Paul Ejime
1 October 2000
analysis
Dakar, Senegal — At its independence from Britain in October 1960, Nigeria held and even still holds much hope as a potential great nation, but this dream has remained largely unrealised after 40 years of self-government.
Many, like renowned novelist Chinua Achebe, who believe the trouble with the country is leadership, may be justified, but there has never been any illusion that Africa's most populous nation presents a complex political system.
To use Achebe's telling metaphor of 1992, Nigeria is "a gifted child, generally endowed, but also wayward."
After independence, it was not long before serious cracks emerged in the political marriage of convenience sealed by British governor-general Lord Lugard in the controversial 1914 amalgamation of the peoples of the multi-religious and ethnically and culturally diverse territory.
The Westminster parliamentary system it inherited from the British was based on a loose three-region structure, with he north dominated by the Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba in the south-west and Igbo in the south-east.
Each of the regions is home to several minority groups, which along with the three major entities, make up some 300 ethnic groups in the country.
Like in the colonial era, political parties in post- independence Nigeria are largely ethnically based, requiring a fragile political alliance to produce a ceremonial president and an executive Prime Minister in 1960.
From three regions in 1960 the country, which became a Republic in 1963, is now a 36-state federation, with unending agitation by citizens for more states, on the belief that this is the surest way of bringing development and federal amenities to their door steps.
Political crisis in the West, a fall-out from the 1964 regional elections which forced the federal government to declare a state of emergency, remained an unresolved crisis that later culminated in the first military coup by young officers led by Maj. Kaduna Nzeogwu in January 1966.
That was to open the floodgate for future military interventions in the country, with the next putsch coming six months later in July 1966.
The reported massacre of Igbos in the north, forced Col. Emeka Ojukwu, governor of the eastern region, to declare the secession of the Biafra Republic from the federation in 1967.
Thus began the Nigerian civil war, which lasted 30 months, beyond what the federal authorities had thought would be crushed with a mere "police action."
The task of saving Nigeria from disintegration fell on Yakubu Gowon, a 32-year-old military officer from the middle- belt, who in a clever political move to curb Ojukwu's influence, carved Nigeria further into 12 states.
The rest is history, but by the time the rebellion ended in January 1970, more tan one million people, mainly Igbos, had been killed mainly Igbos, whose defeated soldiers also lost seniority in the federal armed forces, aside from other punishments.
The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo only recently reprieved the surviving "Biafran soldiers", but Ojukwu insists that the problems and inequalities that gave rise to the civil war remain unresolved.
Having successfully prosecuted the war, Gowon became entrenched in power and his failure to unveil a transition programme for return to civilian rule, led to his overthrow in 1975, while he was attending an OAU summit in Kampala, Uganda.
Gen. Murtala Mohammed, who toppled him, swiftly announced a transition programme, but was assassinated in another coup 13 February 1976, but not before had declared a 19-state structure for Nigeria.
Obasanjo, being his second in command, kept faith with Murtala's transition timetable and returned Nigeria to democracy 1st October 1979 under the American-type executive presidential system.
But having tested power, the military were not in a hurry to leave, even as senior 'khakimen' admit that military intervention in the country's politics is an aberration.
Gowon, forced into self-exile on his ouster, is among those who consider the first coup as a terrible mistake that has continued to haunt Nigeria.
On the whole, there have been as many as 10 failed and successful military coups in Nigeria, with the military ruling for almost 30 of its 40 years as an independent nation.
The Second Republic ushered in by Gen. Obasanjo's regime, that saw President Shehu Shagari in power, lasted for less than four years before it was sacked by another coup on New Year's eve of 1984.
The subsequent Gen. Mohammadu Buhari/Tunde Idiagbon regime was toppled after 20 months in office in August 1985, to pave the way for the eight-year reign of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who took Nigerians and the international community on a political roller- coaster journey.
By the time he was forced out of office in August 1993 by the political crisis unleashed by his annulment of the June 1993 presidential elections, the cracks of disunity had widened in the nation haunted by ethnic and religious nightmares with the south accusing the north of unduly hanging onto power.
The Niger-Delta, where the bulk of the nation's oil-wealth is produced has suffered so much neglect that its restive youths are up in arms against the federal government and the foreign oil companies working in the area.
Babangida's political transition programme, marked by constant changes ended in fiasco with the poll annulment that resulted in serious political crisis, whose effects still linger in the country.
Millionaire politician Moshood Abiola, a Yoruba Moslem from the south-west, was on the verge of a sweeping victory before Babangida cancelled the results of a poll adjudged free and fair by international observers.
A lame-duck interim administration headed by Ernest Shonakan, installed by Babangida before he "stepped aside" was sacked 17 November 1997 by Gen. Sani Abacha, the most senior military officer in that regime.
The election debacle engendered ethnic and nationalist eruptions mainly from southerners who felt short-changed in Nigeria's power equation.
The dissatisfaction was exacerbated by Abacha's iron-fist rule until his sudden death 8 June 1998. His rule was not only infamous for its repression but also for the notorious international isolation and sanctions it earned for Nigeria.
From a powerful oil-rich nation that played key roles in the independence of several African states, notably Zimbabwe, and sustained support for the anti-apartheid struggle, Nigeria became a pariah state under Abacha. Official corruption and human rights violation assumed grotesque dimensions under his rule.
Abacha and his repressive machinery ensured that Abiola remained in prison on prolonged trial for declaring his himself president in 1994.
Rights activists who fell under Abacha's dictatorial regime, include Abiola's wife, Kudirat, slain while driving on a Lagos street in 1996 and environmentalist and writer Ken Saro- wiwa, sentenced to death and hanged along with eight other Ogoni (Niger-Delta) activists in November 1995.
Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who took over power after Abacha's death in July 1998, implemented a short transition programme, leading to presidential elections 27 February, which brought Obasanjo into the state house for the second time in 23 years.
Obasanjo, who retired to poultry farming in 1979, was actually serving terms for alleged plot to topple Abacha, and was only released by Abubakar few months before joining the political bandwagon.
The army engineer has since discovered that ruling Nigeria by military fiat is not the same as passing bills through a hostile National Assembly or parliament as an elected civilian president.
Obasanjo not only shoulders the unenviable responsibility of saving Nigeria from disintegration by reconciling his restive and intolerant ethnic and religious compatriots, he has the daunting task of repositioning the nation as a major player in international affairs.
For now, the introduction of the controversial Islamic Sharia law, which has provoked violent clashes between adherents of the faith and non-Moslems in some of the northern states, remains the greatest challenge facing the 16-month Fourth Republic.
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