Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0264/02643.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 35KB | 533 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02643}
$Pretitle{357}
$Title{Nigeria
Chapter 5D.   Public Order and Internal Security}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{police
npf
state
government
forces
local
armed
nigeria
nigerian
authority}
$Date{1981}
$Log{}
Country:     Nigeria
Book:        Nigeria, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 5D.   Public Order and Internal Security

     In the first two decades of Nigerian independence, political unrest has
posed recurrent problems for the developing country. In 1981 potential threats
to Nigeria's democratic experiment were generated largely by changing
socioeconomic conditions. The most obvious source of tension was rooted in
ethnically defined resentments that earlier had led to three years of civil
war (see Independent Nigeria, ch. 1). Ethnic tensions were much reduced in the
country's second decade of independence, but continued widespread ethnic
identification was reflected in the continued prominence of regionally linked
political leaders and the voting patterns of the 1979 elections (see Politics
at National Level, ch. 4).

     A more important long-term threat to public order derived from the
progressive undermining of established social patterns by urbanization and
modernization resulting largely from Nigeria's oil-fueled economic growth.
The promise of jobs, opportunity, and excitement drew migrants from rural
villages and less prosperous neighboring countries to Nigeria's teeming
cities. Lagos in particular attracted migration; its population was estimated
to have grown from 1 million in 1970 to over 3 million in 1980. But in the
cities the supply of jobs for unskilled laborers could not satisfy the
demand. Migrants were cut off from a rural life where a world view and set
patterns of behavior were imposed by close family and village relations.
Human relationships in the city were frequently impersonal, and the migrant
faced corruption, high prices in a money economy, vast and visible
differences in wealth, and the ideology-especially prevalent in Lagos-of
getting ahead by any means possible. In 1981 conditions in the cities were
partly responsible for a growing incidence of crime. Although other long-term
effects could not be assessed, it seemed likely that the urban situation
could lead in the future to further political cleavages corresponding to the
sharp socioeconomic differences visible in the cities.

     The most serious short-term threat to civilian rule came from the
contending political parties. Interparty strife and accompanying violence
had been one of the major causes of the downfall of the first republic (see
Politics in the Crisis years, ch. 1). Partisan political violence in 1981 did
not approach the levels reached in the 1960s, but during the fourteen years of
military rule it had been virtually nonexistent. Outbreaks of violence between
contending parties-generally supporters of Shagari's ruling National Party of
Nigeria (NPN) and those favoring one or more opposition parties-were
relatively common but were not of alarming proportions. In Kano State,
however, which was controlled by the opposition People's Redemption Party
(PRP), political unrest was considered sufficiently significant in 1980 for
the police to impose a ban on political meetings. In reaction to their lack
of control over the police units in the states, the nine governors not
associated with the NPN-led ruling coalition threatened to establish local
security forces. Similar police forces had been widely discredited during the
first republic when they were used by local leaders to intimidate opponents
and were disbanded by the FMG (see The Police System, this chapter). Although
not allowed under the 1979 Constitution, the formation of the Bendel State
Security System by Governor Ambrose Alli, a member of the opposition Unity
Party of Nigeria (UPN), was heralded in January 1981 as a means "to check
subversive activities against the [state] administration." Moreover Alhaji
Mallam Aminu Kano, the official leader of the divided PRP who was closer to
the NPN than others in his party, announced that "certain clever governors are
using experimental farms to train guerrillas with the support of a foreign
power." The validity of Kano's claims could not be established, but the
concept of local police was strongly opposed by federal officials including
Shagari, who noted the "danger of secession" if police forces were controlled
by those governors "who claim they have nothing to do with the federal
government and insist that their state belongs to them."

     Student unrest at the country's universities-a feature of the political
scene since the civil war and a source of concern in the Shagari
government-was continuing, if not increasing, in 1981. The most serious
incidents in recent years occurred in April 1978 and then in early 1981. In
1978 a student boycott protested an increase in university fees. The National
Union of Nigerian Students was banned, and its leaders were arrested. The
Shagari government later pardoned the students, but the ban on their
organization remained in effect. Similar disturbances broke out at two
northern universities in early 1981, leading to their temporary closure. Again
the student rampages were overtly ignited by narrow concerns over the quality
of food and accommodations. It was speculated that these upsurges of student
violence concealed deeper idealism and frustration over the inequities and
corruption in Nigerian society that the students were powerless to redress.
Other observers saw student idealism as a passing radical phase that concealed
a sense of contempt for the uneducated masses and a preoccupation with the
privileges and remunerative careers that were open to the well-educated in
Nigeria. The students did not threaten the government directly, but public
attitudes toward civilian rule could have been influenced by how the
government dealt with the problems at the universities and whether the
situation worsened.

     Symptoms of societal strains could be seen in religious violence, the
most spectacular example of which was the bloody riot that broke out in the
city of Kano in December 1980. Little was known about the various Islamic
fundamentalist groups of northern Nigeria, one of which was at the center of
the violence in Kano. According to some observers these religious sects were
populist oriented and comprised largely of people who had been displaced or
overwhelmed by Nigeria's economic growth and societal change. The sects often
included numbers of immigrants from neighboring countries and were
unaffiliated with the traditional Muslim leadership.

     The violence at Kano resulted from a confrontation between local
authorities and the Al Masifu sect led by a Muslim scholar, Alhaji Muhammadu
Marwa Maitatsine, who was born in Cameroon. Expelled from Nigeria twice in
seventeen years for disruptive behavior, Maitatsine decried what he and his
followers considered materialism and privilege and sought to purify the
practice of Islam. Al Masifu members, who were estimated to number between
3,000 and 5,000, denounced ostentatious displays of wealth such as owning
houses or wearing wristwatches and traditional Muslim customs such as facing
Mecca while praying. After a two-year period during which sect members
increasingly intimidated citizens living near their enclave in Kano and a
month after a policeman was killed by Maitatsine followers, Kano State
governor Muhammed Abubakar Rimi sent a letter to Maitatsine ordering him and
his sect to leave Kano. The violence began three weeks later on December 18
when sect members attacked orthodox Muslims praying outside the city's Grand
Mosque. The police intervened but were overwhelmed. When the police were
unable to penetrate the Al Masifu enclave, Rimi asked the federal government
to send in military troops. Ten days after the sect's initial attack on the
"infidels," the army shelled the