Criminal Politics: Violence, “Godfathers” and Corruption in Nigeria

elections should it choose to do so. However, Babangida annulled the results of the
presidential poll and imprisoned winning candidate Moshood Abiola, who ultimately
died behind bars. 18
Nigeria did not return to elected civilian rule until after General Abacha died in office
in 1998. By then, the excesses of the Abacha and Babangida years had thoroughly
discredited the military’s claim on power and led to popular and international
pressure for a return to civilian rule that had become impossible to resist. Abacha’s
successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, soon organized elections that ushered
the military out of power and installed retired General Olusegun Obasanjo as the first
president of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic in May 1999.
A Flawed Transition
Since 1999, Nigeria’s military has kept to its barracks. In that sense, the country’s
transition to civilian rule has been successful. But Nigeria’s civilian government has
failed to realize hopes that an end to military rule would lead to democratic
governance, progress in combating poverty and corruption, and respect for human
rights on the part of those in power.
Since the end of military rule, Nigeria has only added to its history of fraudulent and
violent elections. The 1999 elections that brought President Olusegun Obasanjo to
power were marred by such widespread fraud that observers from the US-based
Carter Center concluded that “it is not possible for us to make an accurate judgment
about the outcome of the presidential election.” 19
Nigeria’s next round of general elections, in 2003, were widely seen as a test of
Nigeria’s progress towards more open and accountable governance after four years
of civilian rule under Obasanjo. The polls were an abject failure. The 2003 elections
were more pervasively and openly rigged than the flawed 1999 polls, and far more
bloody. More than 100 people died in the two weeks surrounding the voting itself,
18 Since leaving office Babangida has refused to provide any public explanation for his decision to annul the poll. Abiola died
in July 1998—allegedly from a heart attack just as his release from prison appeared to have become imminent.
19 “Observing the 1998-1999 Nigeria Elections: Final Report,” Carter Center and National Democratic Institute for International
Affairs, November 1999, p.12, http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1152.pdf (accessed July 12, 2007).
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