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 governments 
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 appropriation, 
delegitimation of regimes, inter-hegemonic conflict and, finally, military 
coup. These are argued as consequences of the peculiar political and intergroup 
environment of Nigeria and character of the state. Therefore, every future 
democratic administration is susceptible to the same trajectory. Yet, the progressively 
degrading tenor of life under military rule has highlighted the intrinsic 
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-emptive 
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 controversies 
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 political 
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 politically 
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 indicators, 
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 asylum 
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, dismalness 
and helplessness. But a particular trajectory would seem to be discernible, 
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 democratic 
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 spontaneity 
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 progressive 
transformation of democratic structures into instruments of authoritarian 
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 cannot 
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, military 
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 became 
the revenue of Nigeria's dictators, who also became grand patrons of organized 
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 dimension 
of the production of legitimating ideas by Nigerian intellectuals. But, the motivation 
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-outsiders, 
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 retaining 
power, the democratic state became distant from its mass base and progressively 
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 subsequent 
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 administrations 
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 democratic 
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 guaranteed 
beyond the inaugural phase of an elected administration? How can the 
drift toward inter-group conflict and state collapse characteristic of elected governments 
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, hopefully, 
safely and deliberately steer Nigeria away from the now traditional trajectory. 
Such a possibility is premised on the existence of fairly stable and recurrent 
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, interhegemonic 
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 governments 
have learnt anything from history, "or acted on principles deduced 
from it". However, this is not proof enough that experience or 'similar circumstances 
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 studies 
and misreading of the results of such studies, where available. But, he continues, 
"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 history 
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 suggest 
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 occurrences 
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 particular 
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 underlying 
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 provide 
by causal necessity the contextual constraint on individual action2 (Easton 
1990: 147-148).
%imikaA. lfidon 
V*"ith the notions of structure and causal necessity that Popper's (1960: 
objection to the possibility of recurrence, or periodic occurrence, of 
Vents that "instances of repetition involve circumstances that are vastly 
must be met. It is only on the basis of these notions that experience 
any value: "Only if the same cause is always followed by the same 
N^es learning from the experiences of the past make sense" (Kautsky, 
D). In fact, it is in terms of the generation of "discernibly similar social 
^5S ... across varying spans of time and space and which lend them 
5*' form" that Giddens (1984: 17) defines "structure" or "structuring 
*-'<es". Ultimately, it is the emancipatory imperative that justifies any 
"t)f futurology. 
^ cturalist History of Transitions from Democracy 
X independence and 29 Mayl999, Nigeria had two democratic adminis- 
* The first, modeled on the British parliamentary system, was headed by 
|^"«ar Tafawa Balewa (1 October 1960 to 15 January 1966). The second, an 
i m of the American presidential model, was headed by Shehu Shagari (1 
1979 to 31 December 1983). Although the demise of these administra- 
K*pears to be the consequence of a struggle for control of the state by 
s major ethnic groups (and coalitions), based on the assumption that 
introduced capitalism into Nigeria, these transitions from democbeen 
attributed to conflict among bourgeois factions (Sklar,1971; 
H 978; Lawal, 1972; Dibua, 1988). This class perspective has tended to 
1« symptomatic ethnic mobilization as merely instrumental, thus split- 
*Xat were but regional elites, instead of economic production class, from 
**npirically inseparable masses. But Nigeria's political problem derives 
P^«e ethno-regional configuration generated by the territorial framework for 
•colonial political administration. 
polonial Prelude 
•^fde most important conclusion of structuralist political historians of coloifgeria 
is that the pattern of relationship among the British colonial offi- 
^ the north and south (of Nigeria), and the socialization of the emerging 
leaders to this pattern have been at the root of political conflicts in 
•an since independence (Heussler, 1968: 80, 170-174; Nicolson, 1969: 
O 4; Okonjo, 1974: xvi). The extent of the impact of colonial administrative 
has been dramatically expressed by Kirk-Greene (1968: 37, n.34), 
recalling the antagonism between northern and southern colonial offi- 
«~«marked that "if all Nigerians had withdrawn from the country, there 
have been a civil war between the groups of Europeans". Class and 
.adity differences among the British officials have been adduced for the
Transitions from. 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 
945:12). 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 erstwhile 
nationalist party, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons 
which dominated in the east), Egbe Omo Oduduwa, in 1948, (the Yoruba cultural 
organization which later became the Action Group - AG in 1951, the party 
)f the west) and, in 1949, the Jamiyya Mutanem Arewa (the pan-northern cul- 
:ural association that became the Northern Peoples Congress - NPC in 1951, and 
:he party of the north) .4 They were the conflict units with which the Yoruba, 
'bo and the Fulani struggled for the exclusive domination of the Nigerian state, 
he 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 
ssembly, 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 importantly 
by giving residual powers to the regional governments. Nigeria virtually 
became a federation of the Ibo, Yoruba and Fulani and the stages in the transiion 
from democracy became the stages in the crystallization of ethno-hegemonic 
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 animosity 
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 forestall 
such an eventuality that the executive council of the AG in mid September 
of 1960 established a tactical committee. While this move represented a tendency 
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 conservative 
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 nationalized 
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 establishment 
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 million 
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 candidate 
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 
NPC (Ahmadu Bello3 - Fulani) 
NCNC(NnamdiAzikiwe3-lbo) 
AG (Obafemi Awolowo3 - Yoruba) 
Other parties/Independent Candidates 
Comparison of Patterns of Voting in 1959 and 1979 Transitional Elections 
(million) 
1959 Eastern 19791 Northern Western 
Region Region Region 
1.99 
NPN (Shehu Sagari - Fulani) 3.99 
.53 
NPP(NnamdiAzikiwe-lbo) 
- 
1.19 
1.25 
2.15 
UPN (Obafemi Awolowo-Yoruta) 
.03 
.58 
.82 
.16 
.98 
4.22 
.16 
Other Candidates4 
.45 
.11 
.24 
.20 
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, Imo, Rivers, Cross River. 
Western Region: Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Lagos, Bendel. i 
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 
'resident. Awolowo again acted out the role of opposition for which the govirnments 
of the western successor states were 'victimized' by the federal administration. 
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 association 
that formed the basis of a fleeting anti-NPN alliance, the Progressive 
Parties Alliance (PPA), when the accord was terminated amidst mutual recrimnations 
in July 1981. 
Although the NPN won 20.3 percent of southern votes, accounted for in paricular 
by votes from the two non Ibo and former eastern regional states of Cross 
liver and Rivers (25 percent of all votes cast in the eastern states), it was essenially 
a northern party, a re-creation of the NPC. According to Nnoli (1989:104), 
.05 
.55 
.56 
.53 
.18 
3.16
Transitions 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 homeland 
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-oriented 
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 renominated 
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, particularly 
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 prepared 
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 "military 
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 rebellion. 
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 component 
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 breakdown 
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 struggle 
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 transition 
from democracy. For each episode of democratic breakdown, the stages of 
succession have been cumulative, every stage adding to create a conflict situation.
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 minimum, 
be associated with the dominating group, it had become evident that 
democratic politics could only be possible, or at least instituted, under the direction 
of a non-democratic regime. The democratic pretensions of the nationalist 
movement notwithstanding, democracy was instituted in Nigeria by the colonial 
administration. Subsequently, only an authoritarian military framework 
has guaranteed safe politicking, significantly fair elections and, ultimately, successful 
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 logically 
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 existence 
of a competitive inter-group structure. Within the ruling party, the 
dominant ethnic coalition asserts itself, seizes strategic administration positions 
and to consolidate its hold on power, expands the state by establishing 
new parastatals outside the traditional bureaucracy. Two consequences follow. 
Firstly, appropriation of the state by the dominant ethnic coalition such 
that the state is identified with it or with its interests and, secondly, predation, 
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 negative 
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 justified 
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 (ethnic) 
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-political 
supremacy. This would seem to limit the possibility of this scheme becoming 
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, preemptive 
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 visible, 
that is, transformed into a kind of minimal state with abundant opportunities 
for genuine local self government.8 However, like the initiation of the 
democratic regime itself, this can only be effected by an authoritarian government. 
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 electoral 
support from the Yoruba. The significant role played by a section of the northern 
political elite in creating a pre-election platform for him has led to speculation 
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 democratization 
look futile. Shariff (1999: 26) has contended that "considering the agitation 
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 governments, 
where autocracy, graft and personal rule are pervasive, democratization 
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 framework 
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 relations" 
that Bottomore (1976: 170-171) argues is incompatible with historical analysis. 
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: 
% of Regional Population % of Nigeria's Population Region Ethnic Group 
16.2 
18.0 
24.4 
West 
East 
North 
Yoruba 
Ibo 
Fulani/Hausa 
70.7 
68.1 
50.6 
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 ordinarily 
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 
11.9 
7.8 
1.3 
1.1 
Total Votes 
Shagari 
Azikiwe 
Awolowo 
* 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 politics, 
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 
11.9 
7.8 
1.3 
1.1 
6.6 
3.2* 
3.4* 
Total Votes 
Shagari 
Azikiwe 
Awolowo 
Total Votes 
Abiola 
Tofa 
* 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. 
East West 
5.4 
2.4 
8.2 
1.9 
1.9* 
0.8 
0.2 
5.9 
East West 
5.4 
2.4 
1.9* 
8.2 
1.9 
0.2 
0.8 
3.3 
5.9 
4.4 
1.5 
1.8 
3.6 
0.8
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 environment 
generates its peculiar trajectory of conflict, the basal condition for cumulation 
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 effective 
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 destatization, 
as Ake argues elsewhere (1991b: 328), could be a strategy to reduce the economic 
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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