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IRIN-WA Update 195 of Events in West Africa, (Saturday-Monday) 25-27 April 1998
NIGERIA: Elections marked by low turn-out
Although official figures have not been released, news organisations reported an extremely low voter turnout in Saturday's national assembly elections. The BBC quoted officials from the election commission as saying privately it could have been the lowest turnout since independence. The apathetic turnout in the southwest, which has a long history of opposition to Nigeria's successive military governments, was also mirrored in the north, a traditional military stronghold.
According to the BBC, the five parties taking part expressed disappointment at the low turnout. General Jeremiah Useni, the minister for the federal capital territory Abuja, said: "I expected to see a large turnout of voters. I do not know really the reason for this turnout."
The opposition coalition Union Action for Democracy (UAD) had called for a boycott on Friday. However, Reuters claimed that the opposition's boycott call was less influential on voter turnout than overall general apathy and the fact that candidates did not have enough time to mobilise their campaigns. In many areas, the approved list of candidates was not released until just prior to the polls. The BBC also said voters felt their vote would not influence whether Nigerian military ruler General Sani Abacha retained power.
Protest called for Friday
The UAD called Sunday for a nationwide protest on Friday, May Day. It also called for a transitional government and the release of political prisoners, including the presumed winner of the 1993 presidential elections, Chief Moshood Abiola, the BBC reported.
UNCP in the lead
The United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP), one of the five official parties contesting the election, is in the lead so far, Nigerian state radio reported. The National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON) confirmed it had won all three seats in the federal capital, Abuja. The UNCP also took more than half of the votes in the March 1997 municipal elections and a majority in the December elections for state national assemblies, AFP reported.
Explosion kills five
Five people were killed and 14 wounded during an explosion in Ile-Ife, southwestern Nigeria, on Friday, a day before the elections, news sources reported. The region's military administrator, Lieutenant-Colonel Anthony Obi, blamed anti-government forces for the blast, AFP said. The incident followed on the heels of an explosion in the economic capital, Lagos, last Wednesday in which four people were killed and one injured. There was no indication that the latter was caused by a bomb.
Journalists freed
Two Nigerian journalists from the weekly magazine 'African Concord', held without charges since last year, were freed on Friday, AFP reported. Mohammed Adamu, head of the magazine's office in Abuja, said he had been released without formality. He said he had been "treated relatively well in detention", the report said. Soji Omotunde, the editor-in-chief was also released. The paper closed last August citing security problems.
NIGER: Capital hit by violence
A dozen people were arrested and several others injured in the Nigerien capital of Niamey on Sunday, when opposition marches were forcible broken up by government forces, news agencies reported. According to Reuters, anti-government protesters blocked key access routes with barricades of flaming tyres while police fired tear gas to break up the groups. A journalist for local Tenere FM radio was critically beaten and two others threatened by demonstrators, who claimed the station was not supportive of opposition activities. Overall, witnesses said the violence was on a smaller scale than last week's protests in Zinder and Maradi, when 27 people were injured and a dozen more arrested. Minister of the Interior Souelye Abdoulaye had threatened Friday to suspend all parties involved in future public disturbances, AFP added.
The fresh clashes come only a day after a collective of eight labour unions and human rights associations appealed for an end to the recent wave of political violence and offered to mediate. A spokesman for the collective, Laouali Mamane Danda, speaking on Radio France Internationale, said the collective had received the support of President Ibrahim Bare Mainassara to mediate in the crisis. On Friday, the collective met separately with the opposition coalition Front de defense et de restauration de la democratie (FRDD) and the pro-Mainassara Rassemblement pour la democratie et le progres (RDP). Danda said a pre-condition to the mediation was that all parties agree to end the violence. The collective will also meet the students' union, eight of whose members were arrested last Thursday following protests against unpaid grants.
The FRDD on 11 April called on its supporters to stage nationwide protests to demand Mainassara's resignation.
TOGO: Court rejects proposed election date
Togo's constitutional court Friday called for the first round of presidential elections to be moved from 7 to 14 June because the first date "breaches the constitution", news agencies reported. It said elections must take place between 60 and 75 days prior to the end of the incumbent's mandate, which falls between 11 to 26 June. The government has not yet responded to the court.
Exiled leader returns
Gilchrist Olympio, leader of the opposition Union des forces de changement (UFC), returned to Togo from Ghana on Monday after six years of exile, news organisations reported. Thousands of supporters greeted Olympio as he crossed the border from Ghana. He will reportedly register as a candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. News of his pending return and intention to register sparked a diplomatic incident when the Ghanaian government transmitted the news to the government via a "note verbale". The Minister of Foreign Affairs Koffi Panou told AFP the note was a "provocation" and "interference" by the Ghanaian government.
Olympio, the son of Togo's assassinated first president, Sylvanus Olympio, has been in exile in neighbouring Ghana since a 1992 attempt on his life. The government had accused him and the Ghanaian government of organising anti-government attacks in Togo. Olympio was condemned to death in absentia but pardoned in 1994.
Three other presidential candidates, including the President Gnassingbe Eyadema, have announced their intention to run. Opposition candidates include Leopold Gnininvi of the Convention democratique des peuples africains (CDPA) and lawyer Yao Agboyibo of the Comite d'action pour le renouveau (CAR), the largest opposition party in parliament.
SIERRA LEONE: Reflection to replace celebration
Sierra Leonean President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah said the 37th anniversary of independence on Monday would be marked by reflection on how to move the country forward rather than celebration, AFP reported. Kabbah said celebrations were also being suspended, for the second year in a row, because of the prohibitive financial costs and the fact that the money would be better spent on development
Junta forces destroying key bridges
Kabbah also announced on Monday that fleeing members of the ousted military junta were burning key bridges in the east of the country in order to slow the advance of the West African intervention force, ECOMOG.
Meanwhile, some 70,000 Sierra Leone refugees, mainly women and children, fleeing the fighting have arrived in southern Guinea since 15 March, bringing their overall number to 130,000, AFP quoted UNHCR spokesperson Machiel Slomons as saying. The situation was under control but could deteriorate at any time, he said.
Grant from Libya
Libya presented a cheque for US$ 500,000 towards reconstruction and rehabilitation to the government on Saturday, AFP quoted local television as saying. Kabbah welcomed the assistance as a gesture of African solidarity.
LIBERIA: Firestone strike continues
Some 5,000 workers at Liberia's Firestone rubber plantation have threatened to continue their strike following the failure of negotiations between government, management and labour, news organisations reported. The workers have been on strike since 12 April demanding, among other things, the reversal of a 1992 pay cut, compensation for war damages, resettlement assistance, pension benefits for retired workers and better working conditions.
Strike-breakers were chased from the plantation by disgruntled workers with machetes last Tuesday. The workers, allegedly former Firestone employees were recruited from camps for displaced persons following an agreement between management and the Agricultural Workers Union (AWU), AFP reported. However, witnesses told PANA news agency that the workers were contracted in the face of the stalemate and were not returning employees. A local source told IRIN the AWU holds the largest membership among the Firestone workers. The AWU and the government have appealed to the strikers to resume work.
Harassment by security forces
Residents of two districts in Lofa County, Vahun and Foya, say harassment by state security forces is threatening resettlement, Star Radio reported. They claimed that members of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) frequent their villages at night, looting and asking for money. They also complained that soldiers and police routinely mount roadblocks on market days, demanding five Liberian dollars per head from vendors heading to Foya market.
GUINEA BISSAU: President denies support for Senegalese rebels
Guinea-Bissau President Joao Bernard Vieira said Saturday that he was ready to do everything in his power to establish peace in Senegal's troubled southern Casamance region, AFP reported. He denounced recent accusations in the Senegalese press that his government was supporting the separatist Mouvement des Forces Democratiques de Casamance (MFDC). He said mixed border patrols of Senegalese and Guinea-Bissau troops had not found a single rebel base. He also said the reinforcement of border troops was proof of his commitment. However, analysts told IRIN that the few Guinea-Bissau forces, for the most part ill-disciplined and poorly paid, deployed along the border are inadequate for the task of controlling MFDC movements.
Vieira also noted the relocation of some 6,000 refugees, out of some 20,000, away from the border area. Both Guinea-Bissau and Gambia had agreed in September to relocate refugee camps further inland in an effort to remove support for MFDC forces. However, analysts told IRIN they were sceptical about the effectiveness of the refugee relocation operation. Eroding rebel support in the area would necessitate the forceful removal of all refugees, most of whom are not even registered - an unlikely scenario, say analysts.
A Senegalese delegation arrived in Guinea-Bissau on Friday to discuss Vieira's renewed role as mediator in the Casamance crisis, AFP reported. Vieira cautioned that renewed negotiations could be hampered by factionalism within the MFDC.
SENEGAL: US$ two billion in aid
Senegal is poised to receive US$ 2 billion in development aid from now until 2000, donor agencies meeting in Paris announced on Friday, AFP reported. The meeting, which included 11 donors and 27 international organisations, commended Senegal on its significant progress in macro-economic and structural changes. World Bank spokesman Mahmood Ayub said the aid would be issued primarily in the form of loans in support of the government's structural adjustment programme. Senegal started its fourth IMF structural adjustment programme in January.
AFRICA: Ogata supports mechanism to keep camps civilian
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata, at a special meeting of the UN Security Council, stressed the need for the UN to take a more proactive role in responding to African crises. In a statement, she said refugees coexisting with fighters, genocidaires and criminals had posed the greatest challenge to UNHCR in the Great Lakes crisis. Maintaining the civilian nature of refugee camps required various options, including the deployment of international police or military forces. Ogata expressed strong support for the Secretary-General's proposal for an international mechanism to help achieve this.
The Security Council meeting was held in response to last week's report by Secretary General Kofi Annan's on conflicts in Africa. A full text copy of the report is available under the 'What's New' section of the UN Web site <http://www.un.org>.
Abidjan, 27 April 1998, 18:40 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, 27 Apr 1998 18:45:28 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 195, 98.4.27 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980427184344.5455A-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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