Olusegun Obasanjo: Termination

Abstract

Nigeria’s new constitution was adopted in 1979. It implemented a series of political reforms that for the first time included a guarantee of human rights. Now divided into nineteen states, the nation was to remain a federation but one defined within the constitution itself as “the distinctive desire of the people of Nigeria to promote national unity, foster national loyalty, and give every Nigerian a sense of belonging to the nation.”¹ It was to be led by a popularly elected president working with a cabinet drawn from different parts of the country. A federal legislature called the National Assembly would consist of two chambers, a Senate and a House of Representatives. All offices were limited to a four-year term, with the president granted the right to seek reelection only once. The previous September, Obasanjo had lifted the long-held state of emergency and the ban on political parties. He now had to oversee, as he later put it, “the freest and fairest elections of the century,” and the impatient politicians who had eagerly looked forward to the return to civilian rule could get the electoral bandwagon rolling.²