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Confrontation Politics and Crisis Management: Nigerian University Students and Public Policy—a Social Commentary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Ladun Anise
Ladun Anise*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Extract

A social scientist once described Nigerian political behavior and culture in terms of a continual ability to move dangerously closest to the edge of disaster before pulling back just in time to avoid falling into the deep. Nigerians in high and low places have a passion for insisting on the absolute rightness of their positions and claims sometimes with little regard to the consequences for others as well as for themselves. Sometimes groups in the nation act as if they will rather be dead right than heed the political necessity of mutual accommodation and prudent compromise. The Daily Times Opinion of April 29, recalls Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher (1588-1679) when it declared that “Nigerians are brutish and nasty. They are contentious and cantankerous. They are irreverent. And they are ungovernable. . . . [They] are an intensely political people, the more so today, when the promise of a return to civilian government has understandably led to the flexing of muscles by all manner of interest groups.” This is national high-wire politics at its best! But it is also dangerous politics at its worst. It reflects an ingrained political attitude about which more should be learned.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 9 , Issue 1-2 , Spring/Summer 1979 , pp. 73 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1979 

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References

Notes

1. Bretton, Henry L., Power and Stability in Nigeria: The Politics of Decolonization, New York: Praeger, 1962 Google Scholar. See also Schwarz, F.A.O., Nigeria, Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1965 Google Scholar.

2. Nigerian Daily Times, April 29, 1978, editorial opinion.

3. The Constituent Assembly was elected to ratify a new constitution for Nigeria, that would serve as a basis for the post-military government. A major crisis arose in the Assembly over the creation of a Federal Sharia (Islamic personal law) Court of Appeal which lasted from April 3-April 20, 1978. At the peak of the crisis 93 members (41 percent) walked out of the Assembly rather than participate in the voting that rejected the creation of such a religious court at the Federal level; they then challenged the constitutionality of the Assembly itself.

4. Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.

5. N1.00 = $1.60(US);N = Naira.

6. Nigerian Daily Times, April 29, 1978.

7. The front page headline of the Nigerian Daily Times, April 30 read “Vandals Now Take Over.” Another headline read “Night of Terror in Lagos.” They did not exaggerate much!

8. Nigerian Daily Times, April 29, 1978.