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IRIN-WA Update 453 of events in West Africa (Thursday 29 April)
NIGERIA: Commonwealth weighs readmission
Commonwealth foreign ministers meeting in London on Thursday were considering whether Nigeria should be readmitted to the 54-nation club once the democratically elected government of President-elect Olusegun Obasanjo is sworn into office on 29 May.
A Nigerian government spokesman told IRIN that foreign ministers were expected to vote on Nigeria's return to the Commonwealth and that further details would be disclosed after their decision was announced.
Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth in 1995 after the execution of the author and minority rights campaigner, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight companions during the hardline rule of the late military leader, General Sani Abacha. Abacha died in June last year and was succeeded by General Abdulsalami Abubakar who paved the way for the return to civilian rule.
General strike call
Nigeria's main trade union federation, the Nigeria Labour Congress, has called on private sector workers to down tools next week in support of civil service employees who went on strike earlier this month in 24 of the country's 36 states demanding that the government pay them an agreed minimum wage, news organisations reported on Thursday.
The new monthly minimum wage of 3,000 naira (US $33) was agreed in March: "We are committed to ensuring the full implementation of this agreement" before 29 May when the new civilian government is sworn in, NLC president, Adams Oshiomhole, was quoted as saying. He said he expected private sector workers to join the strike on 6 May.
The reports said 26 states had agreed to the minimum wage while 10 were still uncommitted. Support for the strike, which has been varied, gained momentum on Monday when the Nigerian teachers union joined closing schools around the country.
SIERRA LEONE: ECOMOG captures Masiaka
The West African peace monitoring force, ECOMOG, seized
the Sierra Leonean town of Masiaka on Thursday after
days of fierce fighting with rebels of the Revolutionary
United Front (RUF), a spokesman for the force told
IRIN.
"With the capture our vision of opening the road
linking Bo, Kenema and Freetown," is more certain
Lieutenant Colonel Chris Olukolade said. Masiaka lies
on the junction of a major highway that leads to the
large provincial towns.
The fighting involved artillery, heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. As mopping up operations were underway, Western diplomats told IRIN the town's capture would enable ECOMOG make a push on the highway east so that humanitarian goods could be trucked to Bo and Kenema which are held by pro-government forces.
Fighting is also taking place in Yele, about 150 km northeast of the capital Freetown, news reports and witnesses said on Thursday. The rebel attack at Yele on Tuesday sent residents fleeing to the nearby town of Bo. Residents said the rebels burnt many homes and shot at people fleeing, among them women and children. The missionary news agency, MISNA, quoted independent sources as saying "several dozen" had been killed.
At an inter Religious Council meeting , comprising Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim leaders, Bishop Giorgio Biguzzi of the Makeni Diocese said actions such as that in Yele "constitute an obstacle in the peace process".
GUINEA BISSAU: Premier "clarifies" remarks on Casamance
The caretaker prime minister of Guinea of Bissau, Francisco Fadul, has said reports that he had proposed a referendum to settle the separatist issue in Casamance, Senegal, were "erroneous", AFP reported on Wednesday.
His remarks followed a Senegalese government statement saying his alleged suggestion of a referendum was tantamount to "interference" in Senegalese affairs.. Fadul, visiting the Senegalese capital, Dakar, insisted he had only said that his government was seeking to help resolve the Casamance crisis.
AFP quoted him as saying he had never intended any remarks "embroiling myself in Senegalese affairs", but offered no further explanation on the alleged referendum proposal which was widely reported in the local media.
European aid
Fadul, who returned from a European tour on Tuesday, said he had received aid pledges amounting to 125 million euros (US $134 million) to help reconstruct the country in the wake of last year's military rebellion, AFP said.
He said the pledges had come from the four nations he had visited - Portugal, France, Italy and Sweden.
CAMEROON: Volcano disaster abates
The eruption of lava and molten rock from a volcano in southwest Cameroon which cut one of the nation's main trading routes with neighbouring Nigeria and damaged scores of homes in recent weeks had now abated and no longer posed a major threat, according to news reports on Thursday.
The reports quoting provincial authorities and an American volcano expert who visited Mount Cameroon, 350 km west of the capital, Yaounde, were now working to re-open the road cut on 14 April by a lava flow.
"The eruption of Mount Cameroon will never be explosive," AFP quoted the American expert, John Lockwood, as saying. After a visit to the area which included an inspection of the mountain by helicopter, he recommended that the government should try to tap subterranean gas in the area to prevent further disasters.
In 1986, 1,746 people died when a cloud of toxic gas belched from Lake Nyos, 250 km north of Mount Cameroon, and from Lake Monoun, 150 km further north.
Peter Acham Cho, the official who coordinated a local
crisis committee, said: "The lava emissions have
now dried up and the flow has stopped. The phenomenon
now really appears to be over."
MALI: Guinea worm eradicated
Guinea worm, a debilitating disease, has been eradicated in 98 percent of Mali's most affected regions, PANA reported quoting details from a national eradication programme.
The areas most afflicted were Kayes, Mopti, Segou and Koulikoro.
Details of the success in the fight against the parasite showed that the worm had been eradicated in the Koulikoro region.
Dracunculus medinensis, the scientific term for the worm, was closely monitored in 285 villages, PANA said. Mali has slashed Guinea worm infection from 1,499 cases in 1997, to 650 in 1998 in the regions of Mopti, Timbuktu, Gao and Koro prefecture.
The worm which burrows into the skin is common in Africa and India.
Abidjan, 29 April 1999 17:05 GMT
[ENDS]
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 17:36:25 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.ocha.unon.org> Subject: WEST AFRICA: IRIN Update 453 for 29 April [19990429]
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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