International records / OpenAlex research

Legitimacy and Governance: One More Year of Military Rule in Nigeria

When the phenomenon of military rule in Africa first attracted the attention of researchers, the thrust of inquiry was the explanation of the apparent anomaly of the coup d’etat. After years of effort, epitomized by Samuel Decalo’s work on Coups and Army Rule in Africa, a consensus seemed to have emerged that a general theory explaining military intervention could not be found. Scholarship thus turned its focus to the military as policymakers. This essay shall seek to do both — explain military intervention; and evaluate the performance of the military as policymakers. Nigeria, which is into i…