Military Legacies in Nigeria Education Policies, Processes, and Quality:The Politics of Patronage in Nigeria: 1973–2003

Nigeria’s first 40 years of independence—from 1960 to 1999, when it finally returned to democracy—were dominated by military rule. It had seven military rulers, six changes in government inspired by the military (including five successful military coups), three unsuccessful coups, and one civil war. It also had four constitutional drafting experiments and four constitutions (one was never used), four transitions to civil rule, and two civilian regimes.1 High government turnover produced multiple and frequent changes in education policies and economic development programs. From 1991 to 1999 alone, there were eight federal ministers of education across five regimes, with a further 11 ministers after the transition to democracy in 1999 until 2015.2 Under the preceding colonial governance, gender and regional disparities set in and became entrenched into the country’s education system. Regional administrative structures established by the colonial constitutions promoted education as regional affairs, which further exacerbated differences in access and uptake. For example, the Southwest region established a Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme in 1955, which the Southeastern region also adopted in 1957. In the north, while there was a free education program, it was not formally launched as UPE.3 Conscious efforts to address the differential educational access between northern and southern Nigeria as well as the government's direct involvement in the establishment and management of schools did not happen at the federal level until the 1970s, about two decades after independence.4 In early 1970s, the Federal Government began to take over schools from private owners and made it a nationwide policy in 1975.5 This marked the full involvement of the government in the ownership and management of education in the country. This summary presents findings of the Political Economy Analysis of Education in Nigeria, which focused on political intermissions during the first 40 years of the country’s independence, which was dominated by the military. The study sought to understand how political breaks and interruptions such as the repeated coups and other government transitions contributed to altering existing administrative norms in the education sector, and the relation of these interruptions and their effects to the access and quality of education.