Word: obasanjo
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Dates: during 1995-1995
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...world less warped by racist double standards where human rights are concerned, the bogus arrest, kangaroo-court trial and harsh sentencing of General Olusegun Obasanjo would have produced front-page headlines and a torrent of protests. Instead the persecution of one of Africa's foremost proponents of democracy by Nigeria's brutal military regime has caused hardly a ripple outside a small circle of government leaders and human-rights activists. Is this because the press and general public, including African Americans, take assaults on political freedom perpetrated by black dictators against their own black citizens less seriously than other such...
...case against Obasanjo gives black leaders, and all those who care about human rights, the chance to apply to Nigeria the same democratic standards that they did to South Africa. Indeed, TransAfrica has embarked on a campaign designed to do just that by pressuring the U.S. government to take sterner measures against Abacha--and to their credit, many black leaders, including Jackson, have joined it. As Nigeria's military ruler from 1976 to '79, Obasanjo kept his promise to restore democracy, voluntarily handing over power to an elected President. Since then, he has incurred the enmity of the government...
...March, Abacha's regime, claiming it had uncovered a coup plot, rounded up Obasanjo and about 60 other well-known dissidents. In July, the government announced that 40 of the accused had been convicted and sentenced--but it refused to disclose their names, what crimes they had supposedly committed or what their punishment would be. According to sources in the Nigerian exiles' community, Obasanjo has been sentenced to life in prison. Others have been condemned to death. Last week, even as Abacha claimed to be reviewing the harsh sentences, his secret police arrested still more dissidents, including Obasanjo's lawyer...
...believed to have stashed in the U.S. and Europe, or even boycotting Nigerian oil. But such punitive measures will not work without moral pressure from those who have allowed the dictators' behavior to pass unchallenged. Above all, Nigerians crave the respect of the rest of the world. Freeing Obasanjo and the other political prisoners would be a tiny first step in showing they deserve...
...banana republic." The evidence: though the 100-million-strong nation craves acceptance on the world stage, the Lagos regime of General Sani Abacha has in recent weeks killed or jailed a group ofNigeria's foremost proponents of democracy.The most prominent political prisoner is former head of state Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo. Today, Nigerian Foreign Minister Tom Ikimi told TIME editors in New York that Abacha "will not be oblivious" to numerous international appeals to spare Obasanjo's behalf, including one from President Clinton. But White says the dictator is just practicing public relations. And he doesn't expect the pressure...