard Joseph , ‘‘Challenges of a ‘Frontier’ Region,’’Journal of Democracy19, 2 (April, 2008): 101.
4.
Ibid., 101.
5.
E. Gyimah-Boadi , ‘‘Another Step Forward for Ghana,’’Journal of Democracy20, 2 (April, 2009): 149.
6.
Patrick J. McGowan, ‘‘Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part 11, Empirical Findings,’’Armed Forces & Society32, 2 (January 2006): 239.
7.
Patrick J. McGowan, ‘‘African Military Coups d’état, 1956-2001: Frequency, Trends, and Distribution,’’Journal of Modern African Studies41, 3 (September 2003): 367. Cited in Patrick J. McGowan, ‘‘Coups and Conflict in West Africa,’’236-7.
8.
For graphic details of these, see, E. Gyimah Boadi, ‘‘Another Step Forward for Ghana,’’142-44.
9.
Emmanuel O. Ojo , ‘‘Taming the Monster: Demilitarization and Democratization in Nigeria,’’Armed Forces & Society32, 2 (January 2006): 254-72.
10.
Emmanuel O. Ojo, ‘‘Taming the Monster.’’
11.
Ibid.
12.
Ibid.
13.
Emmanuel O. Ojo , ‘‘Guarding the ‘Guardians:’ A Prognosis of Panacea for Evolving Stable Civil Military Relations in Nigeria,’’Armed Forces & Society35, 4 (July 2009): 693-703.
14.
See Ibid.
15.
Morris Janowitz , The Military in the Political Development of New Nations: A Comparative Analysis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 27-29.
16.
Samuel Decalo , ‘‘Military Coups and Military Regimes in Africa,’’Journal of Modern African Studies11, 1 ( 1973): 105-27.
17.
Samuel P.Huntington, Political Order in changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968 ), 194.
18.
Claude Ake , Democracy and Development in Africa ( Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1996).
19.
See Claude E. Welch Jr. in Claude E. Welch Jr. ed., Soldier and State in Africa ( Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970), 18-34.
20.
Patrick J. McGowan , ‘‘Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part 1, Theoretical Perspectives,’’Armed Forces & Society32, 1 (October 2005): 5-23.
21.
Patrick J. McGowan, ‘‘Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955-2004: Part 11, Empirical Findings,’’234-53.
22.
See for instance various accounts of the first Nigerian military coup which include: A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, Crises and Conflict in Nigeria: A Documentary Sourcebook 1966-1969 (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 1-111; Adewale Ademoyega, Why We Struck: The Story of the First Nigerian Coup (Ibadan: Evans Brothers Limited, 1981); and A. M. Mainasara, The Five Majors: Why They Struck (Zaria: Hudahuda Publishing Company, 1982). See also Oyeleye Oyediran ‘‘Background to Military Rule’’ in Nigerian Government and Politics under Military Rule, 1966-79, ed. Oyeleye Oyediran (London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1979), 1-24.
23.
Olusegun Obasanjo, Not My Will (Ibadan: University Press Limited, 1990), 2. In Pakistan, a similar sense of military self-importance is reported to have derived from external threat from India, the failure or decline of civilian institutions, and other developments in the international environment, which have resulted in that country’s cycle of military intervention and withdrawal from political power. See, Thathiah Ravi, ‘‘Pakistan Army and Regional Peace in South Asia,’’ Journal of Third World Studies 23, 1 (Spring 2006): 119-46.
24.
See Speech by General Gowon on the occasion of Independence Day Anniversary on October 1, 1974, in Daily Times (Lagos), October 2, 1974.
25.
Tunji Olagunju , Adele Jinadu, and Sam Oyovbaire, Transition to Democracy in Nigeria, 1985-1993 (Channel Islands, UK and Ibadan: Safari Books Export Ltd. And Spectrum Books Ltd., 1993), 71 and 78.
26.
Kunle Amuwo, General Babangida, Civil Society and the Military in Nigeria: Anatomy of a Personal Ruler ship Project (Bordeaux, 1995).
27.
Robin Luckham , The Nigerian Military: A Sociological Analysis of Authority and Revolt, 1960-1967 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 88.
28.
For details of the Tiv riots, see Remi Anifowose, Violence and Politics in Nigeria: The Tiv and Yoruba Experience (New York: NoK, 1982).
29.
Pita Ogaba Agbese , ‘‘Military Rule and Civil-Military Relations in the Adjustment Years’’ in Governance in Nigeria: Economy, Politics and Society in the Adjustment Years, 1985-1995, ed. I. B. Bello-Imam (Ibadan : Stirling-Horden Publishers (Nig) Ltd., 1997), 124.
30.
A representative sample of this viewpoint is to be found in Edward Shils, ‘‘The Military in the Political Development of the New States,’’ in The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries, ed. John J. Johnson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962); see also in the same volume, Lucian Pye , ‘‘Armies in the Process of Political Modernisation,’’69-90.
31.
See Ali Mazrui, ‘‘Soldiers as Traditionalisers: Military Rule and the Re-Africanisation of Africa,’’ World Politics 38 (January 1976); Henry Bienen, Armies and Parties in Africa (New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1978); Edward Feit, ‘‘The Rule of the Iron Surgeons: Military Government in Spain and Ghana,’’ Comparative Politics (July 1969); and Robert A. Price, ‘‘A Theoretical Approach to Military Rule in New States: Reference Group Theory and the Ghanaian Case,’’ World Politics 23, 3 (1971).
32.
Vernon Ruttan , ‘‘What Happened to Political Development?’’Economic Development and Cultural Change39, 2 (1991).
33.
The list includes General Ibrahim Babangida, General Theophilus Danjuma, and Colonel Ahmadu Alli.
34.
J. Bayo Adekanye, Military Occupation and Social Stratification: Inaugural Lecture ( Ibadan: Vantage Press, 1983).
35.
See, Toyin Falola and Julius Ihonvbere, The Rise and Fall of Nigeria’s First Republic (London: Zed Books, 1985); B. J. Dudley, Instability and Political Order: Politics and Crises in Nigeria (Ibadan: University of Ibadan, 1983); and Richard Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
36.
Richard Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria.
37.
See Rotimi Suberu, ‘‘Nigeria’s Muddled Elections,’’Journal of Democracy (Fall 2008).
38.
Some of the recent migrations include Adams Oshiomole, former President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, who is now Governor of Edo State; Abdul Oroh, former Executive Director, Campaign for Democracy (CD), who became a member of the House of Representatives and now a Commissioner in Oshiomole’s government. For details of the phenomenon of migrations and metamorphoses of individuals and groups since independence, see William Ehwarieme, ‘‘The Military, Civil Society and Transition to Democracy: The Nigerian Experience’’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Ibadan, 2000).
39.
For the reversal of the Sierra Leone coup and reinstatement of President Kabbah after nine months by ECOMOG forces as well as the commitment of different countries to regional operations, see Peter A. Dumbuya, ‘‘ECOWAS Military Intervention in Sierra Leone: Anglophone-Francophone Bipolarity or Multi-polarity?’’Journal of Third World Studies25, 2 (Fall 2008): 83-102.
40.
Emmanuel O. Ojo, ‘‘Taming the Monster,’’ 263-4.
41.
Examples include the initial appointment of retired General T. Y. Danjuma as defense Minister, retired General Godwin Abbe as current minister of Internal Affairs, and ensuring that the office of the National Security Adviser has been occupied by a retired General.
42.
Ibid., 267.
43.
Some of the officers retired by the Obasanjo administration were said to have tried to rally their serving colleagues at least twice before the April 2004 plot. See Tell (Lagos, Nigeria), ‘‘The Mustapha Coup Plot: Military Officers Under Probe,’’ April 12, 2004, 16-19.
44.
Ibid.
45.
The weapons to be used were to have been imported into the country through Togo. See Tell (Lagos, Nigeria) ‘‘How the Coup Plot Was Financed,’’ May 3, 2004, 14-19.
46.
In 1993, I was invited as guest Lecturer in one of the military formations in Nigeria and after the lecture, some of the officers at close range and in low tones actually lamented that if they had been Babangida and Abacha boys, they would have attended the course they were attending locally overseas. In sharp contrast, a number of officers I recently interacted with could boast of two or three overseas trainings within the last three years without being specially connected.
47.
See Tell (Lagos, Nigeria), ‘‘The Mustapha Coup plot,’’ April 12, 2004, 18-19.
