A flurry of international attention has greeted signs that the new Nigerian military leader, General Abdulsalem Abubaker, is prepared to relax the repression associated with his predecessor, General Sani Abacha, who died on June 8th. The United Nations Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, yesterday announced he is to visit Nigeria and welcomed the accumulating evidence that General Abubaker is ready to release more political prisoners, enter a dialogue with opposition parties and relax media censorship. There is a real opportunity to liberalise Nigeria's political system and to open up its international relations if this transition is capably managed in coming weeks and months. The country has suffered grieviously from military rule, dragging down its own reputation and that of Africa as a whole. Were this change to go the wrong way, becoming engulfed in further military factionalism, there would be a grave danger that this, the continent's largest and second richest state, could disintegrate under the pressure.
A critical issue determining events will be whether General Abubaker can summon the courage to release Chief Moshood Abiola, whose incarceration after he had clearly won the elections in 1993 led to this latest phase of military rule. Already a close colleague, General Olusegun Obasanjo, has been set free, and political figures who have met the new leader report that he is open to such a move. Once he makes it he will come under overwhelming pressure to call new elections as a means of restoring legitimacy to Nigeria's political system. At that point anti-military popular sentiment could rebound on him and possibly prompt more hard line factions to attempt another coup. Such a realisation, it is to be hoped, inspires General Abubaker's efforts to reopen the prospect of civilian rule. The wretched condition of Nigeria's economy, with its oil exports restricted by historically low international prices and a heavy burden of debt, is compounded by systematic corruption at all levels of government, not least in the two-tier system of currency exchange for the naira. A determination of previous military governments to maintain its high value is widely blamed for the rundown of a once flourishing agriculture.
The country's economic, social and administrative infrastructure is sadly depleted. And regional disparities and rivalries, reinforced by profound ethnic and religious cleavages, continue to divide its citizens. The lethal effect of such policies was highlighted three years ago when General Abacho went ahead with the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other people who had protested against environmental devastation and exploitation of the Ogoni people in the oil fields of the Niger Delta. Now there is an opportunity to repair these damaging blows to Nigeria's international reputation.