International records / OpenAlex research

PROVENANCE OF GODFATHERISM IN NIGERIAN POLITICS

This paper attempts to capture the forces and the context that informed the rise of the godfather as a latent structural source of power in a nascent democracy. It is argued that, the overthrow of duly constituted civil authority by the military, has taught the lesson that any organized institution of state with appropriate capacity to compete with civil order can undermine the state. As a response to this institutional challenge, a “power complex” composed of constitutionally recognized state and non-state elites of power have emerged alongside a latent structural source of power (godfathers)…