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Urban Riots in West Africa, 1977–85

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

John Wiseman
John Wiseman
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Politics, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne1
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Extract

My aim is to examine one particular mode of political participation: the urban riot. In the West African context its importance is enhanced by the fact that there exist few, if any, other ways in which the mass of the population can participate in the political process and seek to bring some influence to bear upon governments. For most of the time, in the majority of states in the region, constitutional mechanisms for influencing governments have been largely absent due to the prevailing climate of political authoritarianism. Only in the Gambia have competitive parties operated throughout the last 10 years, although a few other states (Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Senegal) have had this type of democratic system for part of the time. For the rest, single-party or military rule has held sway, and opportunities for influencing, or indeed replacing, governments through the ballot box have been marked by their absence. Authoritarianism has extended not only to opposition parties — or, in the case of the military, any political organisation — but also to autonomous or semi-independent pressure groups, which have in general been fairly weak, even where not banned altogether.

Type
Africana
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 509 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Page 509 note 1 An earlier version of this study was presented to the workshop organised by the European Consortium for Political Research on ‘Political Protest’ in Gothenburg, April 1986.

Page 509 note 2 The region is defined so as to include all the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).

Page 510 note 1 For a one-country study, see Lerche, C. O., ‘Social Strife in Nigeria, 1971–1978’, in Journal of African Studies (Washington, D. C.), 9, 1, Spring 1982, pp. 2–12, although his definition of ‘social strife’ includes a much wider range of phenomena than just riots.Google Scholar

Page 510 note 2 Gurr, Ted Robert, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, 1970), p. 11. Under his typology, there are two forms of ‘highly organised political violence’: conspiracy, with limited participation (e.g. coups); and internal war, with widespread popular participation.Google Scholar

Page 510 note 3 For details, see Wiseman, John A., ‘Attempted Coup in The Gambia: Marxist revolution or punk rebellion?’, in Communist Affairs (Guildford), I, 2, 1982, pp. 434–7,Google Scholar and ‘Revolt in The Gambia: a pointless tragedy’, in The Round Table (Guildford), 284, 10 1981, pp. 373–80.Google Scholar

Page 510 note 4 It has to be acknowledged that any simple dichotomy between urban and rural is misleading in the West African context when it comes to dealing with the people involved. Many living in the towns and cities are migrant labourers who have come there to work for a limited period, and who retain strong ties with their rural base to which they plan eventually to return. In other words, those men and women who at a particular moment in time are residing in a town or city have not necessarily been ‘urbanised’ in a sociological sense.

Page 511 note 1 See, for example, Saul, John S., The State and Revolution in Eastern Africa (New York and London, 1979), pp. 339–49.Google Scholar

Page 511 note 2 Cf. Wright, Sam, Crowds and Riots: a study in social organization (Beverly Hills, 1978).Google Scholar

Page 511 note 3 My main sources were a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, notably the weekly West Africa (London). For the 1981 riots in the Gambia, I was able to conduct a considerable number of interviews when I visited the country a few months later.

Page 511 note 4 The current population of Nigeria is unknown because every post-independence census has been grossly distorted for political reasons, and the most recent, in 1973, was eventually abandoned because of massive fraud. Recent estimates vary from 70 to 120 million.

Page 512 note 1 Growth in Nigeria during the last decade has been based almost entirely on the oil boom, and the economy has slumped since the decline in world prices.

Page 512 note 2 It is by no means unknown in West Africa for those engaged in quelling riots, notably the rank-and-file in both the army and the police, to participate themselves in the looting of goods from shops, along with the criminals and hooligans who are always quick to take advantage of any general confusion.

Page 513 note 1 Clarke, Peter B., ‘Ideology for Change’, in West Africa (London), 23 08 1982, provides a short summary of the background to these massive riots.Google ScholarPubMed

Page 513 note 2 The phrase is taken from Beckett, Paul and O'Connell, James, Education and Power in Nigeria (London, 1977).Google Scholar

Page 514 note 1 It might be useful to add a third category of ‘mega-cause’, which could include fluctuations in the world economy, or the high degree of social pluralism existing in most West African states due to the arbitrary division of the region by European colonialism.

Page 515 note 1 Some of the rioters in northern Nigeria during 1980–4 appear to have used guns, albeit of a fairly antiquated type.

Page 515 note 2 Young, Crawford, Ideology and Development in Africa (New Haven and London, 1982), p. 173.Google Scholar

Page 516 note 1 See Stevens, Siaka, What Life Has Taught Me (Bourne End, Bucks., 1984), although riots in Sierra Leone are only mentioned in the era before the President came to power.Google Scholar

Page 516 note 2 See Owusu, Maxwell, ‘Politics Without Parties: reflections on the Union Government proposal’, in African Studies Review (Los Angeles), 22, 1, 1979, pp. 89–108.Google Scholar

Page 517 note 1 Rawlings was not opposed to a return to civilian rule in 1979 but insisted on savage retribution against a number of the allegedly most corrupt leaders of the previous military régimes, including the execution of three former Heads of State.

Page 517 note 2 See, for example, Othman, Shehu, ‘Classes, Crises and Coup: the demise of Shagari's régime’, in African Affairs (London), 83, 333, 10 1984, pp. 441–61.Google Scholar

Page 518 note 1 Gurr, op. cit. p. 3.