A REVIEW OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF MILITARY REGIMES TO SOCIAL MOBILIZATION IN NIGERIA, 1966 – 1996

Abstract

The work is a critical review of social mobilization policies and programmes under the military regimes in Nigeria from 1966-1996.  The findings from the review indicate that the social mobilization programmes pursued under the military regimes/administration in Nigeria had laudable objectives but were implemented using faulty strategies, approach and poor planning.  For example, the use of coercion in place of persuasion and enlightenment for implementing the programme of War against Indiscipline, popularly known as WAI by the Buhari/ Idiagbon regime, made the programme vulnerable to relapse once the opportunity presented itself by the overthrow of the regime by the General Babangida Administration.  Similarly, the behaviour of the military leaders and their policy makers which is reminiscent of precepting instead of leadership by example had serious discouraging effects on the majority of the Nigerians who were supposed to imbibe the ideals of the programmes.  Also, corruption which resulted in the mismanagement of the available financial resources meant for the implementation of programmes weakened the institutional capacity of the agencies to effectively manage and sustain the programmes.  The implementers of the social mobilization policies and programmes under the military regimes, it was discovered, were more interested not on the success of the programmes but on their personal aggrandizement which accounted for the failures recorded and the unsustainability of these programmes beyond the lives of the regimes and administration which introduced them.