Republic of Nigeria
An overview of the 1998-1999 Democratization Process in Nigeria
(Abubakar Momoh and Paul-Sewa Thovoethin)
Nigeria
2001
Introduction
Nigeria’s current civil rule is a product of two futile attempts by different military heads of
state wiz, General Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) and General Sanni Abacha, to transit to civilian
rule. General Abudulsami Abubakar planned the transition, which brought into power the
current civilian regime. The Abubakar political transition programme (June 1998 - May 1999)
is the shortest in Nigeria’s political history, lasting barely one year.
It is pertinent to note that, out of approximately forty-one years of Nigeria’s independence,
civilians have successfully ruled the country for only twelve years, while the military have
ruled the country for about twenty-nine years. While Nigeria has had seven military regimes,
it has had just four civilian regimes (Shonekan’s Interim government and Obasanjo’s civilian
rule inclusive). This situation has enormous impact on the political development of Nigeria.
In order to understand and explain the present situation, there is need to reflect on the past. It
is on this premise that this article will x-ray the democratisation programme of the Abubakar
Military regime and set in context the nature of the civilian regime that was established
through the transition process.
Overview
of
General
Abubakar
Abdulsalam’s
Democratisation
Process
The 1998-1999 transition programme was against the background of two successive military
authored political transition programmes, which were dubious to start and ended up in fiasco.
The first was the lengthy political transition programme of the Babangida regime (1985-1993)
and the second by the Abacha regime (1995-1998). The Abacha transition programme, like
the Babangida episode, was a political fraud designed to entrench General Abacha in power
and was inconclusive due to his death in June 1998. The demise of General Sanni Abacha, on
June 8, 1998, ushered in the regime of General Abubakar Abdulsalam. Thus, he became
Nigeria’s Head of state, the second day after Abacha’s death, in circumstances still shrewd in
secrecy. Immediately on assumption of the reins of power, Abdulsalam began a new
democratisation course for the country.
On assumption of office, General Abdulsalam Abubakar set a new agenda for the political and
economic rejuvenation of the country. His first focus was how to launch the country back
into the comity of nations. This he found necessary due to the fact that his predecessor’s
audacious rule had won some sanctions for Nigeria from the international community. Also,
due to the sanctions imposed on Nigeria because of human rights violations and protracted
military rule, the economy of the country was seriously affected. Therefore, General
Abubakar’s administration was faced with the task of rebuilding the economy. This he did by
traveling to western nations to solicit support for his regime and the economy.
The greatest and most important task for the regime was how to return the country to civil rule
after several futile attempts by his predecessors. In doing this, General Abubakar embarked
on reconciliation and consultations with different people and groups in the country. He
admitted the failure of past attempts at democratisation in the country. In his national
broadcast of Monday July 20, 1998, he said:
2
While recrimination and buck-passing would be unhealthy, we must admit that mistakes
have been made, particularly as our most recent attempt at democratisation was marred by
manoeuvring and manipulations of structures and actions. At the end, we have only
succeeded in creating a defective foundation on which a solid democratic structure can
neither be constructed nor sustained. This is an overwhelming verdict from our
consultations (Guardian, July 21, 1998:15).
In the light of this, he dissolved the five political parties registered by the Abacha regime and
their assets were taken over by administrators appointed by the government. Similarly, all
previous elections conducted under these parties were cancelled, for lack of credibility.
Immediately, senior civil servants were posted to take charge of local government councils,
for the management of their affairs. In a bid to convince the world that the country has finally
turned to the path of democracy, Abubakar pledged not to interfere with party formation.
Consequently, Abacha’s electoral commission, the National Electoral Commission (NECON),
was dissolved and a new electoral body was established. This he called the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), which was headed by Justice Ephraim Akpata, a
retired Supreme Court judge. This body was charged with the responsibility of registering
political parties, registration of voters and the conduct of elections.
Furthermore, in an attempt to march towards a genuine and fully-fledged democratic civilian
rule, many transition implementation agencies established by the Abacha regime were
dissolved. These include the Transition Implementation Committee (TIC), National
Reconciliation Committee (NARECOM) and Power Devolution Committee (PDC). The
decrees establishing those agencies were also repealed. In light of the foregoing, political
activities resumed in all parts of the country. The electoral commission opened the floodgate
for party registration, with some specific guidelines. Thus, about fifty political associations
emerged within a month. However, only thirty of them collected registration forms from
INEC headquarters and, by the end of the close of submission of registration forms, only
twenty-four of these associations had returned their forms. Out of these twenty-four
associations, only nine of them met the conditions for registration of political parties, in
accordance with INEC guidelines. Consequently, nine political associations were registered
provisionally as political parties. These include the Alliance for Democracy (AD), All Peoples
Party (APP), Democratic Alliance Movement (DAM), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),
Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), United Democratic Party (UDP), the United Peoples Party
(UPP)
and
the
Movement
for
Democracy
and
Justice
(MDJ).
On December 5, 1998, the election for local government councils was held. This election was
used as a yardstick for the final registration of political parties. The electoral guidelines
stated, among other things, that any party that would eventually be registered must score at
least a minimum of five percent of the total number of votes in at least 24 states. Fulfilling
this and other conditions, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), All Peoples Party (APP) and
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were granted full and final registration by the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the three parties that qualified to participate in the
remaining
elections
of
the
transition
programme.
The result of the chairmanship and councillorship elections into the local government councils
showed the AD having 100 chairman and 1,071 councilors, APP, 459 chairmen and 4,650
councilors while MDJ got three chairpersons and 61 councilors. NSM and PRP won two
chairmanship seats each, with 8 and 21 councillorship seats respectively. The UPP won one
chairmanship and 26 councillorship seats, while DAM and UDP won no chairmanship seat
3
but managed to get four and 26 councillorship seats, respectively. (Tribune, December 15,
1998:2).
This result shows that the Peoples Democratic Party won the majority of the chairmanship
and councillorship seats and also has a wider geographical spread than the remaining parties.
This result also shows that the All Peoples Party (APP) came second with votes drawn from
the north. The Alliance for Democracy (AD) came third with the concentration of their
support
from
the
southwestern
part
of
the
country.
On January 9, 1999, Governorship and Houses of Assembly elections were held nationwide.
The results were not all that different from the pattern the local government elections took.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) maintained its lead by winning twenty-one
Governorship seats, the All Peoples Party (APP), won nine Governorship seats and the
Alliance for Democracy (AD) maintained its domination of the southwestern states by
winning in six southwestern states. Elections into the state Houses of Assembly also showed
the same pattern of victory by the political parties. That election was followed by the
National Assembly election, which was held on February 20, 1999. The Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) also maintained its lead, by winning sixty-nine Senatorial seats and majority
seats in the House of Representatives election; it was followed by the All Peoples Party
(APP), which won twenty-one Senatorial seats and had a considerable number of seats in the
House of Representatives. The Alliance for Democracy (AD) maintained its third position by
winning nineteen Senatorial seats and the least number of seats in the House of
Representatives. The major upset of that election was the AD victory of two Senatorial and
two House of Representatives seats in Enugu State, which was one of the strong bases of the
Peoples
Democratic
Party
in
the
eastern
part
of
the
country.
Due to the dominance of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in all previous elections, the
scene was set for an easy win for any presidential candidate presented by that party. As the
February 27, 1999 presidential election drew nearer, the AD and APP fashioned out an
alliance to checkmate the unchallenged popularity of PDP. On realising that General
Olusegun Obasanjo (Rtd), was selected as the presidential flag bearer of PDP, in the party’s
presidential primaries held in Jos, Plateau State, the AD and APP sealed their alliance talk.
Chief Olu Falae of the Alliance for Democracy was therefore chosen as the joint presidential
candidate of both the All Peoples Party (APP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD). The
most interesting thing here was that both presidential candidates were from the southwestern
states of Ogun and Ondo, respectively. This was the first time in the political history of the
country when the presidential candidates came from a particular zone of the country. This
development may not be unconnected with the fact that Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the acclaimed
winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election (who eventually died in detention, after the
annulment of that election) was from that zone. This gesture was ostensibly used to appease
the Yoruba of the southwestern part of the country.
The 1999 Presidential Election
The march toward civilian rule in Nigeria moved to the crucial stage in the last days of
February 1999, with the presidential election. On February 27, 1999, the presidential election
was held. There was low voter turnout in most parts of the country. The day after the
election, international observers or, more precisely, members of the International Election
Monitoring Group (IEMG), invited by the government to allay fears of bias or “hidden
4
agendas” in the elections, in unison estimated voter turnout at about 20%. However, the
actual election results put the turnout at between 30% and 40%.
There was a widespread disparity between the number of voters observed at the polling
stations and the final results that were reported from several states. Mr. Jimmy Carter, former
President of the United States of America, who was head of the Carter Centre, one of the
Election Monitoring Groups, subscribed to this view. Other election monitoring groups, such
as the National Democratic Institute for International affairs, the Commonwealth Observer
Group, the European Union and the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of
Nigerian human rights and civil liberty groups, shared Carter’s view on the irregularities
during the election. Most of them, however, said that they did not think the irregularities were
massive enough to question the result. This was partly informed by their findings that both
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Peoples Party (APP) were involved in box
stuffing and inflation of election results, the commonest of the irregularities (Conscience
International, May 1999:19).
This notwithstanding, the result of the presidential election confirmed the trend that emerged
since the inception of elections in Abubakar’s transition programme. The PDP maintained its
lead in most states and zones of the Federation. The hopes raised by the AD/APP alliance
proved misplaced, as the alliance lost many states to the rampaging PDP. This, however, was
attributed to the handling of the alliance and the exit of many of the APP presidential
aspirants
from
the
party
on
the
eve
of
the
election.
In all, the PDP candidate, General Obasanjo, won 18,738,15 votes representing 62.78% of the
votes, against the 11,110,287 votes representing 37.22% won by Chief Olu Falae of the
AD/APP presidential alliance. The final score sheet of that election is shown below:
TABLE 1: PRESEDENTIAL ELECTION RESULT, 1999
No.
NAME
STATE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Abia
Adamawa
Akwa Ibom
Anambra
Bauchi
Bayelsa
Benue
Borno
Cross River
Delta
Ebonyi
Edo
Ekiti
Enugu
Gombe
Imo
Jigawa
APP
NAME
OF % VOTES PDP
NAME
OF % VOTES
CANDIDATE CHIEF SCORED CANDIDATE GENERAL O. SCORED
OF FALAE VOTE
OBASANJO VOTE SCORED
SCORED
538,918
175,095
32.67
360.823
67.33
845,107
177,868
21.05
667,239
78.95
383,278
152,534
17.27
730.744
82.73
833,178
199,461
23.94
633,717
76.06
1,176,233 342,233
29.09
834,308
70.91
610,032
152,220
24.45
457.812
75.05
1,252,957 269,045
21.47
983.912
78.53
915,975
334,593
36.53
581,382
63.47
876,156
283,468
32.35
592.688
67.65
816,574
240,344
29.43
576,230
70.57
345,921
94,934
27.44
250.987
72.56
679,784
163,203
24.01
516,581
75.99
713,690
522,072
73.15
191,618
26.85
835,586
195,168
23.36
640,418
76.64
844,539
311,381
36.87
533,158
63.13
736,106
314,339
42.70
421,767
57.30
548,596
237,025
43.21
3,711,571
56.79
OF TOTAL
VOTE
CAST
5
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
Kaduna
Kano
Katsina
Kebbi
Kogi
Kwara
Lagos
Nasarawa
Niger
Ogun
Ondo
Osun
Oyo
Plateau
Rivers
Sokoto
Taraba
Yobe
Zamfara
FCT
TOTAL
1,676,029 381,350
904,713
222,458
1,193,397 229,181
512,229
172,336
984,710
476,807
659,598
189,088
1,751,981 1,542,969
597,008
173,277
871,130
140,465
475,904
332,345
801,797
668,471
794,639
607,628
931,178
693,510
672,442
173,370
1,565,603 213,328
354,427
198,829
871,039
81,290
311,578
165,061
380,078
243,755
99,022
39,788
29,848,441 11,110,287
PERCENTAGE SPREAD:
APP/AD=23 STATES PLUS FCT
SOURCE:
22.75
24.59
19.20
33.64
48.42
28.67
88.07
29.02
16.12
69.83
83.37
76.47
75.29
25.78
13.63
56.10
9.33
52.98
64.13
40.18
37.22
1,292,676
682,255
964,216
339,893
507,903
470,510
209,012
423,731
730,665
143,564
133,323
187,001
227,668
499,072
1,352,275
155,598
789,749
146,517
136,329
59.234
18,738,154
77.25
75.41
80.80
66.36
51.58
71.33
11.93
70.98
83.88
30.17
16.63
23.53
24.71
74.22
86.37
43.90
90.67
47.02
35.87
59.82
62.78
PDP=32 STATES PLUS FCT
INEC, Abuja, 1999
The analysis of this result shows that PDP won in five of the nation’s six geopolitical zones,
conceding only the southwest to the rival APP/AD alliance. This is a confirmation of the
Yoruba’s grudge against General Obasanjo. In his base he did not win a simple majority in
any of the six states, not even in his native Ogun State. Worse still, he won the mandatory
one-quarter of the votes only in two of the states: Ogun and Ekiti States. The result was not
surprising because in all the six elections previously held in the transition programme,
Obasanjo’s PDP had consistently lost by wide margins to the AD in that zone.
Using some irregularities observed by the international observers as a basis, Chief Olu Falae
rejected the outcome of the election, which he eventually challenged at the law court. But,
after some legal tussle and pleadings from different quarters, the presidential election results
were upheld and on May 29, 1999, General Olusegun Obasanjo (Rtd), who was a military
head of state from 1979 to 1983, was sworn in as the new President of Nigeria, amidst
fanfare, by General Abdulsalam Abubakar, in a manner akin to what General Obasanjo did to
Alhaji Shehu Shagari in 1979. Also, the State Governors were sworn in on the same day, in
their respective states throughout the federation. The National Assembly was also
inaugurated
some
days
later.
It is noteworthy that Abubakar’s transition programme is seen by many onlookers as a
transfer of power from the military in uniform to a military in mufti. Obasanjo, as a person
was a military president from 1976-1979. It is never a misnomer to say that his military
antecedents will seriously affect his leadership style. This reason accounts for why the man
got serious opposition from certain quarters. People saw Obasanjo as an old wine in a new
6
bottle.
Also, the three political parties that participated in the elections were parties that were
hurriedly put together in an effort to ease out the military. All the three political parties lack
an ideology and are made up of strange bed fellows. This situation signals serious problems
for these parties and the nascent civilian experiment. Indeed, these parties have been riddled
with conflicts, crises, and serious divisions. It can be said there are no parties in Nigeria
presently,
in
the
proper
sense
of
party
functioning.
Policy Concerns
There are three key areas in which there should be policy concern in relation to the
democratisation exercise. The first has to do with the electoral body (INEC). How can
Nigerians truly select an objective, representative and public-inspired INEC? At present, it is
said that many members of INEC are card-carrying members of some political party, which
shows outright partisanship. Second is the issue of party registration. The limit placed on the
number of political associations to be registered greatly limits the ability of people to freely
express themselves through party formation. The role of INEC should be restricted to party
identification rather than registration. Third is the issue of inter-governmental relations. The
Nigerian constitution is unclear, inconsistent and even contradictory in many respects and this
has created loopholes for either the executive or the legislative branches to manipulate,
creating problems for the other party. There is the vexing issue of corruption that has now
rocked the National Assembly. The institutional safeguards for corruption control, outside of
the framework of the recently enacted Anti-corruption Act, is quite weak. There is, for
instance, no protection for those who expose corruption. Fourth, is the issue of oversight
function that the National Assembly should play. Here, there is need for a well-articulated
policy framework that will address the role of the Assembly in that regard. The Executive
sees it as contravening the principle of separation of powers. This should not be the attitude.
Tied to that, there should be civil society initiative to monitor and ensure accountability in
public delivery capability. This will make civil society and politicians alike to be vigilant and
alive to their respective responsibilities. Finally, there is need for a planned programme of
reform, re-orientation and revitalization for the military (Jega, 2001:14).
Conclusion
Nigeria has witnessed the military as the major actor on the political scene for about forty-one
years of her independence. The military-supervised transition to civil rule programmes has
largely been a façade. Many of their transition programmes were truncated, aborted,
inconclusive,
or
had
military
apologists
entrenched
in
power.
General Abubakar’s transition programme was the second successful transition to civil rule
programme witnessed in the political history of Nigeria. It is interesting to note that, in
principle, General Abubakar organized an election, but it is difficult to say that the exercise
was free from manipulations, because he successfully handed over power to an ex-military
man, who observers believe could not do anything different from what Obasanjo himself did
while
in
power
as
a
military
head
of
state
in
1979.
General Abdulsalam Abubakar successfully handed over power to elected civilian
representatives. What is now left for the political class is to organize themselves in order to
7
put the military permanently in the barracks and avoid political crises that may lead the
country
into
disintegration.
Judging from the two year period of civilian rule, it is difficult to determine the direction to
which the political system is heading. There have been a lot of intra-party feuds in all three
political parties (Ashafa, 2001). The senate has changed its leadership for the second time
and is currently threatened by another leadership change. There is also an unending tussle
between the legislature and the executive branches of government. The economy is not
improving and the dividends of democracy are not felt or reaped. The toiling people are
restive and anxious. Expectations are very high, whilst public delivery is poor.
8
References
Ashafa, A.M. "Multi-Party Democracy and National Stability: The Dynamics
of Inter-Party Relations in Nigeria’s 4th Republic." Paper presented at the
Conference on Democracy and Democratization in Nigeria, 1999-2001,
organized
by
CRD&T,
BUK,
Kano,
May
28-30,
2001.
Conscience
International,
April/May
1999.
Jega, A.M. "The Impact of Military Rule on Governance and its Implications
in Nigeria." Paper presented at the Conference on Democracy and
Democratization in Nigeria, 1999-2001, organized by CDR&T, BUK, Kano,
May
28-30,
2001.
Nigeria Tribune, December 15, 1998.
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