The Return to Democracy
Olusegun Obasanjo is sworn in as civilian president, beginning Nigeria's longest unbroken period of elected government.
- Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know — John Campbell and Matthew T. Page, Oxford University Press (2018)
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- Nigeria — Encyclopaedia Britannica
After Abacha’s death, General Abdulsalami Abubakar organised a quick transition. On 29 May 1999 former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn in as president of the Fourth Republic.
- A History of Nigeria — Toyin Falola and Matthew M. Heaton, Cambridge University Press (2008)
- Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know — John Campbell and Matthew T. Page, Oxford University Press (2018)
Democracy reopened old questions. From 1999–2000, twelve northern states extended Sharia law to criminal matters, alarming Christians and leading to deadly riots in Kaduna. An unwritten rule emerged of “zoning” the presidency between north and south. In 2015 Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian southerner from the Delta, lost to Muhammadu Buhari and conceded, the first time an incumbent was defeated at the ballot box. Bola Tinubu won the 2023 election, which opponents challenged unsuccessfully in court.
- Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know — John Campbell and Matthew T. Page, Oxford University Press (2018)
- Nigeria — Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Fourth Republic has brought real freedoms: a lively, combative press, an outspoken civil society and regular elections in which power has changed hands between parties. But it has also seen chronic insecurity, the persistence of “godfathers” who sponsor candidates in return for patronage, and turnouts that fell below 30% in 2023, a sign of how many Nigerians doubt their vote counts. Many younger voters rallied behind the outsider Peter Obi in 2023, a campaign energised by the #EndSARS generation.
- Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know — John Campbell and Matthew T. Page, Oxford University Press (2018)
Why it matters today
Nigerians have now lived under civilian rule for over a quarter of a century, the longest stretch in their history, and in 2015 an incumbent president lost and handed over power peacefully for the first time. But elections are often marred by vote-buying and violence, and many Nigerians feel democracy has not delivered security or prosperity.