Nigeria’s Abacha Calls Threat An Insult ‘We Would Not Allow Ourselves To Be Dictated To By Outsiders’

Nigeria’s military ruler has vowed to ignore a two-year deadline to restore his country to civilian control, despite the threatened penalty of expulsion from the Commonwealth of Britain and its former colonies.

“We would not allow ourselves to be dictated to by outsiders who know very little about us,” Gen. Sani Abacha said Wednesday.

Abacha’s government faces international isolation for its Nov. 10 execution of playwright Ken SaroWiwa and eight other dissidents.

More than a dozen countries, including the United States, withdrew their ambassadors and some are calling for a boycott of Nigerian oil, the country’s main source of foreign currency.

The Commonwealth suspended Nigeria from the group, and said it will expel Nigeria entirely unless Abacha returns the country to democracy in two years.

Abacha earlier this year announced a three-year transition plan that would leave him in power until October 1998.

“It is an insult for our nation to be told to review our transition program, which has been praised by Nigerians,” Abacha told more than 1,000 tribal chiefs and other leaders from around the country.

The government invited them to the capital to discuss how to respond to the international criticism. A 33-member task force was created at the convention, and Abacha promised to listen to its advice.

The task force’s credibility immediately was called into question, however, with the announcement that it would be headed by Lt. Gen. Jeremiah Useni, a senior member of Abacha’s ruling council.

Saro-Wiwa and eight co-defendants were convicted of ordering the murder of four pro-government activists during a political rally in 1994.

They denied the charges and said they were framed for their opposition to the government and the oil industry.