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- Date Issued:
- 2000-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- Three times has post colonial Nigeria tried to operate a democratic constitution; three times have these attempts generated centrifugal conflict. Defective constitutions, inherently corrupt politicians and class struggle as explanations have limited causal logic. The recurrence of conflict only under particular conditions has tended to indicate the validity of the structural explanation, and the phased succession a cyclical interpretation. How valid is the discernment of cycles in Nigeria's political history? If the claim that "historical events are unique" is not demonstrated to follow from the nature of events, that "history repeats itself" becomes an equally possible hypothesis. All history, therefore, is reasoned history. Yet, the phases of the Nigerian conflict cycle: Northern hegemony - Southern challenge (Crisis) - military rule, indicate a struggle to appropriate the state and reveal the existence of conflict units, the needs of which are usually sought and met in the same manner. Could these conflict cycles be said, therefore, to have immanent causes?
- Date Issued:
- 1998-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- This article critically examines the depth of the reforms and elections that underpinned Nigeria's recently concluded political transition. It also analyses the important challenges confronting democratic consolidation in the face of the "imperfect" nature of the political transition, revolutionary pressures from below and factional struggles within the hegemonic elite -- all of which have direct implications for the social contract and the national question. At the end it is argued that this transition is Nigeria's last chance -- and except it transfers real power to the Nigerian people, the current struggles could signpost grave portends for the Nigerian Project.
- Date Issued:
- 2000-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- Ethiopia has embarked upon what it claims to be a novel experiment in "ethnic federalism". The ruling Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front has asserted that it is intent on forthrightly addressing the claims of ethnic groups in the country of historic discrimination and inequality, and to build a multi-ethnic democracy. The essay critically assesses this effort, concentrating on the emerging relations between the federal and regional state governments. Particular attentionis given to the strategy of revenue sharing as a mechanism for addressing regional inequities. Where appropriate, comparisons are made with the federal system in Nigeria, Africa's most well-known federal system. The article concludes that, while there may be federal features and institutions normally found in democracies, Ethiopia has not constructed a system of democratic federalism. Moreover, rather than empowering citizens at the grassroots level, Ethiopia tightly controls development and politics through regional state governments, with very little popular decision making in the development process.
- Date Issued:
- 2002-06-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- This paper examines some of the dominant social movements in Nigerian politics since independence; the causes and character of the struggles waged by them - students, workers, peasants and the Nigerian Left. It argues that these struggles constitute the mainstream of the struggles of the popular masses and achieved significant political, social and economic results. They were however limited in their overall impact on the Nigerian political economy because they lacked unity and political largely as a result of the weakness of the Nigerian Left.
- Date Issued:
- 1996-12-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- African Journal of Political Science
- Description:
- Review of: Karl Maier. This house has fallen: midnight in Nigeria. New York : PublicAffairs, 2000
- Date Issued:
- 2001-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Michigan State University. Libraries
- Collection:
- Glendora Books Supplement