Monday, March 16th

From all the other countries we have studied, Nigeria has been called an “unfinished state”. Characterized by instabilities and uncertainties. Some even question why there is a Nigeria. Nigerian politics have been characterized by turm oil and crises since the British relinquished colonial power in 1960. This is the first country we have studied that has a colonial history. And we will be looking at what is the impact of the colonial experience, and what legacy did the British leave, how does it structure this government and what have they done since the British left. So we got the British giving up power in the 1960s and now almost 50 years later the country is still trying to escape its colonial past and piece together even a fragile democracy. Per capita incomes are scarcely higher than they were in the 60s. in 1960 Nigeria was stronger economically than countries like Indonesia or Malaysia. In 1960 nigeria had a wealth of natural resources, a large population, and the presence of highly entrepreneurial/ or business related people in the all regions of the country. Today, Nigeria is among the poorest countries in the world. Its rich endowment of natural resources was not enough to ensure economic development. Their richness in resources may even have encouraged rent seeking (for now it is a form of patron-client relations). So the natural resources encouraged rent seeking which in turn are behaviors that undermine the economy. The authoritarian rule, single party, and military rule allowed corruption, fraud, mismanagement, and a restriction of civil liberties. So this is going to be the first country that we have studied that will have a list of military government. All of these problems undermine the development of a stable system of democracy, with competitive elections, checks and balances, professional civil service, and independent judiciary and free press (which are all the symbols and signs of a political democracy that are not really (noise, I think it said shown) any longer). The existence of over 250 (maybe as many as 400) competing nationalities or ethnic groups, largely defined by language groups, have made it difficult to answer the “national question” – how is the country to be governed with it’s great diversity? Or how is Nigeria going to stay together? We have not looked at any country with 350 ethnic group until now. The lack of asound economic policy let Nigeria split into an overwhelming dependence of petroleum exports owing to underinvestment and neglect of agriculture. Nigeria moved from self sufficiency in the area of basic food stuff in the 1960s to heavy dependence on imports of food less htan 20 years later. Prebendealism (another term that is associated with patron-client association) pb style patron client relations ship became the public ethic and economic development suffered. Prebendalism is a system of large patronage networks based loyalty through which civilian officials hve used high level positions to gain larger wealth. Pb has skewed, its economic and political management has brought political instability to Nigeria. Local government officials gained support from villagers from dispensing favors and they in turn received favors for supporting their patron bosses, of course, most favors are exchanged among the political elite. The pattern persists on all levels. With PC comes corruption and informal influence. Nigeria economy becomes dependent on oil- it is a major oil producer. Nigeria’s heavy indebtedness gives foreign competitors and the international monetary fund (IMF) a strong influence over the economic policies. The government has a low level of legitimacy and accountability and a persistant inablility to meet the needs of its citizens. Nigeria has undergone several political transistions from democratic government to autocratic regimes (both civilian and military) and from one military regime to another. It has yet to witness an orderly and constitutional chart over a power from one democratic government to another. Although in the year 2003 an elected civilian who was the president was named olusegun Obasanjo. In 2003 he was reelected president, close to a democratic turnover. The catch with obasanjo is that he had been a military general and had been involbed in previous military government. In the year 2007 a man named umaru yar’adua was elected president amid wide spread allegation of voter fraud, ballot box stuffing, and other irregularities. Nigeria has had 6 military regimes and countless attempted coops and a bloody called the Biafra civil war. Now while it was still a colony the British recognized the multi-ethnic character of their colony and the British divided Nigeria into a federation consisting of three regions- each having an elected government, in 1954. This tendon to strengthen the collective identities of Nigeria’s ethnic group by fostering political competition. Each of the three federal units soon fell from the domination from one of the three largest ethnic groups and of their respected political parties. Nigeria is split into thirds by the flow of two rivers. We have a north and then in the south its split into east and west. The northern region comes under the control of political party called the northern people congress, the dominant interest group is hausa-fulani. In the south, the region west of the Niger River and the Venu River was controlled by the political party called the action group, and the dominant ethnic group is called the Yoruba. The dominant ethnic group in the south east is the igbo and they are associated with the political party called the national convention of Nigerian citizens. It’s a federal system and although the country is not big there is an awful lot of states. In 1960 Britain grants Nigeria independence the British parliamentary model was adopted for the regional and federal governments. The chief executive, who is the prime minister, is chosen by the majority party. Northerners came to dominate the federal government because of their greater numbers. Within two years the northerner’s people’s congress achieved an outright majority in the national legislature and the northerners controlled government leadership. When the Northerners set out to redistribute resources to their own direction they came into direct conflict with the south. So we got people from the north showing favoritism and they are showing discriminatory in distributing the country and sending to the north more funding than to the other regions and the south objects. Rivalries intensify as northern people’s congress sat atop an absolute majority and had absolutely no need to form a coalition with any other party. When widespread voter fraud gave these northern people congress and tarnished history in 1965, a group of largely Igbo military officers who resented north dominance seized power in January 1966. The general in charge and in general Ironsi hoped to end the political corruption with a new constitution that would replace the federation with a unitary state. Northerners were suspicious. In July 1966 general Iransi was killed in a second coup, this time by non-igbu military. The new leader is the general Gowon, he was a middle belt (the area on the board between north and south) Christian and he became the consensus (head of state) of state in July 1966. There’s a variety of religions in Nigeria, and in this country we are going to see very sharp cleavages. There are ethnic group that compete with three dominant political parties. If you are in a certain group you don’t vote for the others political parties. They also have a variety of religions. Now we are going to get people whose vote is also influenced by religion, when you have 2 separate cleavages that override each other we speak of cross cutting cleavages. They are all over Nigeria. By 1967 the predominantly igbu population of eastern Nigeria attempted to form an independent nation, they decided they would secede from Nigeria. They wanted to form and independent Nation called Biafra. Civil war breaks out. In January 1970, Biafra was defeated in a civil war. During the war general Gowon inc. the size of Nigeria Military from 10,000-25,000. After the war general Gowon sets out to dilute the power of the big three groups. He is going to do it by breaking the 4 state fed. Into 12 states (later inc. to 19 by Gowon successor. Further down in increased to 36) this increase in the number of states was an attempt to reduce ethnic and regional polarization. Ideally it would reduce competition. Senior military officers were getting rich from oil boom 1973-74. Corruption was wide spread and General Gowon postponed a return to civil rule that he had promised to achieve by 1976. He promised to turn government back to civilian rule. He is overthrown in 1975 by a man named Kartala Muhammed and he restarts a transition to civil rule in 1975, he is assassinated in 1976 and gen. Olisigan Obisanyo took control but now in 1976 he is a military general and has control of the country. And he peacefully seized power to an elected civilian government in 1979 and his turn over to a 2nd civilian government marks the turn to a 2nd civilian republic.
norah :D this is already half of the history