Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T11:20:54.533Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Press and Democratic Transition in Nigeria: Comparative Notes on the Abacha and Abubakar Transition Programs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Ebenezer Obadare
Get access

Extract

In only four years, Nigeria has experienced two successive transition-to-civil-rule programs. The first, implemented with shocking inconsistency by the regime of General Sani Abacha, came to an abrupt anticlimax with the late despot’s unexpected death. The second appears to have been, judging by the country’s recent political history, unusually successful, culminating in the election of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) aspirant, General Olusegun Obasanjo, as presidentelect. While various reasons have been adduced for the apparent failure of one and the relative success of the other, political analysts in the country seem to agree that the main reason has to do with the fact that the programs differed profoundly in terms of motives, methodologies, and even ends.

Type
Part 1
Information
African Issues , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , 1999 , pp. 38 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1999 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. “Introduction: The Lagos Press in the 19th Century,” in Victorian Lagos Aspects of Nineteenth Century Lagos Life, ed. Echeruo, Michael J.C., (London: Macmillan, 1977)Google Scholar; Omu, Fred I.A., Press and Politics in Nigeria (London: Longman, 1978)Google Scholar.

2. Diamond, Larry, “Nigeria: Pluralism, Statism, and the Struggle for Democracy” in Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences With Democracy, eds. Diamond, Larry, Linz, Juan J., Lip-set, Seymour Martin (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1990), 388 Google Scholar.

3. Ofeimun, Odia, “The Ngbati Press,” The News, February 14, 1994, 18 Google Scholar.

4. Tale Omole and Ayo Olukorun, “The Media and Democratization in Nigeria 1984-1996,” 1997, mimeographed; Dare, Olatunji, “The Press,” in Transition Without End: Nigerian Politics and Civil Society Under Babangida, eds. Diamond, Larry, et al. (Ibadan: Vantage Publishers, 1997), 535–551 Google Scholar.

5. Olukorun, Ayo, “Transition: Steadying a Wobbly Train,” Sunday Times (Lagos), February 2, 1997, 5 Google Scholar; Nnanna, Ochereome, “Transition Clouds Darken Again,” Vanguard, April 21, 1997,9 Google Scholar.

6. Schiller, D., “How to Think About Information,” in The Political Economy of Information, eds. Mosco, V. and Wasko, J. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 41 Google Scholar.