Nigeria's military regime has vowed to hand over power to an elected civilian president at the end of next May, the country's military ruler announced last night.
In an address broadcast nationwide, Gen Abdusalam Abubakar said his government had decided that presidential elections of the president are to be held in the first quarter of next year. "The new elected president will be sworn into office on the 29th of May, 1999," said Nigeria's military ruler who came to power after the sudden death last month of the widely-reviled dictator Gen Sani Abacha.
Gen Abubakar also announced a decision to scrap the country's five existing political parties legalised by his predecessor. The dissolved parties were seen by many Nigerians as platforms for the late dictator's attempt to hold onto power. They had been pressurised into nominating Gen Abacha as their candidate for president in national elections originally scheduled for next month.
"Similarly, all previous elections conducted with the dissolved parties as participants, are hereby cancelled for their widespread lack of credibility and acceptibility", said Gen Abubakar as he declared the country's national electoral commission disbanded.
"Nigerians want nothing less than true democracy in a united and peaceful country", said Gen Abubakar who has repeatedly stated his commitment to ceding power to a democratically elected civilian government.
Gen Abubakar's long-awaited speech follows intense consultations with a cross-section of Nigerian society. Last week he released hundreds more prisoners, most of whom had already completed their prison terms. Yesterday, he ordered the release of another 10 political prisoners and pardoned members of an alleged coup plot imprisoned by Abacha but freed in recent weeks.
France is pushing its European Union partners to progressively lift sanctions imposed on Nigeria in 1993 over continued military rule and human rights violations, a visiting French minister said yesterday. Mr Charles Josselin, France's aid minister, told reporters he had "brought a message of understanding" from Paris to Gen Abubakar.