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Nigeria The Buhari Regime
On December 31, 1983, the army struck again. This time
the
brazen corruption, the economic mismanagement, and the
inept
leadership of civilians provided the grounds for military
intervention. Indeed, conditions had deteriorated so much
in the
Second Republic that when the coup came, it was widely
acclaimed.
Major General Muhammadu Buhari, a Hausa/Fulani northerner
from
Katsina State and a former member of the SMC in the
Muhammad/Obasanjo governments, became the head of state.
Because
of the great powers that his second in command, Major
General
Tunde Idiagbon, chief of staff at Supreme Headquarters,
was
believed to wield, many commentators refer to this
government as
the Buhari/Idiagbon regime. In broad outline, the
structure of
government remained essentially the same as it was under
Muhammad
and Obasanjo. At the apex was the SMC, and the subordinate
bodies
were the Federal Executive Council and the National
Council of
States.
The urgent task before the government was to salvage
the
country's economy, which had suffered from the
mismanagement of
the Second Republic and from the rapid drop in the price
of crude
oil. Nigeria had become heavily indebted to several
foreign
monetary agencies, and the price of crude oil had begun to
slide.
Buhari believed that urgent economic problems required
equally
urgent solutions. He also thought that it was not a
pressing
issue to prepare to hand power over to civilians; in fact,
all of
Nigeria's military regimes have ruled without the benefit
of
democratic checks and balances.
The Buhari government investigated and detained the top
political leaders of the Second Republic, holding them
responsible for economic excesses of the previous regime.
Constraints were placed on various groups, including the
Nigerian
Medical Association, which was outlawed, and the National
Association of Nigerian Students, and it promulgated two
decrees
that restricted freedom of the press and suppressed
criticism of
the government. Decree Number 4 forbade any journalist
from
reporting information considered embarrassing to any
government
official. Two journalists, Tunde Thompson and Nduka
Irabor, were
convicted under the decree. Decree Number 2 gave the chief
of
staff at Supreme Headquarters the power to detain for up
to six
months without trial anyone considered a security risk.
Special
military tribunals increasingly replaced law courts while
the
state security agency, the National Security Organisation,
was
given greater powers.
Buhari's controls also extended to his efforts to deal
with
the problems of "indiscipline" in the areas of
environmental
sanitation, public decorum, corruption, smuggling, and
disloyalty
to national symbols such as the flag and the anthem. He
declared
a War Against Indiscipline and specified acceptable forms
of
public behavior, such as a requirement to form lines at
bus
stops. The main concern, however, remained the economy.
The
government introduced a comprehensive package of austerity
measures. It closed the country's land borders for a
period to
identify and expel illegal alien workers and placed severe
restrictions on imports and heavy penalties on smuggling
and
foreign exchange offenses. The austerity measures made it
difficult for local industries to procure essential
imported raw
materials, leading many of them to close or to operate at
greatly
reduced capacity. Many workers were laid off, and
government
itself retrenched many workers to increase its "cost
effectiveness." All of these actions were accompanied by
high
inflation. The price of basic food items rose, and life
became
increasingly difficult, even for the affluent.
Despite the increased efficiency with which Buhari and
his
associates tackled the multifaceted national crisis, the
regime's
inflexibility caused discontent. The latter was the main
justification given for the overthrow of Buhari by General
Babangida in a palace coup on August 27, 1985, although
the
personal ambition of Babangida was an important
contributing
factor.
Data as of June 1991
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