WHEN BLACKS PERSECUTE BLACKS

By Jack E. White

In a world less warped by racist double standards where human rights are concerned, the bogus arrest, kangaroo-court trial and harsh sentencing of General Olusegun Obasanjo would have produced front-page headlines and a torrent of protests. Instead the persecution of one of Africa's foremost proponents of democracy by Nigeria's brutal military regime has caused hardly a ripple outside a small circle of government leaders and human-rights activists. Is this because the press and general public, including African Americans, take assaults on political freedom perpetrated by black dictators against their own black citizens less seriously than other such crimes? The answer, shamefully, is yes.

Contrast the indifference that has greeted the long descent into autocracy by Africa's most populous and oil-rich nation with the outpouring of rage against apartheid in South Africa. Led by TransAfrica, a Washington-based lobbying group, the antiapartheid movement created extraordinary outside pressure that was a key weapon in toppling white supremacy. This was possible, says TransAfrica's leader, Randall Robinson, because South African oppression could be reduced to a simple black-and-white issue most Americans could understand. But when it comes to black-on-black oppression like Nigeria's, a kind of moral myopia sets in. The affliction stems partly from the patronizing attitude of many whites, who assume that when blacks rule themselves they will inevitably revert to savagery. But it also reflects the unwillingness of some African-American leaders to hold black-ruled nations to the same standards they demand of everyone else.

In 1993, for example, the Rev. Jesse Jackson praised the Nigerian despot of the moment, General Ibrahim Babangida, as "one of the great leader-servants of the modern world in our time." This was the same Babangida who had ruthlessly suppressed political opponents, closed down independent newspapers and allowed his country to become a major transshipment point for heroin and other illegal drugs to which millions of U.S. citizens are addicted. Could Jackson's effusion have had anything to do with the help Babangida had given him over the years--for example, by providing a Nigerian Airways jet for a tour of southern Africa or by encouraging his cronies to contribute to Jackson's causes in the U.S.? Jackson says not. He intended, he says, to encourage the general to keep his promises about restoring democracy. But less than a month later, Babangida overturned the results of Nigeria's first presidential elections in more than a decade, setting in motion a chain of events that led to the seizure of power less than two years ago by General Sani Abacha, the worst dictator yet.

The case against Obasanjo gives black leaders, and all those who care about human rights, the chance to apply to Nigeria the same democratic standards that they did to South Africa. Indeed, TransAfrica has embarked on a campaign designed to do just that by pressuring the U.S. government to take sterner measures against Abacha--and to their credit, many black leaders, including Jackson, have joined it. As Nigeria's military ruler from 1976 to '79, Obasanjo kept his promise to restore democracy, voluntarily handing over power to an elected President. Since then, he has incurred the enmity of the government by repeatedly speaking out against corruption and political repression both inside and outside Nigeria. He has joined the board of the Ford Foundation and served on Jimmy Carter's International Negotiations Network, which tries to resolve conflicts around the world peacefully. He seems to have driven Abacha into a rage by encouraging TransAfrica's pro-democracy campaign.

In March, Abacha's regime, claiming it had uncovered a coup plot, rounded up Obasanjo and about 60 other well-known dissidents. In July, the government announced that 40 of the accused had been convicted and sentenced--but it refused to disclose their names, what crimes they had supposedly committed or what their punishment would be. According to sources in the Nigerian exiles' community, Obasanjo has been sentenced to life in prison. Others have been condemned to death. Last week, even as Abacha claimed to be reviewing the harsh sentences, his secret police arrested still more dissidents, including Obasanjo's lawyer and the head of Nigeria's biggest pro-democracy group.

"Up to now, the international community has approached Nigeria in a pleading tone," says Nobel-prizewinning Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, now in exile in the U.S. "What's needed is threats." Those could involve seizing the loot Abacha & Co. are believed to have stashed in the U.S. and Europe, or even boycotting Nigerian oil. But such punitive measures will not work without moral pressure from those who have allowed the dictators' behavior to pass unchallenged. Above all, Nigerians crave the respect of the rest of the world. Freeing Obasanjo and the other political prisoners would be a tiny first step in showing they deserve it.