The young military officers, with their roots in the Mohammed-Obasanjo regime of 1975-79, recaptured power from the civilian politicians for four main reasons.
The first was to halt the advance of revolutionary forces. After the rigging of the 1983 elections, the masses took up arms to dispute some of the results and sections of the radical political movement started to talk about the need to physically confront the regime of Shagari. The intervention of Buhari-Idiagbon prevented this "new thinking" from developing, as was indicated by the pattern of arrests.
10 Tiv 15 Gwarri
The second was to restore the authority of the Nigerian bourgeoisie as a ruling class. To this end the military had to punish the bourgeois politicians who had thoroughly discredited and therefore endangered the bourgeois social order through corruption, indiscipline, political weakness and "economic mismanagement".
The third was to punish radicals and their allies in some of the legally established parties for almost harassing Shagari's National Party of Nigeria (NPN) out of power. This explains the arrest and imprisonment of radical figures such as Haroun Adamu and Ebenezer Babatope who before the coup had been involved in public controversies with Buhari, known then as a supporter of the NPN. Finally, the military junta wanted to present the Nigerian army as the alternative * Edwin Madunagu is a journalist living in Lagos.
General Obasanjo became head of state. On October 1, 1979, Nigeria returned to civilian rule under president
Shehu Shagari, who was elected on the platform of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN). He was re-elected for a second term in August 1983
But four months later he was overthrown by a military coup. - E. M. *
November 23, 1992 political party, capable of creating and maintaining law and order.
However, in keeping with tradition, in a dawn broadcast on Lagos radio on Saturday December 30, 1983 Army Brigadier Sani Abacha told the nation:
"You are all living witnesses to the grave economic predicament and uncertainty which an inept and corrupt leadership has imposed on our beloved nation for the past four years. I am referring to the harsh, intolerable conditions under which
NIGERIA we are now living. Our economy has been hopelessly mismanaged. We have become a debtor and a beggar nation. There is inadequacy of food at reasonable prices for our people who are now fed up with end less announcements of importations of foodstuffs.The health service is in a
### Nigeria facts
NIGERIA is a West African country with a land area of 356,667 square miles. It is bounded to the south by the Atlantic Ocean, in the west by the Benin republic and to the north and north-west by Niger. The population was 88.5 million according to the 1991 census, making it Africa's most populous country
The per capita Gross National Product (GNP) is US$250. Life expectancy at birth is 47 years for males and 49 for females. There is one doctor for every 6,900 inhabitants. and infant mortality is 121 for 1,000 live births. Literacy is 42% as is primary school enrollment. The World Bank listed Nigeria as the 13th poorest country in the world in its 1991 report.
In September 1992, Nigeria was a federal republic with three tiers of government - federal, state and local. There are 30 constituent states and 589 local government areas. The country is presently under milita-
There are more than 400 nationalities or ethnic groups, among the more populous being the Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, Tiv, Efo, Ibibio, Nupe, Igala, Idoma, Efik, ljaw and Kanuri. There are two main professed religions, Christianity and Islam. The former came first to the south and then spread northwards, the latter spread southwards from the
The British conquered different parts of what is now Nigeria at different times, but by 1900 the whole territory was under British colonial rule. However, the north and the south were under different colonial administrations until 1914, when the two parts were amalgamated under Governor Luggard and named the Protectorate of Nigeria.
In 1939, the southern group of provinces was divided into two - the east and the west — and in 1954 Nigeria, still under colonial rule, became a confederation of three powerful regions - North, West and East. The North covered about three quarters of the country's total land area and accounted for about half the total population. The population ratio is still about the same. The dominant ethnic group in the North is Hausa-Fulani, in the West, Yoruba and Igbo in the East.
Nigeria became independent on October 1, 1960, under a conservative federal government with Namdi Azikiwe as governor-general and then president (1963), Tafawa Balewa as prime minister and Chief
Obafemi Awolowo as opposition leader at the federal level. But within two years the agreements among the various factions of the ruling class before independence had broken down. In 1963, a fourth region, the Mid-West was carved out of the West. In January 1966, a group of radical army officers led by Major Neogwu attempted to overthrow the federal government. They failed and General Ironsi, the official head of the army, took over power. A counter coup followed by massacres took place in July 1966 and
General Gowon became head of state. The counter coup was resisted by Colonel Ojukwu, the military governor of the Eastern Region under
On May 30, 1967, Colonel Ojukwu declared the Eastern Region independent under the name of Republic of Biafra. A war between
Nigeria and Biafra broke out which lasted 30 months and ended with
Biafra's surrender and re-incorporation into Nigeria.
Gowon remained head of state until July 1975 when he was overthrown in a coup led by General Murtala Mohamed. The latter in turn was assassinated in an attempted coup on February 13, 1976, and shambles as our hospitals are reduced to mere consulting clinics without drugs, water and equipment. Out educational system is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Unemployment figures, including for graduates, have reached embarrasing and unacceptable proportions. In some states, workers are owed eight to 12 months in salary arrears and in others there are threats of salary cuts"
Such was the military manifesto of the Buhari-Idiagbon regime and its list of charges against the ousted civilian regime. These charges were of course justified. However they could not be overcome simply by installing an honest, disciplined and morally upright regime endowed with sound economic knowledge. The problems had a deeper root, namely, capitalist-orien-
Twenty months later, in August 1985, some members of the regime organized and carried through a putsch which removed Buhari and Idiagbon as Head of State and Chief of Staff respectively. General Ibrahim Babangida — now taking the title of president - replaced Buhari while Ebitu Ukiwe from the navy and Domkat Bali, an army general, shared the two offices arising from the abolished post of Chief of Staff. Otherwise the core of the military junta remained the same.
Most Nigerian radicals treated the arrival of Babangida with cynicism. Some sections of the left however reacted with more enthusiasm, fulfiling their appointed task of mobilizing popular support for every new regime. They had done this, for example, in August 1975 when Murtala Mohamed and Olusegun Obasanjo came to power adopting radical rhetoric. Now figures such as Ebenezer Babatope from the proscribed Unity Party of Nigeria embraced the new regime. However, as is traditional, Babangida's popularity waned
Babangida read the usual charges against his predecessors, who had: failed to reverse economic decline and halt corruption;
alienated the majority of the Supreme
Military Council and usurped its collective authority; used security agencies to harass and blackmail its real or imaginary oppo nents; failed to appreciate the fragile nature of the composition, constitution and structure of the nation, and the need to
"balance" the relations between the nation's various parts.
Indeed, the "intolerable" social conditions complained of in December 1983 had got even worse by August 1985; unem-
vocational and adult education and libraries. - E. M. *
1. By "electoral allocation" we mean the system whereby agents of opposing candidates meet with election officials and security agents to agree in advance on the number of votes to be scored by each candidate. The results of the actual elections are then altered to correspond with the agreed
International Viewpoint # 239 • November 23, 1992
NIGERIA ployment had almost doubled through massive retrenchment; school fees had been increased when they were charged and introduced where they never had been charged; prices had continued to rise and the nation's healthcare system had deteroriated further. Hundreds of thousands of artisans and small traders had been uprooted and dispersed under a brutal "environmental cleaning programme" called the War Against Indiscipline.
In October 1985, an economic emergency was declared which cut workers' wages by between 10 and 15%. Nigerian workers organized in the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) attempted to go on strike. But the organization withdrew its strike threat when the country's entire media descended on it, charging it with sabotage and subver-
The new government announced a new course and "open administration". The ruling body was enlarged and renamed, the secret police purged and reorganized, hundreds of detainees released, restrictions on the press slackened, a promise made that the ban on the National Association of
Nigerian Students (NANS) would be lifted, the IMF question was tabled for public debate and a simliar debate promised on the country's future.
On January 13, 1986 President Babangida set up a 17 member Political Bureau to draw up a political programme for transition to a new democratic social order. Fifteen months later the Bureau, which included a number of leftists, labour leaders and liberal academics, submitted a report to the government. The report said that the Nigerian people, in a national debate lasting about nine months, opted for socialism.
The government turned down the report on the grounds that it did not intend to "impose" an ideology on the people. It was, however, in just this period that the government accepted the Structural Adjustment Programme proposed by the World Bank and International Monetary
In July 1987 the Federal Military Government under General Ibrahim Babangida announced a transition to democratic rule. This programme is scheduled to culminate on January 2, 1993, with the inauguration of an Executive President for the country's third Republic which will commence on that date under a new constitution.
Between July and December 1987 the government set up the Directorate of Social Mobilization, the Constitution Review Committee (CRC) and the National Electoral Commission (NEC). In December 1987 local elections were conducted nationwide on a non-party basis (since the ban on political activities imposed after the army seized power in Decem
In March 1988 a Constituent Assembly (CA) whose members were partly elected by the local government councils and partly appointed by the government was set up to debate the draft constitution prepared by
In May 1989, the CA submitted a constitution to the government and the latter lifted the ban on political activities. Nigerians were asked to form political parties but were warned not to include in their membership former politicians and public officers banned from politics. Also to be excluded were people the government des-
For a genuine democratic transition
AS NIGERIA enters the thirty third year of its independent existence it is the fervent wish of Nigerian nationalists, patriots, radical leftists and progressives that the 32nd independence anniversary (on October 1, 1992) will not be the country's last birthday as a nation-state or a law governed society. It is also their wish that this anniversary will be the last under an unjust and undemocratic neo-colonial regime. Here then is the double task to be performed: to save Nigeria from chaos, disintegration and civil war and at the same time construct a framework for turning the country in a truly democratic, truly united, egalitarian and just society, in short a free country of free citizens.
This particular political transition, whatever its outcome and however ingenious its "political engineering" will not save Nigeria. This remains true even if the results of the presidential primary allocations (called elections)' are cancelled or reversed, making the "losers" into the "winners" and vice versa. This transition from military to civilian rule, based on two political parties formed and imposed on the country as the only legal political parties, cannot produce a popular or even minimally legitimate civilian government.
None of the present or possible products of the current transition can save Nigeria. The transitional programme must be terminated even at this stage. Simultaneously a provisional or interim government should be set up at federal level. The task of such a government would be to organize a Sovereign National Conference (SNC).
All local and state governments (undemocratically) elected under the present transition programme in December 1990 and 1991 should then regard themselves as caretaker or provisional administrations.
The interim government must not be a military one, nor should it have a military organ over it. In other words, the Armed Forces Ruling Council should be dissolved.
The next stage is the dissolution of the transition institutions, including the two political parties, the SDP and NRC and the Centre for Democratic Studies (CDS). The resources of the SDP and NRC should pass to the relevant states and local governments. Party buildings in the state capitals and local government headquarters could be used for
22 tach candidate The gerts of thouse ole.
cribed as "extremists".
On October 7, 1989 the military government, which through the National Electoral
Commission had considered the applications of the political parties, decided to reject them all. At the same time the government announced the formation of two political parties of its own: the "a little to the left" Social Democratic Party (SP)
and the "little to the right" National Republican Convention (NRC). The parties' constitutions, programmes and manifestoes were drafted by government agencies and then amended and approved by the government. Nigerians were asked to join one or other of these parties.
Attempted coup of 1990
In January 1990, the government carried out a purge of the Armed Forces and on April 22, 1990, a very bloody coup was attempted. The attempt failed and 71 army officers were arrested.
In July 1990 the SDP and NRC held their inaugural conventions in the coun try's new federal capital Abuja. Since then the parties have operated according to their origins, as little more than government departments. In December 1990, local government elections were held on a party (that is: SDP/NRC) basis by open (not secret) ballot.
In October 1991, the SDP and NRC held their primaries to select candidates for the legislative and governorship elections in the 30 states into which the country had been re-divided the previous August. The government intervened in several of the contests, cancelling several results and
• Believing that the only way to influence a movement was to occupy
The labour leaders meanwhile believed it possible to build a Labour
Party in a bureaucratic manner and without definite political direction and attempted to purge Marxists and socialists from the party. They were ready to accept state involvement in the party and conform to state dictates about
These efforts did not save the Labour Party from being banned in October 1989 along with the rest. The 1989 debacle was a copy of what had happened ten years earlier when the radical movement fell apart attempting to respond to Murtala-Obasanjo's transition programme. However, this time not only did the movement fall apart but its components have also suffered internal decline, mainly due to the additional psychological factor of
Hope for a resurgence of radical politics is however reviving thanks mainly to the efforts of human rights groups and students as well as episodic acts of popular resistance across the land. But to sustain this hope, deepen it and translate it into a material political force, a new perspective that assimilates the lessons of the past, faces reality on the ground and articulates a new alignment of social forces and spells out the immediate and long-term national tasks must be constructed.
With a new perspective and new foundations our efforts at national rebirth will take another step forward by adding the question of political power to the defence of human and democratic rights.— E. M. *
November 23, 1992 banning some candidates. The main elections took place two months later; both primaries and main elections were massively rigged.
The new state governments were inaugurated in January 1992 and the ban on former politicians and public officers was lifted. Immediately many of these "'former" politicians entered the race for the presidency. In July this year elections for the
National Assembly were held — again
The transition has witnessed some of the worst riots, strikes and mass protests in the nation's history.
In May and June 1986, workers and university students held demonstrations that were violently repressed by security forces. At least four students in the Ahmadu Bello University were killed. The
NIGERIA government responded with a ban on the National Association of University Students (NANS) and by de-affiliating the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). About this time it was revealed that the country had been secretly admitted into the Organization of Islamic Countries.
In March 1987 there were bloody clashes between Christians and Muslims in
The crisis of the left 1989 STARTED on a hopeful note for Nigeria's radical movement and for the nation as a whole. In February, the Directorate for Literacy organized in Calabar a conference which turned into a radical congress. Though highly successful as a testing of the popular mood, however, this gathering showed that divisions which had existed in the movement in the 1960s and under the Second Republic (1979-83) had not disappeared.
In April that year a three-day National Workshop took place in Calabar under the auspices of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). In attendance were leaders of all the country's industrial unions, leaders and representatives of the NLC itself, senior staff associations, professional groups and mass organizations as well as radical intellectuals, workers and students. Also present were many veterans of labour and nationalist struggles.
This was one of the most representative conferences of the radical movement in many years. It agreed that
• A Labour Party should be formed to unify and advance the people's struggle in Nigeria.
• There was an agreement that the proposed party should have two main pillars: the Socialist Movement and the trade unions.
• The veteran nationalist and labour leaders agreed in an emotionally charged conclave to transcend differences that were purely subjective or no longer had any political relevance. In their new unity the veterans would lend their support formally or informally to the effort to build a new organization.
However the labour leadership and a small group of left sectarians — pulling in opposite directions - succeeded in frustrating the high hopes raised by these agreements. The leftist contribution to this debacle was
• Reviving old disagreements from the 1950s and 60s which no longer have any relevance
• Promoting suspicion to the level of policy • Confusing strategy and tactics and at times not knowing there was any difference between the two formal leadership positions within it.
purging "extremism".
the events in Eastern Europe.
Kafanchan in Southern Kadana state. Many lives were lost and many mosques, churches, houses and vehicles were des-
In February 1988, following an internal crisis in the NLC, the government took over its administration. It relinquished this control in December 1988. May and June 1988 saw protests by students and workers over the increase in petrol prices and its multiplier effect on the prices of other goods. In July the ASUU was banned for taking strike action.
June 1989 saw broad demonstrations in the country's big cities over the increasingly harsh economic situation. The protests were brutally repressed and many people
In 1991 there were more bloody religious riots in Bauchi and Kano states. Several lives were lost and extensive damage to property reported.
In May 1992 there were massive protests in several cities and in almost all the country's universities against economic hardship and the undemocratic character of the transition programme. These were followed by bloody ethno-religious riots in Southern Kaduna. *
23 # 239 International Viewpoint
Thatcherism spreads
"Down Under"
November 23, 1992
AUSTRALIA will be obliged to negotiate the length of the working week individually with employers. The concept of the weekend is to be abolished and workers will be required to work as many consecutive days as the boss sees fit. In addition long service leave and annual leave itself is to go unless the employer agrees to pay it.
FOLLOWING a crushing victory at the polls on October 10 the new government of the Australian state of Victoria (one of six in the Australian federation, each of which has its own parliament
- the national parliament resides in Canberra), has moved quickly to a showdown with the trade unions.
JOHN TULLY
HE LIBERALS - in fact a
T conservative party now in the hands of hardline New Right ideologues — were propelled into office on a wave of public revulsion at the gross mismanagement during ten years of state Labor governments. These, under
John Cain and Joan Kirner ran up an enormous deficit due largely to the collapse of the Tricontinental merchant bank which in the 1980s lent billions to shady entrepreneurs such as Alan Bond and Christopher
Skase who later went bankrupt.
The new Liberal Premier, Jeff Kennett, now claims he has a mandate to declare what is in effect class war. In fact Kennett has no such mandate. Even the Melbourne daily The Age has admitted that little was said about industrial relations policy during the campaign and that Kennett came to power not as a result of support for any particular policy but owing to disgust with Labor.
On October 29, the Victorian Trades
Hall Council (THC), which brings together the state's unions, voted unanimously for a 24-hour general strike as part of an all-out campaign against imminent antipermitted, they would have to be approved by state-run secret ballot and in any case limited to no more than five days. Picket lines will be restricted to six people and it Will be illegal to attempt to stop strikebreakers from getting in to work.
### Individual contracts
And that is not all. All workers currently on state awards would be forced to negotiate individual contracts with their employers, as is the case in New Zealand. Existing awards may continue, but only with the agreement of the employer concerned. The government also intends to legislate to allow employers to fine employees for "disobedience" and other behaviour they may deem undesirable.
This industrial relations legislation follows on the heels of a state mini-budget" that aims to make working people and the poor shoulder the burden of "economic recovery". In the budget the government abolished special overtime rates and fixed leave. The 38-hour working week is to go; workers
Kennett has also introduced a regressive new tax of $100 on all ratable properties. All ratepayers will pay whether they live in a luxurious mansion or a small flat. This move has been compared to the poll tax introduced in Britain by former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and there are moves afoot to launch a boycott. New consumer taxes have been introduced and public transport fares are to rise by ten percent. None of these new taxes hit Business.
On top of all this there are to be huge cuts in public spending on health, welfare, public transport and education. Seven thousand public sector jobs are to be axed by May 1993 and union members fear that the total may reach as many as 25,000 to 30,000 by the end of that year.
### Privileges restored
Meanwhile the new government has granted its members pay rises of up to $9,000 a year and reintroduced a range of privileges suspended by the outgoing government. The cuts and job losses will be overseen by "fat cat" administrators brought in on undisclosed salaries rumoured to be in the range of $300,000 per year.
Thus has Thatcherism New Zealand style come to Australia. There will be Federal elections in 1993 and the current Liberal opposition has made it clear that it Will support similar policies at a national level. *
GOOD NEWS! Weare introducing a new union legislation and draconian austerity measures. THC secretary John Halfpenny management plan to make this company labelled the government's Employee Rela-
INTERNATIONALL* COMPETITIVE tions Bill as "Dickensian".
The bill outlaws virtually all strike action by workers covered by state awards.