Li Wengang

Research fellow of IWAAS

liwg@cass.org.cn

In his speech marking Nigeria’s 45th independence anniversary on 1st October 2005, President Olusegun Obasanjo pointed out that despite having suffered lots of setbacks, Nigeria has emerged “stronger, more united, more focused, and more committed to repositioning ” itself for lasting peace, sustainable development and enduring democracy. However, to many Nigerians, little evidence of improved political maturity and economic advantages in their day-to-day life could be easily identified. Some critics of the government said many major problems that have mired Nigeria since its independence in 1960, such as ethnic nationalism, religious disputes and corruptions, remained unsolved.[1] How should we comment on President Obasanjo’s speech and the Nigerian’s responses?

During an interview with the Vanguard (Lagos) before Nigerian Census 2006[2], Dr. Matthew Kukah, a household name in Nigeria, said usually there seemed pessimism among Nigerians that the worst might happen over everything in Nigeria. This tendency surely would do no good to the country. Kukah hoped that Nigerians should get rid of this pessimist tendency and give the National Population Commission of Nigeria (NPC) a full opportunity of carrying out its duties, rather than criticise it on unfair ground.[3] In my opinion, Kukah’s viewpoint regarding the census is worthy of advocating when we look into democratisation in Nigeria. True it is, that democratisation of this country has suffered a number of setbacks, and will face various challenges in the future; nevertheless, if people, especial Nigerians whose total number ranks number one in the African Continent, lose their confidence in democratisation in their own country, more sufferings are bound to occur on its bumpy road to democracy.

Patterns of Democratisation in Nigerian

Democracy was introduced into Nigeria with the initial establishment of the First Republic (1960-1966).[4] The framework of democracy at that time was mainly devised and set up by the British colonialists, and was manipulated, to a large extent, by political elites from the Northern, Western and Eastern Regions as a tool in theirs struggles for state power during the national independence movement. Since independence till up to now, democratisation in Nigeria has experienced a journey of more than half a century, and democracy itself has been no longer a fashionable terminology or an imaginary thing, but one of the major issues of political developments in Nigeria, even in Northern Nigeria, the Islamic cultural zone, where, according to Samuel Huntington, democracy was least likely to occur, the Muslim masses also showed their arduous expectations and positive supports for government of “free elections and many parties” in a survey conducted by Afrobarometer in 2002.[5]

Looking through the process of democratisation in Nigeria, three main patterns can be easily identified.[6]

Firstly, the democratisation in Nigeria has suffered numerous setbacks, even complete breakdowns.

Given the fact that coups d’etat and military rules used to be the common phenomenon in many African countries, this pattern might be the first impression of many people when they observe democratisation process in Nigeria or even in Sub-Saharan African countries as a whole. It is well known that African countries took different roads to independence. As far as countries that followed a peaceful road to independence are concerned, for example, Nigeria, the military did not have far-reaching effect on politics in history, neither did the military officers have many smart political tricks or experiences. It is the fragile post-independence civilian governments, often beset with complicated contradictions, corruptions, and impotence, which paved the way for the military to intervene the political arena and rule for a long period of time. According to Huntington, military regimes, resulted from the coups d’etat that replaced democratic or civilian governments, oppress both competition and participation. Judging from the basic definition and elements of democracy, this kind of non-democratic regime has nothing to do with democracy. Therefore, the very presence of a military regime through coup d’etat in a country predicted a halt in the democratisation process in that country.

In the past four decades from its independence in 1960 till 2000, Nigeria saw over 10 coups d’etat, with 8 military regimes ruling for more than 30 years.[7] After independence, the previously acute ethnic and regional rivals were increasingly getting even intensive rather than abetted. Thus the two coups d’etat in 1966 took on a strong characterisation of ethnic conflict. In 1979, General Olusegun Obasanjo carried out a successful transition to civilian rule, which enabled the establishment of Shehu Shagari civilian government and the continuation of democratisation in Nigeria, marking the birth of the Second Republic in Nigerian history. However, from 1984 till 1999, long continuous military rules once more halted the country’s democratic process.[8] In 1998, the sudden death of Abacha provided Nigeria a chance to restart its democratisation, when Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar who succeeded Abacha abided by the tide of history and implemented the transition plan to civilian rule. In 1999, first president election was held in Nigeria after nearly 15 years’ military rule, with the results of the success of former head of military rule, Obasanjo, and the birth of the Fourth Republic in Nigeria.[9] The democratisation returned to its track at last. The 2003 general election was undoubtedly a big event in Nigerian democratisation in that it was the first civilian-civilian government election in almost 2 decades. Although Obasanjo won a second term, the disputed results of the election brought about long time political instability.[10]

Secondly, democratisation in Nigeria was full of peaks and low tides.

By the term “peaks”, I mean remarkable events in some period favourable to democracy; “low tides” refers to events in some period unfavourable for democracy. Generally speaking, on the one hand, during the First, Second and Fourth Republic, the framework of democracy strengthened or improved, and the governments aimed to make themselves more representative, more accountable, and more transparent, to try to eradicate ethnic and religious disputes, to develop economy, and to dedicate to nation-building. All these are vital to democratisation in such a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural country as Nigeria; on the other hand, lasting military rule, the Biafra War, the annulment of the result of 12^th June 1993 elections, the crack down of the Ogoni human rights movement and various ethnic and religious conflicts on small or large scales, all these made democracy in Nigeria slide to its bottom. For scholars interested in Nigerian democratisation, the impacts of these events are worthy of further researching.

It is safe to say that the presidential election on 12^th June 1993 was a watershed in Nigerian political development in that it was the first time for a Southern candidate won the highest post in the country through democratic procedures; what’s more, the winner, Moshood K. Abiola, a Yoruba Muslim merchant, also won wide support in Northern Nigeria. Therefore, the election was regarded as the most successful one in Nigerian history. However, Gen. Ibrahim Babanjida annulled the result of the election on the ground that it was marred by widespread fraud, putting his carefully devised “transition without end” plan to an end.[11] Nigerians totally lost their hope for the Babanjida government. The annulment of the election results became the most effective catalyst for putting Nigeria into chaos.[12] In November 1995, despite strong oppositions from the international community, the Abacha military regime hanged 9 Ogoni activists for ethnic minority rights, inciting a public uproar domestically and internationally. The above-mentioned incidents not only posed extremely negative impacts on democratisation itself, but deeply hurt Nigerians’ feelings as well.

Thirdly, the moving-forward trend of Nigerian democratisation cannot be doubted.

There’s no plain sailing for any country to realize its democratisation. As far as Nigeria is concerned, despite of various challenges that democratisation faces, the general trend for a more consolidated, more improved democracy can be hopefully expected. The challenges of ethnic separatism, religious issues, corruption, military rule and its legacy are real and vital for Nigeria to tackle with and find solutions to. Only after these problems are resolved some day can Nigeria government be regarded as a real democracy. Perhaps, it is owing to these challenges that the contents of democracy could be enriched, the notion of democracy could be deeply rooted in peoples’ minds, and the foundations of democracy could be further consolidated. A case in point is that ethnic minority rights movements in Nigeria promoted the government’s work for the protection of human rights.[13] A common phenomenon among the military regimes is that they all put forward a plan for transition to civilian rule soon after they usurped power, whether willingly or just to deceive the public, or whether the plan carried out according to its timetable or became an endless transition. This phenomenon itself, to some extent, reflect the fact that the military regimes’ worries about their legitimacy and their awe for democracy. Those military heads of state who successfully carried out the transition plans, such as Obasanjo and Abubakar, won loud applauds from domestic and abroad. Needless to say, this phenomenon also proves that under immature social, political and economic conditions, democracy largely rely on the leaders’ personality, conviction, political skills, and determination.[14]

Major Problems in Nigerian Democratisation

In his “The state of democratization at the beginning of the 21^st century”, Larry Diamond, American political scientist and specialist in Nigerian studies, pointed out “the triple crisis of governance”---the lack of accountability and a rule of law; the inability to manage regional and ethnic divisions peacefully and inclusively; and economic crisis or stagnation.[15] It’s very clear that these crises, to different extents, also exist in Nigerian democratisation. From the very beginning, the Nigerian democratisation has been beset with ethnic problems, religious divisions, corruptions and military rules. Into the 21^st century, new phenomena appear in these clichés, which are worthy of further consideration.

Complicated ethnic problems

What is Nigeria? It’s the country with a land area of more than 920 thousand square kilometres, more than 250 ethnic groups, and a total population well above 140 million. For this multi-ethnic country, every single ethic group is part of it and cannot be separated. Without the solidarity among all ethnic groups, Nigeria might slide into chaos and separation, let alone her democracy. By using the term of ethnic problems, I mean the long existence or aggravation of ethnic contradictions and ethnic conflicts among Nigerian ethnic groups, and between ethnic groups and the Nigerian government.[16] In my opinion, the precondition for democratization is the stability of the country; otherwise, economic, political, cultural and social developments will be ruined, let alone the democratisation.

Ethnic problems effect democratisation through the following ways. Firstly, ethnic issues in Nigeria often disrupt the process of nation building, leaving Nigeria a deeply divided society, even jeopardizing its survival because of the low sense of national loyalty and ethnic separatists’ activities. Unfortunately, Nigeria has suffered the threats of ethnic separation since its independence. Apart from the Biafra separatist movement, most of these threats remained only verbal ones. However, like dormant volcanoes, these potential threats might also do harm to nation-building in Nigeria. A case in point is that some Nigerians still advocating for separating the country along ethnic lines at the dawn of the 21^st century.[17] Secondly, ethnic problems affect political parties, only through which can the democratization of a country run. Ethnicity has many implications for Nigerian political parties. That is to say, many Nigerian political parties were historically organized along ethnic lines, voters were inclined to vote along ethnic and religious lines, and politicians carried out political mobilization through ethnicity and religious sentiment. Despite various efforts of the Nigerian government to curb ethnicity in parties and elections, this phenomenon cannot be eradicated under the conditions of low national identification, ethnic groups’ using ethnic-religious-regional identification for security and development opportunities, and politicians’ manipulation of political ethnicity for personal interests. Thirdly, ethnic problems penetrated the civil societies. After analyzing the emergence, developments, patterns and characteristics of Nigerian civil societies as a whole and those of the Niger Delta region in particular since the 1990s, we can easily find out that despite some remarkable contributions civil societies made towards Nigerian democratization, some civil society organizations actually played the negative roles because of their limitations, such as ethnic lines, violence tendency, ethnic separatism, and regionalism. In the oil-producing Niger Delta region, numerous ethnic youth militant groups resort to force in dealing with Nigerian government and the trans-national oil companies for larger share of oil wealth or even for control of the resource.

Given the diversity of its ethnic composition, the complexity and the sensitivity of the ethnic issues, democratisation in Nigeria has a long way to go. Generally speaking, ethnic issues do considerable harm to democratisation in Nigeria. However, ethnic minority movement during the military rule and peaceful demanding for reforms by the ethnic civil society organizations during civilian rule may move forward the progress of democratisation. Settlement of the ethnic problems may pave the way for Nigerian democratisation. So far, the negative influences of ethnic issues are decreasing, while the possibility of the aggravation of those influences in a particular time may not be excluded.

Religious issues in the context of globalisation

The vast majority of Hausa-Fulani in the North are Muslims and Igbo in Southeast Christians. Yoruba in Southwest adopt Islam, Christianity and traditional religions. For a long time, the ruling elites of the Hausa-Fulani have taken advantages of the inherent power of Islam to consolidate their political sphere of influence in Northern Nigeria, where some small or middle-sized ethnic groups have resorted to Christianity in their struggles for self-interests. The high degree of relation of the geographical distribution of religions and ethnic groups in Nigeria is very likely to make any religious conflict spread from the Muslim dominated North to the Christians dominated South, and vice versa. 

Since the 1970s and 1980s, Islamic fundamentalism has played an enhanced role in ethnic/religious conflicts in Nigeria, particularly in Northern cities like Kano and Kaduna. In 1986, the secret entry of Nigeria into the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OCI) by Babanjida military regime triggered prolonged protests from the Christians. Since the implementation of the Sha’ria law in 12 Northern states in 1999, the relationship between Islam and Christianity in Nigeria has remained tense at large, with large-scale religious conflicts taking place now and then across the country, and the politicalisation of religious issues being increased. Among the few presidential elections in Nigeria, the preliminary results of the voting all reflected sort of ethnic/religious divisions, i.e. Muslims and Christians voted for candidates of their own religious beliefs respectively. In recent years, the voting pattern based on religious beliefs seems to be weakened, which is a positive sign for Nigerian democracy. However, on the eve of the Census 2006, hot debates broke out among various sections in Nigeria on whether or not the census should collect the ethnic and religious information of the Nigerians.[18] The indecisiveness of the Nigerian government on this issue fully showcased the sensitivity, durability and the complicatedness of the ethnic/religious issues in Nigeria.[19] If government fails to deal with these issues properly, it is very likely that they might exert negative effects on the stability of the country and the building of harmonious relations among different ethnicities.

With the development of the globalisation, Nigerian Muslims have established more and more closer relations with their brothers in the broad Muslim world, which can explain that why an Islam-related event taking place far away from Nigeria is also likely to produce a domino effect in this African country. A case in point is the controversial cartoon issue, which took place in the West world but spread quickly across Nigeria in short time in February 2006. In Northern Nigeria, Islamic extremists killed Christians brutally, set fire to their churches, and robbed Christians of their shops. The conflicts there quickly spread to the South where some Christians did the same to the Muslims and their Mosques. The Nigerian Cartoon protests and riots caused large number of deaths and heavy losses of property, becoming the most sever religious conflict that Nigeria has ever seen in recently years. True it is that there are a lot of organizations, led by men of insight from religious circles in Nigeria, firmly advocating for the peaceful co-existence of the two religions of Islam and Christianity in this country; however, the continuous presence of the warm-house in which religious extremism produces, economic downturn, high unemployment, widespread corruptions can drive lots of youths into despair, making them vulnerable to be misled by religious extremism in across the Muslim world.

Corruptions

Nigeria is one of the countries in the world where corruptions are common phenomena. Although the rich resources of oil brings vast amount of wealth to Nigeria, most of its people are living in poverty. One of the reasons causing this situation can be attributed to corruption, which also has done great harms to Nigeria’s democratic process. As Larry Diamond pointed out, to the Nigerian democratisation, corruption is just like a poison, not only doing harm to economy, tearing apart the framework of social morals, but also distorting the characteristics of political competition.[20] Many scholars attributed the fall of the Nigerian Second Republic of the Shagari civilian government to corruptions and incompetence. Since its inauguration in 1999, the Obasanjo civilian government has been best with the issue of corruption. President Obasanjo once addressed the issue this way: corruption and malfeasance are the hindrance to the government’s efforts to revive economy and promote social development, severely damages the image of the government and weakens its efforts to attract foreign investment.[21]

The reasons why corruption remains a chronicle trouble in the country’s development lie in the following aspects. Firstly, high Nigerian government officials enjoy the right of immunity. According to the related regulations of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, some high-ranked officials have the immunity to common and criminal suits when they are in office. So some corrupt officials may take advantage of this clause to seek their personal interests. Secondly, some Nigerian politicians show no interests in anti-corruption to the extent that they even make trouble for government’s anti-corruption work. Thirdly, some trans-national companies’ unlawful actions enhanced corruptions in Nigeria. A case in point is Shell, world’s leading oil company, which spoke frankly in one of its report that the company’s extraction in oil-producing area of Southern Nigeria unintentionally enhanced local violence, corruption and poverty.[22] Fourthly, Nigerian people have regarded corruption as a repeated occurrence, thus showing no confidence in and zest for government’s anti-corruption efforts.

Facing increasingly severe corruption issues, the Obasanjo government put forward a series of ant-corruption measures, including the pass of Anti-Corruption Law, the set-up of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), removals of many high-ranked officials from post, and internal anti-corruption campaigns in the ruling party of People’s Democratic Party (PDP).[23] Up to now, some results have been achieved in Nigeria’s anti-corruption action. However, corruption still remains severe.

In recent years, there are increasing calls from the public for scrapping the immunity clause from the constitution so that the corrupt officials can be brought to justice without any legal barrier. However, this would require amending of the constitution, which might be difficult to get political support from high officials. On top of that, some Nigerians are afraid that the government’s anti-corruption campaign could be used as a tool by politicians to attack each other, as some local and international press have covered. A typical report is like this. Politicians facing corruption allegations usually resort to community of their own ethnicity for support, accusing the government of ethnic discrimination. In so doing, they can agitate ethic organizations to exert pressure on government, thus enhancing the mood of ethnic separatism. In September 2005, a militant organization ---the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) threatened to highjack oil workers of the Shell and to destroy its oil facilities, with the aim to force the government to set free Governor of the State of Bayelsa, who was arrested for money-laundry allegation, and a leader of an Ijaw activist organization.[24] This phenomenon in anti-corruption campaign is worthy of noticing in that it surely cannot make officials cleaner, to the contrary, this trend might give rise to new contradictions, making the anti-corruption issue even more complicated. 

Military rule and its legacies

Historically, the military rules in Nigeria can be divided into two phases: the first is from 1966 till 1979, and the second is from 1984 till 1999.[25] Both two phases are of autocratic rules, not the democratic ones. It is fair to say that during the first phase, the military heads took some measures into consideration to stabilise the country and to advocate for nation-state building and harmonious relations among different ethnic groups. However, ethnic dominance, autocracy and high-pressed politics characterised the second phase, the very dark 15 years in Nigerian history, with widespread corruptions, violations of human rights and civil rights, and strengthening and manipulating regional/ethnic hatred now and then. Although military rule exited Nigerian political arena in 1999, its legacies are far from coming to an end, of which, the most prominent is the retired officer phenomenon.

It’s a protruding phenomenon that retired officers enter politics in Nigerian history. During the Second Republic (1979-1983), there were a lot of retired officers who became very active in Nigerian political arena. During the military rules, many retired officers were appointed to high posts. Some scholars pointed out that the reasons for this phenomenon in Nigerian politics were as follows. Firstly, the main aim for the retired officers entering politics was to safeguard their economic interests acquired through various means in the past. Secondly, many former officers received better education through studying, thus got qualified for politics. Thirdly, the 1993 election convinced the military of the high rank that only the retired officer was elected president, can the unification of the country and their interests be maintained.[26] One of the main reasons why Obasanjo could be elected president of Nigerian is that he was a retired military officer, and supported not only by the military, but also by such former heads of military regimes as Babanjida, Buhari. In the 2003 election, although there were twenty presidential candidates, the true competition was between Obasanjo and Buhari. No wonder that many Nigerian presses titled the election as Generals’ Elections or Generals’ Democracy.[27] In the campaigns for the 2007 presidential election, despite of the political unrest caused by Obasanjo’s third term ambition, two influential retired military officer candidates caught wide attention. Babanjida had set up his national campaign network composed by his former friends in the military, and Buhari also tried to win the election.[28] The scenario clearly showed the dominance of retired military officers in the political arena in Nigeria might not be changed in short time, and the effect of retired officers upon democracy in this country should not be unheeded.

Concluding remarks

Two aspects should be born in mind when we take a close look at Nigerian democratisation. Firstly, since each phase of the Nigerian democratisation has its own pattern, the patterns described in this paper is only a general impression, not necessarily a proper or all-rounded impression. However, these patterns might help us get grips with the outline of the capricious democratisation of a certain period of time in Nigeria. Secondly, when we use such important terms as democracy, ethnic group, nation-state, we should put the Nigerian context into consideration. For example, according the 2002 Afrobarometer survey, when the word “democracy” was used in the survey, Nigerian Muslims had the lowest belief in democracy among African Muslims. However, if the word “democracy” was replaced by “support for free elections and many parties”, the result was that both Nigerian Muslims and non-Muslims supported democracy.[29] Therefore, if only the word “democracy” was used in the survey, no comprehensive conclusion might be drawn. Here is another example regarding to the term of ethnic group. Some scholars pointed out that, in Nigeria, the term “ethnic minority group” was not of numerical category only, but of political category too.[30]

    The building of a united nation-state, the establishment of harmonious ethnic/religious relations, combating corruptions, and gradually eradicating the effects of military rule and its legacies only provide necessary conditions for Nigerian democratisation. Some other conditions are also required for the development and improvement of democracy. What’s more, understanding of the above-mentioned four challenges require the perspective of development, otherwise we may easily draw superficial or plausible conclusions. Can you imagine that? Isn’t it ridiculous that, when dealing with problems in Nigerian democratisation since Obasanjo in 1999, the background of ethnic/religious conflicts in the 1970s and 1980s are taken into consideration, without paying attention to new phenomena generated from the old problems? To get a better understanding of the Nigerian democratisation, we should not only inquire into the root of the issue itself, but also take a perspective that advances with time.