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Politics and Government in African States
1960 - 1985
Peter Duignan, Robert H. Jackson, Peter Duignan, Robert H. Jackson
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Politics and Government in African States
1960 - 1985
Peter Duignan, Robert H. Jackson, Peter Duignan, Robert H. Jackson
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Originally published in 1986, Politics and Government in African States 1960-1985 deals with the politics of sub-Saharan African states since independence. Each chapter considers the formal structure of government at the time of independence and traces the subsequent changes. Each chapter also describes the development of the state machinery, the civil service, the parastatals, defence and police forces, party structure, the political opposition and trade unions. The economics of African states are dealt with insofar as they affect politics and government.
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Informations
1WEST AFRICA: NIGERIA AND GHANA
Introduction
When Britain handed over power to her first tropical African colony in 1957, the Gold Coast was widely recognized as Britainâs model colonial possession on the continent. It had more schools and health services per capita and a better road system than any other British territory in Africa. It also boasted a robust, non-plantation, peasant economy, a prosperous middle class, a distinguished history of higher education, an able administrative elite, and a widespread respect for representative institutions. These attributes together placed the Gold Coast (in Lord Haileyâs authoritative judgment) in the most prominent position among British African dependencies in terms of progress made toward the attainment of âpolitical self-government.â1
When Ghana celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary on 6 March 1982, however, the country was experiencing its sixth change of regime under its tenth head of state. (Three heads of state had been executed before a firing squad, and the most famous of them had died in exile.) It had just experienced its fourth military coup dâetat. Refugees, exiles, emigrants, and political prisoners were numbered in hundreds of thousands. The economy, crippled by years of escalating national debts, had seemingly stagnated to the point of no return. (Accra urged its once exultant embassies to celebrate a purposely low-profile silver jubilee.)
In contrast, twenty-one years after achieving independence, neighboring Nigeria â early on nicknamed the Giant in the Sun and later widely recognized by the sobriquet Africaâs Giant â had overcome a secessionist movement, healed the wounds of a civil war, and seen its number of universities quadruple and its student population increase tenfold. It had a revenue budget of 12 billion (as compared to a budget in the mere millions at independence in 1960). Lagos had been lavishly hosting dozens of international conferences for some time.
Ghana | Nigeria | ||
---|---|---|---|
6 March 1957 | Independence (CPP: Kwame Nkrumah) | 1 Oct. 1960 | Independence (NPC/NCNC: Abubakar |
1 July 1960 | Becomes a republic | Tafawa Balewa) | |
24 Feb. 1966 | Kotoka coup {NLC) overthrows Nkrumah | 1 Oct. 1963 15 Jan. 1966 | Becomes a republic Military under Ironsi |
17 April 1967 | Ankrah succeeds Kotoka | takes over government | |
22 April 1969 | Afrifa succeeds Ankrah | 29 July 1966 | Gowon succeeds Ironsi |
1 Oct. 1969 | Return to civilan rule under Kofi Busia (PP) | 6 July 1967â12 Jan. 1970 | Nigerian civil war (Biafra) |
13 Jan. 1972 | Acheampong coup (NRC) | 29 July 1975 | Murtala Mohammed succeeds Gowon |
27 April 1972 | Death of Nkrumah in exile | 13 Feb. 1976 | Obasanjo succeeds Murtala Mohammed |
5 July 1978 | Akuffo (SMC) succeeds Acheampong | 1 Oct. 1979 | Return to civilian rule under Shehu Shagari (NPN) |
4 June 1979 | Rawlings I coup (AFRC) | 1 Oct. 1983 | Installation of Shehu |
24 Sept. 1979 | Return to civilian rule under Hilla Limann (PNP) | 31 Dec. 1983 | Shagari for second term Buhari coup |
31 Dec. 1981 | Rawlings II coup (PNDC) | 27 Aug. 1985 | Babangida coup |
Notes: | |||
CPP = Convention Peopleâs Party | |||
NLC = National Liberation Council | |||
PP = Progress Party | |||
NRC = National Redemption Council | |||
SMC = Supreme Military Council | |||
AFRC = Armed Forces Revolutionary Council | |||
PNP = Peopleâs National Party | |||
PNDC = Provisional National Defense Council | |||
NPC = Northern Peoplesâ Congress | |||
NCNC = National Convention of Nigerian Citizens | |||
NPN = National Party of Nigeria |
Country | Area (in sq. km) | Population (millions) | Life expectancy | Per capita (GNP) | Average annual growth in GNP | Average annual rate of inflation 1970â1979 | Average annual growth of agriculture 1970â1979 | Percentage of labor force in agriculture 1960 1979 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ghana | 239,000 | 11.3 | 49 yrs. | $400 | â0.8% | 32.4% | -0.2% | 64% | 54% |
Nigeria | 924,000 | 82.6 | 49 yrs. | $670 | + 3.7 | 19.0 | â0.3 | 71 | 55 |
Source: Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa, World Bank, 1981. |
The intent of this historical assessment at the end of two decades of independence is not to contrast Nigeriaâs meteoric rise to the status of economic giant and acknowledged leader of black Africa with Ghanaâs dramatic plunge from a position of initial external admiration and great internal expectation to an abyss of bankruptcy. To do so would be to ignore Nigeriaâs present grave economic problems painfully symbolized in its decision to celebrate the 1984 anniversary of independence in a low-key manner unknown since the dark days of the Biafran war. Rather the object of this essay is to indicate the fluctuations of fate and fortune to which West Africaâs two major independent states have been subjected and to draw attention to the differing ways in which common or comparable problems have been handled by the two governments. Further, we seek to understand why there have beenmore âGhana tragediesâ than âNigerian triumphsâ among independent African nations in the quarter-century since that heady midnight hour of March 5, 1957. In other words, why has the continent experienced the horror and shame of Aminâs Uganda and Nguemaâs Equatorial Guinea, the brief but bloody glory of Bokassaâs Central African Empire, war-torn Sudan and Ethiopia, sinister Zaire and gruesome Guinea (together ranked near the bottom of the list by Amnesty International in terms of human rights), indigent Tanzania and the one-man Malawi, crippled and dependent Mozambique, bizarre and coup-drunk Togo, Dahomey-Benin and Upper Volta, and erupted Chad? We must first identify what has happened before we can attempt to diagnose why.
This essay, then, is less a synchronic political or economic comparison of Ghana and Nigeria than a diachronic comparison of the history of the two countries since independence. We seek to elaborate upon and understand two sharply polarized scholarly assessments of West Africa â to contrast Ken Postâs optimistic assessment that âthe inner reality is a basic political â indeed, philosophical â question: how may a decent life be ensured for the citizens of the State, and in ensuring this decent life, how may effciency be balanced against the Rule of Law and protection from arbitrary action?â2 with John Dunnâs blunt verdict (delivered less than a generation later) that, when one evaluates the performance of West Africaâs rulers in the postcolonial period, âsadly, the blame is simpler to allocate than the praise.â3
GHANA
It was Kwame Nkrumah â founding father, first prime minister and finally inaugural president of Ghana from 1951 to 1966 â who inspired David Apter to introduce to the African scene the Weberian concept of the charismatic leader.4 Within three years of the ousting of Osagyefo the Savior, the military who had overthrown him felt satisfied that, by eradicating Nkrumaism and proscribing all those who had been associated with his philosophy, they could not only bring about the rebirth of Ghana, but eradicate the nightmare of 1957â1966 and ensure that it could never happen again. At the end of 1983 â fourteen years and nine heads of state later â Ghana appeared to be as far from regeneration as ever. Already, mass memory (proverbially short) reveres the seemingly legendary years of Nkrumahâs romantico-spectacular leadership, when West Africans could hold their heads high and be proud that they came from Ghana. Yet in 1969 the Ankrah-Afrifa military regime had little doubt about who should be its candidate for prime minister of the putative Second Republic. Professor Kofi Busia â a quiet intellectual, a long-time leader of the opposition to Nkrumah, and a one-time administrator brought up in the British colonial tradition of order and good government â epitomized the opposite of everything the flamboyant Golden Boy of Africa had stood for: here was the embodiment of democratic championship and unobtrusive leadership.
But Ghanaâs Second Republic was even more short-lived than its first, and from 1972 to 1979 the country was once again under military rule. The back-to-civilian-rule election of 1979 was a concession wrung from the stonewalling General Acheampong and his equally reluctant successor, General Akuffo, by the determination of a bold bourgeoisie to end military rule. On the very eve of this election the army intervened once again. Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings postponed rather than canceled the impending general election. Three months later, in the wake of a rigorous and often insensitive âhouse-cleaningâ exercise aimed at purging the country of corruption in high places, he handed back power. Nevertheless, the incoming President of the Third Republic, Dr. Hilla Limann (perhaps considered safe because he was so unknown and so inexperienced in politics), was left in no public doubt that he was head of state by grace of Jerry Rawlings, who would always be watching from the wings. The military (and Jerry Rawlings) were back in control within two years â as of December 31, 1981. Five recorded (and several rumored) coup attempts have taken place since then. This, added to Ghanaâs record of six heads of state dead within a decade, suggests that the country has yet to solve its fundamental problem: how to make the activities of the head of state coincide with the best interests of modern Ghana. Equally important is the question of who can fill the top position to the satisfaction of the nation.
The Legislature
Ghana has demonstrated a phenomenon familiar to independent Africa â namely a shrinking of the arena for meaningful participation and a constriction of the freedom of electoral choice.5 This de-democratization has occurred in the commonplace West African progression ...