J. Bayo Adekson - Nigeria in Search of a Stable Civil-Military System

For you

Adedayo and Babatunde

Though now too young to know Yet in time certain to understand

First published 1981 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge

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Copyright 1981 by J. Bayo Adekson

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Adekson, J. Bayo

Nigeria in search of a stable civil-military
system

1 NigeriaPolitics and government1960
2 NigeriaArmed forcesPolitical activity
I Title

322.509669 JQ3096

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-01909-9 (hbk)

Civil-military thought, whether explicitly formulated or largely implicit, may be defined as a set of dominantly held ideas about the structure and role of the military at any given time within a particular society, interpreting that societys history and providing a basis for the evaluation of new experience. This chapter of the study aims at reconstructing the major themes in the civil-military thought of postcivil war Nigeria. The data comes partly from a crude content analysis covering the period 197079, selected with the view to highlighting certain coverage characteristics, i.e. regional and/or state differences within the federation, variation in culture, and political attitudes due to differential military exposure. The selected newspapers were combed for data in their public opinion (or letters to the editor) columns, editorials, articles, and official reports. The unit of analysis used while examining them was the theme approach, with our attention focused not just on headlines, clauses, and sentences, but even paragraphs iillustrations and entire stories, provided of course they were of civil military relevance or importance.

During the three years preceding the return to civil rule in Nigeria, there were a number of specifically military essays in the form of seminar papers written by some Nigerian scholars examining the place

Nor, in reconstructing the major themes of contemporary Nigerian civil-military thought, would it be complete or fair to leave out what some of the articulate members of the military profession had to say of themselves, about their profession, and the nature of their regime, even if largely self-serving in nature. Finally, there were the views of thousands of others, including civil servants, politicians old and new, pressure group leaders and functional elite members, expressed in one forum or another, including radio and television programmes, that might have dealt with anything military.

The foregoing were the sources tapped, from which information was collected and analysed in reconstructing the five major themeswhat this chapter styles as the five Dsof Nigerian civil-military thought since 1970. The themes are defence, development, demobilisation, demilitarisation, and democratisation. Representing different though interrelated facets of the evolution of military government in Nigeria and of the most politically significant ideas about society and the State after the civil war, the themes are discussed below beginning with defence.