IRIN Web Special on Nigeria

Obasanjo was touted as best suited for presidency

Obasanjo was touted by many, based on his military background, as best suited to tame a military that had become used to exercising political power and who, many feared, would snatch power yet again on any pretext. On taking office, Obasanjo began with what many thought were the right moves.

He promised to crack down on corruption, seen by many as a cancer that had been undermining the country's development goals. He also weeded out from the armed forces hundreds of officers who had held political office and were thus thought to be more susceptible to its temptations.

However, it seemed as if the democratic dispensation lifted a huge lid off a boiling cauldron of long-repressed tensions. Several violent communal disturbances broke out in different parts of the country just as the military was retreating to the barracks and leaving the elected government in charge.

Violence in several parts of the country

Some of the worst violence occurred in the Niger Delta region in the south, which produces most of the oil that is the mainstay of Nigeria's economy. Around the oil town of Warri, the area's three main ethnic groups (Ijaws, Itsekiri and Urhobo) battled as each lay claims to ownership of land that would accrue more benefits and influence from oil operations to their communities.

In other parts of the country there was similar violence. In central and northern Nigeria nomadic and settler communities fought each other over the conflicting needs for pasture and agricultural land. Some of the violence was also been spurred by old political grievances, some going back to the pre-colonial or pre-independence era.

A series of violent clashes pitching Muslim Hausa-speakers of the north against Yorubas of southwest Nigeria had their origin in resentment by the latter against the perceived dominance by the former of political power. Most of Nigeria's civilian and military rulers since independence have been Muslim northerners. Resentment against this trend was deepened by the annulment of the 1993 poll by a northern-dominated military when a Yoruba businessman, Moshood Abiola, was poised to win.

Another catalyst for violence came with the adoption of strict Islamic or Shari'ah law starting from 2000. So far 12 states in the predominantly Muslim north had adopted Shari'ah law, which prescribes punishments such as the amputation of limbs for stealing, public flogging for drinking alcohol and stoning to death for adultery. In the majority Christian south, the extension of Shari'ah beyond the previous limits of civil law to include criminal applications was perceived as part of an agenda of Islamisation.

Attempts in 2000 to introduce Shari'ah in the northern state of Kaduna, which has approximately equal populations of Christians amd Muslims, sparked religious riots in which more than 2,000 people were estimated to have died. Reprisal killings against Muslims in the predominantly Christian cities of Umuahia and Aba in southeastern Nigeria took another 500 lives.

The atmosphere of suspicion generated among adherents of both faiths has since ignited further ethno-religious violence in a number of towns and cities, including Kano in the north, Jos in central Nigeria and Kaduna. Thousands of lives have been lost as a result; social and political stability remains threatened.

Obasanjo's response to violence

Obasanjo's response to the nationwide restiveness has been at times heavy-handed and at times tentative. In November 1999 when militant youths in Bayelsa State in the Niger Delta killed 12 policemen, his response was to despatch a military force. In reprisal the troops razed the town of Odi, where the policemen had been killed, destroying every building save a bank and a church and leaving hundreds of people dead.

The response was similar in 2001 when 19 soldiers drawn into a conflict between Tivs and Jukuns in central Nigeria were killed by a Tiv militia. Soldiers ordered into the area by Obasanjo levelled several Tiv villages, including the trading town of Zaki Biam, leaving yet more hundreds of unarmed civilians dead.

On Shari'ah his approach has been to tread softly against states that have adopted the legal system, despite asserting that some of the punishments were in violation of the constitution. On the more controversial cases involving stoning death sentences, the government has pledged to block the execution of the sentences if they are not overturned in the judicial appeals process.

But perhaps more worrying for Nigeria's stability during these past four years has been the emergence of various militia and vigilante groups across the country. Many of these groups have played leading roles in most of the violence unleashed. Among the best known have been the Oodua People's Congress, which claims to defend the interests of the Yoruba and doubles as an anti-crime vigilante. It was implicated in much of the ethnic violence that has rocked Lagos in the last four years.

In the southeast, a group known as the Bakassi Boys first emerged as an anti-crime vigilante, but played a leading role in violent reprisals against Muslim northerners in the region in the aftermath of the Kaduna riots of 2000. Also in that region, a decidedly separatist group has emerged, seeking to revive the failed secession of the short-lived Republic of Biafra. Known as the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, its activities have been a source of friction with law enforcement agencies, resulting in many deaths.

In the north, the Hisbah or the Islamic vigilantes, who enforce the dictates of Shari'ah are counterparts of a sort to these other militia groups. Their overzealousness in enforcing Shari'ah has often provoked religious violence.

Out of these centrifugal movements that have been pulling the country apart, a chorus of voices have called on Obasanjo's government for the past four years to convene "a sovereign national conference" of the country's ethnic nationalities to renegotiate the basis of Nigeria's existence. Obasanjo has repeatedly rejected this demand, despite the fact that many prominent Nigerians have added their voices both as individuals and interest groups to the call. His argument has always been that good governance would make such demands irrelevant.

But there are very few Nigerians who think his government has made any difference in its first term in office. The fight against corruption, which he made the centrepiece of his policy, appears to have floundered. Although an anti-corruption law was the first act Obasanjo pushed through parliament, no single corruption conviction was secured in the past four years and corruption has continued to bourgeon.

Continued?