Book Description

A panoramic view of military transition in Nigeria since 1970 by a collection of intellectuals, mainly professors at the University of Lagos, who in one way or another participated in or observed this period of Nigerian politics. Their clear objective is to say never again to military rule, and to anticipate and deflect any possible defence of this kind of regime. The essays contend that what the military call transition to civil rule was rather a phase in which transition programmes were permanently recycled; a dimension of power struggle; and that the military consistently desisted deferring political power to civilians. Additionally they show how military stranglehold has divided a country it claimed to unite, and mindlessly wrecked an economy through expropriation, collusion and pillage. They further demonstrate that the nation was in a more disintegrated and divided state in 1999 than 1996, the federal structure having been deformed in the aftermath of transitions, and the citizens having lost any residual confidence in their country as a nation.