[size=18pt]6th August 1996 - The New York Times
Nigeria Men Football team win Olympic Football Gold medal, Gen. Abacha declares a national holiday in their honour[/size]

In Nigeria, meanwhile, a country locked in steep economic decline and harsh military rule, the country's 3-2 soccer victory over Argentina last Saturday, coming after a 4-3 semifinal defeat of the other South American powerhouse, Brazil, was cause for raucous celebration that continued through today, which was declared a national holiday.

Throughout the country of 100 million, revelers have struck up brass bands, emptied case after case of beer, shot fireworks into the sky night after night and poured through the streets in seemingly endless fanfares. Newspapers in Lagos and elsewhere ran banner headlines today saying things like ''Nigeria Rules the World'' and speculating on the potential impact of the victory on the image of country, which has been badly battered under military rule.

Because of widespread human rights violations and suspicions of the country's involvement in international drug trafficking, Nigeria's present isolation is so complete that the United States does not allow direct airline service between the two countries.

Earlier this year, the Commonwealth, an association that links Britain and its former colonies, contemplated expelling Nigeria, one of its largest members, following the execution of one of the country's leading dissidents, the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. At the same time, FIFA, the international soccer federation, was considering banning Nigeria from future soccer competitions over an allegation of fraud involving players' ages.

Suddenly, however, many Nigerians seem willing to drop their opposition to the widely unpopular head of state, General Sani Abacha, if only momentarily.

[size=18pt]8th November 1996 -ITN News
Nigerian Plane on Domestic flight from Port Harcourt to Lagos ,with 141 aboard Is missing[/size]. .

LAGOS, Nigeria, Nov. 7— A Nigerian passenger plane disappeared today on a domestic flight with 141 people on board.

The Aviation Development Company, the owner of the missing Boeing 727, said the plane had been flying from Port Harcourt, in Nigeria's southeastern oil-producing region, to Lagos, the capital, with 132 passengers and 9 crew members.

''A search and rescue operation is going on,'' the company said in a statement. A company spokesman said, ''We are expecting the manifest from Port Harcourt.''

Airport officials said they presumed that the plane had crashed. They said several foreigners, probably oil company executives, were on board.

Nigeria has had a spate of air disasters in the last few years when the economy has been in trouble and taken a toll on infrastructure.

The airline company, which is owned by Nigerian shareholders, operates domestic services and also flies to some West African countries. One of its plane crashed in Liberia last year. In January, a Nigerian presidential aircraft crashed in the north of the country, killing the son of the military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha. The crash was followed by another in Jos, in central Nigeria, in which a state military governor and several other officials were killed





[size=18pt]29th November 1996 - The New York Times
Abacha announces launch of Vision 2010 - to raise living standards of Nigerians[/size]

LAGOS, Nigeria, Nov. 28— In the face of widespread skepticism from Nigeria's domestic opposition, Nigeria's military leader, Gen. Sani Abacha, is pushing ahead with an effort to spur economic change and enhance his political image.

This week, the Nigerian Government announced formation of a 170-member committee set up to raise the living standards of Nigeria's 100 million people. The program, known as Vision 2010, was first announced at a conference in September in the capital, Abuja.

Opposition groups immediately criticized the makeup of the panel, which consists almost entirely of establishment figures. The chairman is Ernest Shonekan, head of the short-lived interim Government of 1993 that gave way to the current military rulers. Its members include prominent politicians, traditional rulers and business executives, all culled from among Nigeria's elite.

''We intend to capture the imagination of our people,'' General Abacha said this week.

Nigeria is among the world's top 10 oil-producing nations, pumping 2 million barrels a day, yet its roads and infrastructure are decaying. Poverty is widespread, with some public-sector employees earning as little as $450 a year. Infant mortality is estimated at 75 deaths per thousand births, nearly 10 times the rate in the United States.

While corruption has kept a rich elite comfortable, the middle classes and the poor have suffered a significant drop in living standards over the last decade. A recent study by Transparency International, a group devoted to fighting business corruption, rated Nigeria as the world's most corrupt country, followed by Pakistan, Kenya, Bangladesh and China.

Many ordinary Nigerians blame their country's economic troubles on years of rule by the military. Vision 2010, officials have said, is intended to convince Nigerians that General Abacha's Government is sensitive to the plight of common people.

But not every one is convinced. Some of the sharpest criticism has come from Nigeria's southern newspapers, many of which are critical of the current military Government, which for the last two years has imprisoned the presumed winner of the 1993 elections, Chief Mashood Abiola.

They have portrayed Vision 2010 as a carefully shaped campaign to burnish General Abacha's image, and say the date suggests the military intends to hold on to power at least until 2010.

''2010 Abacha's New Hand-Over Date?'' read the front-page headline of the Tempo newspaper the week the program was begun. One opposition group, the Campaign for Democracy, asserted that Vision 2010 is intended to distract from Nigeria's real problems.

''While the trade-union movement, the intellectual and students' movements, the political and business communities in Nigeria today have been generally pummeled into frustration and general irrelevance, the regime is making claim to implement a vision for the next one and a half decades,'' said Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, one of the leaders of the Campaign for Democracy. ''The Vision is for whom and with whom?''

In contrast to his predecessor, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, General Abacha is a retiring figure who is not often seen in public. A different tone was set in last month's Independence Day celebrations. Instead of the traditional military processions past the country's leader, hundreds of young children stood in rows, North Korean style, singing General Abacha's praises. The general stood facing a huge picture of his face in a stadium covered with slogans proclaiming themes of nationalism, patriotism and stability.

19th January 1997 - The New York Time
[size=18pt]U.S accused of sponsoring bombings aimed at distablising Abacha's government[/size]

. .LAGOS, Nigeria, Jan. 18— Nigeria's relations with the United States have deteriorated sharply since a series of unexplained bomb attacks that senior Nigerian officials have said were backed by Western nations.

The bombings, which have taken place in the country's commercial capital, Lagos, have been aimed at military personnel and property. In the most recent, on Tuesday, an explosion destroyed a bus outside an army barracks, killing 2 and injuring 27 of its passengers, who were soldiers.

Nigeria's military Government sees itself as the target of the bombing campaign, for which no one has claimed responsibility. Government leaders have blamed the country's largest opposition group, the National Democratic Coalition, or Nadeco, many of whose members live in the United States.

Nadeco, whose leadership is largely under arrest, has denied any connection with the bombings.

For two years, the United States has led international efforts to isolate the Government of Gen. Sani Abacha, accusing it of severe, widespread human rights violations in Nigeria, which is Africa's most populous country.

The United States, the European Union and the Commonwealth all imposed limited sanctions on Nigeria in November 1995 after the execution of nine human rights advocates, including the playwright Ken Saro Wiwa.

Since the bombing wave began in late November, Nigerian officials have accused Washington, along with Canada and South Africa, of supporting groups that they say seek the violent overthrow of General Abacha's Government.

''Because we are not yielding to their pressure,'' said Information Minister Walter Ofonogoro, ''Western nations are now going about sponsoring people to plant bombs to cause trouble and destabilize our country.''

American diplomats in Nigeria have denied any link to the bombings, which the United States Embassy has denounced. But Nigerian officials have repeatedly raised questions about a State Department warning last month to Americans traveling in Nigeria. Issued after the first two attacks, the statement cautioned that there might be more.

Last month, Nigeria's Foreign Minister, Chief Tom Ikimi, summoned the United States Ambassador, Walter C. Carrington, to a meeting in the capital, Abuja. The envoy was told that the State Department travel warning had been issued to cause disruption.

Mr. Ikimi also said American citizens were being smuggled into Nigeria from Benin in a possible attempt to destabilize the country.

Mr. Carrington, who has been a vocal critic of Nigeria's human rights record, has a history of testy exchanges with the Government. The relationship soured further last week when a newspaper sponsored by the Nigerian Government, The New Nigerian, ran a full-page ''announcement'' from a previously unknown group, the National Association for the Advancement of Nigeria, attacking the envoy.

''Ambassador Carrington is a typical example of the haughty, boot-licking, white-minded but black-bodied scallywags that conscientious peoples all over the world should laugh at,'' the announcement read. Mr. Carrington is black.

The State Department called in Nigeria's Ambassador to the United States, Alhaji Hassan Adamu, to express Washington's displeasure with the attack. But officials said Mr. Adamu denied Government involvement in the newspaper announcement.

16th March 1997
[size=18pt]NIGERIANS VOTE IN LOCAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS[/size]
INTRO: Nigerians have shown their wish for elected government by voting massively in council polls, putting pressure on army rulers to restore democracy.

Nigerians crowded heavily-guarded polling stations on Saturday (March 16), to vote in local council elections which opponents of the military government say is a sham and have vowed to disrupt.

In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, armed police stood by as people voted in open ballot system by queuing behind candidates of their choice and being counted.

The Campaign for Democracy pressure group had called for a boycott of the poll and vowed to disrupt the poll after two of its members had been arrested and others harassed by state security agents.

From London, an anti-government group faxed a statement to news organisations in Lagos calling for people from southwestern Nigeria to shun the poll.

But turnout was heavy even in the southwest -- the opposition stronghold and home of Moshood Abiola, the undeclared winner of the annulled 1993 presidential poll which the army scrapped.

Local newspapers said about 50,000 policemen were deployed nationwide to ensure peaceful conduct of the election.

"The crowd is encouraging and so far so good," Adebayo Abdulsalam, the presiding officer at the Lagos City Hall polling centre where long queues of voters had formed, told Reuters.

At Odo-Abore, a notable trouble spot in the outskirts of Lagos, people stormed the polling centre there shouting they had not been registered to vote.

Journalists in the inland capital Abuja said the turnout was strong and residents of the northern Sokoto state, contacted by telephone from Lagos, said many people had turned out to vote.

The vote is the first in Nigeria since the June 12, 1993 presidential election to restore democracy, which the army annulled plunging Nigeria into political crisis.

Abiola has been detained in Abuja since 1994 for proclaiming himself president in defiance of the government.

Rather than new elections, his supporters have called for his release from detention and installation as president.







[size=18pt]28th May 1997 - Beegeagle wordpress
Abacha sends in troop re-inforcements to Sierra Leone as Nigeria flexes muscles as regional Superpower[/size]
Nigerian reinforcements ECOMOG peacekeeping troops arrive on May 28, 1997 at Lungi International Airport in Freetown with a Nigerian Air Force Hercules cargo plane shuttling troops, ammunition and supplies following the military coup in Sierra Leone.









[size=18pt]29th May 1997  - The New York Times
More Nigerian Troops Land in Sierra Leone[/size]

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, May 28— Several hundred Nigerian troops landed in Sierra Leone today to support the ousted Government's battle to regain control from mutinous soldiers. They joined a Nigerian force that arrived on Tuesday and secured the airport.

The troops' arrival signaled that Nigeria was keeping open a military option to try to restore President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah to power if diplomatic pressure failed.

Mutineers taunted the Nigerian troops as they left their ships and headed for barracks outside the capital, Freetown, where they were to bolster other Nigerians stationed here since 1994.

Those troops were unable to prevent junior army officers from taking over the capital and overthrowing Mr. Kabbah's civilian government in a coup on Sunday that left at least 20 people dead.

Earlier today, the coup leaders scrapped the Constitution and banned political parties but promised a return to ''proper democracy'' in the future.

[size=18pt]26 June 1997 -The New York Times
Nigeria flexes muscles as regional Superpower[/size]

MONROVIA, Liberia— Almost every day, huge Russian-built helicopters fly out of James Spriggs Payne Airport here, raising a deafening din as they ferry troops and artillery to Nigerian positions in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Off Sierra Leone's rainy coast, 250 miles to the east, frigates await orders from Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to shell the shore in post-independence Africa's first exercise in gunboat diplomacy.

Nigeria has explained the operation as an effort to restore -- by force, if necessary -- Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, the democratically elected President, who was overthrown by junior army officers on May 25 in a wildly destructive coup. Publicly at least, the action by Nigeria's military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, has generally been applauded by other African states.

The military buildup in Sierra Leone, more than a thousand miles west of Nigeria, is one of many instances in which Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, has been flexing its muscles and extending its influence in a vast ''neighborhood'' that stretches from Mauritania to Equatorial Guinea.

In many countries, Nigeria's diplomacy goes little noticed by outsiders.

In Gambia, Nigeria has maintained military advisers to assist a young President, recently converted to civilian life, who seized power as a captain in 1994. In Chad, Nigeria subsidizes gasoline consumption, assuring itself strong influence over a long-unstable state. In Benin and Niger, Nigeria brought uncooperative governments to their knees with the simple act of stopping or quietly slowing trade.

And with its unique combination of bluster and sense of mission, Nigeria has mounted full-blown military interventions in Sierra Leone and Liberia that have shown it to be West Africa's lone superpower: a potentially rich nation of 105 million people with immense oil reserves and a large and capable army.

As Nigeria struggles to impose its own style of order on smaller countries, many people are asking whether a military dictatorship renowned for its own disorganization and criminality is fit for the task.

Officials of many West African nations express deep anxiety over what they see as an unstable superpower that flouts common notions of democracy at home while throwing around its weight elsewhere.

For these skeptics, Nigeria's interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone are best explained as a grab to control rich resources -- diamonds, gold and valuable hardwoods.

''You won't ask me to believe that all of the operations they are undertaking are driven by a sense of noblesse oblige,'' said one senior West African diplomat. ''Nigeria has always seen itself as rightfully dominating this region, and that often involves the grabbing up of resources by their own generals or for their own companies.''

Others see Nigeria's role as largely positive. The West's hasty withdrawal at the end of the cold war allowed Sierra Leone and Liberia to disintegrate into stateless battlegrounds between military governments and local warlords; whatever its motives, defenders point out, Nigeria filled the vacuum.

After seven years of costly intervention to try to end the civil war in Liberia, the closest thing to an American colony that has ever existed in Africa, Nigeria's rulers are now overseeing final preparations for what it is hoped will be this country's first truly democratic elections, on July 19.

''Imagine you are in a river drowning, and a huge snake swims by, so you climb on its back, and it carries you to the bank,'' said Wilson Tarpeh, a prominent Liberian businessman. ''It has still saved your life, even if it remains a snake.

''If we had had the United States or someone else to help us, we would have loved it. But in the end, Nigeria came in and stopped the carnage here and has brought us peace.''

This is clearly the thought that Nigeria's President, General Abacha, a man largely isolated from the world stage because of his military's human rights record, would like the outside world to focus on.

''It is our duty to insure that there is peace and stability in our sub-region because if Sierra Leone were to be destabilized, it will destabilize neighboring countries and would cross to Nigeria,'' Nigeria's Foreign Minister, Tom Ikimi, said recently in a radio interview.

4th August 1997 - The New York Times
[size=18pt]Fela, 58, Dissident Nigerian Musician, Dies[/size]

. .Fela, the Nigerian singer and band leader who combined pulsating Afro-beat rhythms and scathing pidgin English lyrics to goad Nigeria's leaders and denounce their authoritarian regimes, died on Saturday at his home in Lagos. He was 58 and had been Africa's most famous musician and his country's foremost political dissident.

The immediate cause was heart failure, but he had suffered from AIDS, his older brother, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, said at a news conference in Lagos, Reuters reported.

Fela (pronounced FAY-la) was a showy, insolent, marijuana-smoking icon, who often made appearances wearing only bikini underwear. In more than 30 years as a dissident songwriter and saxophonist, he was arrested and imprisoned at least a dozen times, most recently in 1993.

His songs, some an hour long, were influenced by James Brown, and fused American funk and jazz with traditional African music. The titles were written in initials like ''M.A.S.S.'' (Music Against Second Slavery), ''B.B.C.'' (Big Blind Country), ''I.T.T.'' (International Thief Thief) and ''V.I.P.'' (Vagabonds in Power). In addition to railing against governmental corruption and military abuses, he also sang introspectively about shortcomings in Nigerian society.

For years, Fela was merely Nigeria's most popular musician. He labeled himself ''the chief priest,'' lived in a commune that he called ''the Kalakuta Republic'' after the nickname of a prison cell he had once occupied, smoked marijuana and recorded about half a dozen albums a year that were banned on Government radio because of a dispute over copyright payments. The records, with their roiling groove and subversive lyrics, sold wildly across the African continent.

Then, in 1977, came the Fela Affair, which overnight catapulted him into a symbol of Government opposition and raised unsettling questions about civil liberties in Nigeria and about the future of civilian rule in a country that had broken free of colonial England only to fall into authoritarian military rule.

On the steamy afternoon of Feb. 18, a swarm of 1,000 soldiers gathered around Fela's Kalakuta Republic, a two-story yellow building in the sprawling Lagos slum of Surulere. In the ensuing siege, the house was burned to the ground and most of its 60 occupants were hospitalized. Fela was beaten unconscious and held under armed guard in a hospital room. His 77-year-old mother was thrown from her bedroom window and died of her injuries the following year.

Once free, he announced a lawsuit against the army that was later dismissed. For the rest of his life, he was an enemy of various Nigerian Governments, as much a political figure as a musical one.

He often said he would one day be president of the country, but his political showmanship never left the band stage. In recent years, he was less vocal, remaining mostly at home in Ikeja, a working-class section of Lagos, and performing only infrequently at his club, the Shrine.

Fela Ransome-Kuti was born on Oct. 15, 1938, into a prominent family in Abeokuta, a Yoruba town in the western part of Nigeria. His father, the Rev. Ransome-Kuti, was an Anglican priest, one of the country's best-known clergymen and educators. He raised his children to respect England, the colonial ruler, and saw to their education.

Two of Fela's brothers became doctors. One, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, later served as Minister of Health. The other, Beko Ransome-Kuti, became chairman of the Campaign for Democracy, a coalition of trade unions and civil rights groups that has opposed Nigeria's military rule. Like Fela, Beko Ransome-Kuti has been jailed for his political views.

His mother, Funmilayo, had a flair for politics. In 1948, she led the women of Abeokuta, who were not represented in local government, in a successful crusade against a tax on women. She also strove for Nigeria's independence and by the time it was achieved in 1960, she was the country's foremost female nationalist. Later, she became one of few female chiefs.

Both Fela and his mother de-Anglicized the family name, dropping Ransome in favor of Anikulapo, a name from Yoruba mythology that means ''he who carries death in a sack.''

Growing up in Abeokuta, Fela led a school choir and played piano and percussion. In 1959, he left Nigeria to study classical music in London. There, he was exposed to American jazz. He listened to Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis and he began playing trumpet and keyboards in jazz and funk bands.

He returned to Nigeria in 1963 and formed his first band, Koola Lobitos. But American jazz was not popular, and his sound did not catch on. In 1969, he traveled to the United States where he discovered Malcolm X and the Black Panther movement.

''It was incredible how my head was turned,'' he told The New York Times in 1977. ''Everything fell into place, man. For the first time, I saw the essence of blackism. It's crazy; in the States people think the black-power movement drew inspiration from Africa. All these Americans come over here looking for awareness. They don't realize they're the ones who've got it over there. Why, we were even ashamed to go around in national dress until we saw pictures of blacks wearing dashikis on 125th Street.''

He returned to Nigeria and invented the genre known as Afro-beat, becoming a patriarch of modern African music. He called his band Afrika '70 and later changed the name to Egypt '80.

He once described his music this way: ''I am playing deep African music. I've studied my culture deeply, and I'm very aware of my tradition. The rhythm, the sounds, the tonality, the chord sequences, the individual effect of each instrument and each section of the band, I'm talking about a whole continent in my music.''

Musicians around the world followed his lead.

''We were influenced by Fela's pure African style,'' Salif Keita, a Malian singer and star of the African music scene, said in 1995. ''Fela's music is pure rhythm, with a groove. It is driven by percussions, bass and accented rhythm guitar, with the lead singer's voice floating over everything. He introduced the background chorus voices into modern African music. Fela's lyrics are very political and funny. He is a legend, and all modern African singers and musicians owe a lot to him.''

Fela wrote his lyrics in the pidgin language of the lower classes. ''You cannot sing African music in proper English,'' he once said. ''Broken English has been completely broken into the African way of talking, our rhythm, our intonation.''

In 1978, he married 27 of his dancing girls in a single traditional ceremony. All but eight later left him while he was in jail. At times it seemed that Fela could not shed his role as a Government opponent no matter who was in power. In a 1982 documentary, shown in the United States three years later on public television, Fela accused the Nigerian Government of ''criminal behavior,'' and said, ''Nigeria is worse than South Africa. In Nigeria, blacks mistreat blacks.''

But at the time the documentary was made, Nigeria was experiencing a brief period of democratic, civilian rule, which lasted from 1979 until 1984. In November 1984, he was arrested at the Lagos airport as he was leaving for a concert tour in the United States. He was charged with illegally exporting foreign currency, convicted and spent 18 months in prison. Amnesty International labeled him a ''prisoner of conscience'' and it was later revealed that the charges had been trumped up.

In 1993, he was arrested and charged with conspiracy and murder in the death of a man who worked as a technician for his band and whose body was found not far from his home. No one, however, accused Fela of witnessing the incident or being near the scene. He was released on bond and he called the arrest one more example of his family being harassed for its views.

Such harassment ''is almost a way of life in our family,'' said his niece, Morenike Ransome-Kuti, who is a lawyer in Lagos. ''It's the price you have to pay when you're fighting for certain things.''

24 December 1997  - The New York Times

[size=18pt]Abortive coup reported; Shehu Musa Yaradua dies in detention of suspected kidney disease [/size]
Dec. 23— Coming seven months before a long-promised return to democratic rule, the announcement of an aborted coup on Sunday by associates of Gen. Sani Abacha, the Nigerian leader, has underscored the instability of Africa's most populous country and added to already widespread doubts about the country's shaky transition program.

The news of a coup plot reportedly involving General Abacha's second in command, Gen. Donaldson Oladipu Diya, and 11 others, including two other senior generals, was broadcast on national television late Sunday. Diplomats and Nigerian political analysts said they had no way of knowing whether the charges were valid or had been fabricated, as has often been the case under Nigeria's murky system of military rule as a justification for getting rid of potential rivals or critics within the army.

But most analysts said that whether motivated by a real coup plot or not, the arrest of General Diya signaled deep divisions within the Nigerian military and reflected rising tensions over General Abacha's apparent intention to remain in office by engineering his own election as President.

''Whether there was a coup plot or not is almost irrelevant to what happens next in Nigeria,'' a West African diplomat said. ''Abacha has decided to press forward with plans to get himself elected and has apparently figured the only way to succeed is by stepping up the repression. The problem is that each crackdown brings new enemies, and now this process has gone so far as to lead to his own doorstep.''

Gani Fawehinmi, a leading Nigerian human rights campaigner, said: ''Almost everybody mentioned in the alleged coup had been an Abachaboy, an Abacha henchman, so the situation is very funny. The facts are not clear to us. We want the whole truth.'' Mr. Fawehinmi was quoted in The Post Express, a Lagos daily.

During much of General Abacha's rule, international attention has been focused on Congo, formerly known as Zaire, whose political future was widely seen as a key in determining whether much of this continent will know peace or chaos in the years ahead. But many diplomats now say the stakes for the continent in an unstable Nigeria, with a population of 104 million, twice that of Congo, are even higher.

Rising political violence or an acceleration of Nigeria's economic decay, for example, would hit neighboring countries like Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Benin and Cameroon, erasing economic gains and progress toward democratic rule in the region.

A full-blown civil war, like the devastating conflict that Nigeria experienced in the 1960's, would inundate many other countries, possibly including European ones, with refugees. ''Nobody wants to see Nigeria explode, but the fuse is burning and it goes almost unnoticed,'' another senior West African diplomat said. ''What is certain is that if it goes off, we will all go with it and the price tag for bringing this region back will make rebuilding Zaire look like peanuts.''

Already during his four years in power, General Abacha has operated what one Western diplomat characterized as a ''rolling purge,'' prematurely retiring or arresting hundreds of mid-level officers in an effort to keep potential enemies off balance and place loyalists in command positions throughout the country's 77,000-member armed forces.

But many expressed surprise at the announcement that General Diya, a publicly enthusiastic booster of General Abacha, was the latest victim.

The fact that General Diya and almost all of the others arrested on Sunday are ethnic Yoruba from the already deeply disaffected southwest was seen by some as a virtual provocation at a time when a country of powerful regional rivalries is entering into a period of renewed civilian politicking.

General Abacha, like his inner core of senior officers and much of the army's rank and file, is a Hausa-speaking northerner.

General Abacha's move against a group of prominent Yoruba officers, coming after his jailing in 1994 of Moshood K. O. Abiola, a wealthy Yoruba politician who is widely believed to have won the country's most democratic election a year earlier, will be seen by many in the southwest as rubbing salt into an open wound.

''So far the southwest has been the center of political dissent and the place of deepest disgruntlement,'' a Western diplomat said. ''But if the handling of this coup takes on a strongly regional coloration in the army, there could be serious factional violence within the military itself.''

Even before the announcement of General Diya's arrest, General Abacha's program for a transition to civilian rule had begun to look less and less like the carefully managed return to democracy that it was asserted to be and more and more like a clumsily improvised script to return the President to office in civilian guise.

General Abacha celebrated his fourth year in office last month with events that seemed planned to signal his intention to cling to power, including the distribution of hundreds of Abacha-brand television sets. But the manufactured cheer around his expected candidacy has failed to change the President's unpopularity or the widespread disillusionment over his transition program.

Living standards have continued to slip during General Abacha's rule, even as the President and his circle of military officers and foreign business people have raked in fortunes estimated at $3 billion to $4 billion by the London-based newsletter Africa Confidential. Nigeria is the world's seventh-largest oil exporter.

It took General Abacha a full month to appoint a new Government after dismissing his previous Cabinet in November. And earlier this month, experts said almost nobody had bothered to vote in the military-engineered elections of state assemblies that had been billed as a major event in the countdown to next year's presidential contest.

The election fiasco was followed three days later by the death in detention of unknown causes of a former Vice President, Gen. Shehu Musa Yaradua, who was imprisoned in 1995 along with a former President, Olusegun Obasanjo.

On top of that, General Abacha, 54, whose public appearances are few and whose appearance has become increasingly frail, is widely reported to be seriously ill, afflicted with kidney disease, according to some, or cancer, according to others.

''The sick man of Africa,'' a West African diplomat said, ''is being ruled by a sick man of Nigeria.''

[size=18pt]16th January 1998 - BBC News
Clean up of massive oil spill begins[/size]

Boats and helicopters have been mobilised to help clean-up the 40,000 barrel oil-spill off the southeastern coast of Nigeria. The oil company, Mobil, which is responsible for the spill, says rough conditions in the sea are hampering the clean-up operation by making it difficult to skim the oil off the surface of the water. But the company says that the slick is moving away from the coast in a southwesterly direction and that 50% of the oil may have evaporated by now. Environmentalists are concerned about the damage the spill has caused to fish life in the area. From Lagos, Hilary Andersson reports.

The slick of oil stretches from three miles off the coast at its closest point to twenty miles offshore at its head. The oil company, Mobil, says its moving away from the land in a south-westerly direction.

The 40,000 barrel spill is the largest oil spill in Nigeria in several years. Helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft and boats have all been mobilised to help monitor and clean-up the oil.

Rough conditions in the ocean, though, are making it difficult to skim the oil off the surface of the water but chemical dispersants have been put in the water to break up the oil. Mobil says about half the oil may already have evaporated and says its main concern is that the slick does not hit the land, where more than thirty-thousand people live.

Many people in the region are fisherman whose livelihood is at stake. Environmentalists are also worried about the effect the spill will have on marine and bird life in the area.

Fish, they say, suffocate when oil gets into their gills, while some protected birds may suffer because they rely on the fish for food. Mobil says its primary concern is to protect the environment and the local communities, but the oil spill has re-awakened the criticism of Nigerian environmentalists who accuse the foreign oil companies operating in the country of paying less attention to standards here than they might in the western world.










[size=18pt]20th January 1998 - BBC News
Abacha orders liquidation of 26 Banks in attempt to clean up banking sector[/size]

Nigeria's Central bank has liquidated 26 banks because of debts totalling nearly $400m. The banks had failed to meet a deadline which expired in December to recapitalise or face closure. The liquidation is part of a crackdown by the current military government on malpractices in the banking sector as Hilary Andersson reports from Lagos.

13 merchant banks and another 13 commercial banks have been liquidated after failing to meet the deadline to put their houses in order. First they were given until March last year to recapitalise, and later the deadline was extended to December.

They've been shut down with almost $400m in outstanding debts. The bank liquidator, the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, has only got about half the funds necessary to pay back depositors, many of whom have almost given up hope of ever seeing their money again.

The liquidation of the 26 banks is part of a campaign started by the country's military leader, General Sani Abacha, four years ago when he came to power, to clean up the banking sector. He set up the Failed Banks Tribunal which last year investigated and imprisoned many bankers who could be seen, business suits and all, clustered in the squalid conditions of a Lagos detention centre. Some fled abroad to escape arrest.

The banking sector has long been riddled with fraud, with bankers lending themselves huge sums of money and using the banks as a private source of funds for their own business ventures.

Some banks were caught out when currency regulations suddenly changed meaning they could no longer buy currency at one rate and make huge profits by selling it off on the black market for another. Foreign and Nigerian bankers alike say that sanity has returned to the banking sector over the last year, and they give credit to the military government's draconian approach.






[size=18pt]10th March 1998 - ITN News
Nigerian forces oust military government in Sierra Leone, President Tejan restored[/size]

President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah has returned to Sierra Leone some ten months after a military coup forced him into exile. Sierra Leone's elected president, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, was back in power on Tuesday (March 10) after an army coup but he faces an uphill struggle if he is to rebuild his shattered country.






[size=18pt]21 March, 1998 - BBC News
Abacha welcomes Pope, looks to new era of progress[/size]

Nigerian ruler General Sani Abacha welcomed Pope John Paul II at a ceremony at Abuja airport on Saturday at the start of the Pope's three-day visit

Gen Abacha said Nigeria's priority was the implementation of social and political transition.

"We are particularly happy that you are visiting our country at a very critical moment in the implementation of our sociopolitical transition programme," Gen Abacha said in a speech broadcast by Lagos NTA TV.

"It is our hope, Your Holiness, that the successful implementation of the programme will usher in a new era of stability and sustainable development in our country.

"We shall appreciate the prayers and blessings of Your Holiness in this august task." "Great memories of your pastoral visit 16 years ago are still fresh in the minds of our people, 

"It is our sincere hope that, as on that occasion, your present visit will equally boost the moral fibre of our people, not only Catholics but, indeed, all who share a common belief in the supreme deity, the freedom and equality of mankind, justice, equity and ultimate victory of good over evil," the general said.

"We all, therefore, share the overwhelming joy of our Catholic brethren over the primary purpose of your current visit to our country, the beatification of the late Father Cyprien Michael Iwene Tansi.

"We are particularly gratified because the beatification is taking place in our country.

"Our nation is immensely proud that the Catholic Church, the greatest bastion of Christianity in the world has deemed it fit to confer one of its highest honours on a Nigerian citizen," he concluded.








[size=18pt]4th April 1998 - BBC News
Estimated 300 drowned in Nigerian freight ship tragedy, Nigerian Navy divers sent in to recover bodies[/size]

Nearly 300 people are feared to have drowned when a boat sank off the coast of Nigeria earlier this week.

According to Nigerian police, the accident happened on Wednesday when a combined passenger and freight ship making its way from Nigeria to Gabon got caught up in bad weather off Akwa Ibom state.

The exact number of people travelling on the boat is not known, although only 20 people are reported to have survived the disaster. They were taken to hospital suffering from shock and exposure.

Reports said that Nigerian navy divers were working to recover bodies from the area.

The nationality of those who perished is being investigated by the Nigerian immigration service, but as the boat was on its way to Gabon, it is most likely to have been full of people from Nigeria, Gabon and other West African countries.

The BBC West Africa correspondent says the precise cause of this boat disaster is not yet known, but passenger boats travelling the treacherous waters off the West African coast are often in poor repair and seriously overloaded.

Our correspondent says that traders and their families who travel up and down the coast are often unable to afford safe and well-maintained means of transport.

Last year, hundreds of people died in a similar disaster during a trip to Gabon, which is a popular destination for traders from Nigeria's south-eastern region.







[size=18pt]Saturday, 18 April, 1998, - BBC News
Nigeria Political Parties back Abacha as their presidential candidate[/size]

Two more political parties in Nigeria have adopted the country's military leader, General Sani Abacha, as their candidate for presidential elections scheduled for August.

The Democratic Party of Nigeria and the Congress for National Consensus decided to support the General two days after the main party, the United Nigeria Congress, also endorsed him.
All five of Nigeria's political parties are government-funded and none represent any of General Abacha's real opponents.

The BBC's Lagos correspondent says no mainstream politicians have put themselves forward for fear of offending the government, which has openly declared that General Abacha should stay on in power as a civilian rather than a military leader.

The government argues that if the general takes off his military uniform to become a civilian president he will have kept his promise to hand over to civilian rule - a transition to what the government calls Nigerian-style democracy.
Only the fifth party, the Grass Roots Democratic Movement or GDM, is considering adopting other candidates - including former police chief, M.D. Yusuf.

However, even the GDM is considering backing General Abacha, and candidates can be nominated on the day of the convention, scheduled to take place on Sunday.

If General Abacha becomes the joint candidate for most of the political parties, it will pave the way for him staying on in power indefinitely.






26th April 1998 - The New York Times
[size=18pt]Nigeria Holds Parliamentary Elections [/size]

ABUJA, Nigeria, April 25— Nigeria held parliamentary elections today but soldiers and police officers outnumbered voters at many polling places. The opposition had called for a boycott, and fear of violence kept many people away.

The elections, which the military Government says are a major step toward the return of civilian rule, have been marked by opposition assertions of fraud and a growing sense that the junta, led by Gen. Sani Abacha, manipulated the voting to insure its continued rule.

Candidates for the 109 Senate and 360 House seats come from one of five Government-sanctioned political parties. Their names were not announced until Thursday, and the National Electoral Commission says it reserves the right to disqualify any candidate.

Fifty million people are registered to vote, but election officials said the turnout was dismal. The elections followed a week of protests, and bombings that killed nine people.

''It's really disappointing,'' said an election official, Innocent Nwobodo. ''We're not encouraged by the situation. Nobody seems to be interested in voting.''

At the Garki Post Office polling place in Abuja, the capital, not a single ballot had been cast more than three hours after the poll opened. Across town, only seven votes were cast at the Wuse 3 Voting Center.

Streets were virtually empty of civilians, with a large army and police presence aimed at warding off violence. At least 15 officers were assigned to each polling place. A ban on road traffic was imposed late Friday and is to continue until the polls close this afternoon.

General Abacha seized power in 1993 and suspended the Constitution. He has repeatedly reneged on promises to hand the Government over to a civilian administration.

The elections were touted as the first significant step in a transition to civilian rule, but opponents of the junta say General Abacha distorted the nomination process to eliminate any competition. Pro-democracy groups that urged Nigerians to stay home today also called for a boycott of a presidential election in August.

''The nomination of Abacha as a sole presidential candidate by all the parties was a sell-out,'' said a business executive, Nike Osunde. ''I'll have nothing to do with the elections.''

[size=18pt]Thursday, 30 April, 1998  -  BBC News
Abacha orders release of 100 detainees[/size]

Among them are three journalists and a civil rights activist - Ogaga Ifowodo - held without trial for months.

Mr Ifowodo was arrested whilst returning from the Commonwealth leaders' summit in Edinburgh last year - where Nigeria was condemned for its human rights record.

The list of those detainees to be released has not been made public but at least four political prisoners were said to be amongst them.

There are more than 100 political prisoners in Nigeria, the most prominent of which is Chief Moshood Abiola, presumed winner of the annulled presidential elections of 1993.
The latest announcement comes a month after the Pope visited Nigeria and asked for clemency for a list of 60 detainees.

But the state-owned newspaper, the New Nigerian, said the promised releases were not in any way a response to foreign pressure.

It described them as "a magnanimous gesture" by the country's military leader, General Sani Abacha.

General Abacha promised to release a number of detainees - whose freedom would not threaten the security of the state - last November when he was celebrating the fourth anniversary of coming to power.
For three years Nigeria has been ostracised by the international community, primarily for holding political prisoners.

A BBC correspondent in Lagos says the government may be talking about releasing other prisoners to try to reduce political tensions, which are currently on the rise.

The opposition boycotted last week's parliamentary elections.

Earlier this week, six convicted coup plotters, including the former number two military officer in the country, General Diya, were sentenced to death.












[size=18pt]Wednesday, 6 May, 1998 -  BBC News
Abacha releases 140 prisoners, including some military officers convicted in 1986 of plotting to overthrow the government of General Ibrahim Babangida. [/size]

The military government in Nigeria has released more than a-hundred-anf-forty prisoners and detainees who are not considered a threat to peace and security.

They include a number of journalists who were arrested during the past year, and some military officers convicted in 1986 of plotting to overthrow the government of General Ibrahim Babangida.

Correspondents say those released do not include any prominent political figures.



[size=18pt]
20 May, 1998 - BBC news
Abacha sponsors 5days of prayers for national unity[/size]

Five days of prayers for national unity sponsored by Nigeria's military government are underway in the capital, Abuja.

The government has called on all thirty-six of the country's states to send groups of Christians and Muslims to the event.

But some religious groups have urged a boycott, saying it is part of the military leader General Sani Abacha's strategy to stay in power.

General Abacha hasn't yet said whether he'll stand in presidential elections scheduled for August.

He's already been nominated as the sole candidate by all five legal political parties.








[size=18pt]8th June 1998 - ITN News
Military President Sani Abacha is dead[/size]
Nigeria's military 8.6.98 dictator has died. He is said to have had a heart attack. He had ruled Nigeria since seizing power in 1993.

[size=18pt]Summary of Abacha's economic performance[/size]

Abacha maintained Exchange rate of : $1=N22  throughout his 5year in office   (No devaluation of Naira)


Abacha reduced inflation from 54% (left by IBB), to below 10% on his death

Sources:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/nigeria/inflation-average-imf-data.html

Anybody have any sources of photos of videos from history?

[size=18pt]8th June 1998 - BBC News
World respond to Abacha's sudden death, In Sierra Leone and Togo his death was greeted with dismay[/size]


World leaders have expressed hope that Nigeria will restore democratic rule after the death of its leader, General Sani Abacha.
 
Commonwealth Secretary General Emeka Anyaoku: "The country need to pick itself up"
The British Foreign Secretary, speaking on behalf of the European Union, said he hoped there would be "an opening for stable transition to an early return to democracy."

The same view was voiced in Washington. US State Department spokesman James Rubin said: "We believe there should be a civilian transition in Nigeria, a transition that allows for a genuine democratic process, including oppposition parties."

The head of the Commonwealth Chief Emeka Anyaoku, himself a Nigerian, told BBC World Service television: "The Commonwealth would hope and would expect that the Nigerians will decide to go back to the way of democracy and in so doing will gain re-admission to the Commonwealth."

African leaders observed a minute's silence at their annual summit in Burkina Faso to pay their respects to General Abacha.

Delegates said Nigerian officials formally informed the closed session of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit of Abacha's unexpected death.

Dismay at death

In Sierra Leone his death was greeted with dismay.
Hundreds of people gathered in Freetown to mourn the general.
He was regarded as a hero there after Nigerian troops helped overthrow a military junta and restore the democratically-elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to power.

Togo's Foreign Minister Koffi Panou expressed "sadness" at the death of General Abacha.
He said: "This is the death of a man, a head of state of a country with which Togo and its president had the best of relations.

"We want the Nigerian people to have a president who guarantees peace and security in the region and who promotes the rule of law and democracy, as General Abacha undertook to do."

[size=18pt]9th June 1998 - ITN News (video clip)
General  Abdulsalami Abubakar is sworn in as head of State[/size]

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1998/06/09/BSP090698030/?s=Abacha&st=0&pn=1&sortBy=date

Defence Minister Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar , 9.6.98 has been sworn in as the new leader of the country following the death of dictator General Sani Abacha.

3 news items inserted for April 1998

news item inserted - 6th May 1998

Does anybody know where I can find Abubakar's maiden speech?

Good job Gen Buhari. God bless you.

^Thank you

today is the worst day of my life! sad, the people hated the most are the ones that wanted to do good for the country.

best thread ever, genbuhari i salute, and may Allah bless and guide the peoples general.

@DivideUs
Thanks, but why do you say it is worst day of your life? 

^^ ur thread made/makes me realize that for selfish and sentimental reasons majority of nigerians will always discredit honest people sadly I see no hope!

: I see how fast things continue to at a steady rate get destroyed and we are yet to learn and rise up to this id*ots

: With all the proven, factual thing here someone is still asking if the aim of the post is to uplift buhari instead of either accepting the truth or if he doesn't agree with it, to produce evidence to the contrary. That is sad

So you see anybody that luvs his country that is presented with this harsh realities and one doesn't feel the sadest in his/her life and also want to kill some past leaders then one does not deserve to be a citizen!

ok I see.

I read some where that Nigerian press cannot be trusted they all in the pockets of corrupt ex-leaders / politicians and they mission is to cover up the misdeed of their paymasters by spreading misinformation and confusion.

However things can only get better with the availability of the Internet and new technology. The truth would enventually be revealed.

news item inserted, 20th May 1998

[size=18pt]17th June 1998 -BBC News
Obasanjo released from prison.[/size]
The former Nigerian head of state, Olusegun Obasanjo, has arrived home following his release from prison by the new military government.
The state-run media said he was flown into Lagos aboard a presidential jet. A family member said he arrived back at his farm in the southwestern town of Otta.

General Obasanjo is one of nine prominent political prisoners whose release was ordered by the new military leader, Abdulsalam Abubakar.
The BBC Lagos correspondent says the releases have distanced the new regime from that of the previous ruler, the late General Sani Abacha, and raised expectations that it will seek a national consensus on the best way forward for Nigeria.

The mood on the streets
The BBC's correspondent in Lagos, Hilary Andersson, says: "These are major political prisoners."
The correspondent says the releases have changed the mood on the streets, where people say they feel safe speaking their minds for the first time in four years.

Opposition figures in Nigeria welcomed the releases. Nigerian officials said General Obasanjo, who was serving a 15-year sentence for taking part in an attempted coup, had been released on compassionate grounds and confined to his farm.
 
The Nigerian Government announcement was broadcast on radio (20"
The eight others released included union leaders, a journalist, and human rights activists.

Many of the prisoners complained of health problems associated with the rough conditions of their detention, and some of the detainees were only allowed infrequent visits by family members.

Health concerns
There have been concerns about the former head of state's General Obasanjo's health and that of Chris Anyanwu a prominent journalist whose release has also been ordered.

Prisons in Nigeria are notoriously grim and over-crowded establishments, with rampant diseases, poor food and dirty water.
Although most of the political detainees were held separately from criminal inmates, this did not imply better conditions of imprisonment.

A veteran opposition activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, expressed delight but demanded the release of all political detainees, including the presumed winner of the annulled 1993 elections, Moshood Abiola.
Mr Abiola was detained for declaring himself president of the populous West African nation in 1994.

The US administration said it hoped the decision to free General Obasanjo and the other prisoners would help the planned transition to civilian rule.

[size=18pt]26th June 1998  -  BBC News 
Abubakar and British talks in Abuja his pro-western policies seems remarkably similar to Babangida's regime[/size]

Talks are taking place in Nigeria between a British government minister and the country's new military ruler, General Abdulsalam Abubakar.
The meeting is being seen as a significant move towards ending the international isolation of Nigeria.

The British minister, Tony Lloyd -- representing the European Union -- is expected to raise the issue of the detained politician, Chief Moshood Abiola, who's thought to have won the annulled presidential election of 1993.

The new government has been having talks with Chief Abiola to negotiate his release.
Speaking earlier, General Abubakar said Nigerians should overcome the mistakes of the past, and work together for unity.

In another development, it was announced that the Commonwealth Secretary General, Emeka Anyaoku, wouldvisit Nigeria in the next two days.











1st July 1998 - ITN News
[size=18pt]U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL KOFI ANNAN IN NIGERIA TO MEET GENERAL ABUBAKAR AND TO VISITS ABIOLA IN PRISON[/size]

The United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Annan has met Nigeria's new leader General Abdulsalam Abubakar in Abuja, and is later expected to hold talks with detained opposition leader Moshood Abiola, whose presidency claim is at the root of the country's political crisis.

The Secretary General arrived on Tuesday (June 30), and met with Abubakar during the evening, amid hopes he may be able to end the impasse created by the annulment of the 1993 election which Abiola was poised to win.

Abubakar took over after the death on June 8 of military ruler Sani Abacha.Since then, Nigeria has opened up to world leaders who had previously shunned the populous African nation because of its human rights abuses and lack of democracy.

Short of words GenBuhari, u are a great man. This is the most edutainment thread I have ever come accross here at Nairaland or anywhere. Sadly, I don't have any source to add. Weldone bro.

^ Thanks Friend

News item inserted 1st April 1978.

news item inserted 12th Oct 1977

[size=18pt]8th July 1998 - The New York Times
Abiola Dies During Visit From U.S. Envoys and Nigerian Officials[/size]

WASHINGTON, July 7— Nigeria's most prominent political prisoner, Moshood K. O. Abiola, died today, apparently of a heart attack, further complicating an already turbulent political situation in Africa's most populous country.

Mr. Abiola, who was 60 years old, became ill while meeting with American and Nigerian officials at a government guest house in Abuja, the capital. He died shortly afterward in a hospital, American and Nigerian officials said.

James P. Rubin, the State Department spokesman, said in Washington, ''We do not have any reason to believe this is anything but natural causes.'' But at least one of Mr. Abiola's children said the death was suspicious, and another said the Government that had kept her father imprisoned and denied him medical care was culpable in his death.

The Nigerian Government promised a full, prompt autopsy in cooperation with Mr. Abiola's personal physicians.

Mr. Abiola's death was the second stunning development in Nigeria in less than a month. On June 8, Gen. Sani Abacha, the unrelenting dictator who had thrown Mr. Abiola into jail in 1994, died suddenly of a heart attack.

Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar, General Abacha's successor, had been expected to free Mr. Abiola, the apparent victor in Nigeria's aborted 1993 elections, soon. The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said after meeting Mr. Abiola in Nigeria last week that Mr. Abiola had promised to forswear his claim to the presidency and work toward a smooth transition to democracy.

Mr. Rubin said Mr. Abiola fell ill today while speaking to Thomas R. Pickering, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, and Susan E. Rice, the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs.

''In the first 10 minutes, Abiola starts wheezing and coughing and then collapsing in some form,'' Mr. Rubin told reporters here. ''I don't know if he lost consciousness. They get him in an ambulance or car. They get him to the hospital, where he dies.''

Mr. Pickering told National Public Radio that when Mr. Abiola came into the meeting he appeared to be in good health and good spirits, but that his condition quickly deteriorated and that he began to cough and was ''clearly disturbed.''

Mr. Pickering, speaking by telephone to N.P.R., explained that Mr. Abiola excused himself from the meeting, went to a restroom, then returned in more distress. ''When he came out of the toilet, he asked for painkillers,'' Mr. Pickering said, ''and then sat on a couch and was overheated and asked for the room to be cooled, and removed some of his garments, and then clearly began to suffer.''

Mr. Pickering said he took Mr. Abiola's pulse and said he was ''clearly very cold and very disturbed and in some significant pain.''

Mr. Abiola was taken to a hospital, accompanied by the American officials, who watched as doctors worked to save him, Mr. Pickering told the radio program ''All Things Considered.''

Mr. Pickering's delegation extended its stay until Wednesday.

Hafsat Abiola, the 23-year-old daughter of Mr. Abiola, blamed the Nigerian military for her father's death. In a telephone interview from suburban Maryland, where she lives with 5 of her 18 siblings, Ms. Abiola said: ''My position is simple. My father was in their custody. Anything that happened to him while he was in their custody is their responsibility. I can't believe they did this.''

Her father had not been well lately, Ms. Abiola said, adding that she had repeatedly asked Nigerian authorities to let a doctor see him. An American official involved in African policy said that Mr. Abiola suffered from high blood pressure and swollen limbs.

Another daughter, Wura Abiola, told C.N.N. that the family considered the death ''very suspicious.''

Mr. Annan said today that he had attempted to inquire about Mr. Abiola's health when he met with him last week. ''He was alert and asked questions. But it was obvious from the questions that he was in isolation,'' Mr. Annan said. ''For example, he didn't know who I was. I walked in, shook hands and smiled and started asking about his health. He asked, 'Who are you?' And I explained that I'm the Secretary General of the United Nations. And then he asked: 'What happened to the Egyptian? Is he gone?' '' a reference to Mr. Annan's predecessor, Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Mr. Annan, who spoke in an impromptu news conference at the United Nations today, said: ''I'm not in a position to describe the conditions under which he was kept. But he did say that he had been in solitary confinement and was allowed no television, no press, no media except the Bible and the Koran.''

Mr. Annan added, ''I hope the Government of Nigeria will make good on its pledge to release all remaining political prisoners unconditionally and to define a credible process for the transition to civilian rule.''

Mr. Abiola's release had been delayed, in part because Mr. Abiola's followers, mainly members of the Yoruba tribe in southwestern Nigeria, around the old capital of Lagos, insisted that he should be permitted to take office. In Lagos today some rioting and looting was reported after the news of Mr. Abiola's death, Reuters reported.

The Government, which is dominated by Hausa officers from Northern Nigeria, now faces the possibility of severe tribal tensions. In the late 1960's, the Ibo and their allies in southeastern Nigeria precipitated a civil war when they proclaimed the independent state of Biafra. Diplomats have expressed fears in the last few weeks that violence may lie just beneath the surface now.

Any fighting in Nigeria, which with its oil and natural resources has the potential for being the richest country in sub-Saharan Africa, could destabilize the weaker neighboring countries.

Encouraged by Mr. Annan and Western leaders to move his country onto the road to democracy, General Abubakar has already released Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military ruler, and 25 other political prisoners, but 250 or more still remain in Lagos jails, intelligence officials said. Many of them are not nearly as prominent as Mr. Abiola, a wealthy businessman and tribal chief.

Mr. Rubin said Mr. Pickering ''had not received agreement in terms of a firm timetable to let Abiola out, but the Government did make clear that he would be out soon.''

President Clinton, in a written statement released today, said, ''I was deeply saddened to learn of the sudden and untimely death of M. K. O. Abiola, a distinguished citizen and patriot of Nigeria.''

Nigeria remains in economic chaos, ravaged by corruption and incompetence. Despite the country's immense oil reserves -- it is the fifth-largest supplier of petroleum to the United States -- motorists are forced to wait for hours at the small number of functioning filling stations.

Limited sanctions imposed by the United States and others have compounded the country's difficulties. General Abacha ignored the rest of the world but General Abubakar has appeared eager to reach out to friendly nations.

Mr. Annan's mission to Nigeria, which was not announced in advance, followed several telephone conversations with General Abubakar and a secret meeting with the Nigerian Foreign Minister, according to William Shawcross, a British journalist who covered the Annan visit. Mr. Shawcross said General Abubakar told the Secretary General that he wanted to hand power back to a democratically elected government but implied that some other generals were not so sure.

[size=18pt]8th July 1998 - BBC News
Anger over Abiola's death as riots break out[/size]

A number of people are reported to have been killed in clashes with police as angry protests continue in southern Nigeria, the political stronghold of Chief Abiola.

At least two people were killed in overnight riots in Lagos. Hundreds of people had poured onto the streets on Tuesday night after hearing news of the opposition leader's death, burning tyres and throwing stones. Police responded with tear gas and fired into the air to disperse crowds.

Lagos and the rest of ethnic Yoruba region in the south-west form the political stronghold of Chief Abiola, while the Hausa-speaking north of Nigeria has been the home of most of the country's rulers since independence, including General Abdulsalam Abubakar.

Between five and seven people are estimated to have been killed in clashes on Wednesday morning in Abiola's hometown, Abeokuta.

Chief Abiola, who was due to be released from prison after a four years in solitary confinement, died of an apparent heart attack after being taken ill during talks with a visiting United States envoy on Tuesday.

He is expected to be buried in Lagos later on Wednesday, following a post-mortem. Nigeria's ruling military council is also due to meet to discuss the aftermath of his death and plans for a transition to civilian rule.

Mystery surrounds death

Many of Chief Abiola's allies have voiced suspicions over the manner of his death, and his daughter Wuru said she believed he was killed.

"(He died) either because medical neglect brought on a heart attack or because they poisoned him," she said.

The BBC Lagos correspondent says Nigerians are shocked and suspicious, after the sudden death only a month ago of the military leader, General Sani Abacha.

Chief Moshood Abiola was the presumed winner of Nigeria's 1993 elections, which were annulled by Nigeria's military government.

It is believed that the government was trying to get Chief Abiola to give up his presidential mandate in exchange for his freedom, although as of a few days ago he had not committed himself to this in writing.

But President Clinton dismissed speculation that the death was a result of foul play, and the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, called for calm.

Attention is now focusing on the new military leader, General Abubakar, who is scheduled to make a speech to mark the end of official mourning for his predecessor.

Government statement announces death

A government statement said Chief Abiola had died of an apparent heart attack on Tuesday at 1600 local time (1500 GMT) during a meeting with Nigerian and United States officials in the capital, Abuja.

A US state department official confirmed Chief Abiola had just begun discussions with US envoys, when he began coughing heavily and collapsed. A doctor was called in and Chief Abiola was rushed to hospital.

Pictures released of Chief Abiola meeting the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, last week, showed him in apparent good health, although he had lost weight. He has suffered bouts of illness in jail.

Hmn during Gen Buhari's Regime i guess he was to too weak to be overthrown so early like that by IBB Ideotay because i see no reason why this coward called IBB turning to 9ja president Now my mind is telling me that it is only IBB is the only one who has the Liver to terrorize Naija as he once Sent a parcel Bomb to DELE GIWA i wish i could see IBB face to face and show him what i can do for toying with my future, Nonsense MTSCHEEWWWWW