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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

NIGERIA: Police alleges plot to scuttle Obasanjo's swearing-in

LAGOS, 20 May 2003 (IRIN) - A plot by some unnamed groups to mar the inauguration of President Olusegun Obasanjo for a second four-year term on 29 May has been unearthed, Nigerian police reported on Tuesday. The plot involved mass demonstrations and planting explosives around Nigeria, they said.

"Some people have gone as far as manufacturing explosives with the aim of using the same to cause panic and make the country generally ungovernable," Nigeria's police boss, Tafa Balogun, said in a statement broadcast on state radio.

Without giving any details of the alleged plot, Balogun said the law enforcement agencies were poised to crackdown on those fomenting trouble. He said public demonstrations could only be held with police permits. Applications for the permits must be made 48 hours ahead of time.

Obasanjo won 19 April presidential elections by a huge margin, but opposition parties allege the vote was massively rigged in favour of the ruling People's Democratic Party. This was Nigeria's second polls after the 1999 election that ended more than 15 years of military rule. Obasanjo won that election.

Both local and international observers said the elections, the first to be managed by civilians in 20 years, were marred by widespread fraud, particularly in the country's southeastern states.

The main opposition candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, rejected the results and threatened "mass action" to stop Obasanjo's inauguration if the vote was not re-run. A group of 17 opposition parties have called on the president to step down and allow an interim government to be headed by the chief justice to organise fresh elections.

Mike Ahamba, lawyer for Buhari's All Nigeria People's Party, told reporters on Monday he will file a case at an election tribunal before Wednesday, to challenge the election results in 21 of Nigeria's 36 states.

The police statement underscored a build up of tension in Africa's most populous country of more than 120 million ahead of the swearing-in.

On Monday, Obasanjo met with defence and security chiefs as well as governors from the volatile southeastern states to discuss security matters ahead of 29 May, when all elected state governors will also be sworn in.

On the same day Buhari, who like Obasanjo was a former military ruler, met in his northern hometown of Daura with Emeka Ojukwu, the candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, who came third in the polls. Aides said they discussed a response to the planned inauguration of Obasanjo.

Ojukwu had led the failed session of southeastern Nigeria as Republic of Biafra which resulted in three years of civil war. When the war ended in 1970, over one million had been killed.

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Governance

[ENDS]

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