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The Military And Nigeria Politics: An Assessment Of The Domination Of The Military Of The Nigeria Political Space 1999 To 2015
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CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
The name
“Nigeria†was coined by Flora Shaw, who later became the wife of Lord
Lugard, the British colonial administrator, on 8 January 1897, which she
used as the title of an article in The Times (Meek, 1960), to describe
the vast land around the River Niger and its basin. It was then called
Niger-area, but after a long usage it was shortened to Nigeria. Mungo
Park was exploring the River Niger when he stumbled into this vast area
along the River. Nigeria presently has a population of about 150 million
people; this made th e country the most populous nation in Sub-Saharan
Africa. The country has a population density of 145 inhabitants per km2
(Nigerian National Population Commission: Abuja, Nigeria, 2001).
The
country is located on the extreme inner corner of the Gulf of Guinea on
the West African coast and there are over 250 nationalities in Nigeria.
The three most populous nationalities are: The Yorubas in the South
West, Ibos in the South East and the Hausa- Fulanis in the North; these
three main nationalities constitute 65% of the population while the
remaining 35% are made of minorities (Butts & Metz, 1996). About 250
languages are spoken in Nigeria (Agbaje, 1990), although some studies
allude to 400 languages.
The military took over the governance of the
country through a very bloody coup led by Major Nzeogwu in January 1966
(Osoba, 1996). This coup was claimed to end the misrule, ineptness and
corruption of the preceding five years of the civil rule (Olutayo,
1999). The coup lasted for just a couple of days; it could not be said
to be a total failure as “it set(s) the agenda of military rule in
Nigeria as a ‘corrective’ form of governance against corruption and
indiscipline and in favour of restoration of democracy and justiceâ€
(Olutayo, 1999). Nigeria has been governed for a longer period by the
military junta than by civilian rule after her independence in 1960.
Starting from January 1966 to October 1979 and December 1983 to May
1999, the military has ruled the country for about 30 years. The six
year mistakes of the First Republic politicians invited the military to
interfere in governance after more than a total of six decades of
colonial misrule (Roberts, 2005; Babawale, 1993; Gambari, 1995). Since
then, military rule has been a recurring phenomenon in Nigeria.
Political change came about far more frequently through military
intervention in politics than through open, competitive elections. The
military in the country falsely appeared in self-assumed messiah-style
to save the polity. The military sometimes portrayed as an island of
unalloyed patriotism amidst the chaos of the turbulent decade of the
1960s as Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu is said to have remarked, “It is only
in the Nigerian army that you find Nigerians†(Suberu, 1997) an
assertion that proved otherwise after decades of misrule.
Military
intervention is basically an attempt by military officers to get
involved in the political process to improve upon what they assumed to
be the major problem associated with it. This explains why every time a
group of military officers take over power, the major justification they
give in order to legitimize their intervention are problems such as
instability, official corruption, violent political crisis associated
with elections and partisan politics (Amujo, 2011).
When the military
came to power in Nigeria on January 15, 1966, they became deeply
involved in the political process. In fact, the got involved in a
process which is incompatible with their professional training and
orientation. They attempted, for example, to restructure the polity,
through series of policy statement backed by military decrees (Olutayo,
1999). It is in this context that they created states and local
governments and it is also in these contexts that they introduced
administrative reform affecting the bureaucracy and the civil service in
their attempt to restructure the civil service (Amowo, 1995). Some of
these may be legitimate while in most cases they were undertaken to
satisfy parochial interests which invariably gave rise to additional
problems which the military seems incapable of addressing. After decades
of military misadventure in politics Nigerians came to realize that
military intervention which they were so ecstatic about and welcomed,
was an aberration and a huge retrogression for the country (Elaigwu,
1986). Military rule is not open and inclusive, but rather it is
restrictive, exclusive and quite often outright authoritarian. In its
attempt to rule, the military mobilized ethnic, regional, religious and
communal identities. The more the political process is heightened, the
more the political process is threatened with instability and therefore
the easier it becomes for the military to legitimize its stay in power
on the ground that it wants to prevent the dismemberment of the country
life named Nigeria in 1900.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]This study was carried out to examine the military and nigeria politics: an assessment of the domination of the military of the nigeria political space 1999 to 2015. Specifically, the study examine the historical antecedent in Nigeria from 1966 to 1976. the study also investigate The role of military rule in transition to democracy from 1976. lastly, the study evaluate the domination of the military of the Nigeria political space 1999 to 2015. the study was carried out using the historical resea ... Continue reading---
