The Niger Delta Conflict and Military Reform in Nigeria
In terms of democratic governance, Nigeria has a troubled history. Since its independence in 1960, Nigeria was under military rule for 29 years. Several coup d’états led to frequent changes in military regimes, interrupted by three failed attempts to esta
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The Niger Delta Conflict and Military Reform in Nigeria Christian A. Lutz
Introduction In terms of democratic governance, Nigeria has a troubled history. Since its independence in 1960, Nigeria was under military rule for 29 years. Several coup d’e´tats led to frequent changes in military regimes, interrupted by three failed attempts to establish a fragile democratic system – none lasting longer than 6 years (1960–1966, 1979–1983 and 1993). With the renewed transition to a democratic system in 1999, Nigeria experienced its longest period of civilian rule. But this transition process is complicated by severe internal tensions. One of the most important is the Niger Delta conflict. At the core of this conflict lies the dispute about the control over resources. Nigeria is one of the world top ten oil exporting countries with oil revenues generating 40% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and over 70% of the federal budget. While the oil deposits are almost completely located in the Niger Delta, this region is, with almost 80% of the population living below the poverty line, one of the poorest of Nigeria (Joel, 2008, p. 163). Hardly surprisingly, thus, tensions arose between the central government and local residents over the distribution of oil revenues. Since 1990 various resistance groups emerged in the Niger Delta and the conflict is marked by a steady escalation of violence which gained momentum after the democratic transition of 1999. Especially since the discussion of the “greed”-thesis (Collier & Hoefler, 2000) on rebellion in resource abundant countries, there has been a vast literature on the emergence of the Niger Delta conflict and on the formation of militia groups. In this context the military is primarily examined as an actor exacerbating or containing
C.A. Lutz (*) Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] J. Ru¨land et al. (eds.), The Politics of Military Reform, Global Power Shift, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-29624-6_10, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
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insurgency (e.g. International Crisis Group, 2006a, p. 25; Oyefusi, 2008, p. 542 f.),1 while the impact of the Niger Delta resistance on the professionalism of the military is largely neglected. Yet, the large-scale deployment of the military to domestic crisis zones may have significant repercussions on civil-military relations. The central question of this chapter is therefore how the involvement of the Nigerian armed forces in the Niger Delta conflict affects military reform. I subsequently argue that, through the escalation of violence, the military has become strongly enmeshed in domestic security affairs, which contradicts the western ideal of military reform. As long as civilian control is guaranteed and civilian political institutions have sufficient legitimacy, a domestic engagement is not necessarily a crucial problem for the democratic ethos of the military (Alagappa, 2001, p. 4). However, I will show that in the
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