The Light That Failed

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When Shagari first took office, Nigeria was riding the crest of the oil boom. Its wells were producing up to $26 billion a year. The affluence led the government to press ahead with several expensive development projects, including the construction of a new capital city at Abuja, 325 miles to the northeast of Lagos. Shagari initially promised an end to corruption, but he soon learned that his room for maneuver was limited by the narrower aims of the northern political barons, whose support had ensured his election. Fueled by the oil boom, corruption flourished. Explains a newspaper editor: "It is not that corruption didn't exist before. It is just that there was suddenly more money around, so the asking price became higher and higher, and the corruption became more and more obvious."

Alas, by 1983, Nigeria was suffering from the worldwide oil glut and the resulting drop in prices. Its oil revenues had fallen to about $10 billion a year, while its foreign debt rose to an estimated $15 billion. After his reelection, Shagari seemed determined to deal more forcefully with corruption and the growing economic problems than he had before. He created a new ministry charged with rooting out corrupt officials. Just two days before the coup, he delivered an austerity budget aimed at reducing the government's capital spending by 30% and imports by 40%. The belt-tightening was greeted with grumbling by Nigerians, already beset by high food prices and 50% inflation and angry over the ostentatious luxury enjoyed by many of the country's leaders, though not by Shagari. Said a Nigerian economist: "Palm oil is more than ten times as costly as it was a few months ago. Yet you see more BMW and Mercedes cars in Nigeria than you do in West Germany."

The army moved on the last day of 1983, pulling off a well-planned and almost bloodless coup with efficiency. At 2:30 a.m., troops in widely scattered parts of the country moved out of their barracks and set up roadblocks at strategic points. By 3 a.m. they had secured the radio and television stations in Lagos and had begun to take prominent politicians into custody. They temporarily cut international telephone and telex lines and closed down airports, border posts and the port of Lagos. At 7:30, a member of the new junta, Brigadier Sana Abacha, announced over Nigerian radio that the Shagari government had been overthrown. For the most part, Nigerians seemed to accept the news with a shrug and an instinct that the change was not going to make matters any worse.

The only reported bloodshed occurred in the partly completed capital, Abuja. When soldiers went to the official residence to arrest President Shagari, their commander, Brigadier Ibrahim Bako,.was shot dead by a bodyguard. Shortly afterward, Shagari surrendered and was taken into custody. The junta subsequently denied early reports that he had been brought to Lagos in handcuffs.

The man who heads the new government, General Buhari, is a figure to be reckoned with. During the previous military government, he served as Nigeria's Oil Minister and before that as governor of Borno state. He attended the British Officers' Cadet School at Aldershot, near London, and the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pa. Like Shagari, he is both a Muslim from the north and a political moderate.