ISSN 0951-8657. Published by Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109. London N4 2UU. © 1995. All rights reserved. Printed by Nowafax International London E15. The sentencing to death of 15 leading oppositionIsts and the life sentence imposed on Olusegun Abasanjo, a former President of Nigeria, on 14 July has underscored the crippling political crisis unfolding in Nigeria.
Supposedly found culpable of planning a coup, the convicted were simply guilty a policy of of organising resistance to the military dictatorship.
In the two years since the 12 June annulment of the civillan elections following a resull that non to pleased the army (a victory for the bourgeois populist candidate Chief Mashood Abiola) Nigeria has been wracked by civil disorder and economic chaos.
Despite the repression of critical newspapers, the jailing over of the offices of the Nige. rian Labour Congress, the military regime has been unof normal life in Nigeria. tion-wide security operation on the second anniversary of and lorry loads of anti-riot pothe streets on a day when businesses in the south west, the scene of violent protest, preferred to remain closed.
The critical reactions of western Governments to the latest events are based on the fear that the roof might fall in and with it the disintegration of the Nigerian Federation into a chil war. trol of the oil fields in Ogoscenario for the multination.
The hypocrisy of the at. tacks made by the British goremment on the Nigerian reoime is now so routine as to be banal. While the left hand wags a finger, the right signs export licences for military equipment contracts to Lagos. Supposedly operating "a presumption of denial" since December 1993, the Government has permitted twenty contracts since January 1994 and denied one. The Foreign Office has been forced to admit that CS gas and rubber bullets have been licensed in the last 18 months.
Other suspected contracts Scorpion 100s which the Alvis supplied in the 1980s.
These are the tanks that were rolled out onto the streets on 12 June to ensure no re-appearance of protests The Labour Party seems paign calling for greater fers to Nigeria and demand. ing that the Foreign Office gets assurances that none of he equipment will be used for internal repression.
Rather than calling for more radical measures, such as an arms and oil embargo, the Blair leadership is preparing for power by practising Foreign Office clichés while oppositionIsts sit on death row in Lagos. Howard's new plans give the green light for racist harassment by an army of freelance immigration ollicers of Socialist Outlook. our next JOHN MAJOR'S crisis-ridden government is ruthlessly playing the race card in its efforts to retrieve its lost electoral support.
Leading the charge is right wing Home Secretary Michael Howard. As we warned in Socialist Outlook 87, he is forcing through new measures designed to increase suspicion and harassment of black people under the guise of detecting "illegal immigrants'.
On July 18 Howard proudly announced that head teachers, College admission officers and hospital managers will be called upon to act as freelance immigration officers, fingering and denouncing black people and those from ethnic minorities whom they suspect - or claim to suspect of being illegal immigrants.
Other government depart. ments will also be dragged into the act, while the vast majority of black and ethnic minority people are British citizens.
If Howard has his way, and the new snoopers' and racists' charter is implemented, it will only be a matter of time before the outrages begin, with black patients denied hospital care. black students denied education and black claimants denied social security The labour movement must challenge this reactionary legislation, and prepare to defend the first victims of Howard's cynical racist ploy.
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