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Elections in Nigeria: A Grassroots Perspective

Widespread fraud and corruption in Nigeria's August-September 1983 elections, leading to yet another military coup, have been well documented. This book, however, examines the elections and the preceding campaign from a different perspective. Using a journalistic style based on anecdotal materials, the author focuses on one small town, Yardaji, in extreme northern Nigeria. His basic premise is that for civilian governments to have legitimacy in Africa, they must be based on traditional indigenous political culture. Thus, the book focuses on a village that is trying to incorporate the Nigerian second republic's U.S.-style election process into its traditional mindset. The focus on this tiny, poor, homogeneous Hausa village provides some insights into an area of African politics that is frequently overlooked. Very little research has focused on rural political activity in Africa. The emphasis in the literature is on urban middle-class political action. It is assumed that rural politics is based solely on ethnic and religious factors with little understanding by peasants of national interest and no sophistication about politics. This assumption has been particularly prevalent in the literature about Nigeria, given the civil war and frequent ethnic clashes along with the conservative nature of both civilian and military governments. Miles's thesis, however, is that—at least in Yardaji—peasant politics is not based on ethnicity and religion alone. He examines the wide variety of political activity in the village in the summer of 1983 and concludes that many interests were at work.