The Political Economy of Nigeria's Post-military Elections, 1999–2007

Abstract

This article is a structural and empirical analysis of the interface between the economics and the politics of elections in post-military Nigeria. Structures and strictures of contemporary economic globalisation and market reforms have weakened nationalistic fractions of the state/political elite, led to the emergence of a largely externally-oriented national bourgeoisie and virtually removed politics from the public sphere. The result has been the increased alienation of the popular classes from politics and the apparent inability of the state/political elite to satisfactorily deal with this alienation. Market reforms during the Obasanjo years, 1999–2007, fuelled astonishing corporate and private profit for transnational capital and the state/political elite through the misuse and abuse of the oil industry. The character of the superintending state, the democracy it purveyed and the elections it organised were anything but redemptive. This article makes a case for a democracy with social relevance through the agency of political struggles whose objective will be to recover the state and politics from the stranglehold of globalisation-induced structural relations of power; they should be re-inserted into the public space where they really belong and used for public purposes such as social justice, credible and legitimate elections and participatory democracy.

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the useful comments of three anonymous reviewers of ROAPE on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

Patterned after the United States Presidential Libraries project pioneered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (& Museum) (OOPL) was launched in May 2005 (OOPL, see http://www/ooplib.org [Accessed 19 January 2009]). However, the OOPL was a controversial project. Whilst in the US funds for presidential libraries are sourced from the private sector and private foundations, the OOPL attracted funding from government and an assorted array of actual and potential government contractors: state governments; federal parastatals (including the ailing Nigerian Ports Authority which gave a massive US$1 million); ‘moneybag’ politicians and monarchs; captains of the private sector; and oil majors (which donated $20 million, about 2 billion). For all appearances, Obasanjo merely exploited the power of incumbency of his government. It is worth mentioning that the launch raked in 6 billion of the estimated 7 billion cost of the project (Gyamfi 2005, Nigerian Muse 2005, Olaniyonu 2005).