Development After Dictatorship

Olusegun Obasanjo, a former general, is the president of Nigeria. His comments here are adapted from a talk prepared for the Harvard University ARCO Forum for Public Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government.

Lagos, Nigeria - Military incursions into African politics in the '60s and '70s were generally greeted with degrees of euphoria. The ordinary African felt a sense of security with the uniform, so to speak. And political thinkers, in disregard of their liberal philosophical roots in democratic theory, hailed the unelected military rulers of the postcolonial state by ascribing to them several virtues.

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