U.N.’s Annan Reportedly Meets Nigerian Dissident
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has met with Moshood Abiola, Nigeria’s best-known political prisoner and the presumed winner of presidential elections in 1993, diplomats said Wednesday.
U.N. officials declined to comment on the reported meeting, but U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said Annan “is doing his utmost to persuade the government to release all political detainees, including Chief Abiola.”
A senior government source said Annan met both new military ruler Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar and Abiola in a frantic diplomatic shuttle to find a compromise that would allow the 60-year-old presidential claimant to go free.
It was far from certain that Annan would succeed in brokering a deal to end the impasse over 1993 elections--annulled as Abiola was poised to win--which lies at the root of the political turmoil in the country of 104 million.
Abiola was jailed in 1994 for declaring himself president in defiance of strongman Gen. Sani Abacha, who died June 8, less than two months before he was to stand unopposed in presidential elections under a discredited democracy plan.
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