Dateline: Abuja, Nigeria, June 26, 1999

Grappling with Governance

President Olusegun Obasanjo's dizzying one-man show of dramatic gestures and bold actions (see Report from Nigeria Number 2) slowed this past week as he began to encounter some of the more intractable problems of democratic governance.

Only on June 23, for example, three days before the constitutionally mandated three-week deadline, did the Senate finally act on Obasanjo's nominees for cabinet, approving 42 of the 49 names submitted. Although parliamentary leaders attributed the long delay to careful screening of the candidates, a more likely explanation is that the political party leaders were punishing Obasanjo for ignoring them in his selection of the cabinet nominees and in his backing of Senate and House leaders.

A more sinister explanation published on the front page of one of Nigeria's most influential daily newspapers accused parliamentarians of demanding large bribes from cabinet nominees in exchange for approval. The paper, ThisDay, charged that some nominees were offering tens of thousands of dollars to legislators in exchange for their votes, an accusation vigorously denied by the nominees and parliamentary leaders, who threatened to call the newspaper publisher before the Assembly to reveal his sources.

Whether true or not, the reports were almost universally believed by the general public, underscoring the depth of public cynicism about the civilian political class and the corrosive effects of corruption on public confidence in government. The decision of the extremely well paid House members to convene in closed session this week to debate whether to allocate themselves new cars and $140,000 per year housing allowances may have heightened public skepticism about the new legislators, as it followed closely a bitter campaign by teachers and civil servants for a $30 minimum monthly wage (see below). The Assembly also began debate this week on President Obasanjo's anti-corruption bill -- the centerpiece of the administration's legislative agenda and the first major piece of legislation to be taken up by Parliament.

The Senate approved the appointment of some two dozen Presidential advisers in areas ranging from economic development to health and welfare. Most of the appointments appear to have been made on a patronage basis to consolidate ethnic and political support for the Obasanjo government. The selections have disappointed some commentators and professional associations who had hoped for the creation of a more technocratic body of Presidential advisers to balance the political appointees in the cabinet.

President Obasanjo also announced the establishment of a panel to investigate illegal land and property acquisitions by past military leaders. The commission, the third such body to be established by Presidential decree in as many weeks, is another indication of Obasanjo's determination to root out corruption and recover stolen wealth. But human and civil rights leaders criticized the panel as the most recent in a series of disturbingly unilateral Presidential actions taken without the consent of Parliament or consultation with Nigerian civil society.

In an interview with Transition Watch this week, a prominent Nigerian human rights activist, Center for Law Enforcement Education Executive Director Innocent Chukwuma, spoke for a growing number of civil liberties leaders and political commentators when he said that Obasanjo's early resort to action by decree, and his failure to consult with elected officials and non-governmental leaders on such vital issues as human rights, a resolution of the crisis in the Niger Delta oil fields and measures to combat corruption show that, "He is still thinking in the old military way, making decisions and issuing orders and expecting people to obey. He isn't proceeding democratically. He isn't bringing people along with him. In the end that way of working is very dangerous for democracy in Nigeria."

States of Disarray

In Nigeria's 36 states, meanwhile, the process of creating civilian elected governments after 15 consecutive years of iron-fisted military rule has proceeded with less dramatic action but as much difficulty as at the Federal level. Not that there hasn't been drama! On its first day in session, the Lagos State Legislature dissolved into a chair throwing melee between rival groups of legislators backing alternate slates for leadership positions. The violence forced the highly regarded Lagos State Governor, former exile and democracy leader Bola Tinobu, to flee out a back entrance after hurriedly opening the legislature. The outrage and scorn heaped on the legislators by the public probably argues against any imminent repeat of fisticuffs in the Lagos State House, but it didn't prevent an aspiring political appointee from hiring a mob of 200 thugs to storm Governor Tinobu's official residence when the political appointment went elsewhere.

Things are little better in the eastern state of Anambra, where the Governor and a minority faction of the State Legislature convened an unannounced 3 am session to elect the Governor's leadership slate. The resulting uproar has paralyzed the Anambra State Legislature, occasioned competing accusations of death threats by the Governor and his opposing Lieutenant Governor and finally forced the national Parliament to set up a crisis committee to resolve the matter.

But in most states, the crises are less theatrical and more profound. Almost all incoming elected state governments have inherited empty treasuries, mountains of debt and months of unpaid salaries from the outgoing military administrators. The evidence of wholesale corruption and outright theft dot the countryside in the form of uncompleted and abandoned buildings and roads, collapsing bridges and broken waterworks. Exorbitant consultancies and contracts were paid in full and in advance to the military administrators, their families and cronies in the months before the advent of civilian rule.

For tens of thousands of Nigerian elementary school teachers, whose meager wages went unpaid in many states from February through May of this year, the looting of state treasuries by the departing soldiers has literally meant starvation or the forced abandonment of the profession. For many state civil servants, the non-payment of wages -- less than $20 a month -- made petty corruption and/or theft inevitable, as workers struggled to find ways to feed their families.

Many states are following the lead of the national government and establishing commissions to investigate corruption, theft and mismanagement under military rule with an eye to recovering as much of the misappropriated money as possible. States are also reviewing contracts and consultancies for compliance with legal and regulatory requirements and many such agreements will undoubtedly be canceled or renegotiated.

But in the meantime, the systematic centralization of national government by successive military regimes coupled with the collapse of the non-oil economy has left the states without any realistic means to generate revenue. The extreme concentration of public resources at the center leaves state governments almost entirely dependent on a deeply indebted and over committed Federal government for operating revenues and development capital.

In the face of protracted strikes by the teachers and the public sector unions to win an extended battle for the minimum wage, the Obasanjo administration and the Parliament this week released $450 million dollars to the states to pay back salaries and the new $30 monthly minimum wage. But in the face of rising public expectations for government services and economic revival, state governments are instead likely to face austerity budgets for months and perhaps years ahead.

Organized Labor Rebounds

The Nigerian labor movement was a particular target for repression under the Abacha military dictatorship. After a strike by the powerful Nigerian oil workers' unions against the Abacha dictatorship in 1994, the unions were placed under direct military administration, with strike leaders jailed without charge or trial, elected officials removed from office and bank accounts and union halls seized by the military.

The death of the dictator Abacha in June 1998 brought the release of oil workers' union leaders Frank Kokori and Milton Dabibi and the return of union facilities to the members. But as Frank Kokori told Transition Watch in his Lagos home, union leaders returned to organizations pillaged by their military administrators, with computers and fax machines missing, telephones ripped out of walls, and tens of thousands of dollars in union dues stolen by the departing soldiers.

Yet in less than a year the Nigerian labor movement has emerged as the most powerful and effective player in Nigerian civil society, with a strong presence in the strategic energy sector and in civil service, publishing, teaching and manufacturing. The strength of the trade unions was demonstrated with the success of the long and difficult campaign by teachers and public sector unions for a 3000 Naira ($30) monthly minimum wage. Nigerian workers have suffered a dramatic erosion of their purchasing power as the Naira, equal in value to the U.S. dollar during the 1970s sank to its present rate of 100 to the dollar. Most experts say that an adequate minimum monthly income for a family of four in Nigerian cities is about 12,000 Naira per month.

The trigger for the strike was the announcement last year by the interim military government of General Abdulsalami Abubakar of an increase in the minimum wage to 5,200 Naira -- an effort to win public support for his regime. The government offer was soon scaled down to N3000 as the price of Nigeria's oil, which the government depends on for fully 80 percent of its revenue, went into steep decline on world markets.

When the Abubakar government finally withdrew the minimum wage increase entirely, hundreds of thousands of angry public sector workers struck, paralyzing particularly state and local governments and often clashing with police sent to break up marches and rallies. The strike was later joined by primary and secondary school teachers. Despite pressure from some pro-democracy groups for workers to suspend the minimum wage action during the transition from military to civilian rule, the strike continued to build public support and political momentum. In May the Nigerian Labor Congress, the national labor federation whose affiliates include the striking unions, announced a suspension of the minimum wage campaign to allow the incoming Obasanjo administration time to settle into office. But the NLC statement was ignored by the strikers and dismissed by National Union of Teachers General Secretary Gabriel Falade as "rubbish."

Last week the government finally relented and agreed to implement the new minimum wage and pay back wages immediately. An emergency allocation of $450 million was adopted by the national assembly and began to reach state houses this week.

Nigeria's oil workers' unions, NUPENG and PENGASSAN also struck last week, paralyzing Shell, in a brief and successful strike over wages and working conditions and to demand increased security for oil workers in the restive Niger Delta oil fields.

The strike actions are a sure sign of vitality in the Nigerian labor movement. Although the industrial unions have been decimated by the mass unemployment that has accompanied the almost total collapse of manufacturing, the energy, public sector and publishing unions, particularly the influential National Union of Journalists, are exhibiting considerable economic and political clout, and that augers well for the return of participatory and accountable politics.

Moreover, with a mass membership that cuts across sectional, religious and ethnic lines, robust and accountable leadership, and democratic internal structures, labor is widely acknowledged as the leading force for a pan-Nigerian and inclusive national democratic movement and is perhaps the only force able to raise living standards for significant numbers of ordinary Nigerians.

Oil Fields Crisis Continues

In the tense oil town of Warri in the Niger Delta oil fields, where communal violence three weeks ago took hundreds of lives, negotiations between representatives of the warring communities and Delta State Governor James Ibori produced an agreement to continue talks but no resolution of the crisis.

The Ijaw community, represented by former Information Minister Chief Edwin Clark, is demanding the return of a local government office that was shifted to the minority Itsekeri community by the former Abacha military dictatorship. Two days after agreeing to continue talks, Clark refused to attend a follow-up meeting in the city of Benin, arguing that lax security arrangements made the venue unsafe for the Ijaw delegation. But Clark's ability to deliver the Ijaw community on any agreement was compromised by an angry statement from Ijaw youth militants engaged in the fighting. At a press conference in Warri on June 24, young spokespersons accused Clark and other Ijaw community elders of compromising the struggle and demanded that the government "deal directly with them and not the so-called leaders. We are currently opposed to Ijaw leaders who go to Abuja (the Federal capital) and tell us cock and bull stories."

Although a heavy security presence has enforced a tense calm over the city for the past two weeks, a resolution to the crisis still seems far away.

The failure of President Obasanjo's recent visit to the Niger Delta to ease conflict between oil producing communities and the U.S. and western oil companies was also evident this week, as Ijaw youth activists shut down virtually all of Texaco's production operations in Delta and Bayelsa states in a carefully coordinated wave of platform occupations. Although the demonstrators announced that their actions came in response to a small oil spill at a Texaco facility last year, most observers say that the action is part of the Ijaw Youth Council's campaign to enforce a ban on oil production in their areas until their demands for environmental and economic justice, contained in the December 1998 Kaiama Declaration, are met by the oil companies and the Obasanjo government.

Immediately following the installation of newly elected President (retired General) Olusegun Obasanjo on May 29th, The Africa Fund's Human Rights Coordinator Michael Fleshman began a one month Nigeria visit to meet with a broad range of civil society and governmental representatives, to monitor on the ground progress toward democratization and to develop an in depth assessment of a future role in this process for The Africa Fund.

For more information contact The Africa Fund, 50 Broad Street, Suite 711, New York, NY 10004. Tel: (212) 785-1024 Fax: (212) 785-1078 E-mail: africafund@igc.apc.org

Founded in 1966 by the American Committee on Africa, The Africa Fund works for a positive U.S. policy toward Africa and supports African human rights, democracy and development.