Post-War Nigeria and Military Governments

Oil transformed federal finance. Rising production and the price increases of the 1970s shifted revenue away from regional agricultural exports toward oil produced mainly in the delta states and collected centrally, which made control of the federal government and of revenue allocation formulas more important than before.

Successive military governments justified their tenure by promising reconstruction, anti-corruption measures and eventual handover, while demands for more states from minority communities, and later demands from professional bodies, unions, students and the press for a return to civilian rule, ran throughout the period.

Yakubu Gowon led the post-war reconstruction programme until he was removed in a bloodless coup in July 1975. Murtala Muhammed, his successor, began a wide reorganisation of the public service, increased the number of states to nineteen in 1976 and initiated the plan to move the federal capital from Lagos to a new city at Abuja in what is now the Federal Capital Territory. He was killed in an attempted coup in February 1976 and was succeeded by Olusegun Obasanjo, who completed the transition to civilian rule.

A new constitution established a United States-style presidential system, and elections in 1979 brought Shehu Shagari to office at the head of the Second Republic. Oil revenue fell sharply in the early 1980s, debt and arrears grew, and the general election of 1983 was disputed. In December 1983 the military returned under Muhammadu Buhari, who was replaced in August 1985 by Ibrahim Babangida.

Under Babangida a structural adjustment programme was adopted after negotiations with international lenders, involving currency devaluation, reduced subsidies and privatisation; its social effects were widely contested. More states were created in 1987 and 1991, bringing the total to thirty, and the seat of government moved to Abuja in 1991. A long transition programme culminated in the presidential election of 12 June 1993, which was annulled before a result was declared; the annulment was followed by protest and by an interim administration.

Sani Abacha took power in November 1993. Political detentions, the suspension of opposition activity and the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists in 1995 led to Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth and to international sanctions. Six further states were created in 1996, bringing the total to thirty-six. Abacha died in June 1998 and his successor, Abdulsalami Abubakar, released detainees, promulgated a new constitution and organised elections that returned the country to civilian rule on 29 May 1999.

The period fixed several features of present-day Nigeria: thirty-six states and a Federal Capital Territory, a presidential system, a federal government dependent on oil revenue, and a revenue allocation debate that has never been settled.

It also left a substantial external debt, weakened public institutions and universities, and a record of detentions, censorship and executions that shaped later demands for accountability, human rights protection and resource control, particularly in the oil-producing states of the Niger Delta, including Rivers and Bayelsa. A human rights inquiry, the Oputa Panel, examined abuses from this era after 1999.