Nigerian leader critical in Zimbabwe crisis

By HELEN TUNNAH


When Nigeria's murderous dictator Sani Abacha died - talk suggests from an impotency drug overdose - it signalled the hoped for end to his country's status as an international pariah.

Four years ago it was Nigeria which was the Zimbabwe of the Commonwealth, under suspension for extensive human rights abuses and political killings under General Abacha's military rule.

Defiant of world opinion, he had stayed at home during Auckland's summit for Commonwealth leaders in 1995, overseeing the execution of nine Ogoni activists, including writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, for their protests over the devastation of their land and resources by foreign oil companies.

Suspended immediately, Nigeria was welcomed back to the Commonwealth only after Abacha's sudden death in 1998 and elections the following year which returned another former military ruler, Olusegun Obasanjo, to power.

Now he features as the man critical in resolving the Zimbabwe crisis confronting not only the 54-country Commonwealth, but the ability of poverty-crippled Africa to attract foreign investment and aid from the world's major players, the United States and the European Union.

Irrespective of its return to the fold, Nigeria remains a country riven by centuries-old ethnic rivalries and religious tensions between Christians and Muslims.

Those clashes provided the world with its enduring image of the deprivations of Africa, when more than a million people died during the Nigerian blockade and bombing of secessionist Biafra during the war of 1967-1970.

It was during that conflict - in which the world's powers armed Nigeria while turning a blind eye to its using starvation as a weapon - that Mr Obasanjo made an impact within the Nigerian Army. It later helped him accede to power in 1976 for his first three-year term as President.

Later jailed by the Abacha regime, he has emerged alongside South Africa's Thabo Mbeki as one of the authorities of sub-Saharan Africa, hoping to spark a new assertiveness by African and other developing nations.

South Africa and Nigeria joined other G20 nations to disagree with developed nations at world trade talks in Mexico in September over the summit's liberalisation agenda.

For Nigeria, the frustration of those collapsed trade talks and perceptions of pointless rhetoric over key issues such as cuts to agricultural subsidies and disputes over patents for much-needed pharmaceuticals, is reflected in the theme of this week's summit hosted in its capital Abuja, "development and democracy".

The west African nation boasts 20 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa's population, but suffers extreme poverty. An estimated 70 per cent of its 123 million people survive on less than $US1 a day.

Life expectancy is just 52 and is expected to plummet with Nigeria listed alongside India and Pakistan as the countries most likely to suffer the next wave of HIV/Aids.

Already the infection rate is 5.8 per cent a year, with three million Nigerians HIV positive.

Human rights abuses and official corruption are rife. This year's presidential elections reportedly left hundreds dead and in some areas the fear of violence was so great, no one turned out to vote.

The police, themselves the victims of rampant crime, last year launched Operation Fire with Fire to try to combat the violence. They shot dead more than 200 "suspects" in three months.

President Obasanjo has himself been criticised for failing to take action against soldiers implicated in two military massacres in 1999 and 2001, in which hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed.

And still no one has been held to account for last year's Miss World riots where 205 died in fighting between Christians and Muslims.

Ethnic unrest is increasing in oil rich regions, stemming from anger that the profit from the resource is going offshore with the multinational oil companies, or lining the pockets of a privileged elite. Oil company workers have been taken hostage with those same companies implicated in the suppression and deaths of protesters.

Human Rights Watch suggests the world's economic powers, such as the US, have an eye on those oil riches and need a part-Muslim nation's support in the "war" against terror, so fail to reprimand Nigeria about its human rights record.

Although there had been hopes that might change with the establishment of the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad), sceptics among non-government organisations suggest the strategy is doomed to disappoint.

The partnership, driven by Nigeria and South Africa, aims to stamp the continent's mark on the delivery and use of donor funds and foreign investment.

Its primary lofty goal is to eliminate poverty, through increased privatisation and foreign investment to drive economic growth and trade.

Nepad also requires a significant boost in donor funding, mainly from developed nations, but with strings attached.

The proposal includes a peer review mechanism, through which errant states can be held accountable for their adherence to the principles of good governance and democracy.

Zimbabwe, where torture, violence and hunger remain prevalent under President Robert Mugabe, will be the first test for those mechanisms, which allow one African country to initiate good behaviour reviews against another.

US President George Bush, during his tour of Africa this year, reinforced the tying of aid to governance, indicating peer review will be critical in decisions for handing over any new money despite public approval of Nepad's ideals.

Action Aid's Nigeria director Charles Abani is wary of the worth of Nepad, saying endemic corruption needs to be addressed before ordinary people can hope to benefit from increased privatisation.

Is was the same old framework.

"The whole strategy is based around a global, capitalist structure," he told the Herald from Abuja.

"But there are concerns about the process in Nigeria, the management of a deregulated economy and delivery of services.

"There isn't a clear framework within which privatisation and deregulation is taking place.

"When Nigeria is this poor and the massive corruption is not addressed, issues of equity don't feature very highly."

He said there was also opposition to further deregulation in the petroleum sector, backed by President Obasanjo, with concerns that would mean even greater exploitation by foreign companies with less wealth to lift Nigerians out of extreme poverty.

"Who is gaining from this, how much can we gain or will only a few Nigerians gain."

Oxfam's New Zealand executive director Barry Coates believes the Nepad process is already in trouble.

"It's more of a donor document. It was something in order to leverage more money from donors for Africa, rather than talking about the way Africa should be developing in the future."

He said the programmes of trade liberalisation and privatisation promoted under Nepad effectively reflect policies which have not worked that well in Africa in the past, or have failed to provide social benefits.

"There's kind of a problem of some real fly-by-night foreign investors who have come in, taken the money and run."

But he says post-Mexico, developing countries are more willing to challenge the US and EU to honour trade pledges, particularly reducing agricultural subsidies, and that should be reflected in a strong statement on development and trade from leaders at the Abuja summit.

President Obasanjo, as host of the summit, will be the voice behind any statements on trade, which will probably be released through the summit's final communique.

That will allow him to claim increased credibility on the world stage which, combined with the sending of peacekeepers to help resolve conflicts in other west African states, such as Liberia, confirms Nigeria's rehabilitation as a regional and internationally acceptable heavyweight.