Democracy and Prebendalism in Nigeria: Critical Interpretations

Abstract

[...]the volume succeeds not necessarily as a coherent tribute to Joseph's work, but as a valuable contribution to our knowledge of political contestation and conflict in Nigeria's uncertain democracy.

Democracy and Prebendalism in Nigeria: Critical Interpretations. Edited by Wale Adebanwi and Ebenezer Obadare. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Pp. 320; tables, index. $90.00.

Few books on African politics written in the past thirty years can claim the enduring influence of Richard Joseph's 1987 classic, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria. Although the text itself is a case study of Nigeria's Second Republic and its descent into corruption and misgovemance, Joseph's analysis offered a new, empirically situated lens for viewing "neopartimonialism," the distinctive strategy of statecraft adopted by most African regimes in the 1970s and 1980s in which formal bureaucratic and political institutions are "captured" by vertical networks of patron-client relations. Joseph's discussion of "prebendalism" provided a detailed, easily comparable lesson in how such a system could sustain itself through democratic institutions, emphasizing the role of intraelite bargaining and exchange in perpetuating a cycle of the private appropriation of state resources.

Given the challenges of governance in Nigeria's Fourth Republic, now is an excellent time to revisit Joseph's theoretical contributions. The book under review is the product of a 2011 conference held in Lagos in Joseph's honor, hosted by one of Nigeria's most reformminded governors, Dr. Kay ode Fayemi (a trained political scientist and former director of the Center for Democracy and Development in Abuja). The contributions feature both Nigerian and well-known international Nigeria specialists, each of whom makes an effort to link some aspect of Nigerian politics since the 1999 transition to continuities in prebendalist practice. Not surprisingly, this framework is wielded with more insight and nuance by some contributors than others. The most engaging chapters adhere less carefully to Joseph's theoretical apparatus, using it as a jumping off point for a careful study of contemporary affairs rather than as an organizing principle. On the whole, the volume succeeds not necessarily as a coherent tribute to Joseph's work, but as a valuable contribution to our knowledge of political contestation and conflict in Nigeria's uncertain democracy.

One central issue in Joseph's work updated for the Fourth Republic is the question of federalism and its role in facilitating useful or corrosive forms of power sharing. In an excellent chapter, Rotimi Suberu describes the evolution of federalism since the Second Republic, carefully describing the "distortion" of federal design efforts to ensure a fair, acceptable distribution of government resources by the logic of prebendalism. Similarly, Obafemi Vaughan and Muhammad Sani Umar offer historical reviews of Yoruba and Hausa/Sokoto Caliphate political narratives regarding Nigeria's federal arrangement, linking the development (and contemporary continuity) of prebendalism with the longue durée of cultural authority and ethnic mobilizational patterns in response to colonial institutions. In one of the best chapters, Oily Owen describes a local manifestation of Nigerian federalism's prebendal character through an ethnographic examination of recruitment patterns and practices in the Nigerian Police Force. Owens argues that efforts to adhere to Nigeria's "federal character" by creating ethnic and regional balance in the make-up of Nigeria's national police have made the institution "vulnerable to the infiltration of overtly political logics" (p. 155). These include the politics of "entryism," in which communities fight to ensure their representation in the state by gaming recruitment efforts in favor of their sons and daughters.

Other effective chapters branch out further still from Joseph's original targets. In what they report to be a portion of a much larger project currently on hiatus, Jane Guy er and LaRay Denzer offer the beginnings of a discursive analysis of popular Nigerian attitudes towards fuel prices. Predicting the "Occupy Nigeria" protests around the Jonathan administration's plan to eliminate fuel subsidies in early 2012 by several months, the essay describes an emerging "moral economy" around the government's poorly understood role in setting and stabilizing fuel prices in a nation where, despite its obvious oil riches, most refined petroleum products must still be imported. Conerly Casey's contribution also describes a moral economy at work, among the 'y an daba (urban gang members) in Kano. Casey's examination of youth, power, and the concept of "justice" in the midst of both neoliberal economic realities and the transformation of Kano's legal and social character following the implementation of sharia in 1999 will be required reading for students of northern Nigeria. David Pratten's account of the bottom rungs of patron-client relations in the Delta region-the youth who participate in electoral violence for hire-is also a worthy contribution to our understanding of the mechanics of prebendalism at the microlevel.

Despite its price (at $90, few copies will make their way into the hands of private buyers, and fewer still will make it into Nigerian collections), this volume will be of significant interest to anthropologists, political scientists, and contemporary historians. Of the several recent edited volumes produced by Palgrave on Nigerian political life (including another by Obadare and Adebanwi), this contribution is by far the best, and it deserves a broader readership than it is likely to receive. Those looking for current accounts of Nigeria's struggles with corruption, poor governance, and social mistrust will find this volume to be among the better available resources.