By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jun 3 1998 (IPS)

A high-level US delegation, the first to visit Nigeria since Gen. Sani Abacha seized power in 1993, hoped to travel to Lagos this week to persuade the military chief to abandon plans to succeed himself in elections scheduled for August.

The delegation, headed by a former US ambassador to Nigeria, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering, is expected to arrive in Nigeria by the end of the week, although details were still being negotiated with Nigerian officials, according to sources here.

Nigerian newspapers reported Tuesday that the Abacha regime had decided not to receive the delegation until Washington responded to the regime’s request to send its own delegation to the U.S. An official here, however, said that the visit was still being discussed with Nigerian officials and “we’re still planning to go.”

Human rights and other activists remained sceptical of what the delegation could accomplish. In addition to Pickering, who is seen as a proponent of “constructive engagement” with Abacha’s regime, the group would include Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Affairs Susan Rice; the Africa director of the National Security Council, Joe Wilson; and the Pentagon’s Deputy Commander in Chief in the European Command, Gen. James Jamerson.

“These are big cannons with empty shells,” said Adotei Akwei, senior Africa specialist at Amnesty International USA. “They are very high-ranking people without any discernable menu of incentives or sanctions to punish Abacha.”

The administration of President Bill Clinton has been suspended between a policy of re-engagement and tougher sanctions against Nigeria since June 1993, when the military abruptly cancelled elections apparently won by Moshood Abiola, who would have been the first elected civilian president of Nigeria in a decade.

In late 1993, Abacha seized power from Ernest Shonekan, the hand-picked successor of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, and moved to suppress opposition both in civilian society and within the ranks of the military itself. In Nov, 1995, the junta executed playwright Ken Saro-wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists.

Washington imposed modest diplomatic and military sanctions against Nigeria after the elections were cancelled and launched a policy review toward Africa’s most populous nation after the executions. Almost three years later, that review was still incomplete.

Human rights and other Abacha foes have long urged Washington at least to implement a ban on all new investment in Nigeria by U.S. companies, as it did against Burma, another repressive state, in 1997.

Most effective, according to these activists, would be the imposition of an oil embargo. The United States imports about 40 percent of Nigeria’s oil exports which, in turn, account for more than 90 percent of the country’s export earnings.

Powerful U.S. oil companies and other major firms opposed to sanctions on principle, have lobbied both the administration and Congress against taking such a step. The result has been stalemate.

U.S. officials, as well as critics, meanwhile were increasingly concerned over the internal situation in Nigeria as Abacha, who promised to transfer power to an elected, civilian government by the end of 1998, imposed his own “transition” process. The five legal parties nominated him to run as a civilian in August elections.

“We fear the undermining of stability in West Africa’s biggest country if dissatisfaction mounts,” one official told IPS. Another talked of the possibility of an “implosion” if Abacha continued on his present course.

While these fears continued to rise, Washington has given mixed signals on official policy. The most dramatic example came during Clinton’s trip to Africa in March when, in answer to a question during a news conference in Cape Town, the president appeared to give tacit approval to Abacha’s plans to succeed himself.

“If (Abacha) stands for election, we hope he will stand as a civilian,” Clinton said at the time, effectively contradicting a statement by Rice just 10 days earlier, in which she declared Abacha’s self-succession as a civilian would be “unacceptable” to the United States.

Indeed, the State Department has been split between Rice, who reportedly favours stronger sanctions, and Pickering, who believes in a friendlier attitude toward the military leadership in order to prod it toward reform. Meanwhile, grassroots pressure to take stronger measures against Abacha has risen steadily.

Last month, a broad coalition of African American leaders, backed by some 60 churches and human rights and environmental groups, urged Clinton to impose oil sanctions against Nigeria. At the same time, members of the Congressional Black Caucus introduced new legislation which would make it impossible for the administration to ease existing sanctions without Congress’ approval.

In this context some analysts believe that, given the mixed signals offered by the administration and the unlikelihood that it would impose tough new sanctions, a high-level visit now makes little sense.

“I can’t see the purpose of the visit, other than as a public relations ploy to show they’re doing something,” says Learned Dees, head of Africa programmes for the quasi-governmental National Endowment for Democracy. “It’s a compromise between the doves and the hawks in the administration.”

Salih Booker, Africa director for the influential Council on Foreign Relations, also wassceptical but nonetheless welcomed the visit as “an overdue initiative, not only to clarify policy, but also to make clear the impracticality of a constructive engagement approach.”

Until now, he said, the options have been to “step up sanctions, do nothing, or send a high-level delegation.” Sending a delegation was the “starting point we’ve all been waiting for because it will force them to respond to the question when they come back, ‘What now’?”

Mobalaji Aluko, head of the exile Nigerian Democratic Movement and a teacher at Howard University here, also doubted that the delegation by itself would have much impact on the regime’s thinking. But, he noted, Abacha’s transition recently came under unprecedented public criticism within Nigeria and Abacha himself may be re-thinking his plans. “A high-level delegation could be well-timed in that sense.”

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