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IRIN-WA Update 312 of Events in West Africa (Thursday 8 October 1998)
NIGERIA: Armed youths seize Shell helicopters
Armed youths in the oil-rich southern Niger Delta have seized two helicopters of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell, fuelling an already tense situation in the area, news reports said today (Thursday).
The helicopters were seized yesterday as they were taking off from a Shell facility in Bayelsa State. The youths also reportedly attacked Shell officials and other facilities, forcing the company to evacuate its staff from the installations. The trouble started as a protest at the weekend against local election plans in an area where the communities want a share of the vast oil wealth for themselves. There were similar attacks against oil installations of the Italian company ENI and Texaco was threatened with similar action.
Shell said yesterday the attacks had forced the closure of 10 flow stations, losing it 270,000 barrels per day (bpd) in exports. ENI had been forced to shut pipelines which normally carry 120,000 bpd. Shell has appealed to the military administrators in the delta to protect its staff and facilities from attacks.
Government probes oil organisation over contracts
Meanwhile, the government announced yesterday it would investigate contracts worth US $55 million, awarded to a body set up to plough oil money into development of the poverty-stricken oil areas, AFP reported. The government announced recently it would dissolve the board of the Oil Minerals Producing Areas Development Commission, OMPADEC.
"A new board will look into past contracts and how they were executed," Rear Admiral Mike Akihibe told reporters. AFP reported that contracts to be examined exceeded 4.7 billion naira (US $55 million). It said the reason for the probe was not immediately announced.
Commonwealth ministers meet to discuss Nigeria
Commonwealth ministers began a two-day meeting in London today to help Nigeria with its transition to democracy.
"This is the first time that the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group will meet since the new transition programme for Nigeria was announced by its new head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar," a Commonwealth statement said.
Meanwhile, Nigerian Foreign Minister Ignatius Olisemeka was scheduled to meet on Friday with Commonwealth ministers and Secretary-General Emeka Anyaoku to explain the military government's election plans. Nigerian television quoted Olisemeka as saying: "The main objective, of course, is to put across to the Commonwealth, in view of the events of the past, all the efforts the present administration has been making to bring Nigeria back to the fold."
Nigeria was suspended from the body in 1995 following the execution of minority rights campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists.
A conference official in London told IRIN that Commonwealth consultants and training experts will help Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) organise the elections which begin with local government polls in December. "The experts are to go (to Nigeria) well before that," the official said.
DRC-Nigeria: Kabila will not get Nigerian military help
President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) left Nigeria yesterday at the end of a two-day visit with pledges diplomatic support but without a promise of military help against anti-government insurgents trying to unseat him. Abubakar had invited Kabila to Nigeria to discuss bilateral relations and the situation in DRC.
In a joint communique carried by Radio Nigeria at the end of talks with Abubakar, both men called for "the need for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Congo-Kinshasa as a major step towards creating a conducive environment for the resolution of the conflict". Radio Nigeria said the communique "reaffirmed Nigeria's confidence in the ability of the OAU to resolve the crisis."
Although the communique did not mention the foreign forces by name, analysts said they were an obvious reference to Rwanda and Uganda which Kabila has often accused of helping the anti-government forces. Nigeria, which has one of Africa's biggest armies, is heavily engaged in leading the West African intervention force, ECOMOG, in reestablishing law and order in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Five leading exiles return home
Five prominent opposition leaders have returned to Nigeria ending four years of exile, media reports said today. The exiles, who arrived in Lagos from London yesterday are Dan Suleiman, a leading figure of the opposition National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), former state governor John Oyegun and his former deputy The Reverend Peter Obaban, former member of parliament Tokunboh Afikuyomji and a former senator, Bola Tinubu.
They paid "glowing tribute" to those who stayed in Nigeria to fight the hardline regime of the late General Sani Abacha, Abubakar's predecessor. The five said that since Abubakar assumed power, there had been "some positive and promising signals" and they wanted to take part in the return to civilian rule.
However, AFP reported that they criticised Abubakar's
refusal to name a non-military government of national
unity to oversee the return to civilian rule and his
refusal to organise a sovereign national conference.
They recalled that Abubakar had still not scrapped
Decree Two, which was used by successive military administrations
to suppress dissent. The decree grants the authorities
powers of arbitrary arrest, and detention without trial.
The most celebrated exile, Nobel literature laureate
Wole Soyinka, has not yet given a date for his return.
GUINEA: Security forces close markets
Local authorities have shut weekly markets in areas of southern Guinea as part of a clampdown on the increasing number of armed gangs operating from across the border in Sierra Leone and Liberia, AFP reported yesterday.
The news agency quoted a government prefect in Forecariah district, some 100 km south of the capital, Conakry, as saying local markets had become a hideout for "armed bandits" raiding across the border.
According to media reports, rebels have frequently used the presence of an estimated 200,000 Sierra Leonean refugees who fled to Guinea earlier this year to escape fighting in north and east Sierra Leone as a cover for criminal activities.
SENEGAL: Security forces tortured human rights worker
A Dakar-based human rights group has accused security forces in Senegal's troubled southern province of Casamance of torturing one of its members. The Rencontre africaine pour la defense des droits de L'Homme (RADDHO) told IRIN today that Senegalese troops had "arrested, tortured and threatened to kill" its Casamance executive secretary, Ankiling Diabone.
RADDHO said Diabone had been dragged out of a taxi at an army check point for no apparent reason, bound with nylon cord and repeatedly beaten before finally being released. Senegal's army has been engaged in a protracted campaign in Casamance against separatists of the Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC), which says the Dakar government has neglected the province. Senegal's army spokesman in Dakar was unavailable for comment on the alleged incident.
NIGER: Students reject grant reductions
Students in Niger have rejected government proposals to reduce university grants as part of an austerity campaign, AFP reported yesterday.
The news agency quoted a spokesman for the Union des scolaires nigeriens (USN) as telling local radio in the capital, Niamey, that the union had been shocked by the government announcement, which it called another blow to already deteriorating university standards. According to AFP, the USN could face difficulty maintaining student solidarity against the cuts because of a deep rift in its ranks.
Abidjan, 8 October, 1998 18:15 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 or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to <archive@ocha.unon.org> - mailing list: irin-wa-updates]
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 18:29:35 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 312 1998.10.08 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981008182842.3627B-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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