By Edwin Madunagu
Let us begin by quickly recalling two bits of Nigerias recent history. First, at the close of 1983, a military junta overthrew and supplanted the elected civilian government of Shehu Shagari, the first and only president of Nigerias Second Republic (1979-1983). Then, early in 1985, in the second year of the new military regime, which was headed by Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, an animated debate, similar to the one the country is now witnessing, raged in Nigerias national newspapers. The debate then was the relationship between democracy and dictatorship, or—as Leftists would more elegantly describe it—the dialectics of democracy and dictatorship. Thirty-three years later, with the global triumph of democracy, the question has transformed to the relationship between national security and the rule of law under democracy!
