The 1999 Presidential Elections in Nigeria: The Unresolved Issues

One can say with certainty that all the contradictions that had bedeviled previous democratic experiments in Nigeria were present and magnified in the February 27, 1999 election: divided loyalties, manipulation of primordial identities and loyalties, corruption and other election malpractices, lack of political discipline, and limited attention to serious structural questions.Why did Chief Olu Falae lose the election to General Olusegun Obasanjo? Several reasons can be advanced. First, Obasanjo’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) clearly had more money. Obasanjo was able to donate N 130 million and several cars to his party.

Democrazy—Dem Go Craze, O: Monitoring the 1999 Nigerian Elections

In many respects, the least important part of the 1999 elections were the elections themselves. From the beginning of General Abdusalam Abubakar’s transition program in mid-1998, most Nigerians who were not part of the wealthy “political class” of elites—which is to say, most Nigerians— adopted their usual politically savvy perspective of siddon look (sit and look). They waited with cautious optimism to see what sort of new arrangement the military would allow the civilian politicians to struggle over, and what in turn the civilians would offer the public. No one had any illusions that anything but high-stakes bargaining within the military and the political class would determine the structures of power in the civilian government. Elections would influence this process to the extent that the crowd influences a soccer match.

Disguised Tourism and the Electoral Process in Africa: A Study of International Observers and the 1998 Local Government Elections in Nigeria

This article is based on the premise that the aid establishment views Africa as probably the world’s last backwater. Simply put, bureaucrats, politicians, and other policymakers in the western world are rather content with Africa’s present status, an attitude that not only accords with their career aspirations, but also spawns a certain amount of sybaritic pleasure about the inclement condition of the continent. It is against this background that this article examines the motives and aspirations of the international observers in the Nigerian electoral process, focusing on the attitudes and the impact of the observers in the 1998 local government elections.International electoral observation and monitoring are an integral part of the global dimensions of democratization. Many writers have averred that one major reason for the upswing in Africa’s quest to democratize is the cessation of the power play between Moscow and Washington.

Collective Memory and Selective Amnesia in a Transmutational Paradox

Akin to myth, only tangentially related to the empirical truth, collective memory plays a key role in the symbolic discourse of politics, in the legitimation of political structures and action and in the justification of collective behavior.This article is a tentative incursion into the making and workings of collective memory in the recent Nigerian elections. The crisis of memory—construction, distortion, exploitation, and suppression—is evident in the Nigerian “transmutation” process—the perpetuation in power, through civilianization, of a military regime. The term “transmutation” is used here to convey the sense of a political mutation, a process of uncertain nature or progeny, certainly a transition, but one emanating from an unlikely parentage, a brutal and militarized past.

Elite Solidarity, Communal Support, and the 1999 Presidential Election in Nigeria

Modeled after the U.S. presidency, the office of the president of Nigeria is easily the most powerful position in the land. The president is both the chief of state and the head of government. The authority of the nation’s chief executive expanded greatly during the patrimonial regimes of General Ibrahim Babangida and General Sani Abacha. Indeed, not only was power concentrated in the hands of these despots, its exercise was also marked by massive corruption, brazen nepotism, and sustained brutality. Against this background, it was perhaps natural that the presidential election of February 27, 1999, would excite keen interest among the Nigerian populace, elite groups, ethnoregional blocs, and the international community. This article highlights some of the ethnoregional forces and elite interests that influenced the election and examines their possible implications for the sustenance of democracy and good governance in Nigeria.

Democrazy—Dem Go Craze, O: Monitoring the 1999 Nigerian Elections

In many respects, the least important part of the 1999 elections were the elections themselves. From the beginning of General Abdusalam Abubakar’s transition program in mid-1998, most Nigerians who were not part of the wealthy “political class” of elites—which is to say, most Nigerians— adopted their usual politically savvy perspective of siddon look (sit and look). They waited with cautious optimism to see what sort of new arrangement the military would allow the civilian politicians to struggle over, and what in turn the civilians would offer the public. No one had any illusions that anything but high-stakes bargaining within the military and the political class would determine the structures of power in the civilian government. Elections would influence this process to the extent that the crowd influences a soccer match.