Background To The
Recent Nigerian Elections
General Obasanjo more
than just a "friend" of the Americans
By
Elizabeth Liagin
17 March 1999
Culled from
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/mar1999/nig-m17.shtml
Elizabeth Liagin is an independent journalist who has done extensive
research into General Olusegan Obasanjo, who won the recent presidential
election in Nigeria. She submitted the following commentary in response to the 5
March article "Nigerian
election fraud leaves elite in control" by Chris Talbot
The 13 February 1976 assassination of Murtala Muhammad, which brought
Olusegan Obasanjo to power the first time, was widely believed at the time to be
the linked to the CIA. Perhaps the same might be said for the 27 February 1999
"coup" as well.
Obasanjo is more than just a "friend" of the Americans. He is an operative.
And his involvement with America's foreign policy elite is a long, sometimes
complicated, but delightfully interesting story.
There are several key persons and institutions that appear over and over in
the Obasanjo files. One is Donald B. Easum, who was the United States Ambassador
to Nigeria at the time of the 1976 assassination. Another is the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington, where Henry Kissinger, who
was Secretary of State at the time of the same assassination, serves as a "counsellor."
Then we have Robert S. McNamara, a former World Bank president and the Secretary
of Defense who carried much of the blame for the Vietnam War. More recently,
McNamara embarked on an excursion to Haiti in the aftermath of the election that
brought Jean Bertrand Aristide to office. Upon his return, McNamara pronounced
Aristide "vehemently" anti-US, implying that the United States would be in for
another round of whatever it was that Fidel Castro stirred up in people after
his revolution more than two decades before. Within a year of McNamara's
assessment, Aristide was ousted by thugs on the CIA's payroll.
Back to the seventies: At the time of the coup that installed Obasanjo, the
US was still reeling from the OPEC oil embargo. That action would have been all
the more devastating were it not for the fact that Nigeria, under Yakubu Gowon's
leadership, had opted to breach the embargo and ship oil to the West. Because of
the inflated price petroleum commanded at the time, Nigeria experienced
unprecedented economic growth. When Murtala took over, the US immediately became
concerned, not knowing if Nigeria could be relied upon as a supplier under a new
regime. In an attempt to soften up the anti-Western ideology associated with
Murtala, Secretary of State Kissinger proposed a state visit. Murtala told him
to stay home--something interpreted in Washington as a "ten" on the scale by
which political insults are ranked.
In the months after Murtala took over in July of 1975, cables between
Washington and Lagos increased in number almost five-fold. That in itself is an
indicator of heightened political interest that goes beyond the mere arrival of
a new administration. Some of those cables have been released via the Freedom of
Information Act, and although they may not be entirely conclusive, they
certainly suggest a US role in the assassination that brought Obasanjo to power
in 1976.
To avoid getting overly-complicated, there were two dominant themes conveyed
in most of those formerly classified cables. One concerned oil and the extent to
which the new Nigerian leadership would try to use oil "as an economic weapon"
against the US, to quote the language used in several dispatches. The second
concerned Nigeria's growing economic, political and military status within
Africa.
The written communication between Lagos and Washington--much of which, I
should add, is still classified--focused mainly on political intelligence, on
the anti-Western opinions of various ministers and other leaders, on Nigeria's
foreign policy (including its support for the then-banned African National
Congress in Lusaka), and, of course, its support for any potential OPEC strike
in the future. Also of concern to Washington power brokers was the fact that
Nigeria continued to acquire weapons of increasing sophistication and could be
expected to effectively enforce its national interests in any regional dispute.
Among the more interesting cables is one, written by Ambassador Easum just
days before Murtala's murder, that suggested Nigeria's economy would have to be
brought down ("degraded," in Clinton terminology) so that development
expectations would compete with the growth of national power--the assumption
being that the military expansion Washington so feared would falter.
A related concern was the strength of Nigeria in terms of manpower. In August
of 1975, as a matter of fact, the Congressional Research Service prepared a
study called "Oil Fields as Military Targets." Its purpose was to serve as a
background briefing to Congress in the event a second, "air-tight" oil embargo
was launched and the president decided to seek legislative approval for a war
over oil. One nation evaluated, and ultimately dismissed, as a possible subject
of such an attack was Nigeria. There were definite advantages to attacking
Nigeria, of course. Not the least of these were the fact that (a) the country's
oil reserves were largely on land, making them less costly to operate (or
reconstruct in the event of sabotage) in the wake of an invasion; (b) Nigeria
offered a clear benefit in terms of transit because shipments would be
relatively direct, not passing through strategic "hot spots" like Hormuz; (c)
the populace would be relatively unsuspecting, giving the US military the
advantage that comes with surprise (which rather contradicts the notion of
Congressional debate); and (d) Nigeria would be among the countries least likely
to provoke retaliation by the USSR, not to mention Soviet interceptions of
communications, etc. But on the negative side, two important aspects of the
would-be invasion stood out. One was the terrain--similar in many respects to
that which had "frustrated" US troops in Vietnam over the previous decade. The
second was the density of population in the eastern and delta regions in which
the purported invasion would have had to take place. The ensuing struggle, one
in which tens of thousands of angry Nigerians were potential combatants, would
have drawn world attention to American imperialism, the report frankly
concluded, making any attempt to colonize Nigeria's oilfields a distinct
liability.
There were other documents produced at around the same time to corroborate
this intense interest in Nigeria, the country's population, and its oil wealth.
The US Information Agency or USIA (which operates the Voice of America of other
propaganda actions around the world) does yearly reports on the US interest in
various countries. Theirs, too, cites the pervasive worries about Nigeria
becoming the economic and demographic giant of Africa, capable of spreading an
anti-American ideology all over the continent, and likewise stressing that
agency goals should serve the larger objective of increasing US influence over
Nigeria's politics and culture. Then there was the notorious NSSM 200 (National
Security Study Memorandum 200), sometimes called the "Kissinger population
paper," in which it was stressed that oil and mineral-rich Nigeria could easily
cope with a far larger population and would gain sufficient status to compete
with the US influence over Africa. The memorandum recommended that 13 of the
largest developing countries, Nigeria included, be targeted with aggressive
campaigns of fertility control in order to contain their rise to power.
"Whatever may be done to guard against interruptions of supply," said the
document, which was adopted as official policy "guidance" in the development
assistance program in late 1975, "the US economy will require large and
increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed
countries. That fact gives the US enhanced interest in the political, economic,
and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of
population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for
such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to
the economic interests of the United States."
The same study included detailed instructions on how US policymakers could
use such "multinational" institutions as the World Bank and various UN agencies
to pressure governments into adopting population-reduction policies, and even
hinted that food and development aid might be made conditional on actual
(measurable) reductions in national fertility rates.
The general tone of the dispatches sent between Lagos and Washington was
clear. Washington wanted new leadership for Nigeria. And on 13 February 1976,
the assassination that brought Obasanjo to power was carried out. Curiously, it
was exactly five days later, on 18 February, that President Gerald Ford signed a
long-awaited and much-publicized executive order barring the assassination of
foreign heads of state by the CIA.
In 1979, Obasanjo became the first Nigerian military leader to voluntarily
turn over his office to an elected leader, Shehu Shagari. And what came next is
important. Almost right away, Obasanjo turned up in New York, where he was
appointed to the board of directors of the African American Institute. The
African American Institute, then located directly across the street from the
United Nations, had been set up in 1954 with money that came from the CIA. Its
principal task was to increase US influence over the foreign and domestic
policies of the emerging African states, at that time still under formal
European control.
In the next few years, Obasanjo began turning up in all kinds of interesting
places--giving a high-proflie lecture at Kissinger's Center for Strategic and
International Studies (which also distributes literature written by Obasanjo),
for one thing, and hosting a meeting on religion and politics at the
government-controlled US Institute of Peace. During the mid- and late 1980s,
things were especially fascinating. Obasanjo was still on the AAI board, as he
has continued to be, even during his years in detention under Sani Abacha right
up to the present day. In 1988, from his vantage point at AAI and CSIS, Obasanjo
launched an endeavor of his own, the Africa Leadership Forum. Assisting him from
the beginning, and prominently involved over the next several years, was the
notorious ex-defense secretary, World Bank boss, and probable Haiti
coup-instigator, Robert McNamara.
Obasanjo's forum fits every description of a classic "front group." Its
financing comes from nebulous sources, its activities are conducted for the most
part under pseudonyms. It created centers for the study of military and
"security" issues; organized "leadership" conferences; underwrote reports on
policy matters by "local" scholars; recommended legislation (not just in Nigeria
but before the AAU, as well); financed an office for conflict monitoring;
recruited journalists for propaganda campaigns; and sought out young academics
for political training--most of these actions presented as the initiative of
host country institutions that were, in reality, Obasanjo creations. In the 10
years between the founding of the forum and Obasanjo's decision to make a run
for president, the forum also worked with the development agencies of various
nations, the US Information Service, and other big league collaborators in the
Western world.
According to forum literature, the source of the group's money is yet another
institution, the Africa Leadership Foundation, which was founded in 1988 by
Obasanjo simultaneously with the forum's creation. Indeed, the foundation exists
for the express purpose of financing forum activities. Obasanjo's New York-based
foundation is not listed in the phone book, but forum records list an address at
a residential condominium on upscale Park Avenue, where foundation chief of
operations and Obasanjo confident Hans d'Orville resides. D'Orville, a German
national who speaks with a British accent, was asked about the origin of several
million dollars which had suddenly surfaced in Nigeria right after Obasanjo
declared his intent to compete for the presidency last year. He insisted he
didn't know.
The year 1988 was also notable for the inauguration of a "population policy"
in Nigeria, financed with more than $100 million from the US Agency for
International Development and the World Bank, and officially approved by Gen.
Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha's predecessor and a personal friend of Obasanjo's.
One of the key actors in that operation was the CIA-linked African American
Institute in New York, on whose board Obasanjo sat.
The African American Institute was at the time headed by none other than
Donald B. Easum, the former US Ambassador to Nigeria who suggested the
subversion of Nigeria's booming economy and on whose watch the assassination of
Murtala Muhammad took place.
A 1988 contract between the Agency for International Development and AAI
called for the latter to work to generate "a policy climate conducive to the
successful execution of a national family planning effort [in Nigeria] and to
strengthen federal, state, and local government capability in strategic planning
in order to efficiently mobilise and execute an effective and self-sustaining
national family planning programme." Babangida, ironically, is also rumored to
have had a part in the 1976 coup that installed Obasanjo.
Two years after the national population policy was launched, Obasanjo was
again called upon to assist in the promotion of the US agenda in Nigeria, this
time acting under the auspices of his Africa Leadership Forum. The occasion was
a June 1990 World Bank conference on population control in Lagos, organized, at
least in part, by Obasanjo ally and advisor McNamara. At the close of the
meeting, which was held secretively in a heavily-guarded Lagos compound,
Obasanjo stepped forward to openly demand that the federal military government
of Nigeria adopt a mandatory limit of three children per woman.
The money Obasanjo brought to his recent presidential campaign, which became
the source of a major scandal in the Nigeria press, is just the proverbial tip
of the iceberg. For years Obasanjo has associated with key actors in the
hierarchy of global politics. In his work with the CIA-created African American
Institute and the Africa Leadership Forum, he has overseen projects that could
literally be used as textbook examples of Cold War era covert
operations--"constituency-building" campaigns, intelligence gathering, the
penetration of the news media, the recruitment of unsuspecting local
collaborators, and the creation of a network of inter-linked groups and dummy
corporations through which major operations can be orchestrated and financed. As
brutal as was Obasanjo's first period in office, it is likely that Nigerians
will experience even worse in the coming years.
