Warning of chaos, turmoil and conflict in Nigeria

US National Intelligence Director John Negroponte warned yesterday of possible “major turmoil and conflict” in Nigeria if President Olesegun Obasanjo seeks approval of a constitutional amendment permitting him to seek a third term in office.

Chaos in Nigeria, he said, could create instability elsewhere in the region.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Negroponte said the election is the most important on the African horizon, with the potential to reinforce a democratic trend away from military rule or produce a major disruption in a country already suffering from ethnic violence and corruption.

“Speculation that President Obasanjo will try to change the constitution so he can seek a third term in office is raising political tensions and, if proven true, threatens to unleash major turmoil and conflict,” he said.

Chaos in the country could lead to “disruption of oil supply, secessionist moves by regional governments, major refugee flows, and instability elsewhere in West Africa.

Attacks by militants on oil facilities in Nigeria have led to a reduction of almost 500,000 barrels a day in oil production.

Meanwhile, President Obasanjo has met a toppled Liberian leader whose flight to Nigeria helped end a civil war, amid increasing calls for the Liberian to be handed over to a UN-backed war crimes tribunal.

On Sunday, Obasanjo met Charles Taylor, the warlord-turned-president accused of fomenting a civil war in Sierra Leone, said officials at the presidency. Details of their conversation were not released.

While Obasanjo often travelled to see Taylor before the ex-Liberian leader’s 2003 flight into exile in Nigeria, and has since publicly said they have communicated, the two were known to have met only once since Taylor arrived in Nigeria.

Current Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, whose election and January inauguration ended a post-war transitional administration, is expected to travel this weekend to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, said her spokesman Spencer Browne.

Sirleaf has said she will ask Nigeria to surrender Taylor to the war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone, but not before consulting regional leaders. She has said the Taylor issue is not a major priority for her country, among the world’s poorest after the 1989-2003 war that ended as Obasanjo arranged Taylor’s asylum in Nigeria as rebels attacked the capital, Monrovia.

Obasanjo, who sent thousands of troops to shore up security in post-war Liberia, has said he would accede to any transfer request from a democratically elected Liberian leader. Sirleaf won elections late last year and took power in January.