Africans Must Deal With Nigeria

Secretary of State Warren Christopher is moving through Africa, promoting democracy in countries that broke free of colonialism decades ago and prodding governments to isolate the repressive military regime in Nigeria.

The five-nation tour to Mali, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Africa and Angola raises the profile of a continent that has largely fallen off the radar of U.S. foreign policy. Washington no longer needs strategic posts to keep Moscow’s influence at bay, and was burned by military deployment in Somalia, so the courting of African heads of state with bullets and bread has slowed considerably. Foreign aid is down, with the exception, of course, of Nelson Mandela’s South Africa, the democratic gem of the continent, and Egypt, which is rarely considered within an African context by Western diplomats.

Christopher is skipping Nigeria, which military rule has made an international pariah. The unapologetic dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, governs without mandate from Nigerian voters. He lost the 1993 election to businessman and publisher Moshood Abiola, whom he imprisoned and who by some accounts may be dead.

Abacha tolerates no dissent. The regime harasses what is left of a once-vibrant free press, has killed hundreds of dissenters and imprisoned thousands more, say human rights activists. The government hanged nine environmental activists from the minority Ogoni tribe last November, including internationally known writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. Their deaths prompted broad international condemnation and the elimination of most foreign aid.

In spite of the turmoil, Nigeria’s ruling classes remain rich through the sale of the country’s plentiful oil reserves. U.S. companies still buy 40% of Nigeria’s crude. Britain, the former colonial master, remains a big customer, and Turkey just cut a deal to boost trade between the two countries to $500 million from the current $1 million. The talk of international economic sanctions when the military took over is now a distant echo.

On his mission, Christopher is urging African democracies to ostracize the Lagos government. So far, nearly a dozen African heads of state, including Mandela, have been critical of Abacha’s rule, but there has been no move to embargo trade with the West African powerhouse. In East Africa, where the offending country Burundi was far less a military threat, its neighbors shut down trade with the military regime. The foreign ministers and presidents of Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zaire and officials from the Organization of African Unity are scheduled to meet later this week to tighten that noose. The lessons of the eastern half of the continent should be instructive in the west. With calculated risk, Nigeria’s neighbors should step up the pressure, an African answer to an African problem.