“Recycling” of Nigerian Power Elites A Threat to Democratic Consolidation?

Abstract

The Nigeria body polity went through an “interregnum” of military dictatorship for upwards of fi fteen years. During the time, democratic institutions and practices were suspended. The effect of the long years of military rule was catastrophic. Hence, the return to democratic rule in April 1999, though epochal, was suspect. One of the major sources of anxiety was when the polity became inundated with “old hands”; new-breed politicians that were mainly the forebears of the “old hands,” as well as former militarygladiators-
turned-civilian politicians. It is this phenomenon of “recycling” that this article interrogates and juxtaposes with certain characters in advanced democracies with a view to evaluating the country’s democratic consolidation.