ABSTRACT
The dialectical struggles for power and the contestations that took place within Nigerian territory during the Abacha dictatorial years is the subject of this chapter. The study explores the relationships and contestations of class, power, nationalism, and ethnicity, as rooted within certain historical configurations that define a certain kind of national and cultural habitus. Within such habitus, it is claimed that the despotic realties and contests under the military regime were embedded within the stripes of its origins, and amply reflect an elongation of the contradictory visions, influences, and agencies that predicated and sustained their formation processes.
