Self-government for Nigeria

Nigeria's Gen. Sani Abacha has played a cruel joke on the 100 million people he purports to lead. He chose the 35th anniversary of Nigerian independence to announce on Sunday that black Africa's most populous country is somehow still not ready for self-government. The general grabbed power in 1993, dissolved all political parties and legislatures, and jailed his civilian rivals. Now he says he intends to rule at least three more years before handing over power to an elected government.

True, he has responded to international pressure by commuting the death sentences for some political prisoners, but no leniency was shown Moshood Abiola, the presumed winner in a June 1993 election voided by the military. Chief Abiola still awaits trial on treason charges, a capital crime. Abacha also lifted the ban on three opposition newspapers and promised to relax some restraints on political parties. But these grudging concessions are not enough.

By every measure, military rule has been a calamity for Nigeria. Despite bountiful resources, a thriving oil industry and an educated work force, Nigeria is bankrupt; annual per capita income has plunged to $250, from $1,000 in 1980.

Small wonder that so many Nigerians yearn for an accountable government and real freedoms. Among them are Olusegun Obasanjo, the only general to turn over power to elected civilians, who has since been jailed as a supposed traitor, and the novelist Wole Soyinka, Nigeria's Nobel laureate.

Creditably, if quietly, President Nelson Mandela of South Africa has made plain his country's dismay over repression in Nigeria. President Clinton is said to have telephoned Abacha to protest secret trials.

America has imposed limited sanctions on military sales, but has held back from more punishing measures. Randall Robinson of Trans-Africa, a leader of the campaign against apartheid in South Africa, now suggests that Nigeria's rulers cry out for comparable ostracism. Abacha is making Robinson's case.

-- The New York Times