[size=18pt]11th July, 1998 -  The New York Times
U.S. Aides Say Ex- Military Ruler General Abacha Might Have Been Poisoned[/size]

WASHINGTON, July 10— Some United States intelligence analysts say there is evidence that Gen. Sani Abacha, the Nigerian dictator who died unexpectedly last month, was poisoned while in the company of three LovePeddlers, American officials said today.

Nigeria's military rulers reported after General Abacha's death that he had died at his villa after a sudden heart attack. The contrary view reached by some United States Government analysts, while far from unanimous, is that he may have been killed by enemies in his notoriously corrupt and authoritarian military circle.

Reports that General Abacha might have been killed were published on Thursday on the MSNBC web site, quoting NBC News.

One United States official said flatly that the rumors were true, citing an analysis of intelligence and other reports from inside Nigeria. The analysis included reporting from American Government agencies with sources inside the Nigerian military.

But another United States official said the reports were only ''semi-credible'' and not ''definitive evidence.''

And a third Administration official said today, ''There are some doctors in the employ of the C.I.A. who, when the description of the body was given to them, said it could be consistent with poisoning.'' The official, who does not work for the C.I.A., said, ''We still don't have any firm evidence.''

Such disputes between Government agencies with competing interpretations of events are common, and they can go on for years. Government officials declined to detail how they gathered and analyzed evidence that the general might have been poisoned.

Rumors and reports that the general was poisoned have been circulating in Nigeria for weeks.

''We've heard rumors that General Abacha was poisoned while drinking juice, carousing with young women, eating an apple, even experimenting with Viagra,'' a Western official in Nigeria said.

One account of the general's death drawn by some Government analysts here depicts him being entertained by three LovePeddlers at the residence of a senior Nigerian official in the capital during the weekend of June 6-7. In the company of the second of the three women, according to this account, he met his death by poison.

In this version, based on reporting from American Government agencies with sources inside the Nigerian military, it is unclear what the poison was or how it was administered. But it is thought that the source of the poison might be an officer or a clique of officers in the Nigerian military regime who believed that the general's hold on power was destroying what little good name the army had left.

If the analysts' conclusion is correct, it raises questions about the sudden death on Tuesday of Moshood K. O. Abiola, the long-imprisoned leader of Nigeria's repressed political opposition, who collapsed while meeting senior State Department officials in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

The Nigerian military has also attributed Mr. Abiola's death to a heart attack, but his family and some of his supporters say they suspect homicide. An independent autopsy is under way in Nigeria.

By contrast, General Abacha was buried within hours of his death, Western officials in Nigeria said.

General Abacha, who was 54, seized power in 1993. But he had been instrumental in the military governments that have ruled Nigeria since 1983. He had long promised that there would be a transition to a civilian government, but this spring he forced the nation's five legal political parties to nominate him as the sole presidential candidate.

Immediately after his death, the political opposition in Nigeria called on the military to permit Mr. Abiola, who by all independent accounts won a 1993 presidential election nullified by the military, to be freed from prison and to lead a civilian government. The Government indicated last week that it would release all its political prisoners, including Mr. Abiola, who had agreed to relinquish his claim to the presidency.

General Abacha's successor, Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar, also has promised to return the country to civilian rule. It remains unclear if, or how, the 27-member Provisional Ruling Council, which is the political machine behind the military Government, will permit democratic elections.

[size=18pt]13th July 1998 - ITN News (video)
Opposition Movement reorganise to decide whether or not country should break up[/size]

[flash=800,800]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpCBxUTeoOY?version=3[/flash]

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//ITN/1998/07/13/BSP130798019/?s=nigeria&st=0&pn=1










[size=18pt]20th July 1998 - BBC News
New Head of State General Abubakar outlines plans for return to democracy[/size]

The Nigerian military leader, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, has announced that power will be handed back to a civilian government at the end of next May - almost eight months later than previously scheduled.

General Abubakar, in a nationally televised broadcast, said that the political parties established under his late predecessor, General Sani Abacha, had been discredited and were being abolished.

New parties and electoral bodies will be established to ensure that new elections, early next year, would be free and transparent.

But General Abubaker ruled out the immediate establishment of a national unity government - the main demand of the opposition.

He described the dissolution of the political parties as "a difficult but necessary step" for the transition to democracy.

International supervision

Stressing the importance of Nigeria complying with what he called "international morality", he said all elections would be overseen by bodies such as the United Nations and the Commonwealth.

But he ruled out the possibility of holding a sovereign national conference to discuss the country's constitution and structure, which the opposition had been demanding.

The BBC Lagos correspondent says this is likely to enrage opposition groups, who say they will not accept elections overseen by a military which has lost so much credibility.

Economic reform
 
General Abubakar also announced plans to restructure the Nigerian economy, selling off state-owned utilities and industries in order to relieve the country's national debt.

He said his government would act against syndicate crime, which he described as "an embarrasment to the nation".

General Abubakar echoed the words of many past leaders in saying his adminstration had no intention of staying on in power beyond the handover date. Our correspondent says Nigerians are unlikely to take the general's promises seriously until they see a civilian government in power.

Under the transition programme of General Abacha, presidential elections were scheduled for August.

But since taking office six weeks ago, General Abubakar has dissolved the bodies overseeing the transition, sacked the government and ordered the release of hundreds of political prisoners, saying he is keenly aware of the need for national reconciliation.

Coup plot prisoners released

As Nigeria waited for the announcement, General Abubakar ordered the release of 10 more political prisoners sentenced for their parts in a 1995 coup plot and ordered their immediate release.

A number of others convicted of involvement, including the former head of state, General Obasanjo, were released last month.

But around half of the 40 people who were originally convicted remain in jail.

News item inserted 14 February 1977

[size=18pt]August 7, 1998  - The New York Times
14-Member National Election Commission appointed to manage transition to civilian rule[/size]

ABUJA, Nigeria, Aug. 7— Nigeria's ruling generals have appointed a 14-member National Electoral Commission to oversee preparations for a return to civilian rule next May.

A retired judge, Ephraim Akpata, 71, will head the electoral body, the independence of which is crucial to making credible the plan of the country's military ruler, Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar, to restore democracy to Africa's most populous nation.

Last month, General Abubakar scrapped an electoral commission and five political parties he inherited from Nigeria's late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, in June. General Abacha had planned to stand as the sole presidential candidate in an election originally set for this month in the major oil-producing nation.

Some new appointments were also made among the middle-ranking armed forces and police officers who run Nigeria's 36 states. Conspicuously absent were some of those most closely linked with General Abacha's presidential bid.







[size=18pt]21st August 1998 - BBC News
New Military Ruler Abubakar purges cabinet of all Abacha loyalist leading to suspicion that Abacha may have been poisoned, Abubakar is very close friend to ex-military ruler Ibrahim Babangida.[/size]


The Nigerian military ruler, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, has named a new cabinet, dropping most of the team appointed by his predecessor, General Sani Abacha.

The new thirty-one-member cabinet includes civilians and retired and serving military officers, but has no notable opposition figures.

Nine members of the previous cabinet are retained, but the civilian foreign minister, Tom Ikimi, and the key ministers of oil and finance failed to keep their posts.

The distribution of portfolios among the new cabinet will be announced at a swearing-in ceremony in the capital, Abuja, on Saturday.

General Abubakar dismissed the previous cabinet last month.






[size=18pt]
13 September 1998  - BBC News
Seun Ogunkoya wins  100metres Silver Medal as he helps Africa's Men team  win Athletics World Cup in South Africa, his cousin Falilat Ogunkoya storms to a gold medal in the women's 400metres and silver medal in 200m as Africa's women finish third[/size]

Africa have won the men's section of the athletics World Cup in Johannesburg, finishing just one point ahead of Europe in the eight-team competition.

Frankie Fredericks of Nambibia broke the Cup record in winning the two-hundred metres in a fraction under twenty seconds.

The African women's team finished third behind the United States and Europe.

Nigeria's Falilat Ogunkoya beat the European champion Grit Breuer in the four-hundred metres.

[size=18pt]13th September 1998 - BBC News
World Bank official visits Nigeria to meet with Abubakar [/size]

A senior World Bank official has arrived in Nigeria for talks which the country's military government hopes will revive relations between the two sides.

The official, the World Bank's vice-president for Africa, Jean-Louis Sarbib, is due to meet the Nigerian leader, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, as well as other government officials and leaders from the country's business community.

Correspondents say one of the main issues is whether and how Nigeria can resume repayments on its foreign debt.
Mr Sarbib is also expected to take a close look at the Nigerian government's pledge to introduce economic reforms before it hands over power to a civilian administration next year.

One World Bank official was quoted as saying the new Nigerian leadership had started out with sound intentions, and that the Bank would examine how it could help, in view of the current changes being made in the country.







[size=18pt]22nd September 1998 - ITN News
NIGERIA'S NEW MILITARY LEADER ABUDULSALAMI ABUBAKAR TRAVELS TO UK AND MEETS BRITISH PRIME MINISTER TONY BLAIR.[/size]
Nigeria's new military leader was due to receive a pat on the back from Britain on Tuesday for progress on human rights reforms, although a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said more needed to be done.

General Abdulsalami Abubakar is in London for talks at the start of a tour to seal an improvement in ties between western countries and Nigeria, for long a pariah state because of its human rights record under military dictator Sani Abacha.

Abubakar took over after Abacha died in June and almost immediately freed hundreds of political prisoners and set in motion plans to bring about a long-promised return to democracy.

Blair's spokesman stressed the talks were an important milestone in Nigeria's international rehabilitation.The two leaders met at Blair's official residence at 10 Downing Street on Tuesday (September 22).








[size=18pt]25th September 1998 - The NY Times
New Military Head of State, Abubakar visits U.S. to get U.S. blessing[/size]

. .UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 24— Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who became President of Nigeria in June by an accident of fate, came to the United States this week determined to persuade skeptics that his Government will be short-lived, open and incorruptible, and that the country had finally turned the corner to democracy after years of military rule.

''Come next May, we will hand over to the elected Government,'' said General Abubakar, a low-key reformer who succeeded one of Africa's most destructive dictators, Gen. Sani Abacha, who died of a heart attack on June 8. The date with democracy, General Abubakar said today, is ''sacrosanct.''

General Abubakar, meeting with reporters at a breakfast in a glittering dining room at the Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue -- a reminder of the immense wealth that official Nigeria has at its disposal -- laid out the political steps ahead.

In December local elections will take place, followed by voting for state governors and legislators in January. In February an election for president and a national assembly will be held, with the formal handover of power three months later.

''Back home the political parties are busy forming,'' he said.

General Abubakar, 56, said that after his interim presidency ends, he plans to retire from any military and political roles.

The general, a measured speaker who seldom smiles, has won the confidence of American and European officials during his three months in power. Today the European Union's Development Commissioner, Joao de Deus Pinheiro, called for an easing of sanctions on Nigeria as a reward for General Abubakar's promise to restore democracy. Sanctions were imposed in 1995 after the Abacha Government executed Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other advocates of the Ogoni people.

The United Nations is sending a team of political specialists to Nigeria this week to advise the Government on organizing elections. Secretary General Kofi Annan visited the country in the summer and aides say he was convinced that the new Government was making an earnest effort to listen to the Nigerian people.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who attended a Security Council meeting here today on Africa, praised General Abubakar for ''taking steps to bring Nigeria back into the world community.''

General Abubakar, who addressed the General Assembly today, met President Clinton in Washington on Wednesday. The Nigerian President, who described Mr. Clinton as one of the few world leaders really interested in his country, said he was told that if he stayed on his democratic course, the United States was prepared to help win some debt relief from international lending institutions and might also allow the resumption of direct flights to and from Nigeria.

Turning to the issue of corruption, for which Nigeria under a series of military rulers has made itself notorious worldwide, General Abubakar said that ''Government transactions will now be transparent and open and whatever contracts are going to be given will be done by open bidding.''

''On the issue of freedom of speech and association,'' he said, ''we have done all we can to make these things as easy as it is all over the world. There is freedom of association, there is freedom of press. In Nigeria, licenses are being given now to private organizations to set up radio and television stations. We have well over 200, 300 newspapers and magazines circulating without any hindrance.''

[size=18pt]26th September 1998 - The New York Times
Mokwugo Okoye, a leading campaigner for Nigeria's Independence , Dies aged 72.[/size]

LAGOS, Nigeria, Sept. 25— Mokwugo Okoye, a leading figure in Nigeria's struggle for independence from Britain, died on Monday, Nigerian newspapers reported. He was 72.

Mr. Okoye, who died in a hospital in Enugu, in eastern Nigeria, reportedly had respiratory problems and heart ailments.

Mr. Okoye was a writer and politician in the movement that pushed Britain to renounce its hold on Nigeria in 1960. He was a close associate of the country's first President, Nnamdi Azikiwe.

Four years ago, he returned briefly to the political stage alongside another independence-era figure, Anthony Enahoro, to form the Movement for National Reformation to fight continued military rule in Nigeria. But poor health later forced him to leave active politics

[size=18pt]October 5, 1998  - The New York Times
Hundreds die in ethnic clashes between Ijaws and Yoruba clan over rights to promising oil prospect [/size]

EPE, Nigeria, Oct. 4— Ethnic clashes over rights to a promising oil prospect in southwestern Nigeria have killed hundreds of people and forced thousands to flee their villages, aid workers said today.

An unfinished housing estate has become an impromptu camp for the displaced people outside Epe, 45 miles east of Lagos. Yekini Adedayo of the Nigerian Red Cross said it was housing 3,000 people, with many more refugees on the way.

''Most of those who landed with us here came down the coast by boat,'' he said. ''We know that thousands more fled in other directions. The local government has been providing food but there is none left today. So people have nothing to eat.''

The fighting began in late September in the Akpata region, 95 miles east of Lagos, over rumors that oil companies were about to move into new areas. The fighting is between ethnic Ijaws, whose heartland is the oil-producing Niger Delta, and Ilajes, a clan of the Yoruba tribe, which dominates southwestern Nigeria.

Hundreds of people have been reported killed near the region where the United States-based Chevron Corporation is producing about 400,000 barrels a day of crude oil. Nigeria produces more than two million barrels a day.

Scores of homes have been set on fire and belongings stolen or burned.

''They came in the night, killing and burning and beheading,'' said a tailor, Samuel Agbudeloye, 32, who is an Ilaje, like a majority of those who took refuge at Epe.

''My father's brother was murdered and many, many others. We cannot go back, and we call on the Government to do all it can to end this fighting to let us go home.''

Ethnic clashes over oil have become increasingly frequent in Nigeria, which has a growing population of more than 104 million.

Col. Moses Fasanya, the military administrator of Ondo State, where the clashes occurred, was spurned by local Ijaw chiefs last week when he tried to set up a peace meeting to end the violence.

''We would want to restore normalcy in the affected areas to insure that the communities get back to their business,'' Colonel Fasanya said after briefing the Government in Abuja on the violence, which killed at least five police officers.

The Ijaws, many of whom derive their income from fishing, accuse other ethnic groups of treating them as second-class citizens and depriving them of their rightful share of positions in local governments.

''As far as we are concerned, a Government that is supposed to protect the interests of all its citizens has for a long time shown parochial interest,'' said Francis Williams of the Ijaw National Congress. ''As of now the Ijaw are not feeling safe.''

[size=18pt]October 21, 1998 - The New York Times
Up to 1,000 people burn to death in Warri Pipeline Blast Tragedy[/size]

WARRI, Nigeria, Oct. 20— The death toll from the pipeline fire on Saturday in southern Nigeria rose to at least 700 today as more people died from their injuries, hospital officials said.

A health official in the town of Warri said that more than 200 injured people had died in the last 24 hours, according to reports from various hospitals in the area. She said the death toll probably would not go much higher because most of those still in hospitals were expected to survive.

The flames engulfed hundreds of people scavenging for gasoline from a pipeline going from a refinery in Warri to the northern city of Kaduna.

[Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate who returned from exile last week, said Nigeria's ''social malaise'' was responsible for the fire, Agence France-Presse reported. The victims of the fire died because the combination of poverty and economic mismanagement in the country made them desperate enough to do so, he said.

[Their deaths were ''a reflection of the general social malaise, which we are all undergoing at the moment,'' he said. ''It is not just the number. It is the circumstances of their deaths.'']

International relief agencies, including the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund and the World Health Organization, have sent emergency medical aid for the survivors.

Hundreds of bodies charred beyond recognition have been buried in mass graves near Warri.

Many victims were women and children who flocked with scoops, cans and pans to collect and sell the fuel.

The state-owned Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, which owns the pipeline, says the line was deliberately broken -- a common occurrence in an oil-producing country where fuel is often in short supply and many communities resent the Government and foreign oil companies.

The country's new military ruler, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, said today that the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had been directed to investigate.

[size=18pt]4th November 1998 - The New York Times
Obasanjo announces his candidancy for Presidential Elections[/size]

OTTA, Nigeria, Nov. 3— Surrounding himself with supporters in his home village who call him ''father,'' Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo announced here today that he would seek the presidency of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.

General Obasanjo, 61, who was President from 1976 to 1979 and remains the only military ruler in this country to have given up power to a civilian Government, was immediately seen by many Nigerians as the front-runner in the elections set for February.

The military Government has pledged to hand power to a civilian President on May 29. General Obasanjo emerged from three years in prison in June shortly after the death of the dictator Gen. Sani Abacha.

General Obasanjo comes from the Yoruba of the south and has strong ties to the northern Hausa and Fulani, who dominate the military. He presented himself as the man capable of holding together a country whose regional, ethnic and religious fissures have widened in recent months with the death of General Abacha, the death of Moshood K. O. Abiola, Nigeria's best known opposition figure, and unrest in the oil-producing Niger Delta.

''Every Nigerian has a stake in the survival and prosperity of the country,'' General Obasanjo said at a news conference that was attended by politicians from all over the country and began with Christian and Muslim prayers. ''This stake should be recognized. No section or group should be made to feel disenfranchised or alienated.''

Although some of his fellow Yoruba accuse him of being too close to the northern military class, General Obasanjo gained respect inside and outside Nigeria for handing over power in 1979 to a civilian Government. That administration was ousted in a military coup a few years later. In 1995, General Obasanjo was sentenced to 15 years in prison for an abortive coup against General Abacha, whose ruinous and ruthless rule over Nigeria turned it into an international pariah.

General Obasanjo was freed after General Abacha's death by Nigeria's current President, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar. General Abubakar, who has begun a series of political and economic reforms, has said he does not intend to run.

After attending a book party in Lagos this morning, General Obasanjo traveled north to his farm here, a 25-mile trip made longer by the frequent milelong lines at gas stations. The general arrived an hour late. He was driven into his estate on a dirt road, past banana plants, and was led out of his car and carried onto a stage.

''Our father, Obasanjo, should be the President of this country,'' said Kola Olanrewaju, 20, as he stood in the crowd. ''He has been very good to us, and we all know what he can do. We are all anxious about the future.''

General Obasanjo's announcement had been expected since he joined the People's Democratic Party last week. The party is one of nine that recently qualified to present candidates in local elections set for next month, as well as statewide and presidential elections set for January and February, respectively.

[size=18pt]10th November 1998 - BBC News
Abubakar's Corrupt Government continues to scapegoat the late Sani Abacha and his family and claims to have discovered the improbable amount of $750million in cash at Abacha's family's home.[/size]

The Nigerian Government says it has retrieved about $750m in different currencies from the family of the former military leader General Sani Abacha.
The amount includes $625m in dollar notes and another £75m ($125m) in pounds sterling.

The chief press secretary to General Abdulsalami Abubakar said the money had been put into a special account at the central bank while the government decides what to do with it.

Mohammad Haruna said 37 properties and five vehicles had also been recovered from General Abacha's former chief security adviser, Ismail Gwarzo.

Abacha authorised withdrawals

Last week the former Nigerian Finance Minister, Anthony Ani, alleged that more than $1bn had been irregularly withdrawn from government funds under the personal authority of the late military leader.

General Abacha, who died of a suspected heart attack on 8 June, had publicly committed himself to ridding Nigeria of corruption on entering office.










[size=18pt]26th November 1998 - BBC News
Big oil spill in South West Nigeria, thousands of cattle die.[/size]

Details are emerging of a major oil spill in south-west Nigeria.

Members of the local Ayetoro community say the oil has polluted ground water in the area, and led to the deaths of thousands of cows, pigs and sheep.

The spill is reported to have begun about twelve days ago from a leaking pipe.

Community leaders have called for compensation from the oil company which owns the pipe.

[size=18pt]29th November 1998  - BBC News
Suspicion over ghost names on Nigerian voters lists [/size]

The official in charge of organizing elections in Nigeria is reported to have said that many of the names appearing on a newly compiled voters list are fictitious.

The Nigerian press quotes the head of the Independent National Election Commission, Ephraim Akpata, as saying that nearly sixty million names are on the list.

But the Commision had previously estimated that the total electorate should not exceed forty million.

The reported comments come a week before local elections are due to get underway -- the first stage of a process due to culminate in a return to civilian rule next year.

When the voters lists were compiled last October, the Election Commission denounced reports of alleged fraud.

[size=18pt]2nd December 1998 - BBC News
Abubakar personally very close to former military ruler Babangida, and served as inteligence chief in Babangida's regime[/size]

General Abubakar's roots lie in the same Minna region of northern Nigeria as the former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida, whose annulment of 1993 elections plunged Nigeria into political turmoil and paved the way for Abacha's takeover.

The two men are personally close and Abubakar served as intelligence chief under Babangida. They own homes almost next door to each other in Minna and both men were conspicuous at Abacha's burial at his northern hometown of Kano.





[size=18pt]December 21, 1998 - BBC News
Abubakar more than doubles price of fuel[/size]
Nigeria's military government has more than doubled the price of fuel in the country, despite warnings by trade unions against such an increase.

Few subjects animate Nigerians as much as what is known as the ongoing fuel crisis; the extraordinary inability of one of the world's leading oil producers to provide its citizens with enough petrol.

The fuel crisis has Nigeria's economy in a stranglehold. The government has said it can no longer afford to sell petrol at its current subsidised price of about 10 American cents per litre.

Every company and every individual has to take into account the hours and even days that have to be spent each week waiting in line at the petrol station. Long distance travel across Nigeria is often impossible because of the unavailability of petrol along the route.

In the south of the country the situation is bad. In parts of northern Nigeria, petrol has almost dried up completely.

Bringing fuel in line with the black market

Those who have money do have an alternative, to buy fuel on the black market at anything up to 20 times the official price. For weeks now the government has been dropping hints that it would like the official price to get closer in line with that of the black market.

The government argues that this would reduce the temptation for smuggling and hoarding and, therefore, increase the availability of fuel. And in any case, say the authorities, as so many people are already paying above the official price, increasing it would not bring enormous hardship.

Nigeria's trade unions disagree. They say that the erosion of living standards which began back in the early 1980s has gone too far.

Any further price increases are unacceptable and they argue that it is because of the state of disrepair of Nigeria's four oil refineries there is a fuel crisis in the first place.

Without its own refining capacity, Nigeria, which exports about two million barrels of oil per day, has been forced to rely on expensive petrol imports.















[size=18pt]3rd February 1999  - The NY Times
Abubakar's Regime finalise draft of new consititution which would permit states to introduce Shari'a law[/size]

Nigeria's military leaders have agreed on a new constitution, but have yet to make crucial details public, weeks before the country chooses a civilian President, newspapers said today.

The Chief of the General Staff, Vice Adm. Mike Akhigbe, told Nigerian reporters at a briefing on Monday that the country's top body, the Provisional Ruling Council, had agreed on the new basic law. He said it would follow the key provisions of the 1979 Constitution, with some amendments.

The council decided against a recommendation that a provision should be written into the constitution that the presidency should rotate every four years between representatives of the north and the south, Admiral Akhigbe said.

He said a key commitment was made to devolution. ''What I want to assure is that the state and local governments, states in particular, would have more powers than they currently have,'' he said
















[size=18pt]3rd January 1999 - The New York Times
Abubakar Lays Siege To Oil Niger Delta -15,000 troops sent in to guard oil installations[/size]

. .LAGOS, Nigeria, Jan. 2— Hundreds of Nigerian troops reinforced positions today in the oil-producing Niger Delta, where as many as 19 youths have been reported killed while demonstrating for a greater share of the region's oil wealth, residents said.

The country's ruler, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, said on Friday that his Government would crack down on the unrest, which poses a grave threat to state revenues during the country's transition to civilian rule scheduled for May.

A force of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers is thought to have moved into Bayelsa state since the region's military administrator, Lieut. Col. Paul Obi, declared an emergency on Wednesday and imposed a curfew.

Today residents said troops had been deployed in the state capital, Yenagoa, to protect oil installations in the creeks and swamps of the delta, where multinational corporations like Royal Dutch/Shell and Agip of Italy produce about 90 percent of Nigeria's exports.

''Yenagoa has been calm today, and the sporadic shooting has stopped,'' a resident said, ''but the military are still arriving because of the remaining uncertainty.''

Six ethnic Ijaw youths have died in Yenagoa since protests erupted after Dec. 30, when an ultimatum issued by the youths expired. Angry that industry revenues have not been returned to the region to alleviate its dire poverty, they demanded that the oil companies pull out of the delta.

There were reports on Friday of 19 deaths in the region. Seven died on Wednesday when soldiers opened fire on protesters.

Bayelsa's police commissioner, Mahum Eli, said today that T. K. Ogoriba, leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ijaw Ethnic Group, which has led the protests, was being held in protective custody after disowning the demonstrators.

Unrest in the Niger Delta has increased since the death in June of the country's dictator, Sani Abacha. Since the succession of General Abubakar, who has won praise in the West for moving the country toward democracy, the Ijaw youth groups have become emboldened. In recent months, they have shut off more than one-third of Nigeria's oil output through sabotage, hostage-taking and the seizure of oil wells and export sites.









[size=18pt]5th January 1999 - BBC News
Thieves in Nigeria robbed an airliner which had just landed on a flight from Kenya. [/size]

The plane was taxi-ing to the terminal at Lagos international airport when it was forced to stop by obstacles placed on the runway.

As passengers watched, the thieves forced their way into the baggage compartment and apparently made off with several pieces of luggage.

The BCC Lagos correspondent says security at Nigerian airports has long been a matter of concern.











[size=18pt]16th February 1999 - The New York Times
Obasanjo wins nomination as PDP party's candidate for Presidential elections[/size]

Pledging to make Nigeria ''great again,'' Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, who earned international esteem by becoming Nigeria's first military leader to give up power voluntarily, won the nomination of the country's leading political party today as its presidential candidate.

General Obasanjo's selection by the People's Democratic Party set the stage for his return to the position he held 20 years ago, this time as a democratically elected President.

''My joy knows no bounds,'' the retired general said in a speech at the end of a contentious convention in Jos, a city in central Nigeria. ''I will devote all my energy and all the powers available to me to the service of Nigeria and humanity.''

His chief rival, Alex Ekwueme, a former Vice President during a brief period of civilian rule in the early 1980's, stood behind the general, offering his congratulations and support in the Feb. 27 elections.

From 1976 to 1979, General Obasanjo, now 61, served as Nigeria's military President and became the only general to leave office voluntarily since Nigeria's independence from Britain in 1960. Over the years, he has become an elder statesman in Nigeria, respected in Africa and in the West, and was even considered for the position of United Nations Secretary General a decade ago.

In 1995, he was arrested and jailed with several others on charges of plotting a coup against Gen. Sani Abacha, whose ruinous rule ended only with his sudden death last June. After General Abacha's successor, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, released General Obasanjo and pledged an end to military rule, many people pressed him to run for the presidency, viewing him as the only man capable of keeping the military in check and of navigating the treacherous ethnic and religious waters in Nigeria.

So when he declared his candidacy under a scorching sun in early November on his farm not far from Lagos, General Obasanjo immediately became the front-runner in the race for the presidency.

''Every Nigerian has a stake in the survival and prosperity of the country,'' General Obasanjo said during a news conference that day. ''This stake should be recognized. No section or group should be made to feel disenfranchised or alienated.''

Just as quickly, though, criticisms began to be leveled at him. Even as he delivered that speech, Wasiuogunseye Kunle, a 20-year-old supporter, held a billboard that was a reminder that General Obasanjo, though trusted by the northern military elite, is disliked by his own people, the Yoruba. ''Let the past be forgiven; the future is ours to conquer,'' read Mr. Kunle's sign, a reference to the fact that many Yoruba believe that the general betrayed them in 1979 by deciding a close presidential election in favor of a northerner.

And in fact, General Obasanjo's party lost the local and statewide elections in the last two months in his districts; his party even lost the election in the general's own ward in Otta, about 25 miles north of Lagos. The general also suffered from the widespread anti-military mood in the country and the perception that he was backed by powerful generals.

Given those negatives, Mr. Ekwueme emerged as a credible alternative, a civilian with a clean image, a member of the southeastern Ibo ethnic group, which has supported the People's Democratic Party.

Because of bitter disagreements, the party's leaders postponed the primaries twice and began the weekend convention, scheduled to start on Saturday, on Sunday evening. But by then, General Obasanjo had locked up enough votes -- more than two-thirds of the 2,500 delegates -- to win easily over Mr. Ekwueme and several other candidates.

The All People's Party, which is strongest in the north, and the Alliance for Democracy, which is essentially a Yoruba party of the southwest, have chosen southerners as flagbearers. But they are expected to present a common presidential candidate, Olu Falae, a former finance minister, in an effort to challenge the People's Democratic Party, and it is likely that they will court the Ibo, who strongly backed Mr. Ekwueme.


ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, Feb. 15— Pledging to make Nigeria ''great again,'' Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, who earned international esteem by becoming Nigeria's first military leader to give up power voluntarily, won the nomination of the country's leading political party today as its presidential candidate.

General Obasanjo's selection by the People's Democratic Party set the stage for his return to the position he held 20 years ago, this time as a democratically elected President.

''My joy knows no bounds,'' the retired general said in a speech at the end of a contentious convention in Jos, a city in central Nigeria. ''I will devote all my energy and all the powers available to me to the service of Nigeria and humanity.''

His chief rival, Alex Ekwueme, a former Vice President during a brief period of civilian rule in the early 1980's, stood behind the general, offering his congratulations and support in the Feb. 27 elections.

From 1976 to 1979, General Obasanjo, now 61, served as Nigeria's military President and became the only general to leave office voluntarily since Nigeria's independence from Britain in 1960. Over the years, he has become an elder statesman in Nigeria, respected in Africa and in the West, and was even considered for the position of United Nations Secretary General a decade ago.

In 1995, he was arrested and jailed with several others on charges of plotting a coup against Gen. Sani Abacha, whose ruinous rule ended only with his sudden death last June. After General Abacha's successor, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, released General Obasanjo and pledged an end to military rule, many people pressed him to run for the presidency, viewing him as the only man capable of keeping the military in check and of navigating the treacherous ethnic and religious waters in Nigeria.

So when he declared his candidacy under a scorching sun in early November on his farm not far from Lagos, General Obasanjo immediately became the front-runner in the race for the presidency.

''Every Nigerian has a stake in the survival and prosperity of the country,'' General Obasanjo said during a news conference that day. ''This stake should be recognized. No section or group should be made to feel disenfranchised or alienated.''

Just as quickly, though, criticisms began to be leveled at him. Even as he delivered that speech, Wasiuogunseye Kunle, a 20-year-old supporter, held a billboard that was a reminder that General Obasanjo, though trusted by the northern military elite, is disliked by his own people, the Yoruba. ''Let the past be forgiven; the future is ours to conquer,'' read Mr. Kunle's sign, a reference to the fact that many Yoruba believe that the general betrayed them in 1979 by deciding a close presidential election in favor of a northerner.

And in fact, General Obasanjo's party lost the local and statewide elections in the last two months in his districts; his party even lost the election in the general's own ward in Otta, about 25 miles north of Lagos. The general also suffered from the widespread anti-military mood in the country and the perception that he was backed by powerful generals.

Given those negatives, Mr. Ekwueme emerged as a credible alternative, a civilian with a clean image, a member of the southeastern Ibo ethnic group, which has supported the People's Democratic Party.

Because of bitter disagreements, the party's leaders postponed the primaries twice and began the weekend convention, scheduled to start on Saturday, on Sunday evening. But by then, General Obasanjo had locked up enough votes -- more than two-thirds of the 2,500 delegates -- to win easily over Mr. Ekwueme and several other candidates.

The All People's Party, which is strongest in the north, and the Alliance for Democracy, which is essentially a Yoruba party of the southwest, have chosen southerners as flagbearers. But they are expected to present a common presidential candidate, Olu Falae, a former finance minister, in an effort to challenge the People's Democratic Party, and it is likely that they will court the Ibo, who strongly backed Mr. Ekwueme.

[size=18pt]17th February 1999 BBC News
Nigeria - Africa's ailing giant [/size]

Easily the most populous country in Africa, with a powerful army and an oil-rich economy, Nigeria has long aspired to a leadership position in the continent. But in more recent times it has appeared increasingly incapable of fulfilling it.

Since independence in 1960, civilian and military governments alike have played a prominent role on a host of issues.

These have included the struggle against apartheid, demands for a permanent seat for Africa at the UN Security Council, reparations from the US, Britain and others for the Slave Trade and, more recently, leading peace-keeping initiatives in regional trouble spots like Liberia and Sierra Leone.

But with an economy in abject decay, an incoming civilian government may prefer to focus priorities on Nigeria's many pressing domestic problems.

Military commitments

Officially, Nigeria's political parties have said little about plans for foreign policy. But privately, there is anger at a legacy of commitments that army officers entered into when they must have known they would be costly.

The commitments had been adopted at least partly to curry favour with Western powers critical of the military's record on human rights and democracy inside Nigeria, but anxious to avoid involvement in solving Africa's messy civil wars themselves.

Anticipating a change in direction, the current head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, has pledged to do all he can to end costly military commitments beyond the country's borders before the scheduled installation of a civilian government in May. That might not prove so easy.


Nigeria's biggest problem is Sierra Leone, where troops were first despatched in 1991 and something approaching a quarter of the army is presently deployed. After massive international pressure, the protagonists in the conflict there have, with ill-concealed reluctance, hinted at peace talks.

But if that initiative fails, a new government will have to choose between remaining to fight a war that most concede cannot be won, with the political risk associated with forcing a still politically powerful military to accept the humiliation of defeat.

Border disputes

Other problems loom as well. Nigeria is embroiled in border disputes with three neighbouring states in areas thought to be rich in oil reserves.
Its influence extends to half a dozen countries in the region where increasingly shaky and impoverished governments were helped to power by the late dictator, General Sani Abacha.

The flurry of visits to Abuja following his death last June by leaders from across West and Central Africa was testament to the pivotal role Nigeria still plays in the region's affairs.

But after decades of mismanagement and corruption, there are limits to what a nation that once had pretensions of superpower status within the continent can deliver.

And with the move to majority rule in South Africa, its claims on moral leadership have equally been eclipsed.

Many in Nigeria hanker back to the good old days of the 1970s, when the oil wealth flowed in abundance and the country seemed a major player on the world stage, with aspirations to influence events not just in Africa, but much further afield.

The challenge for a new government will be to adapt to the much more modest contributions that Nigeria can afford to deliver.

[size=18pt]20th February 1999 - BBC News
Nigerians votes in National Assembly Elections[/size]

Nigerians have begun voting in elections for a National Assembly - the latest step on the road to democracy after 15 years of military rule.

Rival candidates for parliament have been holding campaign rallies in Lagos, attracting crowds of several hundred people.

The vote is to fill seats in a two-chamber Assembly comprising a Senate, with 109 members, and a House of Representatives with 360 members.

The People's Democratic Party, which is dominated by northern politicians, is the favourite to win.

Among the candidates standing is Lola Abiola Edewor, daughter of Chief Moshood Abiola who was widely believed to have won the 1993 democratic elections annulled by the military.

She said she planned to give the people meaningful representation.

"There's a wind of change , I'm part of that wind of change," she said.

The assembly elections are the first chance for the estimated 40 million voters to elect national representatives under General Abdulsalami Abubakar's plan to restore democracy to the oil-producing giant on 29 May.

The election is also being seen as a key test of sentiment before the presidential election on 27 February, in which former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo takes on rival Olu Falae, a former finance minister.

Constitution not announced

The division of powers between the Senate and the House of Representatives is not yet known, as the present government has not yet announced the constitution under which its successor will operate.

Both parliamentary chambers have traditionally been overshadowed by the state governors, who were elected in January. The National Electoral Commission will come under close scrutiny as it copes with the organisation of more than 100,000 polling-stations.

Several hundred foreign observers have arrived in Nigeria. They include a group from the Commonwealth, an organisation from which Nigeria is currently suspended as a result of human rights abuses by the previous government of General Sani Abacha.

All eyes on presidential poll

General Obasanjo's mysterious non-appearance at a live televised debate with Chief Falae on Wednesday night continues to generate controversy in the Lagos newspapers.

One of the groups which helped organise the event has issued a statement saying Mr Obasanjo was informed of the debate only hours beforehand. He himself says he was not given the correct date.

Obasanjo the favourite
General Obasanjo, who ruled Nigeria from 1976 to 1979, is the likely winner of the election.

Critics say he is tainted by too close an association with military rule, but he won acclaim for voluntarily handing over power to a civilian government in 1979.

Mr Obasanjo is the candidate of the largest party, Peoples' Democratic Party.

Mr Falae has the joint backing of the All People's Party and the Alliance for Democracy.

Personality counts

Personality rather than policy has dominated the campaigning, with no candidate offering easy answers to problems which include
a collapsed agricultural sector
large-scale unemployment
Nigerians' failure to benefit from the country's oil wealth

[size=18pt]1st March 1999 - ITN News (video)
Allegations of election vote-rigging in Presidential poll. [/size]

[flash=800,800]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qMjh0Lvq4U?version=3[/flash]

The results of the Nigerian presidential election have just been announced - with a landslide victory for the People's Democratic Party. General Obsanjo won by 7 million votes, ending 15 years of army rule. But international observers are already investigating accusations of cheating and ballot rigging made by the opposition.








[size=18pt]1st March 1999 - BBC News
Obasanjo declared winner of Presidential Elections, Opponent Falae rejects results claiming monumental vote-rigging occured[/size]

General Olusegun Obasanjo has officially won the Nigerian presidential election, and is now due to lead the country's first civilian government for 15 years.

But his rival, Olu Falae, has rejected the result of the vote, accusing Mr Obasanjo's supporters of "monumental" vote-rigging.

Former United States President Jimmy Carter, who is in Nigeria as an election observer, also questioned the outcome of the poll.

Mr Obasanjo, who is a former military ruler, received nearly twice as many votes as Mr Falae.

He promised that the cause of democracy would be advanced under his presidency.

Nigeria's independent National Electoral Commission said Mr Obasanjo had receieved 18.7 million votes, against Mr Falae's 11.1 million.

'Pattern of malpractice'

Mr Falae issued a statement that alleged a "seemingly institutionalised pattern of election malpractices" in the presidential poll.

The former finance minister and his electoral partner, Umaru Shinkafi, issued the statement just before the results were announced, in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the poll from being accepted.

Mr Falae, who was standing jointly for the Alliance for Democracy and the All Peoples Party, said it was too early to say whether he would challenge the results in court.

Carter questions result
Mr Carter told the electoral commission that it was impossible to make an accurate judgement about the outcome of the election.

He pointed to a "wide disparity between the number of voters observed at the polling stations, and the final result that has been reported from several states".

But most observers were of the view that although there had been malpractices, the size of Mr Obasanjo's lead meant that his victory was not in question.

There was particular concern over ballot-rigging by both sides in the economically deprived Niger Delta region.

Why a soldier?

BBC West Africa Correspondent Mark Doyle says one of the key questions about the election is why the big political power-brokers of Nigeria decided to put up a retired military man as their candidate.

Some say Mr Obasanjo is there to protect the military from corruption investigations, while others say he is the man who may be able to stop the soldiers seizing power again in the future.

Both presidential candidates voted in their home towns on Saturday, expressing hope that the election would bury military rule.

Falae support in south-west

General Obasanjo swept to victory in northern, central and eastern Nigeria. Chief Falae - as expected - did well in the south-west.

The general's Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) widened its lead by several percentage points compared to recent local, state and parliamentary elections in which it secured a majority of the vote.

[size=18pt]2nd March 1999 - The New York Times
Profile of General Obasanjo[/size]

General Obasanjo earned lasting esteem when elections were held in 1979 as planned, and he stepped down for the civilian President, Shehu Shagari.

To many of his fellow Yoruba, it was the biggest of many perceived acts of betrayal. The elections had been close and General Obasanjo had called them in favor of Mr. Shagari, a northerner, over an opponent who was Yoruba.

In Lagos and the rest of Yorubaland, General Obasanjo is also remembered for a violent crackdown on students protesting tuition hikes. Soldiers also continued to use brutal tactics, and one of the best known cases involved the late Fela, his fellow native of Abeokuta and one of the most vocal critics of the military.

In 1977, under General Obasanjo's rule, soldiers burned down Fela's compound in Lagos and threw his 77-year-old mother out a second-story window. After his mother died of her injuries, Fela wrote one of his most famous songs, ''Coffin for Head of State,'' which tells, in street idiom, how he and his followers tried to present the coffin to the General:

Waka waka waka waka we reach dem gate oh.

waka waka waka we put the coffin down waka.

waka waka Obasanjo dey there with him big fat stomach.

To this day, many Yoruba have not forgiven General Obasanjo for the 1979 elections and his ties to the north. ''He's Yoruba, but he has deceived us,'' said Afusa Oladunni, a 37-year-old civil servant, as she voted on Saturday.

By contrast, General Obasanjo earned northerners' enduring trust by yielding power to one of their own. He used the respect he had earned outside Nigeria to carry out diplomatic missions for the United Nations and the Commonwealth across Africa. A decade ago, he was considered for the position of United Nations Secretary General.

''I don't think there is an African leader, with the possible exception of Nelson Mandela, who is better known or respected by a multiplicity of international organizations as General Obasanjo is,'' said Mr. Carter, who led a delegation of American election monitors.

But Mr. Carter said that it would be crucial for General Obasanjo -- who will now govern the country as elected President and not as military ruler -- to overcome the distrust. ''I think it will be a handicap for him,'' Mr. Carter said. ''How he reaches out to the groups who did not support him, especially in the south, will have important consequences for him.''

In 1993, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida -- who is close to General Obasanjo and is believed to have contributed greatly to his recent campaign efforts -- annulled the results of a presidential election that Mr. Abiola, the Abeokuta native and a billionaire businessman, was on his way to winning.

Mr. Abiola was imprisoned in 1994 for refusing to renounce his claim to the presidency; General Obasanjo angered his fellow Yoruba when he said that Mr. Abiola was ''not a messiah.''

As Nigeria plunged into crisis under the repressive rule of Gen. Sani Abacha, General Obasanjo became an outspoken critic of the military Government and was himself imprisoned in 1995.

He was released only after General Abacha's sudden death last June. In the bewildering events that followed, Mr. Abiola died in July, still under government detention. A few weeks later, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who had assumed power, announced a timetable for elections.

The announcement led to many calls inside and outside Nigeria for General Obasanjo to run for the presidency. He is, his campaign argued, the only Nigerian capable of keeping this fractious country together.

''It is a great pity that, at every crisis, big or small, people talk of Nigeria breaking up,'' General Obasanjo said last July, four months before declaring his intention to run. ''The enormous challenge facing us now is to get beyond these mutual suspicions.''

So far, General Obasanjo has yet to explain how he will meet that challenge. But it is clearly the one he will face his second time as President.









[size=18pt]3rd March 1999  - Socialist World
Large-scale vote-rigging evident in elections[/size]

In mid-March there was still no Constitution for the civilian regime due to take over on 29 May. The military have declared that they alone will decide what is in the Constitution and despite repeated promises that it will be published "this week", it has not yet been seen. Sometimes the excuses for this delay are ludicrous. The deputy military ruler, Vice-Admiral Akhigbe, even said on 5 March that it had not yet been published because "a clean copy was being awaited"!

In the 10 days of campaigning the Presidential candidates were allowed the mass of the population were hardly involved in the process.

Indeed it was money and rigging which decided the whole issue. The eventual winner Obasanjo, according to the 23 February Wall Street Journal, spent $30 million just to win the Peoples Democratic Party’s nomination. He started by giving $1.5 million to help its campaign in last year’s local elections. No-one asked where a retired general who complained that his farm was bankrupt , could find that sort of money. The London Economist commented that Obasanjo "has a formidable party machine, backed by Nigeria’s new super-rich class: retired generals" (27 February 1999). The Lagos Guardian reported that Obasanjo’s party had budgeted to spent 4 billion Naira ($45 million) in the 10 days allowed for Presidential campaigning, just exactly what on was left unclear. Bribery is the almost certain answer.

Falae, the other candidate ran for the APP/AD alliance, a completely opportunist last minute bloc between the former Abacha supporters in the APP and the former Abacha opponents in the AD. Falae himself was the finance minister introduced the IMF inspired Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) austerity plan in 1986. Throughout his campaign he stressed his support for the "free market" and in an election day TV interview the only policy he mentioned was privatisation.

In fact in all the elections in this "transition" there were no manifestos or real programmes, just vague promises. For the first time in Nigeria all candidates in an election fundamentally agreed on the same economic programme. Furthermore a BBC correspondent commented that "many of those championing the cause of democracy have happily served in corrupt military regimes".

The genuine voting, in so far that it actually took place, was on ethnic lines. In the Presidential poll the Yoruba dominated south-west voted massively against Obasanjo, who was seen as a front man for the Hausa-Fulani elite, while in the rest of the country Obasanjo won. Throughout the whole country there was mass rigging by both parties which hid the relatively low turnout. The PDP let the AD rig in the south-west, confident that it could rig more in the rest of the country. It is very significant that there have neither been celebrations or protests at the result, both of which occurred after the last civilian run elections in 1983.

An indication of the scale of the rigging was that, according to the official returns, the highest voter turnouts were in two of Nigeria’s more backward regions, the North/Central and South/South zones, and these zones gave Obasanjo’s his highest percentage votes. In one area in Abuja, the Federal capital, 46 individual voters were accredited as going to the local polling station, but the declared result was Obasanjo 1,371 and Falae 65 votes! Falae is now challenging the result in a court case, giving examples of rigging such as Niger State where, he claims, 871,000 votes were returned despite only 754,000 people being on the electoral register.

Immediately after the election the main imperialist powers started pressurising both Obasanjo and Falae to agree to work together. There were visits by Jesse Jackson and British Foreign Secretary Cook urging "an inclusive government". this attempt to bring together all the main bourgeois currents has two purposes. Firstly it aims to try to limit opposition to the austerity policies which the IMF is proposing. Secondly it is to bring together Obasanjo, who has the confidence of the Hausa-Fulani elite, and Falae, who is more directly pro-imperialist than Obasanjo.

But while Nigeria’s basic power structure has not been changed by this "transition programme", there is a broad perception that the military are finally leaving office. There is an absolutely overwhelming popular desire to see military go now. The undoubted easing of repression in last nine months has already led to a freer atmosphere and encouraged a revival of struggle. The installation of a civilian regime will remove many elements of fear, at least in its first period, and provide opportunities for the workers and youth movement to further revive.

Already this has encouraged important developments within the workers movement. Last September the military government suddenly increased the Federal workers’ minimum wage from 1,500 to 5,200 Naira ($17 to $59) a month and this sparked off movements among workers in Nigeria’s 36 States and Abuja (the Federal capital) to be paid the same.

This movement was from below, the national union leaders did nothing. Even Nigeria’s most militant national union leader, Kokori , the oil workers leader jailed for nearly 4 years under Abacha, said that there should be no strikes before the 29 May handover date in order not to give the military opportunity to remain in power.
would sooner or later be a renewed protest movement, a development which could put the country’s future at risk.

Early last year imperialism’s fears started to materialise. March 3 1998 saw widespread protests start against Abacha’s plans, followed in April and May by a number of clashes in the major city of Ibadan. Then June 4 saw the largest nation-wide protest since the 1994 oil workers strike. 4 days later Abacha mysteriously died and was replaced by the current military ruler, General Abubakar. This was followed, a month later, by the equally sudden death of Abiola, the winner of the annulled 1993 election, who the new Abubakar regime had kept in detention because of his refusal to sign a written undertaking giving up his claim to the Presidency.

These two deaths cleared the way for Abubakar to begin a controlled retreat, introducing limited reforms from above to prevent revolution from below and, at the same time, trying to put in place mechanisms to control the inevitable efforts by working people to use the newly regained democratic rights in struggle.

Fundamentally since independence Nigeria has been ruled by the northern, Hausa-Fulani, section of the ruling elite. Although coming from the poorest areas of the country the British colonialists had left them in control of the military and administrative machines. This domination has resulted in growing national tensions which were particularly extenuated after June 1993 when the northern General Babangida annulled the election which the southern, Yoruba candidate, Abiola, had won.

By the end of last year the majority of the northern section of the elite understood that now they had to, at least nominally, step back in order to prevent the country being possibly torn apart by an explosion from below. This meant allowing a Yoruba to become President, something they agreed to while simultaneously increasing the number of northerners in key administrative positions in the Federal state and military machines.

Thus the two candidates, Obasanjo and Falae, allowed to run for President in February were both Yorubas and had been in jail because of their limited opposition to Abacha. However from the point of view of the Hausa-Fulani elite both were safe. At the end of his time as military ruler between 1976 and 1979 Obasanjo had bent the election rules to ensure that a northern candidate won the Presidency, while Falae had served as finance minister in Babangida’s military regime during the 1980s.

Both candidates offered prosperity to the masses, but gave no indication of how to achieve it. The winner Obasanjo had "Back to 1979", i.e. the years of the oil boom, as a main slogan. But this is simply impossible to achieve now. In 1980 oil sold at $40 a barrel and Nigeria’s oil exports were $25 billion, today however oil is about $10 a barrel and Nigeria’s 1998 exports were $9.3 billion, a dramatic drop even before taking inflation into account.

Annual per capita income for Nigeria’s estimated 120 million people has fallen from $1000 in the early 1980s to around $230 a year. Officially 60% of the population live in poverty. While for a time the severe drop in living standards had limited inflation, prices are now rising sharply again, with the annual inflation rate back over 16% and expected to reach 20% by the end of this year.

The little manufacturing industry there is in Nigeria was operating, in mid-1998, at 28% of capacity, but this does not take account of the fact that much of this capacity is obsolete. In the first half of 1998 investment fell by 50%.

Much of what investment takes place is by foreign companies. Many local companies are collapsing as what sales possibilities exist are increasingly taken over by imports or subsidiaries of multi-nationals, who still regard Nigeria as a major market if not manufacturing base. A sign of this economic re-colonisation was the mid-February announcement by Nigeria’s largest cigarette company, NTC, that it planned to stop local production in favour of importation. NTC’s capacity utilisation has fallen from 60% in 1990 to 10% last year as its market share dropped from 65% to 8% as imports have taken over.

Despite being the 12th biggest oil producer, Nigeria has been gripped by a severe fuel shortage for years now and "distribution of what little fuel exists is still in the hands of soldiers and their friends" (Financial Times 2 March 1999).

The electricity supply is often non-existent, with long power cuts of days, weeks and even months in some areas. Industry cannot produce without each factory having its own generator. In Lagos, the main city with 7 million people which consumes 50% of the country’s electricity, there are currently districts which have not had any electricity for 5 months. Even at the official launch of the World Youth Soccer Championship the military ruler, Abubakar’s, speech was blacked out by a power cut. While generators will ensure that TV pictures of the matches will leave the country by satellite, many Nigerians will not, despite the regime’s promises, be able to see the games because they have no power. To add insult to injury, in the midst of a worsening supply NEPA, the power company, announced a 100% price increase in February.

In this situation the Nigerian elite do not invest in production in Nigeria. The government’s regular flow of oil income has provided the basis for enormous corruption. Wealth is in fact transferred out of the country. In June 1998 the London Times reported that, since the early 1970s, Nigerian leaders had amassed personal fortunes totalling $217 bn in foreign banks. Officially during the 1990s net capital exports from Nigeria averaged $2.5 bn a year. During years of military rule there was a massive enrichment of senior army officers, many becoming dollar millionaires.

But an already bad economic situation has worsened as, between 1997 and 1998 alone, oil earnings fell from $14.9 bn to $9.3 bn. The immediate result was that Nigeria’s balance of payments fell from a surplus of $1.9 bn to a deficit of $3.1 bn, equal to 14% of GDP. Now the IMF is estimating that Nigeria’s real GDP could fall by up to 10% this year, with total exports down to $7.9 bn.

One "answer" which is being proposed by imperialism is privatisation, with the idea of using some of the proceeds to paid off some of Nigeria’s estimated $29 billion external debt and fund some government programmes. But even in the Nigerian elite there is some opposition to this due to their fears of losing sources of looting as foreign capitalists buy up local assets on the cheap.

This situation means that the prospects for any stability are extremely poor, especially in the likely context of a continuing world economic slowdown and deflation pushing raw material prices even lower. This explains the very careful way in which this semi-democratisation has been put into effect and the attempts by both imperialism and the Nigerian ruling class to prepare for future storms.

As the Wall Street Journal reported "Abubakar has rigorously controlled the election process, banning independent candidates. The military is also refusing to publish a new constitution that will govern the civilian administration until after the elections. Critics say the army wants to see who wins the elections before deciding on what powers the president should have" (23 February 1999). In fact in the end the military effectively chose the three parties which were allowed to run in the recent elections.

The military have, in reality, not permanently given up what they see as their "right" to rule the country when they choose to. They still have refused to abolish Decree 2, the 1984 military order which allows indefinite detention without trial. Some political prisoners remain in jail and others, already released from prison, have not yet legally been cleared and/or permanently granted their freedom. A number of workers and students who were victimised for fighting the Abacha regime have still not been reinstated.

Significantly this so-called reforming military regime was, at the beginning of March, arguing in the Supreme Court to get the judges to legally justify and uphold the Abacha dictatorship’s 1994 banning of a daily newspaper.





[size=18pt]4th March 1999 - BBC News
Abubakar releases 95 coup plotters jailed by Abacha[/size]

Nigeria's outgoing military government has granted state pardons to 95 people jailed for allegedly plotting coups against the former leader General Sani Abacha.
Vice-Admiral Mike Akhigbe said that all those involved were to be released "immediately".

"We believe in the spirit of national reconciliation and therefore we want to leave our ugly past behind," Admiral Akhigbe said at the end of a meeting of the ruling military council in the capital Abuja.

After General Abacha's death in June 1998, the Nigerian military government - led by General Abdulsalami Abubakar - tried to ease political tensions by freeing many political detainees and embarked on moves to restore civil rule.

The BBC Correspondent in Nigeria, Barnaby Phillips, says the releases became inevitable following the victory of former General Olusegun Obasanjo in last Saturday's presidential election.

Mr Abasanjo had himself been convicted of coup plotting and was detained for three years. He always maintained his innocence. Some of those being released were jailed with him.

He told his party on Wednesday that "no Nigerian who should not go to prison will go to prison under my administration".

The most prominent of the prisoners pardoned is General Abacha's former deputy, Lieutenant-General Oladipo Diya. He had been sentenced to death but that was later commuted to life imprisonment.

The 95 also include

Niran Malolu, editor of a Lagos newspaper the Diet

Major-General Abdulkareem Adisa, ex-Works Minister

Major-General Tajudeen Olarenwaju, former Communications Minister

Colonel Lawan Gwadabe, ex-state governor.
The government said charges against one officer, Colonel Ibrahim Yakassai, were still being investigated

[size=18pt]5th March 1999 - World Socialist Web Site
Fraudulant Elections ensures that corrupt elite remain in charge[/size]

Only political parties accepted by the military-backed Electoral Commission were allowed to stand. Although nine parties stood in the local elections, this was reduced to three in the presidential elections. Obasanjo, who was military ruler of Nigeria from 1976 to 1979, led the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and Chief Obu Falae, a finance minister under General Ibrahim Babaginda's military rule in the 1980s, led a coalition of the All People's Party (APP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Falae was also imprisoned under Abacha.

As only military-backed parties were allowed to stand in the election, this makes nonsense of claims that this was a "return to democracy". There was also little pretence of democracy in the voting process itself. Many reports cited a discrepancy between the numbers of voters turning up at polling stations and the much higher results announced. In some places, more votes were cast than the number of voters registered. Up to one third of the 60 million voter registration cards went astray according to the Electoral Commission and billions of naira changed hands, as votes were bought and sold.

Falae angrily rejected the 63 percent vote for Obasanjo as being fixed and has threatened legal action. Even the team of international observers supposed to give legitimacy to the proceedings--including Jimmy Carter and ex-US military chief Colin Powell--had to point to significant vote rigging. Carter said there was no evidence that abuses "would have affected the overall outcome," making it clear Obasanjo will be accepted by the US and Western governments.

Both Obasanjo and Falae are members of the tiny elite encompassing the military top brass, which has grown fabulously wealthy at the expense of the rest of the population. Obasanjo has the backing of most of the military. As human rights lawyer Festus Okoye explained in a recent interview: "Money plays a very pervasive role in Nigerian politics. The military's grip is based on money and people's greed. The military fears that if they don't get someone they trust, they will be held accountable for their past human rights abuses."

One could add that they don't want to lose the billions they have looted and smuggled out of the country. Falae, a Yale economics graduate who supported the IMF structural adjustment programme in the 1980s, would probably have been preferred in world financial and banking circles to Obasanjo. Nevertheless, Obasanjo made clear in a BBC interview that he wanted to impose political order in order to enable foreign investment to flow back into Nigeria: "nobody . . . will come into a politically chaotic situation to invest, and really, unless we have massive investment into our economy, we are not going to get out of the morass."

What this means was spelt out in a Financial Times article. "Without agreement [by the IMF], no rescheduling of the country's external debt will be possible. Nor will this month's donors' meeting, chaired by the World Bank, come up with fresh loans. Meeting the terms means pressing ahead with privatisation of state-owned utilities, as well as the oil refineries; making more transparent the operations of the state owned oil company and the central bank; and reducing the level of arrears on its external debt." None of these conditions can be carried out without the imposition of even more severe cuts in the living standards of the working class and poor masses.

news story inserted for 20th January 1998

[size=18pt]13th March 1999 - BBC News
President- Elect Obasanjo embarks on month - long World tour, weeks before he is due to be sworn in.[/size]

The president-elect of Nigeria, General Olesegun Obasanjo, is embarking on a month of hectic travel around the world. He intends to forge contacts with political leaders in four different continents, before taking office in May.


Many contacts between Nigeria and the rest of the world were broken off during the 1990s as the international community sought to isolate the dictatorial regime of the late General Sani Abacha.

But General Obasanjo, who won last month's presidential elections in Nigeria, is determined that his new civilian government will have a high international profile.

Starts with Africa

The initial plan is that he should visit countries in southern and eastern Africa before moving on to China and Japan.

After a quick return to Nigeria, he plans to visit four more countries in Western Europe before eventually ending up in the United States.

The programme is still being worked on, and will almost certainly be subject to all sorts of alterations.



[size=18pt]16th March 1999 - BBC News
Wole Soyinka questions credibility of General Obasanjo's victory[/size]

One of Nigeria's most respected pro-democracy activists and literary figures, the Nobel prize winning author Wole Soyinka, has described the country's recent elections, due to return Nigeria to civilian rule, as an auction won by the highest financial bidder.
 
The elections, won by retired General Olusegun Obasanjo, were hailed by most foreign observers as broadly reflecting the will of Nigerians.

However those same observers reported widespread cheating in the presidential poll by both sides and the result is being challenged in court by the losing candidate, Chief Olu Falae, as fraudulent.

This new attack by Professor Soyinka could further undermine the credibility of General Obasanjo's victory.

But for most ordinary Nigerians the principal purpose of the recent elections was to allow the unpopular military government to be replaced by a civilian regime, even if ironically it turned out to be headed by a retired general, Olusegun Obasanjo.

'The real loser is democracy'

Some Nigerians, including pro-democracy activists, turned a blind eye to the electoral fraud for fear that a protracted dispute over the result could destabilise the return to civilian rule.

Professor Wole Soyinka, speaking in the Nigerian capital Abuja, is having none of this intellectual fudging.

He pronounced that the elections had been won by candidates with high cash flow, military backing and a tendency to political prostitution.

The real loser, said the professor, was democracy.

[size=18pt]17th March 1999 - World Socialist Web Site[/size]
[size=18pt]Background to the recent Nigerian elections[/size]

The 13 February 1976 assassination of Murtala Muhammad, which brought Olusegan Obasanjo to power the first time, was widely believed at the time to be the linked to the CIA. Perhaps the same might be said for the 27 February 1999 "coup" as well.

Obasanjo is more than just a "friend" of the Americans. He is an operative. And his involvement with America's foreign policy elite is a long, sometimes complicated, but delightfully interesting story.

There are several key persons and institutions that appear over and over in the Obasanjo files. One is Donald B. Easum, who was the United States Ambassador to Nigeria at the time of the 1976 assassination. Another is the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, where Henry Kissinger, who was Secretary of State at the time of the same assassination, serves as a "counsellor." Then we have Robert S. McNamara, a former World Bank president and the Secretary of Defense who carried much of the blame for the Vietnam War. More recently, McNamara embarked on an excursion to Haiti in the aftermath of the election that brought Jean Bertrand Aristide to office. Upon his return, McNamara pronounced Aristide "vehemently" anti-US, implying that the United States would be in for another round of whatever it was that Fidel Castro stirred up in people after his revolution more than two decades before. Within a year of McNamara's assessment, Aristide was ousted by thugs on the CIA's payroll.

Back to the seventies: At the time of the coup that installed Obasanjo, the US was still reeling from the OPEC oil embargo. That action would have been all the more devastating were it not for the fact that Nigeria, under Yakubu Gowon's leadership, had opted to breach the embargo and ship oil to the West. Because of the inflated price petroleum commanded at the time, Nigeria experienced unprecedented economic growth. When Murtala took over, the US immediately became concerned, not knowing if Nigeria could be relied upon as a supplier under a new regime. In an attempt to soften up the anti-Western ideology associated with Murtala, Secretary of State Kissinger proposed a state visit. Murtala told him to stay home--something interpreted in Washington as a "ten" on the scale by which political insults are ranked.

In the months after Murtala took over in July of 1975, cables between Washington and Lagos increased in number almost five-fold. That in itself is an indicator of heightened political interest that goes beyond the mere arrival of a new administration. Some of those cables have been released via the Freedom of Information Act, and although they may not be entirely conclusive, they certainly suggest a US role in the assassination that brought Obasanjo to power in 1976.

To avoid getting overly-complicated, there were two dominant themes conveyed in most of those formerly classified cables. One concerned oil and the extent to which the new Nigerian leadership would try to use oil "as an economic weapon" against the US, to quote the language used in several dispatches. The second concerned Nigeria's growing economic, political and military status within Africa.

The written communication between Lagos and Washington--much of which, I should add, is still classified--focused mainly on political intelligence, on the anti-Western opinions of various ministers and other leaders, on Nigeria's foreign policy (including its support for the then-banned African National Congress in Lusaka), and, of course, its support for any potential OPEC strike in the future. Also of concern to Washington power brokers was the fact that Nigeria continued to acquire weapons of increasing sophistication and could be expected to effectively enforce its national interests in any regional dispute.

Among the more interesting cables is one, written by Ambassador Easum just days before Murtala's murder, that suggested Nigeria's economy would have to be brought down ("degraded," in Clinton terminology) so that development expectations would compete with the growth of national power--the assumption being that the military expansion Washington so feared would falter.

A related concern was the strength of Nigeria in terms of manpower. In August of 1975, as a matter of fact, the Congressional Research Service prepared a study called "Oil Fields as Military Targets." Its purpose was to serve as a background briefing to Congress in the event a second, "air-tight" oil embargo was launched and the president decided to seek legislative approval for a war over oil. One nation evaluated, and ultimately dismissed, as a possible subject of such an attack was Nigeria. There were definite advantages to attacking Nigeria, of course. Not the least of these were the fact that (a) the country's oil reserves were largely on land, making them less costly to operate (or reconstruct in the event of sabotage) in the wake of an invasion; (b) Nigeria offered a clear benefit in terms of transit because shipments would be relatively direct, not passing through strategic "hot spots" like Hormuz; (c) the populace would be relatively unsuspecting, giving the US military the advantage that comes with surprise (which rather contradicts the notion of Congressional debate); and (d) Nigeria would be among the countries least likely to provoke retaliation by the USSR, not to mention Soviet interceptions of communications, etc. But on the negative side, two important aspects of the would-be invasion stood out. One was the terrain--similar in many respects to that which had "frustrated" US troops in Vietnam over the previous decade. The second was the density of population in the eastern and delta regions in which the purported invasion would have had to take place. The ensuing struggle, one in which tens of thousands of angry Nigerians were potential combatants, would have drawn world attention to American imperialism, the report frankly concluded, making any attempt to colonize Nigeria's oilfields a distinct liability.

There were other documents produced at around the same time to corroborate this intense interest in Nigeria, the country's population, and its oil wealth. The US Information Agency or USIA (which operates the Voice of America of other propaganda actions around the world) does yearly reports on the US interest in various countries. Theirs, too, cites the pervasive worries about Nigeria becoming the economic and demographic giant of Africa, capable of spreading an anti-American ideology all over the continent, and likewise stressing that agency goals should serve the larger objective of increasing US influence over Nigeria's politics and culture. Then there was the notorious NSSM 200 (National Security Study Memorandum 200), sometimes called the "Kissinger population paper," in which it was stressed that oil and mineral-rich Nigeria could easily cope with a far larger population and would gain sufficient status to compete with the US influence over Africa. The memorandum recommended that 13 of the largest developing countries, Nigeria included, be targeted with aggressive campaigns of fertility control in order to contain their rise to power.

"Whatever may be done to guard against interruptions of supply," said the document, which was adopted as official policy "guidance" in the development assistance program in late 1975, "the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries. That fact gives the US enhanced interest in the political, economic, and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States."

The same study included detailed instructions on how US policymakers could use such "multinational" institutions as the World Bank and various UN agencies to pressure governments into adopting population-reduction policies, and even hinted that food and development aid might be made conditional on actual (measurable) reductions in national fertility rates.

The general tone of the dispatches sent between Lagos and Washington was clear. Washington wanted new leadership for Nigeria. And on 13 February 1976, the assassination that brought Obasanjo to power was carried out. Curiously, it was exactly five days later, on 18 February, that President Gerald Ford signed a long-awaited and much-publicized executive order barring the assassination of foreign heads of state by the CIA.

In 1979, Obasanjo became the first Nigerian military leader to voluntarily turn over his office to an elected leader, Shehu Shagari. And what came next is important. Almost right away, Obasanjo turned up in New York, where he was appointed to the board of directors of the African American Institute. The African American Institute, then located directly across the street from the United Nations, had been set up in 1954 with money that came from the CIA. Its principal task was to increase US influence over the foreign and domestic policies of the emerging African states, at that time still under formal European control.

In the next few years, Obasanjo began turning up in all kinds of interesting places--giving a high-proflie lecture at Kissinger's Center for Strategic and International Studies (which also distributes literature written by Obasanjo), for one thing, and hosting a meeting on religion and politics at the government-controlled US Institute of Peace. During the mid- and late 1980s, things were especially fascinating. Obasanjo was still on the AAI board, as he has continued to be, even during his years in detention under Sani Abacha right up to the present day. In 1988, from his vantage point at AAI and CSIS, Obasanjo launched an endeavor of his own, the Africa Leadership Forum. Assisting him from the beginning, and prominently involved over the next several years, was the notorious ex-defense secretary, World Bank boss, and probable Haiti coup-instigator, Robert McNamara.

Obasanjo's forum fits every description of a classic "front group." Its financing comes from nebulous sources, its activities are conducted for the most part under pseudonyms. It created centers for the study of military and "security" issues; organized "leadership" conferences; underwrote reports on policy matters by "local" scholars; recommended legislation (not just in Nigeria but before the AAU, as well); financed an office for conflict monitoring; recruited journalists for propaganda campaigns; and sought out young academics for political training--most of these actions presented as the initiative of host country institutions that were, in reality, Obasanjo creations. In the 10 years between the founding of the forum and Obasanjo's decision to make a run for president, the forum also worked with the development agencies of various nations, the US Information Service, and other big league collaborators in the Western world.

According to forum literature, the source of the group's money is yet another institution, the Africa Leadership Foundation, which was founded in 1988 by Obasanjo simultaneously with the forum's creation. Indeed, the foundation exists for the express purpose of financing forum activities. Obasanjo's New York-based foundation is not listed in the phone book, but forum records list an address at a residential condominium on upscale Park Avenue, where foundation chief of operations and Obasanjo confident Hans d'Orville resides. D'Orville, a German national who speaks with a British accent, was asked about the origin of several million dollars which had suddenly surfaced in Nigeria right after Obasanjo declared his intent to compete for the presidency last year. He insisted he didn't know.

The year 1988 was also notable for the inauguration of a "population policy" in Nigeria, financed with more than $100 million from the US Agency for International Development and the World Bank, and officially approved by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha's predecessor and a personal friend of Obasanjo's. One of the key actors in that operation was the CIA-linked African American Institute in New York, on whose board Obasanjo sat.

The African American Institute was at the time headed by none other than Donald B. Easum, the former US Ambassador to Nigeria who suggested the subversion of Nigeria's booming economy and on whose watch the assassination of Murtala Muhammad took place.

A 1988 contract between the Agency for International Development and AAI called for the latter to work to generate "a policy climate conducive to the successful execution of a national family planning effort [in Nigeria] and to strengthen federal, state, and local government capability in strategic planning in order to efficiently mobilise and execute an effective and self-sustaining national family planning programme." Babangida, ironically, is also rumored to have had a part in the 1976 coup that installed Obasanjo.

Two years after the national population policy was launched, Obasanjo was again called upon to assist in the promotion of the US agenda in Nigeria, this time acting under the auspices of his Africa Leadership Forum. The occasion was a June 1990 World Bank conference on population control in Lagos, organized, at least in part, by Obasanjo ally and advisor McNamara. At the close of the meeting, which was held secretively in a heavily-guarded Lagos compound, Obasanjo stepped forward to openly demand that the federal military government of Nigeria adopt a mandatory limit of three children per woman.

The money Obasanjo brought to his recent presidential campaign, which became the source of a major scandal in the Nigeria press, is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. For years Obasanjo has associated with key actors in the hierarchy of global politics. In his work with the CIA-created African American Institute and the Africa Leadership Forum, he has overseen projects that could literally be used as textbook examples of Cold War era covert operations--"constituency-building" campaigns, intelligence gathering, the penetration of the news media, the recruitment of unsuspecting local collaborators, and the creation of a network of inter-linked groups and dummy corporations through which major operations can be orchestrated and financed. As brutal as was Obasanjo's first period in office, it is likely that Nigerians will experience even worse in the coming years.

News story inserted for 2nd March 1999

[size=18pt]18th March 1999 - BBC News
IMF Director in Nigeria at invitation of Obasanjo's incoming government [/size]

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Michel Camdessus, has said Nigeria can expect the strongest possible support from the fund as it moves towards civilian rule.

Mr Camdessus, who arrived in Nigeria on Wednesday, said the IMF would be delighted to assist in what he called a Nigerian renaissance.

The Nigerian Finance Minister, Ismaila Usman, appealed to Mr Camdessus to provide assistance to reduce the country's thirty-billion-dollar debt burden.

Nigeria's civilian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, is due to assume power in May, ending fifteen years of military rule.

But correspondents say Nigeria is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, made worse by falling oil prices. During his three-day visit, Mr Camdessus will meet the President-elect and the outgoing military ruler, Abdulsalam Abubakar.

News story inserted for 4th March 1999

News story inserted for 13th March 1999

[size=18pt]23rd March 1999 - BBC news
Government continue to probe Abacha for corruption and claim to have recovered millions of dollars, IBB not probed.[/size]

The Nigerian authorities say they've recovered tens of millions of dollars pocketed by two former ministers and relatives of the late military leader, Sani Abacha, who were involved in a two-and-a-half-billion dollar fraud.

The money was taken from the national treasury under the pretence of paying debts owed to a Russian firm for construction of a huge steel plant.

A government spokesman said that, in all, at least eight-hundred-million dollars had now been recovered from officials in General Abacha's government. He said the international police organization, INTERPOL, had been asked to help the Nigerian authorities retrieve the money.

News video of 1st March 1999 inserted

News video inserted for 13th July 1998

24th March 1999 - USAfricaonline
[size=18pt]Tunde Idiagbon ex-Deputy in Buhari's regime, dies suddenly after returning from a conference justs days after some newspapers had urged new government to hire him to fight corruption, many suspect he was poisoned..[/size]

Babatunde (Tunde) Idiagbon, one of the few respected officers and former second-in-command during the military rule of Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, January 1, 1984- August 1987 died on March 24, 1999.  He was only 56 years old and reportedly collapsed in his home in Ilorin, Kwara State.  Let's place the man within a historical context to achieve a better meaning regarding what I believe was a very remarkable and consequential life.   First, Idiagbon, famous for his stern attitude, morose demeanor and iron-fist approach to governing had a love-hate relationship with his countrymen.  Initially, many felt he was too dictatorial and left no room for compassion for errant fellows.  Some, at the time, also felt his approach was right for Nigerians, an unusually boisterous group of people in their country. 
Second, I believe that Nigeria benefitted and learned major lessons from the firm hands and watchful eyes of Idiagbon.  Why?  However shortlived, he contributed immensely to clean the mess and stinking indiscipline which continues to eat deep like a cancerous growth in the country's social, organizational, governmental and individual fabric.  Recall that shortly after his removal from office through the military coup which brought Gen. Ibrahim Babangida to power August 27, 1985, most Nigerians seemed to have missed Idiagbon's style and substance. 

Third, his efforts imposed some sense of orderliness to most aspects of public life in Nigeria.  In many ways, he improved Nigerians' attitude to work, sanitation and ethics.  He led the national campaign known as War Against Indiscipline, WAI.  Streets, public and private buildings and other dirty areas and corners of every major city started to shine in the wake of WAI.  WAI's mechanism rested on command, threat and actual use of force and sanctions by Idiagbon's team.  With WAI under his watch, Nigeria was cleaner, although some buildings owned by many poor folks were callously smashed by bulldozers.  After less than 5 months of being replaced by Babangida, Nigeria relapsed to dirt as usual.  Ever since, mountains of rubbish struggle for attention with imported vehicles

[size=18pt]1st April 1999 - The New York Times
President-elect Obasanjo visits USA and gets 30min meeting with President Clinton[/size]

WASHINGTON, March 31— The President-elect of Nigeria, Olesegun Obasanjo, says he is paying no heed to skeptics who argue that a legacy of corruption has rendered Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, incapable of sustaining democratic rule.

Mr. Obasanjo met Tuesday with President Clinton to reaffirm his commitment to democracy, saying his nation needs a stable civilian government in order to prosper.

''I understand and sympathize with the skeptics, but I don't go by the views and the thinking of the skeptics,'' he told reporters. ''The success of democracy in Nigeria will signal success and be a catalyst to success of democracy elsewhere in West Africa, and indeed in Africa.''

Mr. Obasanjo said Mr. Clinton had expressed ''not just understanding, but also sympathy'' for Nigeria's political and economic situation. Nigeria has $30 billion in foreign debt. The peacekeeping force it leads, Ecomog, has seen its share of assistance from the United States fall from $3.9 million in 1998 to $1.3 million this year.

Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obasanjo talked for half an hour about establishing democratic rule in Nigeria, which the Administration regards as a potential force for political stability on the continent.

Mr. Clinton emphasized that democracy was essential if Nigeria hoped for economic reform and increased investment, the White House national security spokesman, Mike Hammer, said.

Mr. Obasanjo said he assured Mr. Clinton that Nigeria would continue to lead a West African peacekeeping force now in Sierra Leone, which has been racked by civil war. He also promised to insure that Nigeria's military would become more professional and would remain under civilian control.

Mr. Obasanjo was Nigeria's military leader from 1976 until 1979, when he yielded power to a civilian government. The military took over again four years later.

Mr. Obasanjo had been jailed by the dictator Gen. Sani Abacha, who died last June. His successor, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, steered Nigeria toward civilian rule. Mr. Obasanjo was elected in February.

The visit to Washington is part of a tour of several countries before his May 29 inauguration. Mr. Clinton has been invited but has not yet said whether he will attend.








[size=18pt]4th May 1999 - BBC News
Obasanjo considers UK demands for installation of IMF monitoring team in Nigeria's Central Bank and Finance Ministry as pre-condition of loan[/size]

The UK is insisting on the permanent installation of IMF monitors in the Nigerian central bank and finance ministry as a pre-condition for the resumption of loans and debt relief.
Chancellor Gordon Brown has written to Nigerian finance minister Ismaila Usman setting out the terms for British support for a new loan to Nigeria from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

As world oil prices are rising, the state can hope for more revenues
He says the UK will support Nigeria's case for rescheduling its $29bn (£18bn) in external debt, most of it owed to governments, but only if the monitors go in.

"We believe it is important that you request a permanent IMF monitoring mission to be established at the Nigerian central bank and finance ministry," Mr Brown wrote in his letter.

Britain also wants an independent audit of the state oil company and the central bank to ensure that they are free of corruption.

Fears of corruption
Nigeria returns to civilian rule later this month, when Olusegun Obasanjo's administration takes power.

Nigeria's economy is held down by all-pervasive corruption
But the international organisations are concerned that the endemic corruption in Nigeria is continuing, with some reports suggesting that Nigerian ministries plan to spend an additional £400m (60bn naira) in the last month of military rule.

Nigeria's economy has been devastated by the fall in oil prices, the country's most important export.
The government was forced to double petrol prices to pay for the shortfall in its budget estimates.

It also failed to meet many of the terms agreed with the IMF in January as a pre-condition for the loan, the first in 10 years.
The new government also accused the Abacha military regime of plundering $2bn from the country's coffers.

[size=18pt]20th May 1999 - BBC News
Abacha's widow Maryam Abacha breaks her silence[/size]

Mrs Abacha says she has had to endure "difficult and painful" criticism of her husband's record, finding it an "agonising experience".

"His name and legacy [has been] subjected to the most malicious attack and bitter denigration ever visited on any former Nigerian head of state," she said.

She said she hoped Nigerians would "overlook the past and look into the future with hope and courage".

Abacha 'really loved' Nigeria
"No matter what may be said about my husband, I know for a fact that General Abacha really loved his country," she added.

Correspondents say her statement also contained a thinly veiled attack on General Abacha's former government and military colleagues.

"Government is a collective reponsibility," she said, adding that her husband did not work alone.

However, a senior government official dismissed Maryam Abacha's comments as a calculated attempt to win a reprieve from the incoming government of General Olusegun Obasanjo, who was jailed by General Abacha.










[size=18pt]30th May 1999 - The  New York Times
Obasanjo is sworn in  as President 29th May 1999[/size]

General Abubakar, dressed in full military uniform, then embraced Mr. Obasanjo, wearing a white agbada, a traditional gown. General Abubakar handed over the flags of Nigeria and its military to Mr. Obasanjo, as well as a copy of the new Constitution, which he signed into law on May 5. Then General Abubakar saluted the new President.

After the inauguration, President Obasanjo moved quickly to shape his administration. Rilwanu Lukman, the secretary general of OPEC and a former oil minister of Nigeria, was appointed to the critical post of adviser on petroleum and energy.

The new President also appointed the four service chiefs to head the military, in an apparent move to dispel any doubts over who controlled the country's top soldiers. In the weeks leading up to the handover, one of the most potentially explosive issues had been the future of the service chiefs, some of whom argued that they were not political appointees and so should be allowed to continue serving in the new Government.

According to a press release, President Obasanjo appointed Rear Adm. Ibrahim Ogohi as the Chief of Defense Staff and Maj. Gen. Victor Malu as Chief of Army Staff. The two men, as well as the two appointed to head the navy and air force, are considered professional soldiers who have not held political appointments.

After today, political control of Nigeria will shift to civilians elected in four elections during the last six months: officials in 774 local governments; governors representing the 36 states, and state lawmakers as well as national ones, whose approval Mr. Obasanjo will need for decisions including forming his Cabinet.

The handover was the culmination of a tumultuous year that began with the unexpected death of General Abacha last June. A month later, the equally sudden death of Moshood K. O. Abiola, the presumed winner of the 1993 presidential elections annulled by the military and the country's most popular politician, plunged Nigeria into a crisis quelled only by the promise of elections.

As the wall of secrecy surrounding Nigeria's military Government was lowered, the deep-rooted problems facing Nigeria have become clearer. Years of misrule, corruption and theft have shattered the country's economy, facing the new Government with a restive population lacking basic needs like reliable electricity and drinking water. In recent months, economic conditions have worsened as the Government engaged in an as yet unexplained spending spree that is estimated to have reduced foreign reserves of $7 billion by more than $2 billion.

The Niger delta, the region in southern Nigeria that produces almost all the country's oil, has been a focal point of unrest in recent months. Neglected for decades by the Government, residents of the delta's impoverished villages have been disrupting oil production, at one point cutting daily oil production by a third.

In his speech, Mr. Obasanjo fully acknowledged those problems and the failures of government. Pledging to tackle the problems, he pleaded for patience and sacrifice.

For Mr. Obasanjo, today was another chapter in a remarkable political journey. Exactly a year ago, he was in prison serving a 15-year sentence for having allegedly plotted a coup against General Abacha. After General Abacha's death and his release from prison, General Obasanjo eventually declared his candidacy for the presidency.

Backed by retired generals and the country's wealthiest businessmen, General Obasanjo easily won the elections in February despite suspicions surrounding his military past and a widespread anti-militarist mood in the nation. The election's results were contested by General Obasanjo's rival, Olu Falae, but the challenge never gained any support from a population eager to see the military relinquish power.

Genbuhari

good work.

@alj_harem
Thanks for the encouragement.
I am finding this thread educative.