Nigeria, May 18 -- The 1970s to the 1990s were some of the most pitiless seasons in Nigeria. Except for a four-year interregnum, the military was in power, and it was brutal. In the mid-1970s, the seemingly genial General Yakubu Jack Gowon had radical activists like Edwin Madunagu and Tony Engurube detained without trial.

But the Murtala-Obasanjo regime that succeeded Gowon was far more brutal and blood-sucking. After its July 29, 1975, coup, that regime decimated the armed forces purging it of those considered as possible rivals. It also smashed the civil service so badly that today, fifty years later, the service is yet to recover. Gone was the secured tenure in office, processes, and procedures. Public servants at the state and feder...