Productions: Nigeria Briefings

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THE FUTURE OF NIGERIA

THE YORUBAS:
After a long and pregnant silence, the Yoruba position on the Abubakar transition program emerged on Monday 3 August at the end of a pan-Yoruba meeting in Ibadan, the old capital of Western Nigeria. [See MediaNET Briefing on Nigeria #2 for background to this.] It brought a broad sweep of Yoruba leaders from different ideological currents in that region of about 30 million people. Among the main ideological currents in the region the primary and most influential is led by Abraham Adesanya, a lawyer and politician who heads the Egbe Afenifere [society for collective progress].

This group is correctly perceived as the logical extension of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa [1947], the Action Group [1951] and the Unity Party of Nigeria [1976] which were earlier national cultural or political organizations where Yoruba influence was dominant. The meeting resolved on 11 issues concerning leadership, new politics, the state of the military and the case for a Yoruba nation. One item of the resolution called on Yorubas to "resolve to put the corporate interest of the Yoruba nation above personal interest...and stop all forms of collaboration with the forces inimical to the interests of the Yoruba people" while also maintaining that "military administrators, commissioners of police, and directors of the State Security Services [SSS] should serve only in their state of origin". Both messages are an indication of ethnic unity and separation.

THE IGBOS:
The four-point Igbo Agenda that emerged from a recent summit of Igbo leaders in Enugu also stressed the case for decentralization in the Nigerian polity. The Igbos, a commercial-minded and enterprising people who live in the eastern part of the country are also about 30 million people. Apart from the call for total restructuring of the polity, the summit stressed the need for full actualization of citizen and residency rights, and a reordering of the revenue allocation formula to emphasize "derivation principles" whereby proceeds from resources like oil are controlled by the local or regional private and public administrations. [Sources: Tell, TheNews, The Week, P.M.News, Post Express, Vanguard, Guardian, National Concord]

THE HAUSA-FULANI:
Northern politicians, particularly the ruling Hausa-Fulani, have been more taciturn in their own expectations of the Abubakar transition. But isolated views of leaders among their rank [ see MediaNET Briefing on Nigeria #2] suggest endorsement. The major divide on the different perceptions of the health of Nigeria's federation have been represented between those advocating for restructuring of the federation and those like Ibrahim Babangida who maintain that "the unity of the country is non-negotiable, is a settled matter and is indivisible". [Sources: Punch, Post Express, Guardian]

Southern minority groups like the Ijaws, the Itshekiris, Urhobo, Edo, Ogoni, Adoni, Efik, Ibibio among others; each numbering between 500,000 [as in the case of the Ogoni] and 4 million [as in the case of the Ijaws], are calling for active organization to pursue their interests in the new political dispensation. A six-point resolution from their just concluded conference formed an umbrella organization named SOMIFON--Southern Minorities Front of Nigeria.

SOMIFON said in its communiqué that if by August 31, 1998 the Abubakar regime does not accept the need for a sovereign national conference and the withdrawal of troops from Ogoniland, it would organize a conference of southern nationalities to establish a federation of southern Nigerian nationality states. The group dismissed the planned elections as a "charade" saying the "root cause of the problems in the country are political and structural and that mere elections cannot provide a permanent solution." [Sources: Punch, P.M.News]

An emerging alliance of southern politicians put together by the opposition National Democratic Coalition [NADECO] is raising concern in Nigeria. Elements in the government have moved to tag it a secessionist plot. While this may prove that the concern over possible secession is growing, NADECO chieftain, Abraham Adesanya, says nothing like that is that is on their radar screen.

Drafting Obasanjo to run for President? The news is making the rounds in Nigeria that General Olusegun Obasanjo, recently released from jail by Abubakar and now on a world tour of sorts, may find himself being pressured to run for a political office in the new dispensation -- probably as a presidential candidate. Although Obasanjo has dismissed this prospect in remarks he made at a number of reception ceremonies in his honor, the public has not allowed the matter to die. Fueled in part by claims by someprominent community leaders that they had received proposals urging them to support Obasanjo, he is being advertised as the only credible candidate who can help heal the country, and restore unity and peace.

However, there are many bridges to cross on this. There are those who believe that Obasanjo did not speak strongly enough against the annulment of the 1993 presidential elections and that his 1994 remarks that the Abacha intervention "was unfortunate but necessary" could only be read as an endorsement of that regime that ended up jailing him too. All through his ongoing thank-you tour, Obasanjo has maintained a disturbing silence on Abiola and the June 12, 1993 elections matter. Two concerns have also been raised by his critics: that his tour is giving the appearance of a PR campaign for the regime, and that he seem to be helping the regime recruit credible names for ministerial appointments. among the Yoruba ethnic nationalities who have henceforth rejected open collaboration with military rule. Thus everywhere that he has gone so far -- Botswana, Germany, Britain, Colombia and the United States -- Obasanjo has been confronted by angry Nigerian youths, particularly southerners, who challenge his new philosophy of "unity through justice". They query the real content of his proposition. Obasanjo's own response to the country's crisis is conceived in a three-phase sequence: a reconciliation forum, a truth commission, and a national conference. But, he maintains that this package can also be contained in the context of an election and advertised in the manifesto of political parties seeking to mobilize people on that basis. [Sources: Punch, National concord, Post Express, Vanguard, P.M.News, mediaNET]

Concerns are growing in political circles in Nigeria that former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, who annulled the 1993 elections, is seeking a new route to political relevance. Media commentators believe he has been trying to influence the composition of key institutions [like the new electoral body and the federal executive council] that the Abubakar regime is trying to put together. Abubakar is his old school mate and they grew up in the same household. In addition, Mike Ahigbe -- a naval general and Abubakar's deputy -- is married to his wife's cousin. Babangida's visibility has grown notably wide lately for a man who hardly spoke or moved around in the five years that Abacha was in power. He has granted two interviews, to The New York Times and the London Guardian, in a spate of one month. [Sources: National Concord, Guardian, Punch, Vanguard, This Day, P.M.News]

The Nigerian army chief General Ishaya Bamaiyi recently said the military's position will be one of "absolute neutrality" in the new transition to civilian rule. "I do not expect to see any officer or soldier taking part in political campaigns, overtly or covertly, in the barracks." Bamaiyi added, however, that "men and officers of the armed forces must subject themselves to political authority and face their traditional role of defending the territorial integrity of the country". Similarly, the police chief for the country, Inspector General Ibrahim Coomasie, recently apologized for the role of the police under the Abacha dictatorship. "We betrayed the nation" he was quoted as saying. The apology seemed to have triggered a domino effect of apologies. Three other Abacha-appointed military governors [ Lt. Col. Hameed Alli of Kaduna State, Victor Anyagbalam of Ondo State, and Col A. Usman of Oyo State]. Usman went on record during the Abacha days to describe political prisoners as "war prisoners". The wave of apologies is also coming against the background of growing revelations of corruption and financial scandals among top military and security officials. While General Abacha has been reported to have stolen about $5 billion in four years, security men retrieved about $300 million from one of Abacha's closest friend's, Jerry Useni, an army general. The former national security adviser, Mohammed Gwarzo, reportedly withdrew about $400 million for alleged security purposes outside official budget lines. [Sources: Punch, This Day, National Concord, Guardian, P.M.News]

The dimensions of human rights abuse under the Abacha dictatorship are increasingly coming to light with the eye-witness report on the execution of the writer and environmentalist, Ken Saro- Wiwa. According to Mallam Shehu Sani, Vice President of the Campaign for Democracy [CD], who was recently released from prison after serving three of a 15 year-jail term, the hanging at Port Harcourt prison of Ken Saro-Wiwa president of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) and eight others was filmed on video on the instruction of the late Gen. Sani Abacha.

"It was like a war situation in the prison on that fateful day. Every other person within the prison environment was locked up in the cells except myself and late Gen. Musa Yar'Adua, so we witnessed how the whole thing happened. Saro-Wiwa really proved to them that his killing was unjustifiable. The hangmen had it tough hanging Saro-Wiwa; he proved a hero even until death. At the initial time, the gallows was not cooperating, so they had to adjust and adjust until he was finally hanged after a long battle."

"Saro-Wiwa was the last of the eight to be hanged, but immediately it got to his turn the gallows developed a fault. Moreover, what baffled us was the seriousness with which they were video-taping the hanging process. We were told that the head of state needed it. They were hanged longitudinally but they came out vertically and after that they were all thrown into a common grave where acid was poured on them. We witnessed the whole thing, myself and Gen. Yar'Adua." [Source: Vanguard]

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