A Letter from Nigeria

The end of civilian rule in Nigeria, a country regarded as a happy exception to the trend toward one-party dictatorships in newly-independent countries, has far-reaching political implications.

The popular Western version of Nigeria—a showplace of democracy in black Africa—was a thinly-disguised fraud. The vaunted multi-party system masked corrosive disunity, not creative opposition. Racked by corruption and violence, the country had been unable to hold an honest election since its independence was proclaimed in 1960. A chain of political crises divided the young nation and nearly broke it up altogether. By the time of the first post-independence general elections, December 1964, there had been an important realignment of political forces—the conflict now lay between two major groupings, the Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) which dominated the North, and the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) with its strength in the three southern regions—West, Mid-West and Eas...