UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
Editorial

Editorial



Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
Previous Menu Home Page What's New Search Country Specific

A question of confidence

THE MUCH AWAITED speech made by Nigeria's head of state, General Sani Abacha, on October 1, may not have been the total panacea for the nation's ills which some had unrealistically expected. But it was an all-purpose policy package that satisfies many of th e expectations that were placed on it.

The speech also delivers on certain commitments made at the end of June where many disbelievers had convinced themselves that the contrary would be the case. Moreover, it gives a new focus to the experience of the nearly two-year old military government wh ich, in the past few months in particular, has sometimes seemed submerged by day to day problems and pressures.

Most importantly, we have a firm date for civilian rule on October 1 1998, supported by a detailed timetable (see extracts from the speech on page 1556).

Although three years is a long time, and to some would seem to have too little justification, at least it is now there, and it is very important that it be maintained. The reluctance to set a date has been explained as due to an unwillingness to observe th e practice of the previous transition under President Babangida, where the terminal date was put off three or four times. It is the measure of the continuing long and tortured shadow which that regime casts over the present one that there is su ch determination to do differently.

In the short run, reluctance to set a date may have added to uncertainty, but in the long run (provided the deadline is stayed with) it may prove to have besen the best way to restore some kind of credibility to the process and, indeed, to those implementi ng it - which has been so terribly undermined by recent experience. This confidence can only be painstakingly built up as the process continues, despite the rider that "the duration of the timetable will be determined b y the time required to complete each phase of the programme".

On the constitution itself, although the whole review process has produced some modifications, the key element to retain is that the Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) has "decided that in the higher and long-term national interest" the proposals of rotation al power-sharing should be accepted and applied to all levels of government. There should be no illusions about the complexity of making this system work, especially with six zones and a variet y of offices affected, but as this journal has insisted, it does seem to be the only way to ensure that the sought-for Nigerian consensus works.

The speech also confronted the question of the coup plotters - a side issue in the civil rule debate, but one which assumed unusual importance as far as Nigeria's external relations and its place in the world are concerned. The decision to commute the deat h sentences on the "coup plotters" is a recognition of the external pressures, but it is also part of the prese nt political equation, which was why Gen Abacha put the decision in the context of "the spirit of national reconciliation which has been the centrepiece of this Administration's policy". The lifting of the ban on Punch and Concord are further signs of this, although any decision on the detained Chief Abiola is still left to the courts.

The section in the speech on the economy is equally crucial ( West Africa will be treating this in more detail next week), because of the paramount need of setting the economy to rights. But seasoned observers have also noted very carefully the indirect strictures on the Nigerian political class ("we have not always got the best from a significant number"). This underlines again the havoc wrought in the past fifteen years to pu blic confidence that civilian or military politicians are capable of solving Nigeria's problems, a disillusionment rendered more profound by rising economic hardship. When you throw harsh external perceptions of the country into this mix, the most bruising side-effect of all has been that, unbelievably, Nigerians' confidence in themselves, sheet anchor of their own psyches, both individual and collective, has somehow been shaken. Rebuilding this may prove to be the biggest challenge of all.



Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
Previous Menu Home Page What's New Search Country Specific

The coup in Comoros

EARLY IN THE morning of September 28, news of a coup led by the well-known French mercenary Bob Denard against President Said Mohamed Djohar in the archipelago of Comoros, near the major island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, filtered through the vari ous media channels. Manifestations of the putsch came in the shape of shots being heard around the Presidential Palace and, way before the wider public could be aware of what was exactly going on, the seizure by a group of armed men - some twenty mercenari es in alliance with dissidents of the Comorian Armed Forces (FCD) - of the national radio station in Moroni, the capital.

Subsequent reports spoke of the release of all inmates at Moroni central prison, including officers involved in the abortive coup of N ovember 1992, notably the two sons of former President Ahmed Abdallah who was killed in a plot in 1989, Lieutenants Cheik and Abderamane Abdallah; and former interior minister Omar Tamou. It is worth mentioning at this point that the archipelago of Comoros is made up of four islands (Grande Comore, Anjouan, Moheli and Mayotte), the last being the only one to remain French after a referendum organised at the time of the archipelago's independence in 1975. The strategic importance of Mayotte lies in the fact that it has a French military base which served as the launchpad for the French military operation - mainly carried out by commandos of the France-based elite Groupement d' Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN) - to restore order in the Comoros.

After the coup episode was brought to an end by its sixth day, owing to that French military intervention, several questions began to be asked by observers. First, what on earth was Denard who was supposed to have gone into retirement since 1993 doing agai n in the archipelago which he had left at the end of the eighties? Second, what does the rescue operation by the French to reinstall the Djohar regime say about France's relationship with its ex-colonies?

Although the first question can best be answered by Denard himself who considers Comoros to be his second country, it can nevertheless be underlined that, however much the French authorities may want to disentangle themselves from his actions, he remains a French 'creation' in the the tradition of France's continuing close relationship with its ex-African colonies. So far as the second question is concerned, it can be observed that after the humanitarian Operation Turquoise in Rwanda last year, and France's well-known history of intervention within its African pre-carre , the latest successful operation to restore Djohar to power in the Comoros comes as additional confirmation of a unique relationship, the nature of which is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.



Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
Previous Menu Home Page What's New Search Country Specific