Summit meeting cements Nigeria's return to fold

Riots still flare at times and Nigeria is regularly rated one of the world’s most corrupt nations. Yet Nigerians hope a summit of 52 leaders, including a visit by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, will cement their nation’s return to the global fold after decades as a pariah.

Riots still flare at times and Nigeria is regularly rated one of the world’s most corrupt nations. Yet Nigerians hope a summit of 52 leaders will cement their nation’s return to the global fold after decades as a pariah.

President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government hopes the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will prove the country is making progress on the democratic and economic reforms he promised when he was first elected in 1999, ending decades of military rule in the vast West African nation.

Yet allegations of human rights abuses – in Nigeria as well as suspended Commonwealth members Zimbabwe and Pakistan – are expected to surface during the summit’s candid behind-the-scenes discussions.

New York-based Human Rights Watch challenged the Commonwealth yesterday to use the summit to speak out about alleged rights abuses in Nigeria – including the stifling of free speech and the torture and killing of opposition activists – in the same way the global body did against Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

Nigeria dismissed the report as “jaundiced and misconceived”.

Although human rights have improved in Nigeria since the end of military rule, soldiers have killed hundreds of civilians on two occasions since, in 1999 and 2001. Religious and ethnic violence erupt sporadically, claiming more than 10,000 lives in the past four years.

Also under scrutiny is Zimbabwe’s status in the Commonwealth.

Britain, Australia and Canada have warned of a split if Zimbabwe is reinstated as some African nations have requested. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has said he may decide to permanently withdraw from the body anyway.

Obasanjo said pointedly last week that Mugabe would not be invited.

The Nigerian president hopes to turn the summit into a forum where rich and poor countries can find common ground on divisive trade issues.

The disputes have little chance of reaching resolution in larger, more formal organisations like the World Trade Organisation, he said.

“We’ve rich countries from the West, large developing countries like India and smaller countries, as small as Caribbean islands,” Obasanjo told foreign journalists. “If we can agree, such agreements can persuade others. The Commonwealth is unique in this respect.”

The summit opens on Friday as Britain's Queen marks her first return to Nigeria since 1956.

Penny Russell, the Queen’s press secretary, said the Queen will see a very different country from the one she encountered nearly a half-century ago. Nigeria was a colony then and the capital of Abuja did not exist.

Time constraints and security concerns will limit her contact with working-class Nigerians to a walk through a mock-up village market outside Abuja.

Prince Philip will visit health and environment projects in the sprawling commercial capital of Lagos.