Babangida military — SAP-imposed neoliberalism, annulled June 12 1993 election

Doctrine — stated goals and content

Economic school: SAP-imposed neoliberalism. Babangida rejected an IMF loan in 1986 after a "national debate", then implemented a World-Bank-designed Structural Adjustment Programme with substantially the same content — Second-Tier Foreign Exchange Market (SFEM, Sep 1986) that devalued the naira from ~1.1/USD to ~4/USD by year-end; trade liberalisation (abolished most import licences, cut tariffs); commodity-marketing-board abolition (1986) freeing cocoa and palm-oil prices; SOE privatisation (Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation from 1988); agricultural liberalisation. Left-right axis: strongly right of centre on content though delivered by military fiat, not liberal politics. Dated policies: SAP / SFEM Sep 1986; marketing-board abolition 1986; privatisation programme 1988-1993; Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation 1988; 12 June 1993 presidential election won by MKO Abiola (SDP); election annulled by Babangida 23 June 1993; "stepped aside" 26 August 1993 handing to Interim National Government under Shonekan. Popularity: no legitimate mandate — military government; June 1993 annulment catastrophically destroyed what limited legitimacy remained and triggered pro-democracy mobilisation. Coherence: low — the structural-adjustment content was internally coherent but discredited by corruption (the Gulf War windfall of $12.4bn allegedly diverted per Okigbo Report 1994) and by the June 12 annulment.