Oil, Politics and Violence Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture (1966-1976)

Description

When Nigeria gained independence from Great Britain in 1960, hopes were high that it would become Africa’s first superpower and a stabilizing democratic influence in the region. Instead, Nigeria reeled under one military coup after another in a story that Americans may remember mostly for the grim details of the Biafran War. With mineral wealth and over 140 million people, the most educated workforce in Africa, the new Nigeria seemed positioned for success. In this book, an insider traces the details of hope and ambition gone wrong. The country lumbered from crisis to crisis ,the democratic govern- ment eventually being overthrown in a violent military coup in January 1966 From then until 1999, the army held onto power almost uninterruptedly under a succession of increasingly authoritarian military governments and army coups. Military coups and military rule (which began as an emergency aberration) became a seemingly permanent feature of Nigerian politics. The slaughter and famine that ensued shocked the world. The author introduces a complex subject by briefly setting out the bases of distrust and potential conflict in a newborn multi-ethnic nation with, inevitably, an uneven distribution of precious resources. Then his detailed narrative shows how the mindest evolved among Nigeria’s newly indepen- dent military men that allowed one group after another to rise up, slaugh- tering old friends along with those they perceived as ethnic rivals. The author names names and explores how both the British influence and the promotion system within the military echelons aggravated rivalries between individuals and regional eythnic groups. He also shows how various factions in the military were able to hold onto power and resist civil and international pressure for democratic governance by exploiting the country’s oil wealth and ethnic divisions to its advantage.