1. PREVENTING CONFLICT & DEEPENING DEMOCRACY IN NIGERIA:
STRUCTURAL CHALLENGES TO ELECTORAL AND
CONSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY1
By
J. ‘Kayode Fayemi, PhD,2
Introduction
Ten years into civilian rule in Nigeria, the scale, scope and intensity of conflict in
Nigeria threatens to undermine the gains of our democracy and challenges the
assumed teleological link between military disengagement from politics,
demilitarisation of Nigerian society and consolidation of our democracy in that order.
With so many deaths from direct violence and an exponential increase in societal
and structural violence, it also risks forcing Nigerians into the embrace of the
despotic peace of the military era. For the majority of our citizens – democracy was
supposed to bring the end of military dictatorship in form and content; they hoped
that it would bring greater involvement of ordinary people in politics, whether in the
federal, state and local institutions or even in civil society ones. They hoped for real
and immediate dividends in employment, clean water, affordable shelter, accessible
health care, improved education, reliable and consistent power supply, rehabilitated
roads and food on the table. Beyond electoral democracy though, it was also
obvious that the nation-state had become a source of unending conflict itself. Many
Nigerians of unquestionable nationalist credentials had begun to question the very
viability of Nigeria, especially if left in the hands of a centralised state. Constitutional
1
Distinguished Lecture, Peace and Conflict Studies’ Students’ Association (PACSSA), Institute of
th
African Studies, University of Ibadan on Saturday, 27 June, 2009.
2
Prior to joining partisan politics, Dr Fayemi was Director, Centre for Democracy & Development and
served variously as Adviser to the Nigerian Government on the Oputa Commission, NEPAD, MDGs
and the Security Sector Reform. He was also at various times Adviser/Consultant to ECOWAS,
African Union Secretariat, NEPAD Secretariat, United Nations’ Economic Commission for Africa on
Governance and Security Issues..
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2. reform was therefore seen as a major pivot for creating and sustaining democratic
institutions that can address deepening conflict in Nigeria.
Although the challenge of reforming the State is fundamentally structural, the
authoritarian residues of militarism over the last decade have however achieved the
purpose of turning many away from addressing these fundamental issue of structure.
The main challenge of civil society and political leadership therefore is to reconnect
democratic choices with people’s day-to-day experience and to extend democratic
principles to everyday situations in citizens’ communities and constituencies. The
fact that the public continues to cast serious doubt on the state’s capacity to manage
domestic crises and protect the security of life and property underscores primarily
the depth of disenchantment with the state of the nation. As Nigeria drifts down the
path of increasing violent conflict, there is a need to move away from current
disappointment and ask if anything could really have been different, given the origins
of the current civilian rule.
Without discounting the importance of elections in a democratising polity, it is
important to first interrogate the notion of democracy in its variegated forms –
especially in the context of transition societies. The notion as currently conceived
gives the impression of a pre-conceived destination – a uni-dimensional focus on
elections as democracy: Have elections, and every other thing shall follow! As
predicted at the time3, Nigeria has had three successive elections in 1999, 2003 and
2007, but several critical things have not followed, not least the search for innovative
institutions to manage and mediate conflict and promote good governance and
accountability. Indeed, those who gained power in these elections have refused to
tackle in a bold manner the structural problems in the Nigerian state.
It is therefore important to understand the nature and context of current problems in
Nigeria in order to proffer appropriate institutional mechanisms for mediating conflict
and promoting accountable governance.
3
See ‘Kayode Fayemi, “Military Hegemony and the Transition Program”, Issue: Journal of Opinion –
Special Edition on Nigeria, Vol.XXXXII, No.1, 1999., Journal of the African Studies Association,
Rutgers University, USA.
2

3. Explaining conflict in Nigeria
In explaining conflict in Nigeria, four issues regularly gain prominence in the debate
across the country. The first is that communal and societal conflicts are the result of
new and particularistic forms of political consciousness and identity, often structured
around ethnicity and religion in place of erstwhile ideological conflicts, especially in
the post cold war era. The second is that conflict in Nigeria is the result of the
inherently unstable structure of the country which has made crisis management
rather difficult, if not impossible; the third explains conflicts as the result of the
struggle over inadequate resources in a poverty stricken society. Finally, it is argued
that the increasing availability and privatisation of instruments of violence, which has
transformed the military balance between a resource challenged state security sector
and a thriving, even proliferating non-state formations that have benefited from trans-
national crime and the collapse of the cold war, provides an exacerbating context for
the sustenance and violent transformation of conflicts. Whilst all the above factors
are critical, it is the de-legitimation of the state due to its structural problems and the
persistent crisis of governance in Nigeria that provide more convincing explanations
for the spate of violent conflict in Nigeria and societal decay.
It is also an indication of a problem much more fundamental about the nature of the
Nigerian state, a problem that is cross-sectional, cross religion and cross regional.
The challenge is therefore to place so called religious and ethnic crisis within the
context of the people’s efforts to clarify the link between citizenship and rights whilst
handling difference and diversity in a liberal democracy? The central question is:
How do we develop institutional frameworks for the promotion of accountable
governance and sustainable development regardless of religions and ethnicities?
What should be the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders in seeking
sustainable solutions to the different understanding that exist?
Our argument is that many of the internal contradictions of the Nigerian state have
been sharpened to a point that the bare bones are now visible. The failure to
address the national(ity) question in an inclusive manner is evident in the varied
responses across country to conflicts over identity, nationality, self-determination and
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4. autonomy. These issues are, in turn, bound up with such questions as what manner
of federation do Nigerians want? Unlike in the past when government has always
decreed issues like religion, autonomy and resource control as constitutional “no-go
areas”, Nigerians are now forcing these issues in the open and the hitherto
authoritarian might of the federal centre is being put to test. Yet, true as this is, there
are other causes which reside in the political and economic realm of the Nigerian
crisis today.
For example, there is a sense in which current conflicts can be seen as a reaction to
perceived or real loss of power by an elite stratum. What is happening is therefore a
contest over raw political power: who lost power, who won power, and who wants
power back. The processes that threw up General Obasanjo as the candidate of this
elite stratum were intimately bound up with the political crisis that has gripped the
Nigerian political class and what we see today in the PDP is the most evident
demonstration of this power game..
But convincing as the ‘power’ argument is in explaining the unremitting nature of
conflict in the land, it cannot fully explain why popular imagination amongst ordinary
people have been fired by religious and ethnic icons. That explanation has to come
from somewhere else. The issue of democracy dividend assumes centrality here
when one examines the reckless abandon of those involved in these so called
religious and ethnic conflicts. There seems to be a certain logic to the action of a
people who had little at stake - especially if one locates their action within the context
of people who have nothing to lose in communities where the youths are largely
deprived. It is a fact that the foot soldiers of the religious and ethnicity-induced riots
are the unemployed youths still awaiting their own democracy dividends, hence their
susceptibility to accepting N200 to cause mayhem in Kaduna4. The problem raised
by these conflicts therefore goes beyond religion. It is about the disillusionment of
those who had been hard done by; underscoring the importance of tackling the
underlying problems which issues like ethnicity and religion feed on. As long as we
have a high level of unemployment, the hungry and the desperate, religion and
ethnicity would always provide fertile ground to be exploited by the manipulators of
4
The Governor of Kaduna State revealed in the wake of the Miss World riots in Kaduna that the
young people responsible were paid N200 by the conflict entrepreneurs.
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5. difference secure in the knowledge that there would be foot soldiers to take their war
to the street. The same is true of the exploitation of other problems around the
country.
Yet, valid as the above arguments are, it would still be wrong to dismiss the place of
religion or ethnicity altogether in the search for causes of conflict. One strand of it -
the Shari’a issue - can be seen as a response by so called Islamic fundamentalism
to a growing Christian fundamentalism under a “born-again” Christian president. The
advent and proliferation of pentecostal Christianity as a powerful social and political
force in Nigeria represents a growing concern amongst doctrinaire Moslems and
orthodox Christians alike. Under Obasanjo, there was a sense in which many
Moslems believed that Christians had appropriated the government as their own
government. The problem is that this pentecostal strain is intolerant and
fundamentalist, and viscerally opposed to Islam, unlike the erstwhile mainstream
churches (Catholic and Protestant) which are more liberal and embracing.
This has created genuine tension in the moslem community in Nigeria. Many
Christians have become more confident and outspoken, and it would appear that
there is a level of discomfort in the Moslem community about this. It would appear
that christians have concluded that religion has played a key part in ensuring the
tenacity and staying power of Moslems in government over these years, hence the
signs and symbols of government have taken on a strong, Christian streak. The
President talks loosely about being on God’s mission to change Nigeria; Ministers
openly accuse opponents as “anti-Christ and anti-religious” who want to destroy
God’s anointed government and marabouts that were predominant in the presidential
palace under General Abacha have now been replaced by pentecostal evangelists
claiming that this is ‘their turn’ to direct the nation’s affairs.
The above represents an extreme form of religiosity, which has overtaken a
population that has grown more dependent on faith based arrangements in the wake
of government’s inability to provide the basic needs of the people, and this is
threatening the State to its very foundations. Whilst it may not resolve all of the
problems, an appropriate institutional approach to the on-going crisis lies in
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6. making the State a neutral arena, separate from religion, in which people of
different faiths, and those of no faiths can meet on equal terms. This is not a
suggestion to exclude religion from public life – an argument that will be vigorously
opposed by both Moslems and Christians. Indeed, one will be underestimating the
pro-Sharia and pentecostal forces, especially the way they have seized popular
imagination and clearly influenced public opinion in the domain of operation, using
strategies to sway the ordinary people in communities where there is an acute crisis
of governance and failure of political leadership.5
Hence, while ethnicity and religion continue to hold sway in society and the state, it is
evident from the Nigerian conflict situation that it is often an ideological cover for a
crisis that is altogether more complex or more the effect than the cause of the
current pattern of cleavages. At the same time, recognising the place of identity and
difference in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society need not elicit the
demonisation that often attends the discourse about ethnicity and religion, which
results to a large extent as a pretext to limit or avoid political liberalisation and power
sharing.
The two other causes highlighted above – those of resources and poverty deserve
more attention. Recent writings in the Nigeria media and across the political
spectrum have laid heavy emphasis on the role of resources in generating violent
conflict. Cries of resource control regularly rent the air between its proponents and
opponents. This emphasis has also found its way into recent scholarship in the new
school of ‘political economy of violence’.
Although by no means limited to oil in the Niger-Delta, the most prevalent campaign
about the link between resources and conflict focuses on oil and the Delta region.
Indeed, the debate about resource control in the Delta has exemplified the
controversy over resource exploitation, appropriation and management in Nigeria.
There is of course no doubt that violent conflict has assumed a more virulent edge in
5
A recent survey on popular attitudes to democracy in Nigeria reveals, not surprisingly, that the
average Nigerian in a crisis situation will first approach a religious priest/malam, and or a traditional
ruler. The elected representative comes last in the list. See Afrobarometer survey, “Down to Earth:
Changes in Attitudes Toward Democracy and the Markets in Nigeria” November
2001,(www.afrobarometer.org)
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7. the Niger-Delta over the last decade, but the present crisis in the Niger Delta should
be understood as a long-drawn out historical process, itself propelled and animated
by complex international economic and political forces - which the local inhabitants
have been trying to comprehend, resist or turn to their own advantage these past
one hundred years with varying degrees of success and failure. In other words, it is a
story of power and resistance to it; of alien and imposed authority and attempts to
indigenise it and make it accountable to the people it purports to rule.6
There is evidence to suggest that oil has given rise to vertical conflicts between the
state and society or between dominant and subordinate regions, classes and groups
in Nigeria, given the pivotal role that oil plays in the restructuring of power relations in
Nigeria. Set in the context of unaccountable and authoritarian power structures of
the last four decades, in which communities and constituencies from where oil is
taken, have found themselves at the receiving end of this unequal power relations
especially in the 1990s, oil as a resource has played a role in fuelling or sustaining
new forms of violent conflict between state and non-state formations and what we
are now witnessing is the cumulative effect of those years of deprivation.
It is however true that other types of resource driven conflicts have received less
attention in this debate. Assets such as grazing or farming land and water
resources, have tended to give rise to horizontal conflicts that involve communities
(but not necessarily the state) are largely rural in character, and are often intertwined
with a variety of identity issues. The latest rash of conflicts in the Middle Belt of
Nigeria and within communities in the Niger-Delta derives from this type of conflict.
The lethality of these conflicts has been transformed in scope and intensity with the
unrestricted availability of small arms and unemployed youths. At the core of the
crisis in the Niger Delta as indeed in other parts of the country is the failure of politics
to allocate authority, legitimise it, and use it to achieve the social and economic ends
that conduce to communal wellbeing. The ordinary people, expelled to the margins
6
See E.J.Alagoa, The Niger Delta and its Peoples, (Ibadan: OUP, 1977); also see Ike Okonta &
Oronto Douglas, Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil in the Niger-Delta (San
Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2001)
7

8. of politics and economics for so long are now knocking insistently on the gate,
demanding to be let in the renewed context of democratisation and freedom.7
Sadly, successive Nigerian governments have seen these communal crises,
especially in the Niger Delta as purely a security matter, insisting that the country is
dependent on the oil wells to power its economy, and that any action designed to
endanger this ought to be treated as treason or economic sabotage. It was this
reasoning that informed General Babangida's enactment of the Treason and
Treasonable Offences Decree in June 1993. It was also responsible for the ordering
of troops to Odi by the current administration. What is often ignored however is the
fact that there are clear beneficiaries of the present state of violence and anarchy,
and that these beneficiaries have absolutely no incentive to work with others on a
programme that would return sustainable peace.
Without a doubt, the alternative to massive security presence and containment of
conflict is a new political and economic framework, guaranteed by a new federal
constitution, that would transfer power, and with it the control of economic
resources, to local people allowing them in turn to pay appropriate taxes to
federal coffers. This would entail the democratisation of politics in such a way
that the ordinary people would become the object and subject of development.
The final explanation is that conflict in Nigeria is poverty induced. While poor people
in Nigeria rate insecurity as a key cause of poverty (Consultation with the Poor-
2000), they do not necessarily see poverty as a cause of armed conflict. Whilst not
necessarily disputing the linkage between poverty and violent conflict, the nature of
that relationship is a very complex one. In the first place, if poverty exists and has
apparently existed as a pervasive and structural feature of the Nigerian state, why
had it not produced the sort of conflict that we have witnessed in recent years?
It would appear that the explanation for the above link might well lie in relative
deprivation, rather than absolute poverty. If anything, the poor themselves are often
prime victims of violent conflict and seek to desperately avoid conflict like a plague.
7
ibid.
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9. In a country like Nigeria where stupendous wealth lies astride abject poverty, the
seeds of conflict are easily sown and understandably germinate faster. Set against
the inability of the State to provide basic services for its citizens, new conflicts have
manifested through politicised agents who have used the conditions of the poor to
address the responses or non-responses of the State to the legitimate yearnings of
the people. This comes into clear relief in the context of a democratic transition, in
which, conflict becomes an integral, and often inevitable result of power shift since
democratisation or at least democratic transition represent in the large part
restoration of agency to some actors, but also loss of power by others accustomed to
its unaccountable use. There can be no doubt that the transformation and utilisation
of objective factors in the exacerbation of conflicts in Nigeria is not unconnected to
this fact.
Given the above, there is thus the need to make a distinction between ‘structural’
(long term) conflict and ‘conjunctural’ (short and medium term, largely subjective)
factors in conflict in Nigeria. The key to understanding and explaining conflict in
Nigeria, it seems to us, lies primarily (though not exclusively) in specific local
dynamics and responses, on the part of the communities and states, to the crisis
conditions created by the economic and political conditions of the 1980s and 90s and
in the lack of institutional mechanisms to mediate conflict when they occur. To
explain conflict, we also need a framework that (a) captures both the ‘top’ and
‘bottom’ elements in the conflict nexus, and (b) explain why some communities that
have lived together for centuries are now more vulnerable to conflict while others
have proved fairly resilient.
The above, in our view, returns our search to the patterns, texture and quality of
politics that emerged with political liberalisation and transitions, which in Nigeria’s
case reflected a reconfiguration and reassertion of pre-existing (though temporarily
submerged) structures of national and local power bases, rather than a fundamental
transformation. It also involved, in other cases, the activation of alienated new strata
– especially amongst the youths, reflecting the dangerous ideological
transformations wrought by the combined forces of authoritarianism, economic
decline and social marginalisation in Nigeria.
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10. Electoralism, Political Reform and State Legitimacy in Nigeria
We have argued elsewhere that the pacted nature of Nigeria’s 1999 transition and
the faustian bargains with the departing military produced a post-transition political
configuration which looked more like a re-packaged space for controlled clientelistic
politics than a fundamental restructuring of power.8 In spite of the changes that have
occurred under successive civilian administrations, this has significantly dented the
belief that a political reform project was in place. The fact that pacted transitions
have not necessarily led to consolidated democracies nor enhanced state legitimacy,
especially in places where the ethos, language and character of public discourse
have been completely militarised or in countries where the nation-building project
remains unfinished was one that was repeatedly recalled by those who felt
democratic consolidation will require more of national restructuring than electoral
democracy.
Indeed, a significant number of critics of Nigeria’s embrace of military transition in
1999 cautioned against misconstruing re-packaged space for ‘entrenching militarism’
as a new space for democratic endeavour. We argued in our own case that unless
the fundamental issue of the constitutional arrangements and structure of Nigeria’s
federalism was subjected to an open and transparent discussion amongst
stakeholders, state legitimacy would always remain in doubt amongst disaffected
communities within the nation state. In our view, State legitimacy by its very nature
derives from a combination of objective and subjective realities in the lives of the
average citizen. Although popular acceptance of government helps, legitimacy can
also emerge from an incremental, rather than an absolute acceptance of a ruling
government from the outset. In the case of the civilian governments in Nigeria
particularly the Yar’adua administration, there is evidence to suggest that confidence
in the government has waned following repeated perception on the part of the
populace that the government has not done enough to enhance state legitimacy. In
our view, legitimacy is mostly enhanced in situations where the state has the
capacity to provide efficient and well functioning institutions and infrastructures of
8
Fayemi, ‘Transition Program…’ op-cit.
10

11. government – legally backed and socially coherent – that together establish and
maintain an enabling environment in which human security and human development
takes place.
Whilst many Nigerians were happy to see the back of the military, the fact that the
political transition was a product of a militarily imposed constitution hardly helped
matters in a country where militarism and dissatisfaction with military rule have
combined to raise the level of tension and conflicts. Indeed, the hostility to the old
military State encouraged an outright rejection of the 1999 military constitution.
Instead, various constituencies clamoured for a new constitution that is people driven
and process led – aimed at reconstituting the Nigerian State along equitable,
transparent, socially responsible and just lines in the post military era. At every level
in the Nigerian State, many have argued that the State must be refashioned to reflect
the realities of a multifaceted society.
Although the government recognised the merit of the arguments about a defective
federal structure arising out of an imposed constitution, it has always perceived the
clamour for restructuring and a new constitution as a challenge to its own legitimacy;
hence it has refused to consider calls for a national conference to debate and agree
a new constitution, except in the opportunistic search for term-extension by
President Obasanjo in 2006. Even then, the recommendations of the National
Political Reform Committee largely stuck to the status-quo of centralised authority
with no recognition for the various communities’ clamour for power de-concentration.
Against the background of conflicts in almost every section of the country and
campaign in civil society for a more inclusive constitution making process that is
independent of the state machinery, the government went ahead to foreclose
freedom of association at the level of political participation, imposing extra conditions
for political party formation in a recent Electoral Act.9 All of these measures have
combined to further erode regime and state legitimacy and, as unjustifiable as
communal violence is amongst the larger population, government’s actions is seen
as directly linked to communal violence.
9
A Supreme Court judgement later overturned the Electoral Act and a further judgement forced the
Independent Electoral Commission to register twenty two additional parties guaranteeing freedom of
association in spite of the government’s desire to sanction this.
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12. The unsettled nation-building project has continued to put overwhelming pressure on
civil-security relations as the government resorts at the slightest opportunity to the
use of security agencies, especially the army, to curb violent opposition to state
violence. Whilst majority of Nigerians continue to deplore violence as a means of
resolving political conflict (Afrobarometer, 2001), more than two thirds of the
population still consider the Nigerian constitution defective and the current structure
unsatisfactory. Caught in this contest between the wider population and the political
leadership has been the security forces used in curbing political opposition as was
the case recently in the Ekiti elections where the military was injected into the civilian
politically partisan fray, resulting in a further dent on an already bad image among
the wider population.
Fundamental therefore to the improvement of state legitimacy and the reduction of
conflict is the agreement on a constitutional document that is not merely a legal
instrument with little standing with the people. In order to enhance state legitimacy
grounded in human rights and good governance, an organic link is needed between
the constitution as a rule of law instrument primarily concerned with restraining
government excesses, and the constitution as a legitimation of power structures and
relations based on a broad social consensus in a diverse society such as Nigeria.
This, in our view, will enhance state legitimacy by restoring trust in the State whilst
arresting desertion from it.
To date, it seems the lack of clarity and decisiveness in the political reform project by
the political leadership, both in terms of its capacity to listen to a wide variety of
views in society and in terms of managing precarious and delicate relationships
between political actors and the wider population that represents the crux of the
violent conflict. At its base has been the fundamental issue of institutions that
promote proper governance and accountability which have a central role to play in
helping the curb the erosion of state legitimacy.
Constitutional Governance and Democratisation: The Question of Structure
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13. Ten years into civilian rule, the central question in Nigeria today is whether the
country is going to consolidate or reverse this fragile democracy. It is clear that the
question of the national structure is the central issue that will not go away in the
nation building project. The question that many continue to pose will have to be
answered with all its attendant ramifications: What is this nation called Nigeria?
What does it mean to be Nigerian? How do we manage our difference and
diversity? How do we arrest the pervasive mistrust of government by the people?
These were the questions that we avoided in the events leading up to May 1999 and
they have refused to go away. Without resolving the issue of the national structure
on the basis of contestation and dialogue, it is difficult to see how Nigeria can attain
consolidation on the basis of electoralism.
Without discounting the importance of elections in a democratising polity, it is
important to first interrogate the notion of democracy in its variegated and complex
forms – especially in the context of transition societies. From the foregoing, the
notion which paints a pre-conceived destination, almost a uni-dimensional focus on
elections as democracy: Have elections, and every other thing shall follow - is a
seriously flawed one. The problem in our view is about the nature and character of
the Nigerian state, and it is not one that election can resolve, no matter how regular,
well organized and untainted they are. It is clear to most people in Nigeria, including
the political leadership, that the question of the national structure is the central issue
that will not go away in Nigeria’s quest for democratic development and effective
governance. The question that many continue to pose will have to be answered with
all its attendant ramifications: What is this nation called Nigeria? What does it mean
to be Nigerian? What is the relationship between the citizens and the state? What is
the nature of inter-governmental relations? These were the questions Nigerians
avoided in the events leading up to May 1999, in the desperation to rid the country of
its military rulers and in the hope that elections will resolve them. Without resolving
the issue of the national structure via national dialogue, it is difficult to see how
Nigerians can attain consolidation and effective governance on the basis of electoral
democracy.
Which way forward?
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14. While it is uncharitable to argue that nothing has changed in Nigeria since May 1999,
the nature of the progress made is a contested one. Evidence of Nigeria’s basic
socio-economic indicators bears testimony to this. With 28.1% of the population
living below poverty when General Obasanjo left in 1979 to over 70% of Nigerians
below poverty line in 2003, Nigeria’s poverty trap represents almost a paradox
measured against the country’s wealth. Bred by unequal power relations, the
structural and systematic allocation of resources among different groups in society
and their differential access to power and the political process, the distorted
distribution of the nation’s wealth has resulted in the enrichment of a minority at the
expense of an impoverished majority, and this minority (mostly ex-military generals
and their friends) now use the wealth to entrench their power. Also, the chronic
nature of poverty in Nigeria has a link to historical and continuing mismanagement of
resources, persistent and institutional uncertainty, weak rule of law, decrepit and/or
absent infrastructure, weak institutions of state and monumental corruption. In short,
central to the depth of poverty has been poor governance and at the core of bad
governance has been the over-centralised state. Bringing the government closer to
the people offers a clear and immediate response to the crisis of governance and
constitutional reform is the pathway to responding to this unidentified threat..
Will political developments in Nigeria allow genuine constitutional reform agenda to
take firm root in the post election era? There is room for cautious optimism, but only
if we see the elections as part of a wider struggle to address problems of militarism,
accountability and entrenchment of the rule of law, not as an end in itself.
14