On the road for a new Nigeria

An appeals court recently dismissed a legal challenge to the election results. But other challenges to Obasanjo are far from over. He will not be able to count on the support of the more than 100 retired officers in his political party if reforms jeopardize their power and privileges, political analysts say.

"There is always a prospect of another coup," says Pearl Robinson, the director of the international relations program at Tufts University in Massachusetts. "Not all of the military are happy, particularly some junior people who are waiting in line for their turn to possibly become head of state and make some money."

According to one Nigerian who asked not to be identified, some junior officers' discontent is likely to grow if they remain in Sierra Leone. Despite increased US contributions to the West African peacekeeping force this year, Nigerians have suffered heavy casualties and desertions.

But Obasanjo confidently dismisses this, insisting his troops will stay.

"I am not concerned about it [the desertions]," he says. "The general population has not risen against it."

Still, Western diplomats have pinned high hopes on Obasanjo, a co-founder of Transparency International, the Berlin-based organization devoted to fighting corruption. Indeed, the president-elect has a solid reputation on the global scene. A longtime spokesman for political accountability in Africa, he was once a contender for the UN leadership. He won accolades around the world for being the only Nigerian military leader to step down and make way for a civilian government in 1979.

It's no wonder that his name and Nelson Mandela's have been mentioned in the same sentence. But being a leading African statesman and a former political prisoner are where the retired general's similarities with the South African president end.

"Obasanjo is not going to become president with the moral authority of a Nelson Mandela," says Ms. Robinson, who was an elections monitor. "In the political arena of Nigeria he does not carry that same moral authority."

Underscoring this view, members of Obasanjo's own Yoruba ethnic group have been protesting, at times violently, the former general's election. They see him as a traitor to the Yorubas' southwest and a puppet of the north, home to Nigeria's military leaders.

"I am not a tribal leader," says Obasanjo. "I am a national leader." Indeed, his falling-out with the southwestern states can be two-edged.

"In a way, nobody owns him. He has no really strong base of support, so everybody will try to influence him," Robinson says. "If he's got the political skills to walk this line, it can be seen as a very strong hand.

"I find it interesting that he is spending this period of time going around the world rather than at home putting together political alliances in Nigeria." she adds.

The peripatetic Obasanjo may be playing the international card, reinforcing his stature overseas to strengthen himself in the eyes of Nigeria's northern elite ahead of his inauguration, according to Robinson.

And, if his travels lead to a diversified economy, the president-elect may be able to stave off any would-be plotters of the coups with which Nigeria is all too familiar.

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