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Democracy for the Second Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Richard L. Sklar
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Extract

Following the collapse of many civilian and constitutional governments in postcolonial Africa, most political analysts and commentators drew a dismal conclusion. They decided that democratic representation based upon freedom of speech and association would be abandoned in Africa and they proclaimed the onset of an era of authoritarian rule. Some analysts, in the tradition of colonialist thought, asserted that cultural and social conditions in Africa are simply unsuited to the practice of liberal democracy.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 11 , Issue 1-2 , Spring/Summer 1981 , pp. 14 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1981 

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References

Notes

1. For a cogent statement of this position, published before it had become the conventional wisdom, see Kilson, Martin, “Authoritarian and Single-Party Tendencies in African Politics,” World Politics XV (January 1963): 262-94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Mackintosh, John P., Nigerian Government and Politics (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966), pp. 613-28Google Scholar. For a classic statement of this position in colonialist scholarship, see Perham, Margery, Native Administration in Nigeria (London: Oxford University Press, 1937)Google Scholar.

3. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Report of the Constitution Drafting Committee, vols. I & II (Lagos: Federal Ministry of Information, 1976)Google Scholar.

4. The Great Debate: Nigerian Viewpoints on the Draft Constitution, ed. Ofonagoro, W. Ibekwe, Ojo, Abiola, and Jinadu, Adele (Lagos: Daily Times of Nigeria, 1977)Google Scholar.

5. Federal Republic of Nigeria, Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly, Official Report (Lagos: Federal Ministry of Information, n.d.).

6. For this thesis see Sklar, Richard L., “Contradictions in the Nigerian Political System,” Journal of Modern African Studies III, no. 2 (August 1965): 201-13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sklar, , “Nigerian Politics: The Ordeal of Chief Awolowo, 1960-65,” in Politics in Africa: 7 Cases, ed. Carter, Gwendolyn M. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966), pp. 119-65Google Scholar.

7. For an account of politics during the First Republic see Post, K. W. J. and Vickers, Michael, Structure and Conflict in Nigeria, 1960-65 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

8. See Sklar, Richard L., Nigerian Political Parties (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; and Sklar, “Contradictions.”

9. “Address by the Head of the Federal Military Government” (Gen. Murtala Ramat Muhammed), Report of the Constitution Drafting Committee, vol. I, p. xlii.

10. Report of the Constitution Drafting Committee, vol. 11, p. 177.

11. Olusegun Osoba and Yusufu Bala Usman, “A General Report on the Work of the Constitution Drafting Committee” (mimeographed).

12. Report of the Constitution Drafting Committee, vol. I, pp. xiii-xv, 12.