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Begin New Search Journal Brazilian Journal of African Studies Author Olusesan A. Osunkoya

1. Vigilante Groups and Policing in a Democratizing NigeriA: Navigating the Context and Issues

Author:
Adeniyi S. Basiru and Olusesan A. Osunkoya
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
Before the advent of colonialism in Nigeria, the various indigenous communities, like elsewhere in Africa, had evolved various self-help institutions (vigilante groups in modern sense) for maintaining public order. But, with the emergence of the colonial state and all its coercive paraphernalia, these traditional institutions of public order management, that had for centuries served the people, were relegated to the background, as the modern police force, the precursor of the present day Nigerian Police, under the direction of the colonial authorities, became the primus inter pares, in the internal security architecture of the colony (Ahire, 1991, 18). With this development, the communal/collectivist-oriented frameworks of policing that had for centuries been part of people’s social existence now constituted the informal models of policing rendering subsidiary roles.
Topic:
Security, Democratization, Governance, Police, and Vigilantism
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

2. Post-Authoritarian Nigeria: Democratizing Under Pervasive Corruption

Author:
Adeniyi S. Basiru and Olusesan A. Osunkoya
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
In the last three decades, the global intellectual spaces have been proliferated with scholarly studies which have explored the processes of democratization in the hitherto authoritarian, but now “democratizing” societies of the Global South (see Diamond 1995; Alexander 2002). Interestingly, while these studies, would appear to have to added to scholarly understanding of democracy, outside the lenses of the early “democratizers”, by identifying conditions under which democracy, once launched, in new democracies, could be safeguarded from break-down or reversal. However, they seem to have been skewed, in focus and orientations towards the experiences of the early “Third Waver” of Latin America, with scanty attention to African countries (see Diamond 1996; Mainwaring, O’Donnell and Valenzuela 1992; Mainwaring and Scully 1995). Even, few Africanist works, such as Villalon and Von Doepp (2006) and Cho and Logan (2009), that focus on Africa, by interrogating the processes of democratization while no doubt, have offered robust arguments to explaining the poor performance of Africa’s new “democracies”; sidelined the issue of corruption. Yet, the incidence of corruption, going by the publicity it has been given by regional and global institutions remains a gargantuan monster that has thwarted the continent’s march to sustainable development (Schiller 2000). It is against the backdrop of this observed gap in the literature that this article, with a focus on post-authoritarian Nigeria, examines the character of democratization process, in Africa, under condition of pervasive corruption. Following this introductory preamble, which sets the background and significance of the study, is the second section that conceptualizes and contextualizes the key concepts that are germane to this study. Section three explores and surveys extant literature on the nexus between democracy and corruption. In the section that follows, the Nigerian experience with democracy and corruption, in the post-Authoritarian era, is interrogated and discussed. Section five develops an explanatory framework for explaining the core problematique in the discourse. The sixth section sums up the arguments, reflects and concludes with a number of submissions.
Topic:
Corruption, Democratization, Governance, and Authoritarianism
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria