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IRIN-WA Update 406 of Events in West Africa (Friday 19 February)
NIGERIA: Preparations underway for legislative elections
Nigerians go to the polls tomorrow (Saturday) to elect
a civilian two-chamber National Assembly comprising
a 109-seat Senate and 360-seat House of Representatives,
news organisations reported. Rival candidates are holding
final rallies for elections, which have been overshadowed
by preparations for the presidential poll on 27 February.
One of the most pressing tasks ahead for members of
Nigeria's legislature will be to agree on a new constitution.
Up to now it has consisted mainly of "bits from
1979, inherited from Obasanjo's regime, along with
various military decrees, many of them arbitrary",
an observer told AFP today (Friday). There has been
speculation in the press that the military intends
to devise a new constitution before handing over power
in May, although it is unclear whether it will cater
to military or civilian interests, AFP said.
The legislative elections are the third step in Nigeria's transition to civilian government after nearly 15 years of military rule. The fourth and final step will take place when Nigerians elect a civilian president. Local and state elections have already been held.
Abubukar signs election decrees into law
Meanwhile, Nigerian leader General Abdulsalami Abubukar has signed into law the decrees which give legal backing to the legislative and presidential elections, Nigerian television reported yesterday (Thursday). The two decrees provide for the conduct and supervision of the elections.
EU and OAU send observers
The EU and the OAU plan to send 150 observers to monitor the elections, their delegations announced yesterday, according to news reports. Some 100 EU observers are to be deloyed in nearly all of Nigeria's 36 states, agencies reported Hans-Gunther Sulimma, Germany's ambassador to Nigeria, as saying. He added that the EU delegation was the largest single foreign monitoring group and expressed confidence that "our presence in Nigeria will make a significant contribution to the successful implementation of the current transitional process".
The 50-member OAU team is made up of African statesmen and women, diplomats, lawyers as well as officials from the OAU secretariat, news agencies said.
Obasanjo gives reason for missing TV debate
General Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday blamed his failure to turn up for a scheduled live television debate with his presidential rival on Wednesday night on "lack of proper invitation," according to the independent 'Guardian' newspaper. He denied having "shied away" from the programme.
However the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), one of the programme organisers, retorted by saying he was invited and "his personal consent to attend secured," the Guardian added.
Women's groups threaten to use vote to gain political empowerment
Women's groups have said that the presidential candidate who pledges most to empower women will win their vote, AFP reported. "Women have been excluded from this transition, at every stage so far, by our male politicians," Bisi Olateru-Olagbegi, executive director of the Women's Consortioum of Nigeria, told AFP.
The women's groups are seeking written pledges on affirmative action from the two presidential candidates, Olateru-Olagbegi added. Less than five percent of the politicians who have contested local, state and parliamentary elections are women and to ensure change, women's groups are threatening to use their vote to pressure male politicians to use their influence to name women politicians, AFP reported.
Islamic leader sees no change for Moslems
Sheikh Ibrahim Zak Zaky, leader of Nigeria's most prominent Islamic movement, said he had little faith in current or future leaders of Nigeria. He told AFP that Moslems, believed to make up some 45 percent of the estimated 108 million population, had no reason to support any of the three parties. "Some of those coming into the elections now are those who looted the treasury earlier and are now coming again," he said.
After spending more than two years in prison on sedition charges, Zak Zaky was released in December. He leads the Islamic Movement, a Shiite group in the mainly Sunni Moslem north of Nigeria, which preaches a strict observance of Islamic law and has often found itself in conflict with the authorities, AFP noted.
SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG denies members arrested for summary executions
The West African intervention force, ECOMOG, today denied comments by a ranking UN official that at least 100 of the force's members had been arrested for alleged summary executions of rebels and their sympathisers in Sierra Leone.
Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade told IRIN that the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, was "not being factual". Otunnu made the comments at a news briefing in New York on Wednesday.
In a separate statement issued yesterday, Olukolade said that no ECOMOG officers or men had been implicated or were under investigation for summary executions. He called the accusation a "spurious charge which we believe is being peddled to distract our attention form the ongoing operations."
He said that if cases of executions were brought before the ECOMOG High Command then these would be investigated and the culprits tried.
Relief supplies arrive
A ship loaded with 20,000 blankets and some 850 boxes of heavy-duty plastic sheeting intended for displaced people arrived at the port of Freetown yesterday, Reuters reported.
The consignment, sent by the CARE relief agency, will be used to build temporary shelters for the tens of thousands of people displaced in the country. Humanitarian sources said today that another 240 rolls of plastic sheeting and another 30,000 blankets would be sent soon.
12 drown as refugee boat sinks
At least 12 people died and dozens more were reported missing after a boat full of Sierra Leoneans fleeing war in their country struck a rock and sank just off Freetown, Reuters reported, quoting maritime officials. The boat was heading for Pepel on the mainland from the Freetown peninsula. Fishermen rescued at least 10 people. The report did not say how many people were on the boat, the Tamaraneh.
GUINEA BISSAU: Senegal pulls out 700 troops
Senegal announced yesterday it would begin pulling out
700 more troops from Guinea Bissau, under an agreement
designed to re-establish lasting peace in that country,
news organisations reported, quoting an army statement.
This will bring to 900, the total number of Senegalese
troops withdrawn from Guinea Bissau where, with Guinean
troops, they have been defending the besieged administration
of President Joao Bernardo Vieira against a military
revolt.
According to the Portuguese news agency Lusa, the Military
Junta, which is represented in a joint military commission
overseeing the implementation of a peace accord that
ended the war, said it had suspended its participation
because of Senegal's repeated delays in pulling out
its forces.
Guinean and Senegalese troops are to be withdrawn by the end of February at the latest and are being replaced by the West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG. There are some 600 ECOMOG troops in Guinea Bissau:
Abidjan, 19 February 1999, 18:00 gmt
[ENDS]
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 18:05:48 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.ocha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 406 for 1999.2.19
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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