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The national conference as a model for democratic transition : Benin and Nigeria

 | 
Wuyi Omitoogun
, 
Kenneth Onigu-Otite

National and Constitutional Conferences

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  • 13 Although most literature on political change and reform in Africa have attributed the genesis of th (...)

1Since the new winds of change began to blow across the continent in the aftermath of Glasnost and Perestroika in the late 1980s and early 1990s,13 the dramatic experience of Bénin, where a sovereign national conference ushered in democratic rule in a few months, after nearly two decades of military autocracy and paternalism, established the conference model as a tried and successful instrument for achieving the change from dictatorship to civil democracy. Since then the national conference has become the ‘battle cry’ of restive populations under authoritarian rule. Simultaneously, autocrats clinging to power, began to look at the Benin experience as something to avoid. Once, however, they are left without any other alternative, these rulers generally accede to the demands for a national conference, then proceed to make sure that it is neither truly representative nor sovereign, manipulating the outcome to their own advantage. In Togo and Zaire, for example, the heads of state convened national conferences, but then eroded the status and authority of the conferences by fragmenting the political opposition and by taking advantage of their competitive political ambitions and lust for power. Examples of such manipulated conferences were found in Chad, Gabon and Nigeria.

  • 14 After Benin, most of the conferences that were held also claimed to be sovereign but could not subs (...)
  • 15 Nicéphore Soglo, Democracy in Africa: Challenges and solutions. Nigerian Institute of International (...)

2The successful experiment in Bénin Republic had one distinct attribute; it was a genuinely sovereign conference.14 It possessed full autonomy and its decisions were not subject to review. In contrast, the Nigerian constitutional conference was not sovereign: it lacked autonomy and its decisions were subject to review. While the Nigerian constitutional conference and its ‘fellow travellers’ elsewhere had limited autonomy, they were, however, constructed along the lines of the Benin experience, which has become the reference point for such political experiments.15

3The major features of a sovereign national conference are its ability to draw up its own agenda and discuss everything it deems necessary, including the tenure of the incumbent, and his powers or prerogatives. The conference is also a forum which can recommend a break away from the established order, query the past, examine the present and chart a new course for the future. It was only in Benin that such extensive powers of the assembly were not abused, as the incumbent, Mathieu Kérékou, was granted immunity from being probed, which explains the cooperation of Kérékou with the conference. In addition, all segments of the state are usually represented at a sovereign conference.

  • 16 Jacques M. Nzouankey. The role of the national conference in the transition to democracy in Africa: (...)

4A conference with limited autonomy, like the Nigerian constitutional conference, contrasts sharply with the Benin model. It had its agenda drawn up for it by the existing government or its agencies. Its ability to discuss certain issues was circumscribed by a government decree, which declared them no-go areas. The main reason for creating such talk shops is to satisfy both the domestic and the international demand for change. Such conferences are expected to debate selected problems and find ways of reconciling the various components of the State. Debates here are usually less heated than those in sovereign conferences, while the outcomes of the debates are usually predictable.16

5Even so, the broad category of conference with limited autonomy has various shades or divisions. The national conference in Mali that eventually midwifed the country’s democracy became possible because of the overthrow of the incumbent government and the institution of an interim government that oversaw the conduct of the conference and the election. It was that propitious coup which gave Mali.the autonomy it needed to restore democracy. Gabon, Chad and Nigeria were not so fortunate. From the beginning, the Nigerian conference, in spite of the initial promise of investing it with ‘full constituent powers’, was vulnerable to executive manipulation in several ways.

  • 17 The Guardian, May 26, 1994: 1.

6This became evident when the National Constitutional Conference Commission (NCCC), the body charged by government with the administration and management of the conference and which collated memoranda from members of the public on what to put on the agenda, relegated the issue of the annulled election to the background. Government was not favourably inclined to discussing June 12, although a substantial proportion of the memoranda received by the commission focused on the aborted election.17 The Commission made only a vague reference to the issue on the conference agenda.

  • 18 Constitutional Conference Decree No. 3 of 1994.

7Secondly, the decree establishing the conference stated in unambiguous terms that its final outcome would be subject to ratification by the Head of State and the Provisional Ruling Council.18 The conference, therefore, was boycotted by that very vocal and critical segment of the society, which had been clamouring for its institution.

  • 19 ibid.
  • 20 Tell, July 11,1994. Dennis Etim Inyang, the student leader, also sued the government for N50 millio (...)
  • 21 ibid.

8Government made no pretence about the fact that it did not want some specific people to become delegates to the conference or that it wanted a plurality of delegates of its own persuasion. This inspired the provision for 96 government nominees out of a total number of 369 delegates; that is, almost a third of the total delegates to the conference. The government then guaranteed the efficacy of its delegates, by permitting one-third of the delegates to form a quorum.19 In effect, to form a quorum, all that was needed were the 96 government delegates and 27 elected delegates. The nominated delegates comprised individuals amenable to manipulation and included discredited political figures like former fugitive politician, Umaru Dikko; Tony Anenih, the erstwhile leader of Abiola’s party, who traded away his party’s electoral victory; former justice minister, Clement Akpamgbo; and a host of others who had been party to the annulment saga of June 1993. Other government delegates included a number of traditional rulers who depended on government patronage for survival. No member of the several human rights groups was nominated. Consequently, the student union leader, who was nominated as a delegate, rejected the nomination on the grounds that what his constituency wanted was either a sovereign conference or the proclamation of the result of the annulled June 12,1993 election.20 The president of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Ambassador Oladapo Fafowora, also rejected his nomination as a delegate on similar grounds.21

9The character of the government nominees greatly influenced the decisions ultimately reached at the conference. To further ensure that the conference was under control, the government appointed both the chairman of the conference and his deputy, without whom no decision could be taken.

Civil Society, the Political Class and the Conference

  • 22 Heilbrunn, op. cit.
  • 23 See Samuel Decalo, The process, prospects and constraints of democratisation in Africa. African Aff (...)
  • 24 Thomas Callaghy, African: Back to the futures? Journal of Democracy 5 (4) 1994. See also Michael Wa (...)
  • 25 The relationship between the political (class) society and civil society is analysed in Alfred Step (...)

10Unlike the conference in Nigeria, that of Benin contained representatives of all segments of the Béninois society. Indeed, the struggle that culminated in the convening of the conference was started by voluntary associations, trade unions and other pro-democracy groups; eventually spreading to all areas of the country. This is why some scholars have attributed the success of the Benin conference mainly to the civil society.22 In fact, the hope of enduring democracy in Africa as a whole has often been pinned on the action or inaction of the civil society:23 Yet experience has shown that African civil societies are fragile and that their opposition to authoritarian rule has not necessarily made them supportive of democratic governments.24 This is not, however, to diminish the important role of the civil society in democratic transition in Africa. For the activities of civil society to yield positive results in a democratic struggle its objectives must coincide with those of other forces within the domestic socio-economic and political environment. It was this congruence of interests between the civil society and the political class in Benin that accounted for the success of the conference in the Benin struggle and its relative failure in Nigeria.25

11In Benin, once the democratic winds began to blow, many associations hitherto affiliated to the state party, Parti de la Revolution Populaire du Benin (PRPB), began to declare their autonomy. In line with this, the teachers’ union, the students’ union and the workers’ union began to organize themselves on their own to fight, primarily, for their group interests. In the public sector, for example, the struggle for back wages gathered momentum, while the students fought to reinstate the privilege of guaranteed state employment for university graduates and to obtain arrears of unpaid grants.

12Similarly, the popular Nana Benz, the cash madams that engage in illicit but state recognized smuggling and re-export to Nigeria, were beginning to feel the financial squeeze and became impatient with the depressed state of the economy. Thus, the association of Nana Benz found it expedient to join ranks with such pro-democracy agitators as the Association professionnelle de revendeuse de tissu (APRT) and the Union nationale des commerçantes du Benin (Unacode), in the hope that a change in government would lead to a better economic future.

  • 26 Freedom of the press was granted in Bénin in 1988. Heilbrunn, op. cit., 285.
  • 27 Francis Lalonpo, La conférence nationale du Bénin: Un concept nouveau de changement de regime polit (...)

13The anti-Kérékou position of the various segments of the society was backed by a reawakened press,26 recently unshackled after years of suppression under the Marxist-Leninist regime of Mathieu Kérékou. Revelations by the press that the French were virtually dictating the transition process in Bénin, further galvanized the opposition against an already weak Kérékou. Apart from the allegation that the French wished to ensure Kérékou’s position, the high point of press involvement in the transition process was a leaked communiqué from Paris in which it was alleged that Kérékou had been strongly advised to convene ‘an all-embracing national conference’.27 This made the opposition suspicious of the idea of a national conference, predicated on the fact that a similar conference had been convened in 1978/79 to create a forum for the critics of the regime to discuss state issues. That conference, however, had ended without any significant change in the state structure. The call for a conference in 1993, against the current revelations was, therefore, viewed with suspicion by the opposition. They agreed to the setting up of the conference, but were determined this time to hijack the proceedings from the government, once it got underway.

  • 28 Heilbrunn, op. cit.

14This constellation of interests and open agitation for a change in state administration coupled with intense external pressures from those to whom Kérékou had turned for assistance, forced him to renounce Marxism as the official state ideology. This renunciation led to the lifting of the monopoly on political doctrine,28 which simultaneously advanced freedom of speech, of association and of the press. The low morale in the army, whose allowances and other benefits had been cut to meet IMF conditions since 1987, meant that Kérékou could not rely on them for support at this critical moment.

15As the civil society embarked on demonstrations for change, the political class, hitherto checked by seventeen years of Marxist one-party rule, seized the opportunity provided by the introduction of multi-party politics to spur the protesting groups to action. Politicians, including virtually all Bénin’s former heads of state, formed their own parties to challenge the PRPB in a run-off to scheduled elections. By the time of the presidential election in 1991, there were as many as thirteen political parties in Benin. Former Béninois heads of state who had never allowed multi-party politics during their tenures in office took advantage of the new liberal climate to form parties and contest elections. These included the late Sorou Migan Apithy’s Mouvement Démocratique Républicain; Justin Tometin Ahomadegbe’s Front National pour la Démocratie; Emile Derlin Zinsou’s Union Nationale pour la Démocratie et le Progrès; and Hubert Maga’s resuscitated Rassemblement Démocratique Dahoméen. These were joined by a number of other parties, including Kérékou’s own party. Most parties had to re-group into coalitions in order to make an appreciable impact in the elections.

  • 29 This was stated by Monsignor de Souza, the Catholic Bishop of Cotonou and the president of the high (...)

16The national conference however, forestalled a number of these candidates by voting into law a provision to the constitution that limited the age of the president to between 40 and 70 years. This provision virtually barred all of the old heads of state, except Kérékou, many of whom had contributed to running the country aground, from contesting elections. They were not deterred, however, from political activity since they sponsored candidates. Ethnic and regional animosities were played upon to the utmost to gather support in their localities. The parties, as a result, could only command support in their own regions. The most successful parties appeared to be those who had substantial resources to buy voters and make pledges (which could hardly be fulfilled). There were reports of politicians ‘buying’ the votes of whole villages by offering the inhabitants money. In certain cases, this influenced voter decision but in many others the voters refused to be bought.29 The political class thus played a game that was familiar in the African political scene: employing ethnicism, regionalism and bribery to outdo one another, while at the same time laying claim to democratic and national ideals.

  • 30 For the opinions of the various groups at the conference see Conference nationale des forces vives, (...)

17From the foregoing, it can be clearly seen that both the civil associations and the political class in Benin were united during this transitory stage by a common goal: to reform the system and to remove the incumbent. Otherwise, their aspirations differed.30 The unity of their mission proved vital at this stage for the success of their struggle.

18In the case of Nigeria, the history of special interest groups fighting to guarantee basic freedom and due process of law dates back to the 1940s and 1950s. These groups mushroomed in the 1980s, following the introduction of the structural adjustment programme (SAP) by the Babangida regime and the repressive machinery put in place to check increasing waves of protests against that programme. These new groups include the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), the Constitutional Rights Projects (CRP), the Gani Fawehinmi Solidarity Organisation, the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADC), the National Consultative Forum (NCF), the Association of the Professionals (AP) and the Campaign for Democracy (CD).

  • 31 Peter M. Lewis, Economic statism, private capital and the dilemma of accumulation in Nigeria. World (...)
  • 32 Callaghy, Political passions, op. cit.

19The emergence of these groups and their efforts to mobilize the people against popularly condemned government policies complemented the efforts of the trade unions, especially the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), all of which had always stood in the vanguard of political and economic change and particularly since the introduction of SAP in 1986 and the questionable transition agenda. The activities of these groups posed challenges to the regime of Babangida, which he did not fully appreciate. Through his policy of ’settlement’ (bribery and blackmail)31 Babangida attempted to buy the leadership of some of these groups. When he failed, he resorted to open harassment and the detention of group leaders. In one instance, however, he succeeded in getting the leadership of the NLC to his side. In addition, he was able to use the windfall resulting from oil sales during the Gulf War to win business groups into his ‘clientilist orbit’. This ensured that the organized private sector was never part of the pro-democracy group.32

20Thus, even before the June 12 annulment saga, civilian leaders were already active in mobilizing the populace against the military. Accordingly, when the annulment was announced on June 23rd, it was instantly rejected by the various opposition groups, particularly the Campaign for Democracy.

  • 33 General Abacha’s maiden broadcast to the nation, op. cit.

21Massive protests occurred on a daily basis from the day the annulment was confirmed by President Babangida until he was forced to leave office or ‘step aside’ (his own term for relinquishing power) on 27th August 1993. The inauguration of an interim administration in August did not placate the pro-democracy groups or the people as a whole. Subsequently, the CD organized a stay-at-home action to keep the people off the streets. This action was very successful in the south, especially the southwest; and combined with the political hijacking of a Nigeria Airways plane in November 1993, it provided the pretext for General Abacha to depose the interim administration to restore a semblance of governance.33

  • 34 Newswatch Nov. 29, 1993. This arrangement led to a rift in the pro-democracy camp. Some members tha (...)

22It is interesting to note that, prior to the overthrow of the interim administration, it was alleged that military leaders including General Sani Abacha and his deputy, Oladipo Diya met with the leadership of the pro-democracy groups and some leading politicians, including Chief Abiola, to obtain their consent to military intervention with a promise that as soon as the situation stabilized they would hand over to Chief Abiola.34 The failure of the regime to adhere to the alleged agreement led to a resurgence of civil disobedience. The protest was organized in conjunction with the powerful oil sector unions – the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum Engineering and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN). The action of these groups coupled with the efforts of the CD crippled the whole country for weeks in mid-1994, affecting the activities of the constitutional conference, which the government had convened. Earlier, the pro-democracy groups and National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) had boycotted the election of the delegates to the conference.

  • 35 On impediments to democracy in Africa, see Sina Kawonise, Normative impediments to the democratic t (...)

23A major shortcoming of these acts of civil disobedience by the pro-democracy groups during this period was that their activities were mainly restricted to Lagos and southern Nigeria. The northern elites were circumscribed in their behaviour. They were concerned that the activities of the pro-democracy groups would stir up critical questions about the nature of the revenue allocation formula and other issues detrimental to their interests. They also feared adverse effects on the national economy from the stay-at-home action in Lagos, which prevented goods from coming in through the ports from overseas. The passive attitude of such elements35 appeared to have ethnicized the political crisis arising from the annulment. In spite of this limitation, the objectives of the pro-democracy groups were never in doubt. They did not see how the constitutional conference would provide an avenue for attaining enduring democracy.

24The same cannot be said of the political class which lacks unity of purpose and a sound understanding of what it takes to protect class interests. It is arguable whether a political class exists in Nigeria, given the disunity and lack of focus of the politicians. The objective of any political group (class), especially under a military dictatorship, must be to capture power. Yet the Nigerian political class does not appear to understand this. No greater opportunity could have been provided for the Nigerian political class to oust the military from power and begin laying the foundation for democracy than the issue of the June 12 presidential election, which Chief Abiola was presumed to have won. This victory was significant, not only for Abiola, but for the political class as a whole, in view of the manifest unwillingness of the military to abandon power.

  • 36 Newswatch June 28, 1993, p. 9.
  • 37 See Jinmi Adisa, Political parties and the aborted transition process to civil democracy in Nigeria (...)

25On the eve of the election, Babangida attempted to cancel it, but the warning from the American Embassy that the government of the United States would not take kindly to any postponement of the election at that stage checked him, albeit temporarily.36 Unfortunately, after the election was annulled, the fractious politicians of the SDP played into the hands of the military, and instead of rallying round Abiola and pushing the military out, quite a number of them behaved like the proverbial ‘dog in the manger’: betraying their winning candidate for the scraps which they expected from the military should they continue to rule. Many, including the chairmen of both parties, Ahmed Kusamotu of the National Republican Convention and Tony Anenih of the Social Democratic Party colluded with Babangida to constitute an interim administration apparently loyal to the military to preempt what would have been an Abiola government. Most Nigerians, who had grown used to the perfidy and greed of the political class, still found this shocking. Foreigners were bewildered. A foreign diplomat exclaimed on hearing the views of Social Democratic Party officials: ‘How can this happen? By what rules of logic or common sense does a party executive throw away victory at the polls? A victory that can give them everything they require – power, money, status and everything’.37

  • 38 Peter M. Lewis, Endgame in Nigeria? The politics of failed democratic transition. African Affairs 9 (...)
  • 39 Tell, June 13, 1994.

26Once the party executives acceded to the annulment, Babangida’s next step was to bribe the legislators at the National Assembly to extend his tenure; and when that failed, to support an interim arrangement.38 Thus, on the 17th of November 1993, when Abacha took power and dissolved all the existing political institutions, including the national assembly, the politicians received very little public sympathy. He, therefore, seized the opportunity to consolidate his hold on power. As recompense for dissolving the assembly, and to bury the ghost of the June 12 election, he offered the nation a constitutional conference. Many of the politicians who had assisted in scuttling the June 12 election quickly jumped at the offer and campaigned in the runoff election for delegates. Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the Biafran secessionist leader, even declared that ‘June 12 is dead and buried. It died when the annulment was made. The new date is now May 28 (the day delegates’ elections were held). On May 28 I stand’.39

27The majority of the delegates to the conference were hostile to any discussion of the June 12 election. This was not unexpected; many of them went into the conference mainly to help the military bury the ghost of June 12.

  • 40 Interview with a top military officer in Lagos, August, 1995.

28During the fuel crisis of 1994, it was alleged that large sums of money were offered by some politicians and pro-democracy groups to some military officers to topple the Abacha regime. Instead of doing this, the officers reported to Abacha who then tightened security.40

29It is evident that the Nigerian populace and the political class were pursuing different agendas. While one wanted democracy and an ouster of the military from power, the other colluded with the military to scuttle democracy. This divergence of objectives affected their perceptions of the constitutional conference and their relationship to it. Peter Lewis explained the relationship between the two groups thus:

  • 41 Peter Lewis, Endgame in Nigeria? op. cit. The two groups need to work together given their strength (...)

... the mutual disaffection among the political class and civil society served to alienate their potential organisational and popular base. The parties had no mass following committed to democratic principles, whilst activist associations and professionals lacked a set of candidates or institutions which could galvanise a democratization strategy. In consequence a small, easily marginalised segment of the middle class championed the democratic cause, while the political elite retracted, bargained for or purveyed their cooperation. Between a weak civil society and a coopted political class there was scant room for democratic beginnings.41

Notes

13 Although most literature on political change and reform in Africa have attributed the genesis of the clamour for change to the end of the Cold War and subsequent developments in Eastern Europe, Pearl Robinson has argued otherwise. She has, instead, identified three developments within Africa between February 1989 and February 1990, as being responsible for the spate of agitation for reform. These are, the approval of a .constitutional referendum in Algeria guaranteeing civil liberties and the right to form political parties, the adoption of an African Charter for Popular Participation by the Economic Commission for Africa, and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in February 1990. See Robinson, op. cit., p. 584.

14 After Benin, most of the conferences that were held also claimed to be sovereign but could not substantiate this claim. The case of Chad is worth mentioning. President Debby convened the (sovereign) conference only after he had ceded economic and fiscal policy to a team of French advisers in an agreement signed in Paris. Thus the delegates’ powers were limited, though their gathering was purportedly invested with sovereign powers. Robinson, op. cit.

15 Nicéphore Soglo, Democracy in Africa: Challenges and solutions. Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lecture Series, No. 76, Lagos, 1992.

16 Jacques M. Nzouankey. The role of the national conference in the transition to democracy in Africa: The cases of Benin and Mali. Issue 21 (1-2) 1993: 47. See also Foundation for Economies Education, The National Conference: Issues, controversies and assessment. FEE, Ibadan, 1994.

17 The Guardian, May 26, 1994: 1.

18 Constitutional Conference Decree No. 3 of 1994.

19 ibid.

20 Tell, July 11,1994. Dennis Etim Inyang, the student leader, also sued the government for N50 million as damages for the nomination which he described as ’embarrassing, provocative and a defamation of my person’.

21 ibid.

22 Heilbrunn, op. cit.

23 See Samuel Decalo, The process, prospects and constraints of democratisation in Africa. African Affairs 91 (362) 1992; S. P. Riley, The democratic transition in Africa. In: Conflict Studies 257, 1992; P. Gifford, ed. The Christian Church and the Democratisation of Africa. EJ. Brill, Leiden, 1995.

24 Thomas Callaghy, African: Back to the futures? Journal of Democracy 5 (4) 1994. See also Michael Walzer, The idea of civil society. Dissent Spring, 1991. The activities of former head of state. General Olusegun Obasanjo, and his group in the wake of the annulled election of 1993, readily come to mind here. Rather than support the agitation for the release of the election result, Obasanjo collaborated with former president Ibrahim Babangida to push aside the wishes of 14 million electors in Nigeria by instituting a weak interim administration in the country. He also went abroad to canvass support for that administration and to disparage both Abiola’s electoral victory and his character. For General Obasanjo’s remarks on Abiola and the election see The Guardian (Lagos), May 1994.

25 The relationship between the political (class) society and civil society is analysed in Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, 1988: 4-7.

26 Freedom of the press was granted in Bénin in 1988. Heilbrunn, op. cit., 285.

27 Francis Lalonpo, La conférence nationale du Bénin: Un concept nouveau de changement de regime politique. Année africaine 1992-1993: 100 cited in Kaythyn Nwajiaku, The national conferences in Bénin and Togo revisited. Journal of Modem African Studies 32 (3/4) 1994: 439.

28 Heilbrunn, op. cit.

29 This was stated by Monsignor de Souza, the Catholic Bishop of Cotonou and the president of the high council of the republic of the interim administration in an interview with Margaret Novicki, , Africa Report May-June, 1991.

30 For the opinions of the various groups at the conference see Conference nationale des forces vives, Cotonou, 19-24 février, 1990. Correspondances regues parle comité 5; Correspondances des syndicats, ordres et groupements professionnels, Cotonou, 1990.

31 Peter M. Lewis, Economic statism, private capital and the dilemma of accumulation in Nigeria. World Development 22 (3) 1994. See also Thomas Callaghy, Political passions and economic interests: Economic reform and political structure in Africa. In: Hemmed In: Responses to Africa’s economic decline. Thomas Callaghy and John Ravenhill, eds., Colombia University Press, New York, 1994.

32 Callaghy, Political passions, op. cit.

33 General Abacha’s maiden broadcast to the nation, op. cit.

34 Newswatch Nov. 29, 1993. This arrangement led to a rift in the pro-democracy camp. Some members that were not aware of the arrangement accused their colleagues of selling out to the military. They argued that it was naïve to think that the military would respect the arrangement once in power. See Tell April, 1994.

35 On impediments to democracy in Africa, see Sina Kawonise, Normative impediments to the democratic transition in Africa. In: Democratic Transition in Africa, Caron et al., eds. CREDU, Ibadan, 1992.

36 Newswatch June 28, 1993, p. 9.

37 See Jinmi Adisa, Political parties and the aborted transition process to civil democracy in Nigeria, 1985-1993. Report submitted to the global coalition for Africa and the African Leadership Forum project on Transition to Democracy in Africa, 1994. P. Chudi Uwazurike predicted this kind of attitude from the political ‘class’ in: Confronting potential breakdown: The Nigerian redemocratisation process in critical perspective. Journal of Modern African Studies 28 (1), 1990.

38 Peter M. Lewis, Endgame in Nigeria? The politics of failed democratic transition. African Affairs 93 (313) July 1994: 330.

39 Tell, June 13, 1994.

40 Interview with a top military officer in Lagos, August, 1995.

41 Peter Lewis, Endgame in Nigeria? op. cit. The two groups need to work together given their strength and weaknesses as stressed by Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, in Tentative Conclusion about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1989) pp. 37- 47.

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