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Nigeria Preparations for the Return to Civilian Rule
Murtala Muhammad set in motion the stalled machinery of
devolution to civilian rule with a commitment to hand over
power
to a democratically elected government by October 1979.
The
transition, as outlined by Murtala Muhammad, would take
place in
successive stages. In August 1975, he appointed a
five-member
panel to study Gowon's plan for a nineteen-state
federation that
would "help to erase memories of past political ties and
emotional attachments." The plan, reaffirmed by the panel,
assaulted ethnic power by recommending that the
predominantly
Yoruba Western State be divided into three states, the
Igbo East
Central State into two, and the six states of the north
into nine
states, only three of which would be predominantly
Hausa-Fulani.
Murtala Muhammad claimed that he wanted to avoid the
"proliferation of states" that would highlight the
problems of
minorities and warned petitioners that no further demands
for new
states would be tolerated. In the end, seven more states
were
created. In 1976 Nigeria came to have nineteen states.
In October 1975, Murtala Muhammad named a blue-ribbon
committee, drawn from business, the professions,
universities,
and the civil service, as well as from prominent civilian
political leaders, to draft a constitution that would be
put
before a constituent assembly for approval. Awolowo, the
spokesman for the Nigerian left, was excluded from the
committee.
Murtala Muhammad cautioned the drafting committee against
opening
old wounds. He favored consensus politics that avoided the
institutionalized opposition of the former constitution.
Rather
than a British parliamentary system, he wanted executive
and
legislative functions clearly defined, preferring a strong
executive on the United States model. In his instructions
to the
committee, Murtala Muhammad said he preferred the
elimination of
all political parties, and failing that, he suggested that
parties be limited in number to those with a genuinely
national
constituency.
Murtala Muhammad was assassinated during an
unsuccessful coup
d'état in February 1976, and the country went into deep
mourning.
In less than a year, this man had captured the hearts of
many
Nigerians. The political shake-up and the decisive
leadership in
the midst of rapid economic growth seemed to promise a
bright
future. In fact, there was considerable opposition to
Murtala
Muhammad that would have become more pronounced in the
succeeding
months, but this opposition was stifled under the
outpouring of
national loss.
The attempted coup reflected dissatisfaction within the
military that was unconnected with the larger currents of
opposition in the country. Two groups of conspirators were
involved in the coup. The first, composed of middle-grade
officers, was led by Lieutenant Colonel Bukar Dimka, who
was
related to Gowon by marriage. Dimka's opposition to
Murtala
Muhammad was both professional and political. Dimka's
group
protested demobilization and alleged that the FMG was
"going
communist." A group of colonels answering to Major General
I.D.
Bisalla, the minister of defense, waited in the wings for
Dimka's
group to overthrow the government, and then planned to
seize
power. Dimka, Bisalla, and thirty-eight other conspirators
were
convicted after a secret trial before a military tribunal
and
were executed publicly by a firing squad. Evidence
published by
the FMG implied that both groups of conspirators had been
in
communication with Gowon, who was accused of complicity in
the
plot against Murtala Muhammad. The British government
refused to
accede to Nigerian demands for Gowon's extradition,
however, and
protests against the decision forced Britain to recall its
high
commissioner from Lagos.
Data as of June 1991
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