Two-Partyism and Democratic Transition in Nigeria

After coming to power in 1985 via what might be described as a ‘palace coup’, General Ibrahim Babangida quickly earned himself the sobriquet of the ‘Maradona’ of Nigerian politics. In October 1989 the President surpassed his own record of unpredictability and unorthodoxy, and surprised even the closest watchers of his military régime by announcing that two parties would be established by fiat and provided with initial funding in the context of the agreed programme of transition to democratic civilian rule, laid out between 1986 and 1987, and scheduled to terminate with the inauguration of the Third Republic in 1992.