The geography of regime survival: Abacha’s Nigeria

This article examines the state-creation process in Nigeria in the context of military regime survival in the 1990s. Nigeria entered a period of protracted political crisis following the annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election and the entrenchment of the Abacha military government. The southwest, or Yorubaland,was the hotbed of opposition to continued military rule. This research shows how the Abacha government utilized the neo-colonial strategy of ‘divide and survive’ to fragment opposition in Yorubaland, and how the government divided regional opposition both socially and spatially. A local coalition of Ekiti elites chose statehood over solidarity with their fellow Yorubas opposing Abacha, particularly those aligned with Afenifere and the Oduduwa People’s Congress. New state movements — like that for Ekiti State — promoted more local identities at the expense of pan-Yoruba solidarity and unified opposition to the regime. The article is based on six months of fieldwork in Nigeria in 2002, including a case study of the movement for the creation of Ekiti State. Overall, it seeks to contribute to our understanding of the geography of regime survival.