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Beyond Prebendal Politics: Class and Political Struggles in Postcolonial Nigeria

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Democracy and Prebendalism in Nigeria

Abstract

It can be argued that the postpresidential election violence in Nigeria in April 2011 has very little or nothing at all to do with religion and ethnicity. Rather, the violence reinforces the argument made since the 1960s by progressive African/ist scholars about the epochal nature of west European colonialism on the continent. Nigeria is fully blessed and abundantly rich, yet about seven in ten Nigerians are poor, three out of seven desperately so. The British rigged all the foundational elections and censuses in favor of the most conservative fraction of the emergent nationalist political elite—pan-Nigerian, but largely woven around, and anchored on, the feudal political north (see also Suberu, in this volume). It is this fraction that has, for the most account, been in power since juridical independence on October 1, 1960.

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Authors
  1. ‘Kunle Amuwo
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Wale Adebanwi Ebenezer Obadare

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© 2013 Wale Adebanwi and Ebenezer Obadare

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Amuwo, ‘. (2013). Beyond Prebendal Politics: Class and Political Struggles in Postcolonial Nigeria. In: Adebanwi, W., Obadare, E. (eds) Democracy and Prebendalism in Nigeria. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137280770_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137280770_6

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-44785-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-28077-0

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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