UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-West Africa Update 109-97, 97.12.22

IRIN-West Africa Update 109-97, 97.12.22


U N I T E D N A T I O N S Department of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 21-73-54 Fax: +225 21-63-35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci

IRIN-WA Update 109-97 of Events in West Africa, (Saturday-Monday) 20-22 December 1997

[As a supplement to its weekly round-ups of main events in West Africa, IRIN-WA will produce a daily synopsis of reports on the region. IRIN issues these reports for the benefit of the humanitarian community but accepts no responsibility as to the accuracy of the original source.]

NIGERIA: Coup plot

Twelve people, including Nigeria's deputy leader, Lieutenant-General Oladipo Diya, were arrested at the weekend for allegedly plotting a coup, news organisations reported. Two other former ministers, dropped from the new cabinet sworn in last week, Major-General Abdulkarim Adisa and Major-General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, were also arrested. Like Diya, they had been considered loyal to the country's leader, General Sani Abacha. The others held were also described as military personnel.

News agencies reported no distubances or special security measures in Nigeria's two key cities, Abuja, the capital, and Lagos.

Explaining the arrests, Reuters described most of them as Yorubas from the southwest who have opposed the military regime since 1993. Imprisoned political leader Moshood Abiola, the presumed winner of the 1994 elections, is also a Yoruba.

No motive was given for the alleged coup - the second since Abacha assumed power in 1993. Some 40 people accused of plotting a 1995 coup were tried in secret. Among them at the time was the former military head of state, General Olusegun Obasanjo, also a Yoruba, who stepped down in favour of democracy in 1979. Many were sentenced to death but had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Other than an official announcement broadcast by the media, the Abacha administration offered no further information.

Lawyers sue government over political detainees

In a related development, two lawyers in Nigeria said they were suing the government over its failure to release detainees, AFP reported on Monday. The lawyers, Gani Fawehinmi and Femi Falana, are taking Nigeria's military government to court on the grounds that a pledge by Abacha last month to release some detainees was tantamount to what they called a "declared state policy". So far none have been released. The two were seeking the release of 119 detainees, including Abiola and Obasanjo.

Call for Abacha nomination

The leader of the National Mass Movement, Alhaji Bukar Umoru Mandara, has appealed in a Nigerian radio broadcast, meanwhile, for the country's five official parties to hold a summit at which Abacha would be adopted as their consensus candidate in next year's presidential elections. He said "the present situation and the clandestine activities of some Nigerians, supported by foreign collaborators" did not make the nomination of a civilian possible.

SIERRA LEONE: Surprise Kabbah visit

Sierra Leone's ousted civilian president, Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, made a surprise visit at the weekend to the ECOMOG base at Lungi airport just outside the capital Freetown, news reports said. The BBC reported that he had congratulated ECOMOG troops for their role in Sierra Leone.

He also dismissed recent statements by the military leader, Major Johnny Paul Koroma, that he might delay the planned transfer back to civilian rule because of delays in the disarmament process due to have started on 1 December. Koroma, AFP said, dismissed the visit as a "cosmetic venture".

Abuja meeting

On Friday, Nigerian Foreign Minister Tom Ikimi insisted, however, that the Conakry peace plan and timetable for Sierra Leone had to be respected, Reuters reported. Ikimi was addressing a meeting in Abuja of the Committee of Five, a body established by the 16-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to deal with the Sierra Leone crisis.

Under the peace plan, ECOMOG would supervise the disarmament process. The Committee set 20 December as the new starting date. Ikimi also stressed the immediate deployment of ECOMOG troops throughout Sierra Leone was important.

NIGER: Human rights activist released

The head of Niger's League for the Defence of Human Rights, Elhaj Bangnou Bonkoukou, was released from jail on 19 December pending an appeal of his two-year sentence, AFP said on Monday. Bonkoukou was arrested 23 October on charges of insulting President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara. The charges, framed under the terms of a new press law denounced by international monitoring agencies, stipulate heavy fines and sentences for anyone convicted of "insulting" the president and "criminal" defamation.

In a newspaper article, Boukoukou charged that Mainassara had "not been properly elected". In late October, the US State Department and human rights agencies denounced his arrest and sentencing. An appeal verdict is expected on 16 January.

LIBERIA: Service for Dokie

The Liberian opposition leader Samuel Dokie, his wife and three others found murdered after their alleged detention three weeks ago were laid to rest at the weekend, Star radio reported. Their charred remains were found after they were reportedly seized by President Charles Taylor's Special Security Services in Gbarnga, 70 km northeast of the capital Monrovia.

Refugees to be moved

The relocation of some 50,000 Sierra Leonean refugees towards the interior of Liberia away from the border has finally started, UNHCR sources told IRIN on Monday. The refugees have been living in the border area near Vahun, in Lofa county, for several months. The decision to relocate them taken three months ago, had been prompted by concern over security in the border area.

The Assistant County Superintendent for Development, William Bazzie, told Star radio the refugees had fled fighting between Kamajor militias loyal to Kabbah and members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) in Sierra Leone. The UNCHR official said some refugees were moved in early July but further moves had been put on hold because of logistical constraints. Star Radio said the refugees seemed to favour the move inland.

Agriculture threatened by poor roads

Lofa County officials, meantime, blamed deteriorating road conditions on the poor agricultural activity in the region, Star Radio said. Farming was also compromised by low prices and smuggling to more lucrative markets in Guinea. In northern Liberia, meanwhile, Nimba County has also appealed to the central government to recondition their roads. Worsening road conditions, they said, pushed transport costs up, making deliveries to market prohibitively expensive for farmers.

A WFP official confirmed that the road infrastructure was poor. He said that WFP, with the Swiss Development Agency, was conducting a road assessment survey. Moreover, he said some food-for-work road projects in cooperation with the German Development Agency (GTZ) had already been completed in Lofa County.

CAMEROON: Locusts ravage north

A wave of African Migrating Locusts have ravaged some 100,000 hectares of cultivated lands in northern Cameroon, AFP reported on Monday. It said the locusts had totally devastated over 50% of the crops in the area, creating a potential food crisis for some 400,000 people.

The FAO told IRIN that the situation in the extreme north was critical. These locusts are considered particularly dangerous because they move at a rate of 50 kms a day, have a high reproduction rate and consume the equivalent of their own body weight daily.

AFP said the situation has been further exacerbated by end-of-season flooding in some of the affected areas. An appeal for international assistance was launched last Thursday. The Minister of Agriculture, Zacharie Perevet, estimated that Cameroon would need some FFr 480 million in aid. A humanitarian official told Reuters that Cameroon, once food self-sufficient, had become a food-deficit country following the 1986 crash in commodity prices.

French aid

France signed six financial agreements totalling FFf 229.6 million in aid targeted at improving the country's transport and communication infrastructure as well as modernisation of the university.

SENEGAL: Police stop march

Senegalese police forcibly broke up a peaceful march in support of 40 striking graduate teachers on Sunday, Reuters reported. Protesters charged the police with using undue force in breaking up the demonstration. However, later that evening the strikers agreed to a 24-hour suspension of their strike following the opening of negotiations with the government. The 40 graduates, along with 60 others who had earlier abandoned the strike, were protesting fiscal restraints they claimed had left them jobless

Abidjan, 22 December 1997, 20:00 gmt

[ENDS]

[The material contained in this communication comes to you via IRIN West Africa, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci for more information or subscription. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this report, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. IRIN reports are archived on the Web at: http://www.reliefweb.int/emergenc or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to archive@dha.unon.org . Mailing list: irin-wa-updates]

Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 20:02:44 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 109-97, 97.12.22 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.971222200037.894A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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