Nigerian Leader Defiant Amid World Outcry : Africa: Activists say he’s a madman and call for international sanctions. But Abacha apparently finds validation in outrage.

As President Clinton and other world leaders consider imposing harsh sanctions on Nigeria’s military dictatorship following the executions of nine political activists, several crucial questions loom.

Can Gen. Sani Abacha, who marked his second anniversary in power Friday, be persuaded to step down? Will the army, which has run Nigeria at gunpoint for 25 of the last 35 years, finally return to the barracks?

If democracy is restored, can it be sustained? Are there civilian leaders with sufficient support and political courage? And can they combat the corruption, autocracy and anarchy that have turned a potential economic powerhouse into a political basket case?

Is there hope for one of Africa’s most populous nations?

The answers are decidedly mixed, according to Nigerian human rights leaders, businessmen, professionals, diplomats and others interviewed by telephone this week and during a visit to the country last month.

Nearly all said the only tactic likely to break Abacha’s iron grip would be the imposition of severe sanctions, including a freeze on overseas assets of Nigeria’s elite, a ban on Nigerians traveling to the West and, most importantly, an embargo on Nigeria’s $10-billion annual oil exports, the lifeblood of the country’s economy.

“Never mind the hardship the people will suffer,” said Gani Fawehinme, a prominent lawyer in Lagos, the former capital and commercial center. “We are already suffering.

“Everything has broken down. The schools are closed. Telecommunications are nonsense. The roads are a deathtrap. The hospitals are useless. Electricity is epileptic. The water taps are dry. Business is grinding to a halt. How much worse can it get?”

Fawehinme called Abacha’s junta “the worst regime in the history of Nigeria.” He has some expertise in the matter: Since 1969, by his count, he has been detained 23 times, jailed twice, charged 14 times with criminal offenses and had his office ransacked 14 times by police.

The regime “is led by a brute, a madman and political brigand, for his own personal pillaging,” he said. “His perception of decency is warped. He has no regard for democracy. He has no sense of morality. He sees all these international pleas as bringing stature to his regime.”

Indeed, Abacha has remained defiant despite a global outcry against his regime after the hangings of author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others Nov. 10.

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On Thursday, human rights groups said security forces have arrested at least nine more political activists in a continuing crackdown on potential opposition.

But there is reason to fear a collapse of Nigeria’s economy and civil society should sanctions succeed. In 1967, Nigeria fought a brutal civil war against the secessionist state of Biafra, a gruesome 30-month conflict that left up to 1 million people dead from wounds, disease and starvation.

A Western diplomat in Lagos said he does not expect another bloodletting, at least on that scale. But he warned that the ethnic and religious fault lines that led to the Biafran war still exist in schools, businesses, the army and the government.

“I would say the ethnic tensions are greater now than at any time since the civil war,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s a powder keg, that you’re going to get another Rwanda. . . . It’s not going to explode.”

By all accounts, Abacha’s government is the weakest and worst-run of any since independence from Britain in 1960. Thanks to mismanagement and corruption, Nigeria now owes $37 billion to foreign creditors and has become synonymous with business scams and drug trafficking.

“This government, unlike any other, has no base of support, not even in the military,” the diplomat said.

But Abacha has exploited ethnic divisions within the army to keep factions from coalescing against him. He has used patronage to win loyalty from powerful local chiefs. And he has persuaded numerous former foes in the ruling and business elite to take Cabinet positions or other highly paid posts.

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“The reason Abacha has been so successful is his opponents have always underestimated him,” the envoy said. “He’s shrewd, street smart and ruthless. He’s the master coup maker. So he knows how to prevent one.”

Abacha has closed newspapers and jailed journalists and is accused of using secret trials, mass executions, military assaults, political imprisonment and other human rights abuses to maintain power. His government acts with virtual impunity, having decreed last year that “no act of the federal military government may be questioned henceforth in a court of law.”

The only serious threat to Abacha’s regime came in mid-1994 when a strike by oil workers unexpectedly spread, sparking mass anti-government protests and strangling the economy for eight weeks. But Abacha crushed the incipient uprising by jailing labor leaders and shooting demonstrators.

Today, the potentially most powerful government opponents--like Moshood K.O. Abiola, who was arrested after declaring himself winner of a 1993 democratic election that the military quickly annulled--are in prison.

Abiola is an unlikely symbol of democracy. Until he broke with Abacha, he had backed virtually every military regime and is believed to have earned billions of dollars in business deals from those ties. He remains a divisive figure.

Other opponents, like Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka, have fled into exile. And more than 300 activists and others have been killed by government forces. This repression has made it harder for Western governments and others eager to help restore democracy.

“This is not South Africa, where you had a strong resistance that the outside world could support,” said another Western diplomat in Lagos. “Any effective opposition does not exist in this country. There’s no sign of a thriving pro-democracy movement.”

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The Campaign for Democracy, an umbrella group of 25 pro-democracy and human rights organizations, last held a political rally last year.

“We have stopped our protests because we don’t want our people to keep getting killed,” said Okechukwu Ndiribe, the group’s treasurer. “No regime has butchered Nigerians like this one has.”

Still, Ndiribe remains optimistic. “Democracy must prevail in Nigeria,” he said. “It may not be very soon. But the people want it. This cannot go on forever.”