In 2015, Nigeria's voters cast out the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). Here, A. Carl LeVan traces the political vulnerability of Africa's largest party in the face of elite bargains that facilitated a democratic transition in 1999. These 'pacts' enabled electoral competition but ultimately undermined the party's coherence. LeVan also crucially examines the four critical barriers to Nigeria's democratic consolidation: the terrorism of Boko Haram in the northeast, threats of Igbo secession in the southeast, lingering ethnic resentments and rebellions in the Niger Delta, and farmer-pastoralist conflicts. While the PDP unsuccessfully stoked fears about the opposition's ability to stop Boko Haram's terrorism, the opposition built a winning electoral coalition on economic growth, anti-corruption, and electoral integrity. Drawing on extensive interviews with a number of politicians and generals and civilians and voters, he argues that electoral accountability is essential but insufficient for resolving the representational, distributional, and cultural components of these challenges.

This volume engages in an in-depth discussion of Nigerian politics. Written by an expert group of Nigerian researchers, the chapters provide an overarching, Afrocentric view of politics in Nigeria, from pre-colonial history to the current federal system. The book begins with a series of historical chapters analyzing the development of Nigeria from its traditional political institutions through the First Republic. After establishing the necessary historical context, the next few chapters shift the focus to specific political institutions and phenomena, including the National Assembly, local government and governance, party politics, and federalism. The remaining chapters discuss issues that continue to affect Nigerian politics: the debt crisis, oil politics in the Niger Delta, military intervention and civil-military relations, as well as nationalism and inter-group relations. Providing an overview of Nigerian politics that encompasses history, economics, and public administration, this volume will be useful to students and researchers interested in African politics, African studies, democracy, development, history, and legislative studies.

Corruption is alive and well in Nigeria—and it must be eliminated. Moreover, the Nigerian church can no longer watch it go unchecked. Though conscious of his limitations as a priest and theologian, the author takes an in-depth look at how corruption has taken hold of Nigeria and its people in this scholarly work. He challenges the church as a socio-moral actor and the civil authorities that govern Nigeria, arguing that the nation will collapse if corruption continues. He notes that even though the Nigerian people have lashed out against corruption, it has only gotten worse—either because morality has been relegated to the background or not enough has been done to inculcate morality into Nigeria’s politics. The author employs a holistic approach in examining issues such as: bishops and their vision of Nigeria vis-à-vis Nigerian politics; democracy and the power equation among the various arms of government; principal biases that characterize Nigerian politics; and class affiliation and its impact in Nigerian politics. Find out how corruption is ruining Nigeria, and discover how the church and government can work together to fix the problem in Nigerian Politics and Corruption.

Looks at how Nigeria's political parties compete for power in a context of transition, terrorism, and religious and ethnic tension.

The 1970s and 1980s were times of political and religious turmoil in Nigeria, characterized by governmental upheaval, and aggressive confrontations between the Sufi brotherhoods and the Izala movement. In Islamic Reform and Political Change in Northern Nigeria, Roman Loimeier explores the intermeshing of religion in the struggle for political influence and preservation of the interests of Nigerian Muslims. Loimeier's careful scholarship combines astute readings of the work of previous scholars--both published and unpublished--with archival material and the findings of his own fieldwork in Nigeria. His work fills a substantial gap in contemporary Nigerian studies. This book provides invaluable and essential reading for serious students of Nigerian politics and of Islamic movements in Africa.

This edited collection is the product of a National Research Working Group (NRWG) established by Said Adejumobi and supported by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). It analyzes the progress made in Nigeria since the return to democratic rule in 1999 and the prospects of democratic consolidation in the country.

Since the end of civil war in 1970, Nigeria has struggled to build a stronger federal center and to reduce conflicts that have arisen from uneven development and from ethnic, regional, class and religious differences. This book provides a comprehensive account of the dynamic interplay between the political and economic forces that have shaped gover

Demonstrating how political culture facilitates or distorts political preferences and political outcomes, this book explores how the historical development of social conditions and the current social structures shape understandings and constrain individual and collective actions within the Nigerian political system. Political Culture, Change, and Security Policy examines the extent to which specific norms and socialization processes within the political and civic culture abet corruption or the proclivity to engage in corrupt practices and how they help reinforce political attitudes and civic norms that have the potential to undermine the effectiveness of government. It also delineates specific doctrinal models and strategic framework essential to the development and implementation of Nigeria’s national security policy, as well as innovative approaches to national development planning. Professor Kalu N. Kalu offers an exhaustive study that integrates several quantitative models in addressing a series of theoretical and empirical questions that inform historical and contemporary issues of the Nigerian project. The general premise is that it is not enough to simply highlight the problems of the state and address the what question, we must also address the why and how questions that drive political change, policy preferences, and competing political outcomes.

This important work, originally published in 1963, examines the social bases, strategies and structures of Nigerian political parties during the final phase of British colonial rule. As Professor Sklar explains in a new introduction for this edition, the defining characteristics of political parties today have been shaped by the intellectual origins of the independence era parties. This seminal volume is an essential tool for understanding the political and social reality of contemporary Nigeria.

After an explosion of conversions to Pentecostalism over the past three decades, tens of millions of Nigerians now claim that “Jesus is the answer.” But if Jesus is the answer, what is the question? What led to the movement’s dramatic rise and how can we make sense of its social and political significance? In this ambitiously interdisciplinary study, Ruth Marshall draws on years of fieldwork and grapples with a host of important thinkers—including Foucault, Agamben, Arendt, and Benjamin—to answer these questions. To account for the movement’s success, Marshall explores how Pentecostalism presents the experience of being born again as a chance for Nigerians to realize the promises of political and religious salvation made during the colonial and postcolonial eras. Her astute analysis of this religious trend sheds light on Nigeria’s contemporary politics, postcolonial statecraft, and the everyday struggles of ordinary citizens coping with poverty, corruption, and inequality. Pentecostalism’s rise is truly global, and Political Spiritualities persuasively argues that Nigeria is a key case in this phenomenon while calling for new ways of thinking about the place of religion in contemporary politics.