Praetorian constructivism and the politics of democratic reversal in post-militarism: Reflections on Nigeria

In this discourse, attempt is made to capture and discuss the impact of praetorian rule on Nigeria's nascent democracy. Running through generals Babangida and Abacha, the paper interrogates the constructivist proclivities of the Nigerian political armies and the attendant democratic reversal. The maradonic despotism and maximum authoritarianism that characterized the Nigerian state under the two regimes are isolated and captured in the discourse. The expanded military space, constructed by the emergent military oligarchs and their political-bureaucratic benefactors has suffused the new democratic space with informal centres of power. It is argued that a new conjecture which has unleashed a form of praetorian/prefectarian democracy may continue to accommodate command culture for a long time to come. The paper concludes that the construction of a social democratic regime offers Nigeria the only hope for an alternative trajectory to popular democratic transition.