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Rights-Panel Battle Pits Former Dictator Against President
June 6, 2002
Former Nigerian dictator Gen. Ibrahim Babangida filed a lawsuit against the federal government June 3 to prevent the implementation of recommendations from a human rights commission, which investigated abuses committed during previous military regimes. The Abuja Federal High Court will hear the suit on June 18, Agence France-Presse reported, while President Olusegun Obasanjo said he would implement the panel's recommendations "faithfully."
The lawsuit may signal a new rift in relations between Babangida and Obasanjo; earlier reports indicated that the powerful retired general would back the president in his 2003 re-election bid. The commission's recommendations could be a platform for a battle of wills between the two leaders, which in the midst of a hotly contested presidential campaign, could stir up a host of ethnic and religious tensions in the West African oil giant.
Recent reports indicated that Babangida has been lobbying for Obasanjo among northern politicians and military leaders frustrated with the democratically elected president's style of leadership, the Lagos daily PM News reported April 22. But a rift now could turn one of Obasanjo's most powerful potential allies into a serious rival, damaging his re-election chances.
Babangida ruled Nigeria from 1985 until 1993 and still wields considerable influence in national politics, especially in the ethnic Muslim, Hausa-Fulani region in the north. Babangida was instrumental in supporting Obasanjo's bid for election in 1999, and he is credited with convincing many of the north's political and military leaders that electing a southern Christian and a former general would ease regional ethnic and religious tensions and help Nigeria regain the confidence of the international community, particularly the United States.
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Dan
Rights-Panel Battle Pits Former Dictator Against President . . .