UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
IRIN-WA Special Briefing on Nigeria, 98.6.09

IRIN-WA Special Briefing on Nigeria, 98.6.09


U N I T E D N A T I O N S Office for the Coordination 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

[This brief is intended as background information for the humanitarian community and does not necessarily reflect the views of the UN]

IRIN-West Africa: Nigeria background briefing following the death of General Sani Abacha. 98.6.9

The new leader

Within 24 hours of the death of Nigeria's military ruler, General Sani Abacha, General Abdulsalam Abubakar was sworn in on 9 June as the West African nation's ninth military leader. As events unfolded in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, officials and heads of state attending the 34th OAU annual summit in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, quickly pushed Nigeria high on the agenda, African diplomats told IRIN.

In the view of those diplomats, General Abubakar, a career officer and military intelligence chief trained in the United States and Germany, is likely to be an interim ruler while the country comes to terms with the power vacuum created by Abacha's death.

According to AFP and the BBC, little is known about the 56-year-old officer who was born in 1942 into the ethnic Gwari community in the capital of Niger state, Minna, 120 km northest of Abuja. As the BBC quoted a Nigerian politician in Lagos: "He has always kept himself in the shadows. A real dark horse." For this reason, an African diplomat told IRIN, he is considered a relatively "non-controversial" choice for the immediate post-Abacha period.

"The big question now is how long he will remain in office and whether he will lean towards democratic change away from military rule sought by Nigeria's friends in Africa and the wider international community," the diplomat said.

According to the Nigerian media, Abubakar was effectively number three in the Abacha government under General Oladipo Diya, who was sidelined when he was arrested and subsequently sentenced to death in April for allegedly plotting a coup against Abacha.

According to his official military profile, the general has led some of Nigeria's elite military units - the First Mechanised Division at Kaduna in northern Nigerian, the 82nd Division in Enugu in the east, and the 9th Mechanised Division in Lagos. In 1992, he became Chief of Planning for the army general staff for a year before being appointed head of the National War College in Abuja. He also travelled to China in recent years to seek military aid and returned to tell Nigerian newspapers that Nigeria would look to the east and the eastern European nations after Western governments imposed sanctions on the Abacha government for human rights violations.

General Abubakar is described by Nigerian newspapers as being close to the former military ruler, General Ibrahim Babangida, whose annulment of the 1993 election paved the way for Abacha's rise to power. Abubakar served as intelligence chief under Babangida. The BBC noted: "They own homes almost next door TO each other in Minna and both men were conspicuous at Abacha's burial in his northern hometown of Kano."

When talk of a first coup plot against Abacha was reported in March 1995, it was Abubakar who announced the news to the world in a broadcast on behalf of Abacha: "I am now in a position to confirm that some military officers and civilians had ganged up to organise a coup d'etat against the Federal Military Government." He went on to call it an "irresponsible action of a group of over-ambitious and misguided officers and civilians". Despite his stated loyalty to Abacha over the years, the BBC quoted analysts as saying he is believed to be more in favour of handing power to a civilian administration than his predecessor.

The decisions ahead

As Nigeria's 105 million people awaited Abubakar's first public announcement, pro-democracy groups in Nigeria said on Tuesday they were waiting to see whether he would cancel the presidential election scheduled for 1 August and for which Abacha was the sole candidate proposed by the country's five approved political parties.

In various statements since Abacha's death, they were also awaiting news on political detainees, of whom the best known is Moshood Abiola. He was jailed for treason in 1994 after claiming he had won the annulled 1993 presidential election. Analysts said Abubakar also faces the difficult decision on whether to release his former boss Diya, whose death sentence remains contentious within the ranks because Diya and those jailed with him in the latest coup plot hail from the same home district as Abiola.

Nigeria's neighbours at the OAU conference and its Western partners on Monday have urged Nigeria to move quickly towards the restoration of democracy and thus entail the normalisation of relations. The analysts also point out that one of the most sensitive areas is the leading role Nigeria plays in the West African peace-keeping force maintaining the peace in Liberia and currently assisting the elected civilian government of Sierra Leone which it helped restore to power. It is this latter role which has drawn praise not only from the United States and Britain, but again this week in formal statements from South Africa and its OAU partners.

Abidjan, 9 June 1998, 20:30 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-weekly]

Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 20:41:05 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-WA Special Briefing on Nigeria, 98.6.09 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980609203759.3205B-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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