Parliament, Civil Society and Military Reform in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Nigeria marked her 50 years of independence in October 2010. More than three decades of this period were under autocratic military rule. The current experiment with democracy, the Fourth Republic, which commenced on 29 May 1999 when retired General Olusegun Obasanjo was swornin as president, is the longest attempt of practicing democratic governance in the history of the country. Indeed, the successful transition from one democratic government to another in 2007 and the peaceful transmission of political power following the death of President Umar Musa Yar’Adua, a Muslim from the North to his Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the South, in controversial circumstances without the intervention of the military marked a watershed in the institutionalization of democratic processes and the subordination of the military to civil control.

Yet, the democracy of the Fourth Republic was much less resilient than on first sight appears. It was faced with several crises in which fears of a military intervention were looming. The first drama reflecting anxiety over a military coup occurred in the first year of the return to civil rule in 1999 when a motion was tabled in the Senate calling for a pact with the United States to secure Nigeria’s nascent democracy against military incursion (Abiodun 2000:25). 1 The second was a call by Senator Joseph Kennedy Waku in an interview with Tell magazine on the military to take over power (BBC 2000). While the first instance attracted strong protest from the public opposed to the suggested dependence on a foreign power to secure democracy against the military, the second case earned the senator a suspension from the Senate and a threat of recall from his constituency. The third came when former Chief of Army Staff (1999-2001), retired General Victor Malu, made a statement on 30 January 2006 that he regretted not mobilizing the army to overthrow President Obasanjo. This provoked a crucial meeting of the leadership of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) although it went without consequence (Madugba 2006:1). The fourth was the secret return of terminally ill President Yar’Adua into the country in March 2010 under the cover of night with the mobilization of about 500 military personnel to provide security at the airport at Abuja, without the knowledge of Acting President Goodluck Jonathan. These incidents have kept alive the possibility of relapse into military rule. Indeed, in March 2010 the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Abdulrahman Dambazau, had to restate the commitment of the military to its constitutional role, assuring the public and the government that the military will resist all efforts by politicians to drag it into politics (Soriwei 2010:7). While the debate about the prospect of a return of the military has been rekindled by the above incidents, there have been moves by the various governments in the last decade of democratic rule to promote the consolidation of democracy by promoting military reform.