Queen skips reality for TV village in Nigeria

By HELEN TUNNAH, Deputy Political Editor



ABUJA - The Queen returned to Nigeria this week, her first visit in almost half a century and one in which she said she wanted to meet "real" Nigerians.

Pity then, that she chose to take her African village walkabout through a BBC film set.

New Karu is just outside Nigeria's capital, Abuja, which is hosting this weekend's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The village was built especially for a television programme, and disbelieving local newspapers reported that before the Queen's visit, the cast were carefully practising their lines and being shown how to pound yams.

"Her main aim is to ensure that she meets as many of the Nigerian people as she can," the Queen's spokeswoman had said.

That will be difficult. Queen Elizabeth, who last visited in 1956, is being sheltered at the presidential palace amid fears that the al Qaeda terror network could target the Abuja summit as a soft target.

Interlinked threats of terror and a row over alleged colonialism are providing the backdrop to this leaders' meeting in West Africa, despite the best efforts of white Commonwealth leaders to say the divisions over Zimbabwe's suspension have nothing to do with race.

Zimbabwe's rogue President, Robert Mugabe, who has not been invited to Abuja, has for 18 months been trying to portray his country's isolation as a race issue and a legacy of colonisation.

Several southern and eastern black African states are supporting Zimbabwe's return to the Commonwealth, a position the Guardian newspaper said yesterday was also that of Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo.

Prime Minister Helen Clark has rejected the Mugabe line, but on arriving in Abuja she went quiet.

She had been briefed on arrival by New Zealand's High Commissioner to London, Russell Marshall, about the chances of Don McKinnon being endorsed for a second term as Commonwealth Secretary-General, in the face of a Mugabe-inspired campaign to oust him.

That decision was due to be debated overnight, and although Clark chose not to comment, Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, weighed in.

"I hope very much that he will be confirmed," he told British reporters just before flying to Nigeria.

A rugby reception for Jonny Wilkinson, and some domestic political troubles, mean Mr Blair intends leaving the meeting before it is over, but he has made it clear Britain believes Zimbabwe must remain a Commonwealth pariah.

But it may be difficult for leaders such as Blair, Clark and Australia's John Howard to convince African leaders with weak or corrupt regimes that Zimbabwe should be isolated.

Transparency International rated Nigeria the second-most corrupt nation in the world - a claim which outraged political leaders here.

But 70 per cent of Nigerians live on less than $US1 a day. One in five dies before the age of five, despite their nation's wealth of oil and gas.

Zimbabwe is expected to dominate the two day leaders' retreat which begins today.

Any easing of the pressure on the nation could cost African nations investment and aid. That would be disastrous.