Richard L. Sklar

The Nature of Class Domination in Africa

In the newly developing countries, major aspects of economic organisation are subject to foreign control. The citizens and governments of such countries learn to live with the effects of pervasive economic dependence upon the industrial powers. Foreign governments and businessmen often determine the rate and scope of local capital investment, the development and use of economic resources, the composition and direction of external trade.

NIGERIA: COMPLETING OBASANJO'S LEGACY

As president of Nigeria since 1999, former general Olusegun Obasanjo has burnished his legacy of engagement in two transitions from military dictatorship to constitutional government by affirming his resolute opposition to militarism as a form of government. In 2005, however, a shadow descended on the presidents legacy of dedication to democracy. He evidently favored consideration of a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to seek a third term despite widespread public disapproval of any such maneuver. By graciously accepting the defeat of the amendment, Obasanjo has solidified his contribution to Nigerian democracy, but much remains to be done.

The price of liberty : personality and politics in Colonial Nigeria

1. Setting for a Career 2. Early Life 3. A Political Apprenticeship 4. The Bloodless Revolution 5. Adelabu Enters National Politics 6. The Political Mind of Adelabu, 1952 7. In Search of a Political Instrument 8. Toward the Mastery of Ibadan 9. Widening Horizons 10. The Uses of Power 11. A Time of Troubles 12. Adelabu in Opposition 13. To London and Back 14. Final Battles 15. Death of a Hero.

Contradictions in the Nigerian Political System

THERE are three basic contradictions in the Nigerian political system. They may be stated briefly at the outset. First, the machinery of government is basically regionalised, but the party machinery-the organisation of the masses-retains a strong trans-regional and anti-regional tendency. Secondly, the main opposition party has relied upon the support of a class-conscious regional power group in its drive against the system of regional power. Depending upon a regional section of the political class to effect a shift in the class content of power, it was really asking that section to commit suicide. This contradiction produced a crisis in the Western Region which might easily be repeated elsewhere. Thirdly, the constitutional allocation of power is inconsistent with the real distribution of power in society. The constitution gives dominant power to the numerical majority-i.e., under existing conditions, to the northbut the real distribution of power is determined by technological development, in which respect the south is superior.

Beyond Capitalism and Socialism in Africa

Ideological conflict between capitalism and socialism is more than 150 years old in the industrial countries of Europe and North America. Its gradual extension to other parts of the world during the twentieth century has entailed a basic alteration of the terms of debate. Within the leading industrial countries, partisans have debated both the economic merits of privately-owned productive capital, and the justice of profit-taking as a right of such ownership. In socialist thought, ‘social justice’ has meant that the whole product of labour belongs to those who actually produce it; hence its value should be realised by the producers themselves, either individually, or collectively through public institutions. On that basis, socialists have promised to construct an efficient, humane, and just social order. With equal conviction, proponents of capitalism hold that no alternative economic system produces as large a volume of goods, jobs, and other material benefits for as high a percentage of the population; that social inequality is inevitable, regardless of the property system in effect or the organisation of economic production; and that justice, in any case, is always individual, never ‘social’.

Democracy For the Second Republic

Following the collapse of many civilian and constitutional governments in postcolonial Africa, most political analysts and commentators drew a dismal conclusion. They decided that democratic representation based upon freedom of speech and association would be abandoned in Africa and they proclaimed the onset of an era of authoritarian rule.1 Some analysts, in the tradition of colonialist thought, asserted that cultural and social conditions in Africa are simply unsuited to the practice of liberal democracy.2 Today in Africa, contrary to the expectations of those who accepted the prognosis of long-term authoritarian rule, liberal government has revived on a grand scale. Nigeria, the largest African country-with 90 to 100 million people, approximately 20 percent of the continental population-has chosen to reconstruct her political order upon foundations of constitutional liberty. This historic event is likely to have considerable impact upon political thought and practice in other African countries, yet Western analysts and commentators have been slow to appreciate its meaning. With few exceptions their reports have scarcely indicated the extent of Nigerias national commitment to constitutional government. Constitutional rebirth in Nigeria involved three years of public debate after an all-civilian and broadly representative Constitution Drafting Committee issued its report in September 1976.3 Following a year of uninhibited public discussion focused by Nigerias notably free press,4 the draft was scrutinized and modified by a Constituent Assembly of 228 members, of whom 203 were elected by local government councils in the nineteen states.5 The military government then amended the draft in several particulars which appear to have been largely noncontroversial. To be sure, this exercise of final authority by the military government, confirmed by its decision to dispense with a referendum to ratify the new Constitution, does detract from the civilian governments claim to democratic legitimacy. However, the thoroughness of the public debate, the freedom with which it was conducted, and the national consensus that has become manifest, together support the conclusion that Nigerias Second Republic was established upon a genuinely popular foundation. Political activity was formally inaugurated in September 1978, leading to five separate elections during July and August 1979-for state legislators, state governors, members of the Federal House of Representatives, senators, and president of the Federal Republic. Apart from the separation of executive from legislative power-specifically, the establishment of an American-type executive president and a cabinet of ministers who cannot be members of Parliament-the major aspects of the new Constitution are remarkably similar to those of the ill-fated First Republic. They include a Federal form of government, an independent judiciary, and competition for elective office between rival political parties. One striking departure from the pattern of the First Republic is the constitutional prohibition f political parties deemed to have ethnic, religious, or sectional, rather than truly national, orientations and organizational foundations. On this principle, the Federal Electoral Commission registered five parties, out of a total of nineteen applicants, to compete in the elections of 1979. While this prohibition does severely restrict the right of citizens to compete in elections, its practical effect is much less innovative than might be supposed, for two reasons: (1) the electoral system of the First Republic did foster the formation of a few large parties and transregional party coalitions; and (2) as shown by the election results, the parties that qualified for recognition by virtue of their having established a credible presence in at least two-thirds of the states are nonetheless identified with the particular interests of specific ethnic or sectional groups. If, as I suggest, the legal prohibition of sectional parties will not greatly affect the substance of political behavior; if, moreover, the liberal democratic form of government is essentially similar to that of the First Republic, are there any new political conditions that auger well for the future of constitutional government in Nigeria? Fortunately, the military governments in control of Nigeria since 1966 have wrought a fundamental and salutary change in the structure of the Nigerian state. The Federal government of the First Republic (1963-66) as erected upon a foundation of domineering regional power. There were four governmental regions-one, with a majority of the national population, in the northern part of the country, and three in the southern part. In every region the dominant group dispensed patronage and exercised authority to consolidate its own power while it discouraged or repressed opposition. Defenders of the regional power system subscribed to the regional-security maxim that resources obtained in one region should not be used to undermine the ruling group in another region, either by electoral or any other means. By enforcing this rule of political conduct, the conservative leaders of the large Northern region planned to maintain their control of the Federal Parliament. Southern conservatives were willing to tolerate Northern political supremacy at the

Duty, Honour, Country: Coping with Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence

On i i November I 965, the Government of Rhodesia, firm in its resolve to maintain minority racial rule by persons of European descent, abrogated the colonial constitution then in effect and declared its independence of Great Britain. The works under review in this essay examine the dilemmas of Zambian leaders, on the one hand, and loyalist members of the Rhodesian judiciary as well as the loyalist governor of Rhodesia, on the other. Douglas G. Anglin was a keen observer of Zambias response to the Rhodesian unilateral declaration of independence (hereinafter UDI) from his vantage point as Vice-Chancellor (executive head) of the new University of Zambia. Bennie Goldin was a participant-observer in his capacity as a judge of the High Court in Rhodesia. In both situations, the principal subjects of these authoritative studies were manipulated by the British Government. In Zambia, President Kenneth D. Kaunda was patently deceived by the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson; in Rhodesia, the loyalist judges were eventually left to fend for themselves, virtually abandoned and disowned by British authorities,

U.S. and Soviet scholars on Africa

A week before the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Washington, a group of American and Soviet scholars met in Moscow to explore how a new spirit of cooperation could be applied in Africa. The challenge was to find ways of transforming the well-established pattern of hostile competition between the two countries in that area of the world into one of collaboration for the mutual benefit of both countries and Africa. The results of the Moscow workshop are highly promising. Proposals offered by both sides call for initial attempts at

Book Reviews : Politics in the Congo: Decolonization and Independence. By CRAWFORD YOUNG. ( Princeton : Princeton University Press, 1965. Pp. ix, 659.

ize during the alert.&dquo; Technology has also played a role, as when Bureau services underwent a large-scale expansion to accommodate full use of the airplane. The congressional and interest group environment also receive attention, and we see an interesting picture of the lack of congressional control over appropriations. However, inter-agency relations do not receive as much attention as they might, except with respect to the Signal Corps-to-Agriculture transfer. Through the author’s fine administrative insight, glimpses are available of dissension within the agency, tension between practicality and science (provision of public services versus research on methods of data collection) , and government censorship (of weather data during World War II) . Only a few criticisms need to be levied. Not enough attention is given to explaining the establishment of a national weather service rather than state and/or regional services. A brief mention of Corps of Engineers’ duplication of flood forecasting work should have been elaborated. And it is at times unclear whether the author is speaking for himself or is paraphrasing reports. This volume, an excellent case history of a government agency and its broad range of services, undoubtedly is the definitive study of the Weather Bureau and its work. STEPHEN L. WASBY