Reading List: Nigerian Politics Since 1960
Twelve books to steer the curious through themes such as military rule, corruption, oil, insurgency, and religion.
From time to time I post reading lists on key topics as a way of going beyond the news of the moment. This is the four list; the first, on the Muslim Brotherhood, can be found here; the second, on Salafism, can be found here; the third, on Syria, is here.
Nigeria became independent from Britain in 1960 and has had a very complex political itinerary since then. Here are twelve books (and various other titles as additional recommendations) that provide different insights into the country’s political history. I’ve arranged them in my recommended reading order. I may follow up at some point with a reading list that directly focuses on religion in Nigeria, although religion comes up a great deal in this list.
Toyin Falola and Matthew Heaton, A History of Nigeria (Cambridge, 2008). Falola is a senior and immensely prolific scholar; in this co-authored work, he and Heaton trace Nigeria’s arc from prehistory to the early twenty-first century, and also reflect on Nigeria’s place in the world. Although this reading list focuses on developments after 1960, this book will give you a sense of the deep background that has influenced the present-day country. Other surveys worth reading include Eghosa Osaghae’s Crippled Giant: Nigeria Since Independence (Indiana, 1998) and John Campbell and Matthew Page, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, 2018).
Chimamanda Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). Adichie’s early novel is not as famous as her Americanah, but I actually prefer it. The novel alternates between the early 1960s and the late 1960s, contrasting the excitement and tension of the immediate post-independence years with the violence and disorientation of the 1967-1970 civil war. The book not only gives insight into the politics of the period (partly from the vantage point of characters who were enthusiastic about the Republic of Biafra, a short-lived breakaway state), it also points to why many people in Nigeria today still care about the collapse of the First Republic, the coup of 1966, the ensuing pogroms in the north, the civil war, and many other related issues.
Max Siollun, Oil, Politics and Violence (Algora Publishing, 2009) and the two Soldiers of Fortune volumes from 2013 and 2019, respectively. Siollun, a historian, has laid out in compelling detail much of the history of military rule in Nigeria, covering the major coups and coup attempts of 1966, 1975, 1976, 1983, 1985, and 1993, as well as the periods of Yakubu Gowon (1966-1975), Murtala Mohammed (1975-1976), Muhammadu Buhari (1983-1985), Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993), and Sani Abacha (1993-1998) - with, of course, mention as well of the career of Olusegun Obasanjo as military ruler (1976-1979) and civilian president (1999-2007). The history of military rule is important for understanding the background to Nigeria’s Fourth Republic (1999-present) and also for understanding many of the key figures who have populated Fourth Republic politics, from Obasanjo to Buhari (who returned as civilian president from 2015-2023) to many others. Meanwhile, for those doing the math and wondering what happened in between 1979 and 1983, Richard Joseph’s Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge, 1987) is essential reading on precisely that topic - with much food for thought about how some top officials approach their positions as profit-making and patronage-building opportunities.
Daniel Jordan Smith, A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular Discontent in Nigeria (Princeton, 2007). Mention of Joseph’s book leads us right into an inescapable theme when thinking about Nigeria: corruption. Smith, an anthropologist, takes the reader through various spheres where corruption has an impact on the economy but also on culture and politics. These spheres include the internet, NGOs, politics, vigilantism, and more.
Paul Lubeck, Islam and Urban Labor in Northern Nigeria: The Making of a Muslim Working Class (Cambridge, 1986). Lubeck brings our attention to the intersection of industrialization, Islam, and rapid social change in Kano, the north’s most populous city. Blending history, survey research, and ethnographic fieldwork, Lubeck looks at class consciousness among workers - giving a view from below that fleshes out the view from above that we get in some of the works mentioned earlier in this list.
Omolade Adunbi, Oil Wealth and Insurgency in Nigeria (Indiana, 2015). As Lubeck shows and as several authors above also bring out, oil transformed Nigeria - including through violence inflicted upon the environment, upon communities, and by militants back on the oil industry itself. Adunbi examines the multi-sided struggle over oil wealth in the oil-producing Niger Delta, and how the state, oil companies, communities, militants, and NGOs all interact amid that struggle. The book gives crucial background for understanding various ongoing issues, among them massive oil theft in the Delta.
Zainab Usman, Economic Diversification in Nigeria: The Politics of Building a Post-Oil Economy (Bloomsbury, 2023 - note that this book is open access). Given all the problems associated with the oil industry, does Nigeria have an “oil curse”? Not necessarily. Usman argues that the problem is more one of policymaking and economic diversification - to the extent that officeholders focus on short-term crisis management, it is difficult to achieve broad reform that could foster inclusive economic growth.
Portia Roelofs, Good Governance in Nigeria: Rethinking Accountability and Transparency in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, 2023). How is Nigeria actually governed? And where do its governance models come from? In this book, based on fieldwork in the southwest, Roelofs examines the “Lagos model” under Governor Bola Tinubu (Lagos Governor 1999-2007, President of Nigeria 2023-present) and efforts to adapt it by other governors in the southwest. Roelofs argues that “good governance” is not just about the dictates of the World Bank and international donors and how those dictates align, or don’t, with politicians’ strategies; there is also a politics of governance that plays out on the ground, including among ordinary people.
Brandon Kendhammer, Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy, and Law in Northern Nigeria (Chicago, 2016). Continuing on the theme of state-level politics and ordinary people’s attitudes, Kendhammer examines efforts to implement shari’a (or a version of it) in northern states during the early Fourth Republic years. How did ordinary Muslims see this process, what did they expect from it, and how did elites seek to “frame” the issue for the public? Based on focus groups and extensive discourse analysis, Kendhammer shows that shari’a implementation involved more than just elite manipulation or some kind of grassroots fanaticism; rather, ordinary Muslims hoped that shari’a would transform Nigerian society in a direction of greater accountability and justice.
Ebenezer Obadare, Pentecostal Republic: Religion and the Struggle for State Power in Nigeria (Zed, 2018). There are many ways to be Christian in Nigeria, but Pentecostals have clearly been a massive social and political force in the country, especially during the Fourth Republic. Obadare examines interactions between megapastors and politicians during the presidencies of Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua (2007-2010), and Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015). The book gives vital insights into how religious politics operates at the elite level.
Abdul Raufu Mustapha, Sects & Social Disorder: Muslim Identities & Conflict in Northern Nigeria (James Currey, 2014). Violence, including around religious, ethnic, partisan, and other identities, is a core feature of Nigeria’s politics. There is no more infamous Nigerian violent group than Boko Haram, and scores of books and papers have been written about the sect. I like Mustapha’s edited collection of chapters by different scholars, though, because it helps to set Boko Haram’s emergence and activities into a wider context of other groups, past and present. The other collections on related themes, edited by the late Mustapha and his collaborators, are very much worth reading as well. In terms of books on Boko Haram, one to watch out for is Bulama Bukarti’s forthcoming Inside Boko Haram: Unravelling the Myths of an African Catastrophe (Hurst, 2025).
Laura Thaut Vinson, Religion, Violence, and Local Power-Sharing in Nigeria (Cambridge, 2017). We close with a book about what is called the “Middle Belt” or north-central zone of Nigeria, one of several hotspots for violence in the country - inter-religious violence, interethnic violence, electoral violence, farmer-herder violence, etc. Vinson asks why violence occurs in some localities and not others, focusing her explanation on - as the title indicates - local politics, local government, and power-sharing. For more resources on understanding the Middle Belt, one can turn for a historical perspective to Moses Ochonu’s Colonialism by Proxy: Hausa Imperial Agents and Middle Belt Consciousness in Nigeria (Indiana, 2014) and to the many articles of Jimam Lar (for example here). For an anthropological perspective, one can turn to the many articles of Adam Higazi (for example here).
Thank you!