sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) (08/28/85)
The Nigerian civilian government was overthrown by the Nigerian Army. Democracy in Africa suffers another defeat. I believe the official army explanation was "corruption". What actually went wrong?
aaa@link.UUCP (Wale Akinpelu) (08/29/85)
> The Nigerian civilian government was overthrown by the Nigerian Army. > Democracy in Africa suffers another defeat. I believe the official > army explanation was "corruption". What actually went wrong? To me this is not a coup d'etat. The new leader was part of the decision making group in the last government. If the problem was corruption then he should take responsibility for the problem. The correct position is that there was an internal dispute within the decision making group on the way to handle the problems facing the country and because they could not reach any agreeable mechanism they decided to change leadership. [If this had been a western country, the head of state would have resigned.] The key problems facing the country now are? 1) how to pay the foreign debt caused by the last civilian government? 2) how to deal with the people in the last civilian government who are either at large or in detention? 3) how to generate foreign reserve from other products apart from oil? I do not except the current government to do anything different on 1) and 3), but they might do something differnt on 2)? -- Wale Akinpelu AT&T Bell Laboratories {allegra,attunix,bentley,ihnp4!research,ulysses}hou2a!link!aaa