Washington DC — The US has four policies on Nigeria, said African Affairs analyst Michael Fleshman this week: "Oil, oil, oil - and peacekeeping".
Fleshman, a member of a Washington panel briefing the press on President Clinton's forthcoming visit to Nigeria claims that economic interests have dominated the US approach to Nigeria.
Half of Nigeria's oil is pumped by US companies every year and the US consumes the lion's share of that output, he points out.
Fleshman, formerly human rights coordinator with the Africa Fund in New York, says economic interests explain why the US is turning a blind eye to current problems in Nigeria, such as the repression of protest in the Niger Delta communities, including the effective razing to the ground of the town of Odi and systematic rape of its women by the army last year. The government's handling of the oil communities' protests has not attracted enough condemnation, he said.
The US is now offering military assistance to Nigeria in the form of training for five battalions, the supply of attack patrol vessels and an offer to sell Nigeria naval submarines. This is inappropriate, Fleshman says, and raises the possibility that such assistance might end up being used against Nigerians rather than in peace-keeping work elsewhere in West Africa.
Mobolaji Aluko, coordinator of an umbrella group called the United Democratic Front of Nigeria in the US, predicts that both Presidents Obasanjo and Clinton would seek to emphasise the positive during their meetings this weekend.
Clinton can be expected to praise Nigeria's return to democracy and to stress Nigeria's central role in US Africa policy, Aluko says, while Obasanjo will make a strong appeal for the cancellation of Nigeria's bilateral debt to the US (which approaches a billion US dollars) and ask business leaders accompanying Clinton for more direct investment, particularly in the 'non-oil' areas of the economy.
Statements of appreciation for US training of the Nigerian military and a request for more money to support peace-keeping efforts in the region can also be anticipated.
Tough Love
But Aluko believes that the US president should also advance some less welcome comments while he is in Nigeria. Nigerians with a critical but constructive approach to the Obasanjo presidency will look to Clinton to offer some tough love, he says.
Nigeria-watchers agree that President Obasanjo has had a difficult year. Since taking office he has struggled to keep the northern states in harness as, one after another, they have chosen to adopt Sharia law, enraging southern Christians and raising challenges to the constitution.
Ethnic tensions have flared in several parts of the country most notably in the south-east where communities are angry about the environmental and economic impact of the oil industry on their lives and their lack of a share in the benefits.
Nearby in Igboland, a movement for the revival of Biafra has surfaced, provoking charges of treason to be laid against more than 50 people - a guarantee that the issue will win major publicity at home and abroad.
In addition, a decision to hike fuel prices provoked a general strike and brought the country to a standstill as organised labour rediscovered its strength. The government was forced to back down and apologise for failing to consult more widely. Minimum wage strikes have continued to disrupt production and put pressure on the authorities.
Politics
Disappointingly for many Nigerians, politics in Abuja is absorbing much of their leaders' attention. A running battle between Obasanjo's executive and the men and women of the legislature has created the impression in the minds of the press that egos in the capital are more important than the day-to-day business of solving practical problems.
A Senate committee has found evidence of gross corruption by the Senate's own president and he has been impeached. The House of Representatives is under pressure to examine its own affairs. But an editorial in the leading newspaper This Day this week blamed the Obasanjo administration for aiming to discredit the National Assembly in the eyes of the public.
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Against this background Aluko suggests that Clinton should give Obasanjo a quiet word of advice about the limits of presidential power and the value of working with, rather than against, the legislature.
Furthermore, Clinton should make it clear, he says, that unless the Obasanjo administration commits itself to rebuilding infrastructure in the country - electricity, rail, roads and a telephone system that works for a start - Abuja should not expect a single new investment.
More controversially, he calls on the US president to persuade his Nigerian counterpart to recognise that ethnic, class and religious tensions are an indication of the need for some kind of national debate on a new constitution and the possibility of a return to 'true federalism'.
Clinton is unlikely to follow such advice, say observers, and Obasanjo would probably consider it unwarranted interference in his country's affairs.
But by avoiding such a discussion the US risks a repeat of accusations that it 'looks the other way' when serious problems are looming.
