¹ For the purposes of this article, democracy, or ‘liberal’ or ‘constitutional’ democracy (to be more specific), is defined as Robert Dahl has defined polyarchy. This requires not only institutionalised competition between individuals and organised groups for formal positions of power, but also institutional guarantees of participation by all major social groups in the selection of leaders and policies. See Dahl, Robert, Polyarchy (New Haven, 1971), p. 8.Google Scholar

² See, for example, Lipset, Seymour Martin, Political Man (Baltimore, 1981);Google ScholarKornhauser, William, The Politics of Mass Society (Glencoe, Ill., 1959);Google Scholar and Verba, Sidney, ‘Conclusion: comparative political culture’, in Pye, Lucian W. and Verba, (eds.), Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton, 1965).Google Scholar

¹ Larry Diamond, ‘Class, Ethnicity and the Democratic State: Nigeria, 1950–66’, Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Toronto, Canada, August 1980 - forthcoming in Comparative Studies in Society and History (Cambridge). For the original analysis of the rôle of the political class in modern Nigeria, see Sklar, Richard L., Nigerian Political Parties (Princeton, 1963).Google Scholar

¹ Herskovits, Jean, ‘Dateline Nigeria: a black power’, in Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.), 29, Winter 1977–1978, p. 179.Google Scholar

² As Richard L. Sklar has observed, ‘It is no longer possible for power groups at subnational levels of government to prevent democratic changes by exercising authority in an arbitrary manner’; ‘Democracy for the Second Nigerian Republic’, in Issue (Los Angeles), xi, 1/2, Spring/Summer 1981, p. 15.Google Scholar For a discussion of the relationship of regionalism to political repression and collapse in the First Republic, see Sklar, , Nigerian Political Parties, and ‘Contradictions in the Nigerian Political System’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), III, 2, 08 1965, pp. 201–13.Google Scholar On the relationship of regionalism to dass structure, see Sklar, , ‘Contradictions’, and ‘Nigerian Politics: the ordeal of Chief Awolowo, 1960–65’, in Carter, Gwcndolen M. (ed.), Politics in Africa: 7 cases (New York, 1966), pp. 119–65.Google Scholar

³ Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Lagos, 1979), section 203, p. 6.Google Scholar This requires that the executive committees of the parties include representatives from at least two-thirds of the States of the Federation. Other constitutional provisions incorporated the earlier provisions of the Electoral Decree of 1977, prohibiting any association other than political parties from canvassing for votes or financing electoral candidates, and requiring that membership in such parties be open to all Nigerians, irrespective of origin, religion, ethnicity, or sex; that the name, emblem, and motto of each party bear no ethnic or religious connotation; and that all parties situate their headquarters in the Federal Capital. Ibid. section 202. See also, Joseph, Richard A., ‘The Ethnic Trap: notes on the Nigerian campaign and elections, 1978–79’, in Issue, xi, 1/2, Spring/Summer 1981, p. 17.Google Scholar

⁴ Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, section 15, p. 8.

¹ Joseph, Richard A., ‘Affluence and Underdevelopment: the Nigerian experience’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, XVI, 2, 06 1978, pp. 221–39;CrossRefGoogle Scholar also Schatz, Sayre P., Nigerian Capitalism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1977),Google Scholar and ‘Nigeria: moving up’, in Wilson Quarterly (Washington, D.C.), Winter, 1980.Google Scholar

² It is beyond the scope of this article to explore at all adequately this profound, intricately related set of changes in the Nigerian economy and society, and in the relationship of the state to social classes and relations of production. It is important to note, however, that these changes are continuing, possibly at an accelerating rate, and in important new directions. For example, the current promotion of a capital-intensive strategy of agricultural development, heavily dependent on foreign capital and technology, may displace peasants from the land on a massive scale, and thereby sharpen their class conflict with the growing number of large landholders.

It should also be emphasised that the sudden drop in national income and retrenchment in Government spending – as is now resulting from the sharp decline in Nigerian revenues due to slack world demand for oil – is likely to heighten and accelerate these socio-economic contradictions, particularly if the national financial crisis is prolonged. For a detailed treatment of these and other implications of the oil boom and slump, see Larry Diamond, ‘The Transformation of Political Conflict in Nigeria’, Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, Cincinnati, 25 March 1982; and Watts, Michael and Lubeck, Paul, ‘The Popular Classes and the Oil Boom: a political economy of rural and urban poverty’, in Zartman, I. William (ed.), The Political Economy of Nigeria (New York, forthcoming).Google Scholar

¹ Ojigbo, Okion, Nigeria Returns to Civilian Rule (Lagos, 1980), pp. 223–5.Google Scholar

² With the appointment of a dozen new national assistant officers in May 1981, the N.P.N.achieved leadership representation in all 19 States except Gongola, where the National Vice- Chairman, Iya Abubakar, resigned on the formation of the Shagari Government to become Minister of Internal Affairs. Moreover, whereas the U.P.N. and N.P.P. each draw at least half their officers from Igbo and Yoruba States, and have little representation from the four predominantly Hausa States, the N.P.N. draws roughly equal numbers of officers from Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa States. The precise distribution, as of June 1981, was as follows:

Of the officers from the minority States, those in the U.P.N. and the N.P.P. were split evenly between North and South, while 60 per cent of those in the N.P.N. came from northern minority States. Comparable data were not available for the G.N.P.P. and the P.R.P.

¹ The Nigerian National Alliance of the First Republic was an electoral coalition between the N.P.C. and the N.N.D.P., led by Chief Akintola. This represented the first attempt to politically unite conservative dominant-class elements in the North and the South. But the N.P.N. constitutes a much more truly national party. Not only does it receive significant help from Igbo and northern minority politicians who were absent from the N.N.A. coalition, but included within the framework of a single party are Yoruba and southern minority politicians who were joined with the N.P.C. in 1964 only in a loose, hierarchical, and northern-dominated alliance of distinct sectional parties.

² This was strikingly demonstrated in May 1981, at dedication ceremonies for the new N.P.N. National Secretariat, when 13 ‘men of timber’ pledged million (approximately $8 million) in contributions to the party.

¹ For the background of the split in the original N.P.P., see Joseph, Richard A., ‘Political Parties and Ideology in Nigeria’, in Review of African Political Economy (London), 13, 05–08 1978, p. 82, and ‘The Ethnic Trap’, p.18.Google Scholar

² The more limited base of the U.P.N. followed from the more personal and centralised manner in which it was organised, through the typically assiduous construction of its founder, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, rather than from the bargaining or coalition-building in the Constituent Assembly that gave birth to the N.P.P. and the N.P.N. The P.R.P., by contrast, was disadvantaged by the late start in getting formally organised and finding a leader of national stature, as well as by its origins within a limited circle of radical intellectuals in the North.

³ Unity Party of Nigeria, ‘Up Nigeria: manifesto of the Unity Party of Nigeria’, Lagos, 1979, and ‘Policy Papers’, Lagos, 1979; and Peoples Redemption Party, ‘The Platform of the People:the general programme and election manifesto of the Peoples Redemption Party’, Lagos, 1979.

⁴ National Party of Nigeria, ‘Manifesto of the NPN’ (1979), in Okadigbo, Chuba, Mission of the NPN (Enugu, 1981), pp. 115 and 117–21.Google Scholar

¹ U.P.N., ‘Policy Papers’, p. 12; P.R.P., op. cit. p. 16; N.P.N., op. cit. pp. 111–12; Nigerian Peoples Party, ‘Manifesto: aims and objectives and programme of action’, Lagos, 1979, p. 7.

² Africa (London), 92, 04 1979, p. 12.Google Scholar

³ Cf. Joseph, ‘Political Parties and Ideology in Nigeria’, where the P.R.P. and the U.P.N. are classified as ‘centre-left’ – with the former being more socialist and the latter ‘Nigerian Welfarist’ or ‘New Deal’ – and the N.P.N., N.P.P., and G.N.P.P. as ‘centre.right’. This penetrating assessment explores the significant ideological tensions within these parties for example, between the socialist principles in the manifesto of the P.R.P. and the more moderate ‘democratic humanism’ of its leader, Aminu Kano. Recognising the P.R.P. as the most ‘class-based party’, Joseph nevertheless notes that several more truly socialist parties failed to obtain registration. The N.P.N. has most consistently supported the longstanding goal of Nigerian conservatives that ‘the national cake’ should be equally divided among ethnic groups (as opposed to individual equality). This strategy, which delivers the goods of development through élite ‘sons of the soil’, preserves the ‘basic patron-client relations of Nigerian society’.

¹ P.R.P., op. cit. pp. 4–5.

² In Nigerian politics, feudalism has long been a code word for the system of traditional rule, particularly in the northern Emirates. Hence, while other parties imply in their rhetoric a determination to break the social dominance of the traditional (feudal) ruling class in the North, the N.P.N. manifesto promises- op. cit. p. 110–‘a land where full respect and recognition shall be accorded to the traditional rulers and institutions’.

³ West Africa, 6 August 1979, p. 1406. This is also essentially the conclusion of Joseph in ‘The Ethnic Trap’, loc. cit. p. 20. He argues in his analysis of the voting returns that ‘Individuals who have become identified as the foremost champions of their people's interests’, as were all the Presidential candidates in 1979, become ‘trapped by the ethnic perceptions of their supporters and opponents’ when they campaign as if the whole nation were ‘a single constituency’.

¹ West Africa, 28 September 1981, p. 2334.

² Ibid.

¹ The ethnic bases of the five parties are defined here as the States whose predominant ethnicity matches that of their Presidential candidate: Hausa-Fulani (Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto) for the N.P.N. candidate, Shehu Shagari (Fulani) and the P.R.P. candidate, Aminu Kanu (Hausa); Yoruba (Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo) for the U.P.N. candidate, Obafemi Awolowo; Igbo (Anambra, Imo) for the N.P.P. candidate. Nnamdi Azikiwe; and Kanuri (Borno) for the G.N.P.P. candidate, Waziri Ibrahim. In addition, to provide a more conservative standard for ‘trans-ethnic base’, Rivers State, with a large Igbo population, was counted as part of the N.P.P. base; Kwara, with a large Yoruba population, was counted as part of the U.P.N. base; and Niger, which has had close ethnic and historic ties to the Fulani Empire in the North, was counted as part of the N.P.N. base. The N.P.P. seats won in Rivers and the U.P.N. seats won in Kwara were essentially Igbo and Yoruba constituencies, respectively.

² For further evidence of a movement towards a more cross-ethnic pattern of political identification, see Whitaker, C. S. Jr, ‘Second Beginnings: the new political framework’, in Issue, xi, 1/2, Spring/Summer 1981, p. 10Google Scholar, where the following features of the election outcome are cited: no party won all the elected posts within its cultural area, state, or region; no party failed to record a significant number of its votes outside its cultural area, state, and region (a conclusion that might be disputed for the P.R.P.); no party scored a majority or plurality nationally merely by virtue of victory in its home cultural area, state, or region; and of the parties associated with the three major ethnic groups, only the U.P.N. (mainly Yoruba) could be said to have become more parochial.

¹ Joseph, ‘The Ethnic Trap’, p. 20.

² West Africa, 6 August 1979, p. 1409.

³ For a full explanation of why this crucial issue became such a significant and bitter challenge to the legitimacy of the new règime, see Joseph, Richard A., ‘Democratization Under Military Tutelage: crisis and consensus in the Nigerian 1979 elections’, in Comparative Politics (New York), xiv, 1, 10 1981, pp. 80–8.Google Scholar See also Whitaker, loc. cit. p. 13, fn. 1.

¹ West Africa, 6 April 1981, pp. 727 and 769. These three heated political issues are analysed by J. Isawa Elaigwu, ‘Federalism and the Politics of Compromise in Nigeria’, Conference on State Coherence and Self-Determination, Bellagio, Italy, June 1981, pp. 17–19.

¹ Times International (Lagos), 20 07 1981, pp. 4–9.Google Scholar

² Nigerian Statesman (Owerri), 7 07 1981.Google Scholar

¹ West Africa, 8 December 1980, p. 2476.

² ‘Comments and Recommendations on the Federal Government's White Paper on the Report on Revenue Allocation by the Governors of Bendel, Imo, Ondo, Rivers, and Cross Rivers’, Calabar, Official Document 12 of 1980. Also, West Africa, 1 September 1980, p. 1641.

³ West Africa, 9 February 1981, pp. 259 and 261–2.

¹ Ibid. 23 February 1981, PP. 357–8.

² Two months later, new legislation was enacted identical to the old Bill, save that the allocation to the States was increased by 3.5 percentage points and that to the centre reduced by a corresponding amount. West Africa, 14 December 1981, p. 3012.

³ Nigeria Newsletter (Lagos), 23 02 1981.Google Scholar

¹ Daily Star (Enugu), 9 06 1981.Google Scholar

² Yahaya, A. D., ‘PRP Crisis: the truth of the matter’, in West Africa, 15 June 1981, pp. 1349–53.Google Scholar

¹ Ibid. Also Uche Chukumerije et al., ‘Report of the Committee of Inquiry on the Party's Problems’, Lagos, 16 July 1980; and Africa, June 1981, pp. 14–19.

² Africa, June 1981, p. 15; also West Africa, 18 Janoary 1982, p. 158.

¹ West Africa, 9 February 1981, pp. 259 and 261–2.

² Whitaker, loc. cit. p. 12.

¹ P.R.P. op. cit. p. 4.

² See West Africa, 6 July 1981, pp. 1518–25, for the relevant documents.

³ Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Section 170, p. 56.

⁴ New Nigerian (Kaduna), 8 07 1981.Google Scholar

⁵ ‘Building the Foundations of a New Social Order: the first progress report of the Government of Kaduna State’, Kaduna, 1980, and Abdulkadir Balarab. Musa, ‘Why They Fear Our Forces of Democracy and Social Progress’, World Press Conference, Lagos, 22 June 1981.

¹ Haruna, Mohammed, ‘The Impeachment of Balarabe Musa’, in New Nigerian, 5 July 1981.Google Scholar

² The text of the agreement, signed by Ikoku and Okadigbo for their respective parties, is reproduced in ‘Myths and Realities of Our Struggle: documents from the N.E.P.U. days to the P.R.P.’, Zaria, 1980, a publication of the radical P.R.P. faction intended to prove the legitimacy of its claim to party authority.

³ New Nigerian, 8 July 1981.

⁴ Sunday Sketch (Ibadan), 28 June 1981.

⁵ Daily Sketch, 8 July 1981.

¹ West Africa, 20 July 1981, p. 1627.

² New Nigerian, 10 July 1981.

³ Ibid. 11 July 1981.

⁴ West Africa, 20 July 1981, p. 1635.

¹ Daily Sketch, 17 July 1981.

² New Nigerian, 13 July 1981; and West Africa, 20 July 1981, p. 1635.

³ Harber, Clive, ‘Who Counts in Kano’, in West Africa, 21–28 12 1981, p. 3033.Google Scholar

¹ The Example of Bala Mohammed: collected speeches from the Bala Memorial Ceremony, edited by Ibrahim, Rufai (Kano, 1981), pp. 73–4.Google Scholar

² New Nigerian, 24 July 1981.

³ Nigeria Standard (Jos), 22 July 1981.

⁴ West Africa, 24 August 1981, p. 1957.

⁵ Daily Times (Lagos), 29 05 1981.Google Scholar

¹ West Africa, 4 January 1982, p. 7.

² New Nigerian, 19 June and 13 July 1981, and Nigerian Herald (Ilorin), 15 June 1981.

³ Daily Times, 19 June 1981, and Sunday Sketch, 21 June 1981.

⁴ West Africa, 19 July 1982, p. 1908.

⁵ Ibid. 14 June 1982, p. 1614.

⁶ National Concord (Lagos), 18 10 1982.Google Scholar

⁷ New Nigerian, 15 and 20 October 1982, and Daily Times, 23 October 1982.

⁸ National Concord, 26 October 1982.

⁹ Ibid. 2 October 1982.

¹⁰ New Nigerian, 12 June 1981.

¹¹ The Punch (Lagos), 5 10 1982.Google Scholar

¹ Nigerian Chronicle (Calabar), 20 06 1981.Google Scholar

² West Africa, 6 September 1982, p. 2313.

³ Ibid.

¹ The ethnic minority groups of the Plateau area have not only resented and historically resisted political and cultural domination by the Hausa-Fulani emirates to the North (partly accounting for their intense devotion to Christianity), but have also felt themselves victimised ‘since the overthrow of their fellow-man, Yakubu Gowon, and the failure of the counter-coup of February 1976 in which Gowon was implicated’; Joseph, ‘The Ethnic Trap’, p.23, fn. 12. See also Elaigwu, op. cit. p. 34.

¹ State cleavage has been visible on such issues as revenue allocation, but has been less significant as an independent motivation of political fission and fusion.

² See Sklar, Richard L., ‘The Nature of Class Domination in Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 17, 4, 12 1979, pp. 531–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for an elaboration of the nature and composition of this dominant class; also Diamond, op.cit. for an analysis of its contribution to the failure of the First Republic.

¹ Sunday Tribune, 14 June 1981.

² The Punch (Lagos), 1 07 1981.Google Scholar

³ Ibid.

⁴ Daily Times, 6 June 1981.

⁵ Fagbamigbe, Olaiya, ‘Need for Workers Wages and Welfare Commission’, in Nigerian Tribune, 14 June 1981.Google Scholar

¹ Daily Times, 1 July 1981.

² Ibid. 4 June 1981.

³ Sunday Sketch, 7 June 1981.

¹ The caucus began meeting in the first half of 1980 with prominent N.P.N. politicians from Bendel, Benue, Cross River, and Rivers States. However, it was not until these politicians gathered later that year in Makurdi for the funeral of Senator Joseph Tarka – who had been a moving force in the effort, and a long-time critic of majority-group dominance in Nigeria – that they resolved to develop their consultations into a regular, ongoing caucus. The inadequate developments of roads and insufficient siting of industries in their States were among their leading concerns at the outset. Instances of open conflict between ethnic minority and majority leaders within the N.P.N. are documented in Elaigwu, loc. cit. pp. 40–1.

² Since revenue is allocated partly on the basis of equality of States, within a given geographic area, more States are likely to ensure a larger allocation of revenue. For discussion of this and other political motives and implications of the movements for new States, see Ibid. pp. 35–40.

³ Ibid. pp. 41–3.

¹ Nigerian Herald, 25 June 1981.

² This conclusion echoes that of Sklar, Richard, ‘Democracy for the Second Republic of Nigeria’, p. 16Google Scholar: ‘Henceforth in Nigeria it will be difficult for dominant class elements that seek to prevent social change by force to mobilize ethnic groups per se.’

³ Nordlinger, Eric, Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies (Cambridge, Mass., 1972).Google Scholar

⁴ The working-class consciousness created by the 1964 general strike was overwhelmed by the resurgence of ethnic consciousness in the 1964 federal election, according to Melson, Robert, ‘Ideology and Inconsistency: the “cross-pressured” Nigerian worker’, in Melson, and Wolpe, Howard (eds.), Nigeria: modernization and politics of communalism (East Lansing, 1971).Google Scholar

¹ Ake, Claude, Presidential Address to the 1981 Conference of the Nigerian Political Science Association; West Africa, 25 May 1981, pp. 1162–3.Google Scholar

² Sklar, ‘The Nature of Class Domination in Africa’, and Diamond, ‘Class, Ethnicity and the Democratic State’.

³ Ake, Claude, ‘Explaining Political Instability in New States’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, XI, 3, 1973, pp. 347–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Here, Ake traces the cause of the high premium on political power to the nature of colonial politics, in which ‘Those in power used their power with little or no restraint to maintain their privileges, and to repress those out of power who wanted to replace them’; p. 358. While the legacy of the colonial political culture contributes significantly to the pathology of modern Nigerian politics, the more basic cause is socio-economic, residing in the relationship between class formation and state power, as Ake has recognised in his more recent works. See, for example, ‘Explanatory Notes on the Political Economy of Africa’, in Ibid. XIV, 1, 1975, pp. 1–12.

⁴ Ake, 1981 Presidential Address, p. 1163.

¹ This view differs somewhat from the conclusion of Whitaker, loc. cit., on the significance of the innovations in ‘institutional architecture’. While agreeing that the profound and tragic defects in political structure greatly heightened ethnic and regional insecurity, facilitated their translation into recurrent political conflict, and so contributed to the downfall of the First Republic, I argue that the historical process cannot sufficiently be understood, nor can the dangers to democracy in the Second Republic be fully appreciated, without the class analysis developed above. Whitaker does recognise, loc. cit. p. 12, that ‘The ingeniousness of political architecture is not relevant to the solution’ of such deep socio-economic difficulties as ‘gross maldistribution of wealth, high unemployment, underproduction of food, proliferating demands for basic social amenities and services, and a high urban crime rate’, nor of the political problem of ‘observance of rules of electoral fair play’. My analysis seeks to expose the class forces that will bear heavily on these problems, and so on the fate of the Second Republic.

¹ New Nigerian, 6, 7, and 12 October 1982.

¹ Ibid. 25 October 1982.

² West Africa, 9 August 1982, pp. 2036–7. More recently, Waziri Ibrahim has predicted that President Shagari will be re-elected; Sunday New Nigerian, 24 October 1982.

¹ Daily Times, 30 September 1982.