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Nigeria's road back to democracy tortuous
ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Nigeria on Saturday, turning the international spotlight on the fragile democracy in Africa's most populous nation.
The visit is a demonstration of American support for President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose 1999 election ended 15 years of military rule in the oil-producing West African nation.
Nigeria, a country of more than 110 million people, has been ruled by the military for 28 of the 40 years since independence from Britain in 1960.
Successive coups are rooted in a struggle for power between the three dominant regional groups -- the Hausa-Fulani elite and allied groups of the mainly Muslim north and the mainly animist and Christian Yoruba and Ibo of the west and the east.
Northerners traditionally dominate the armed forces, the Yoruba and the Ibo, whose 1966 secession in the east triggered the Biafra civil war, dominate business and administration.
A snapshot of the countdown to Nigeria's latest experiment in democracy follows:
Nigeria wins independence on October 1, 1960, as a constitutional monarchy following elections for an enlarged two-house federal parliament in the previous year. Northerner Abubakar Tafawa Balewa is federal prime minister. Ibo Nnamdi Azikiwe, a charismatic nationalist leader from the east, succeeds the governor-general, representing the British monarch as head of state.
Nigeria revises its constitution in 1963 to become a republic. Azikiwe becomes its first president. National elections to the federal house of representatives in 1964 compound ethnic and regional rivalries.
Ibo army officers stage a coup in January 1966 after six turbulent years of civilian rule, killing Tafawa Balewa and other leading personalities. Ibo army chief-of-staff General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi forms a junta called the Supreme Military Council and suspends the constitution.
Northern army officers stage a counter coup six months later, killing Aguiyi-Ironsi, and install General Yakubu Gowon, a northern Christian, as head of state.
Ibos declare the independent state of Biafra, triggering a bitter civil war which rages until 1970 and in which more than one million people die, many of starvation.
Gowon, General Murtala Muhammed, who toppled him in
1975, and Muhammed's deputy, Obasanjo, all preach national reconciliation. Obasanjo assumes power after Muhammed is killed in a failed 1976 coup and presses on with a plan to return the country to civilian rule.
Northerner Shehu Shagari narrowly wins a 1979 presidential election, marked by a high rate of abstentions. His inauguration seals the return of civilian rule and the creation of the Second Republic.
The army ousts Shagari on New Year's Eve 1983 in a bloodless coup, accusing his administration of corruption.
General Muhammadu Buhari, an austere northerner, takes office, jails politicians, officials and businessmen and embarks on an austerity program.
Power changes hands again in 1985 when General Ibrahim Babangida, another northerner and number three in the hierarchy, topples Buhari in a palace coup.
Babangida and the military organize and then annul a 1993 presidential election, which is widely seen as free and fair. The move precipitates the worst crisis since the civil war. Millionaire Yoruba businessman Moshood Abiola is widely seen as the winner.
Dictator General Sani Abacha takes power in 1993 brushing aside industrialist Ernest Shonekan, who had been appointed to oversee the transition to civilian rule.
Abacha detains Abiola and executes nine minority rights activists, including author Ken Saro-Wiwa. Western countries impose some sanctions. The Commonwealth suspends Nigeria.
Abacha dies of heart attack in 1998. He had been planning to run in a sham election. Abiola dies in detention.
General Abdulsalami Abubakar, another northerner, assumes power and steers Nigeria back to civilian rule. Obasanjo wins the presidency in an election in February 1999. He takes office in May.
Copyright
2000
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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