Word: abacha
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...they had secured the radio and television stations in Lagos and had begun to take prominent politicians into custody. They temporarily cut international telephone and telex lines and closed down airports, border posts and the port of Lagos. At 7:30, a member of the new junta, Brigadier Sana Abacha, announced over Nigerian radio that the Shagari government had been overthrown. For the most part, Nigerians seemed to accept the news with a shrug and an instinct that the change was not going to make matters any worse...
...announcement last Saturday over Nigeria's Radio Lagos was brief and enigmatic. Claiming to speak on behalf of the country's armed forces, Brigadier General Sana Abacha of the Nigerian army declared that he and his colleagues had "decided to effect a change in the leadership of the government" of President Shehu Shagari, 58. "This task," said Abacha, "has just been completed." The general then announced that all political parties were being banned and communications with the outside world suspended, and that a dusk-to-dawn curfew was being imposed. Only four months after Nigeria...
...immediate confirmation of Abacha's announcement was possible because of the communications cutoff. But diplomatic sources in Paris said that Shagari, most of his Cabinet ministers and some members of the 544-seat National Assembly were under arrest. It was unclear whether Abacha, identified as the commander of an armored brigade in the capital, Lagos, had acted on his own or with the support of other commanders...
...justifying his actions, Abacha cited Nigeria's "grave economic predicament," brought about, he said, by an "inept and corrupt leadership." Oil normally accounts for 90% of Nigeria's export earnings, but the world petroleum glut sent those revenues falling from a peak of $26 billion a year to $10 billion. Corruption in Nigeria is rampant...