Youths in Lagos, Nigeria, cheer the passing last year of dictator General Sani Abacha

For Nigeria's besieged press, the time between the sudden death of reviled strongman General Sani Abacha on June 8 and Chief Moshood Abiola's fatal heart attack on July 7 proved to be the cruelest month ever. Abiola, owner of the nation's largest privately owned media company, the Concord Group, had been imprisoned by Abacha in 1994. He became a symbol of Nigerian journalists' bitter dismay in their battle against the military regime, which responded with a calculated -- and almost successful -- campaign to destroy the independent press. With Abiola's death in detention, the euphoria the press enjoyed upon Abacha's demise dissipated as quickly as it had erupted.

In this maelstrom, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, a career soldier who was virtually unknown outside military circles, emerged as Nigeria's leader. Overnight, the country's journalists dug in to do battle with yet another general, and sounded the alarm on the nation's editorial pages.

The watchdog private press exposed Abubakar's close relationship to former Nigerian dictator General Ibrahim Babangida; he has remained a potent force within the military since he ceded power to Abacha in a 1993 coup d'état. Babangida has now assumed a public role in the current regime's desperate attempt to placate citizens' demands for an immediate transition to democratic rule.

The 139-year-old Nigerian press is Africa's most prolific and vociferous, setting the standards for media practitioners throughout the continent. In the 1990s, the media met their match in the Abacha regime, which ratcheted up abusive treatment of the press, promoting tactics such as indefinite detentions without charge, secret trials by special military tribunals, torture by police and state security agents, disappearances, office bombings, and bans and seizures of publications.

The impact of Nigeria's decimation of the private press has had echoes in the unprecedented, rapid deterioration of press freedoms elsewhere in West Africa. Gambian ruler Yahya Jammeh's importation and enactment of restrictive Nigerian decrees, many aimed at silencing the press, has rendered that country's legal system ineffective. In Ghana, before Abacha's death, exiled Nigerian journalists were being threatened with deportation to Nigeria for commentary critical of the Abacha regime in Ghanaian media. Nigerian security agents faced no impediments in February 1997, when they kidnapped Razor magazine publisher Moshood Fayemiwo in broad daylight in neighboring Benin and transported him across the border to Nigeria. There he was detained, chained to a pipe, and tortured until his release in September 1998.

In August, the Committee to Protect Journalists held a conference in Ghana that gave leading Nigerian journalists their first opportunity in years to meet without the threat of security raids or detention. As they discussed political events in their country with colleagues from Ghana, Zambia, and Argentina, many participants claimed that Abubakar's recent release of detained journalists was not a sign of lasting change, or even a "honeymoon." The resounding consensus was that the Nigerian journalists have a long way to go before they can freely practice their profession.

The regime has at its disposal a host of statutes for use against journalists who criticize its officials. Examples: The Detention of Persons Decree No. 2, allowing indefinite incarceration of citizens; the Offensive Publications Decree No. 35 of 1993, which permits the government to seize any publication deemed likely to "disturb the peace and public order of Nigeria"; the Treason and Treasonable Offenses Decree No. 29 of 1993. The last mentioned was used in 1995 to convict journalists Kunle Ajibade, Chris Anyanwu, George M'bah, and Ben Charles Obi as "accessories after the fact to treason" for reporting on an alleged coup plot. Fortunately, all four have been released by Abubakar.

Abubakar's tacit endorsement of the controversial 1995 draft constitution is widely regarded by the media as an indication that the regime won't reverse its repression of the press. The draft calls for the creation of a Mass Media Commission that would have sweeping powers to restrict journalists' ability to do their jobs, and grants officials the authority to silence the press in the name of national security.

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