₦airaland Forum

Saturday, 29 May 1999: Inauguration of President Olusegun Obasanjo and
Vice-President Abubakar Atiku in Abuja, and civilian governors
countrywide. Fourth Republic begins

29-30 May: Clashes between Ijaw and Itsekiri youths just south of Warri
reportedly cause nearly 200 deaths. Western and Nigerian oil companies
evacuate people from the area as fighting nears Chevron's oil export
terminal. Some 150 soldiers from the army's 20 Amphibious Battalion, based
at Effurun in Delta state, are deployed to the area.

1 June: Chief Ogibodide of Ugborodo village in Delta area kidnapped from
his home and subsequently beheaded. Ijaw youths suspected to be
responsible.

June 4 - 6 - Violence erupts in Warri between Itshekiri, Ijaw and Urhobo

6 June: Dawn-to-dusk curfew announced in Warri by Delta state Governor,
James Ibori.

10 June - About 30 senior military officers are retired

11 June: Obasanjo meets Ijaw, Urhobo and Itsekiri leaders in Warri. In an
effort to pacify Delta communities, he creates a Special Project Division
(SPD) to plan the development of services such as electrification,
environmental protection, sanitation, education, housing and transport in
the Delta.

12-13 June: Delta State Governor declares Warri a disaster zone. Announces
his intention to establish an Urban Development Authority, and promises
vocational training and work for Itsekiri, Ijaw and Urhobo youths.

19 June: Ijaw youths reportedly attack the Itsekiri town of Kantu, near
Warri. Houses are burnt and five people killed. Kantu leaders later report
that armed robbers were responsible.

19-20 June: Armed bandits, suspected to have come from Chad and Niger,
raid four districts in the northern state of Taraba. Dozens reportedly
killed.

23 June: Armed youths attack and board two oil rigs demanding compensation
for a June 1998 oil spill. The attack prompts Texaco to declare "force
majeure" and temporarily suspend production.

25 June - At least seven people are killed in a riot at a cattle market
in the south-western city of Ibadan. Dozens of shops and cars are
destroyed in the riot. The riot was between ethnic Yoruba traders and
Hausa cattle dealers

28 June: Two foreign helicopter pilots are kidnapped by group called
'Enough is Enough' after landing at Shell's oil platform in Rivers State.
They are not reported released until 17 July.

29 June: Two Indian nationals working for Nigerian rubber-processing
company in Ughelli, Delta State are kidnapped. The Indian Embassy confirms
their release on 14 July.

1 July: Three Shell employees are taken hostage. They are released
unharmed on 11 July.

8 July: 16 Shell employees are taken hostage by armed militants but
released hours later.

18 July: Fighting erupts between Hausas and local Yorubas in Shagamu, a
town of about 300 000 inhabitants some 50 km north of Lagos. An estimated
60 people are reported dead.

22 July - House Speaker Salisu Buhari formally resigns following press
allegations of forgery and perjury. He is replaced by be Ghali Umar
Na'aba. In an emotional speech to assembly members, Mr Buhari said: "I
apologise to you. I apologise to the nation. I apologise to my family and
friends for all the distress I have caused themI was misled in error by
zeal to serve the nation."

22-25 July: Dozens are killed or wounded in Kano during violence following
the return home from Shagamu of dead and displaced persons. Local Hausa
people attacked Yorubas as reprisal for the Shagamu incident.

25 July: Seven expatriates and 57 Nigerian Shell employees are seized on
their drilling rigs in the Delta by ethnic Isoko youths in Ozoro and
Ovrode demanding money and amenities for the local population. They are
released two days later.

July 26-27 - Fresh fighting in Southeastern towns of Aguleri and Umuleri
in Anambra State leaves hundreds dead and massive destruction. This
follows fighting that first broke out in April and left hundreds of
people dead in battles which involved the use of dynamite and automatic
weapons.

31 July-6 August: Fighting erupts between Ijaws and Ilajes in the
south-western state of Ondo. News organisations estimate 59 killed. The
conflict originally broke out in September 1998 over control of land after
rumours that oil companies had shown interest in the area. Ondo State
government sets up a mediation panel and the army's 2nd Mechanised
Division in Ibadan is deployed in August to the state capital, Akure,
under a peace deal reached between the two communities.

15 August: Troops are deployed to restore peace in the northern state of
Taraba after clashes between the Jukun and Kutep over chieftancy titles
and boundary adjustments.

19 September - More fighting between Ijaw-Arogbos and Ilajes in Ondo
results in 16 people being killed and 20 reported missing.

23 September: The liquefied natural gas plant in the south-eastern town of
Bonny, worth US $3.8 billion, is shut down less than two weeks after
beginning operations after militant youth block roads to press demands for
jobs and social amenities. Obasanjo meets youths and calls for time to
develop area.

27 September - LAGOS State Governor, Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is cleared by
the Lagos State House of Assembly cleared of allegations of perjury and
certificate forgery involving Chicago State University/University of
Chicago. Charges were that he did not attend the Government College,
Ibadan and the University of Chicago, in US which the governor allegedly
filled in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) form. He
was also accused of making a false claim that he undertook the mandatory
one year National Youth Service Corps programme for fresh graduates. One
of his major accusers was Lagos lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi.

28 September: An attempt to broker peace by Ondo Deputy Governor Afolabi
Iyantan founders after representatives of two communties fail to attend a
meeting

October 1 - President Olusegun Obasanjo called for moral rebirth and
reaffirmed determination to fight corruption in a broadcast on Friday to
mark the 39th anniversary of independence from Britain

October 14 - Mohammed Abacha, 33, the son of the late Nigerian military
ruler General Sani Abacha, was charged in a Lagos court [along with four
others including Hamza al-Mustapha, Gen Abacha's chief security officer)]
with the murder of Kudirat Abiola, wife of the late opposition leader
Moshood Abiola, on a Lagos street in broad daylight in 1996. A few hours
earlier, Switzerland announced that it had frozen bank accounts held by
Mohammed Abacha and other relatives and associates of the general. The
accounts are believed to contain hundreds of millions of dollars of oil
revenues plundered by Gen Abacha and members of his regime.

October 27 - Declaration of Sharia law in Zamfara State by Governor Sani
Ahmed Yerima

29-31 October: Clashes between Ijaw and Yoruba youths in Ajegunle
neighbourhood in Lagos cause at least 12 deaths. Fifty-six youths are
arrested. Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu imposes a curfew.

30-31 October: Six Royal Dutch/Shell employees are seized near Warri by
youths from the Opuama community. Four are released on 4 November. The company later reports
that the last two were freed on 11 November.

3 November - A peace pact is signed by OPC, Ilaje and Ijaw leaders at a
meeting attended by Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu and his cabinet.

11 November: The governor of the south-eastern state of Bayelsa announces
that 12 policemen were killed the previous week in Odi, a village in the
state.

18 November - Enwerem removed as Senate president by his colleagues for
incompetence [following months of allegations and rumours that he had lied
about his age and academic qualifications]
and is immediately replaced by Dr. Chuba Okadigbo

20-21 November: Some 5 000 troops are deployed in Bayelsa State.
Presidential spokesman Doyin Okupe later says: "The security forces were
deployed to the area under the control of the state governor, who is also
the security officer of the state, primarily to ensure the enforcement of
law and order, the speedy return of normalcy and peace." The deployment is
criticised by human rights groups.

25-26 November: Hausa traders clash with Yoruba neighbours at Mile 12
Market in Ketu District in Lagos resulting in at least 30 casualties and
causing hundreds of Hausas to flee the area. The Nigerian Red Cross
evacuates 150 wounded to two area hospitals. The police regain control,
under orders from Obasanjo (November 25) to shoot on sight. Obasanjo
blames the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) for the troubles but the OPC
denies involvement.

29 November: A Senate committee visits Odi to investigate complaints by
the Ijaw community that the army killed residents there. The Senate's
president tells reporters afterwards that he was "shocked" by the scale of
destruction in the town.

5-6 December: Troops ordered out of Odi.

13 December - The Arewa Peoples Congress (APC) launched in Kano

14 December - Swiss authorities have frozen $550m in bank accounts
belonging to the late Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha, members of his
family and his associates. The order covers about 120 accounts in a dozen
banks based in Zurich and Geneva. The chief prosecutor in Geneva, Bernard
Bertrossa, said a money-laundering inquiry had been opened. This
investigation could result in the millions being returned to Nigeria.

19 December: The people who killed the policemen in Odi are still at large
in Port Harcourt, according to Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, governor of
Bayelsa State.

17-19 December: Churches in Ilorin, in the central state of Kwara are
attacked by some 3 000 youths, reportedly Muslims, and 14 are destroyed,
according to State Police Commissioner Antony Sawyer. Police trying to
protect the churches are stoned.

21 December - THE Igbo people of Nigeria demand a total of N8.680 trillion
from the Nigerian government as compensation for all atrocities committed
against them in the country between 1966 and 1999. In a 66 paged petition
to the Justice Chukwudifu Oputa panel investigating violation of human and
civil rights, Oha-Na-Eze Ndi-Igbo said that the monetary compensation was
less than what would cover all the atrocities, including marginalisation
of the Igbo within the period in question. They said that only
reparations and appropriate restitution are the only healing balm for Ndi
Igbo.

29 December - 100-Naira note, bearing Chief Awolowo's image, introduced

December 1999 - Health Minister Dr. Tim Menakaya announces that HIV is
spreading at the rate of one person per minute in Nigeria, threatening
Africa's most populous nation. Over 25 000 are said to have died and no
part of Nigeria is unaffected. The national average of HIV infection is
placed at 5,4%, up from a 1990 average of 1,8%. Using the results of
the 1999 survey, it iwas estimated that currently 2,6-million adult
Nigerians, aged 15-49 years, are infected, and it is projected that by
2003, 4,9-million Nigerian adults will be carrying the Aids virus

29 December - 100-Naira note, bearing Chief Awolowo's image, introduced

YEAR 2000
---------

6 January - Several people killed in ethnic clashes involving the Yoruba
and Hausa people in Ibadan The violence is reported to have begun when a
truck driven by a Hausa man collided with a taxi carrying several Yorubas.

8 January - Chief Justice Ephraim Oputa, INEC chief, dies in Abuja at age
72

8 January - Clashes between Okrika and Eleme communities followed a
ruling on land rights in at the southeastern oil industry port of Onne
(Rivers States) leave at least two people dead

January 14 - Obasanjo hints that he will impose a state of emergency on
Lagos State due to mounting violence. Governor Tinubu hits back that
police protection in the State is inadequate

[bJanuary 27 - Sharia Penal Code formally declared in effect in Zamfara
State at a ceremony at the capital Gusau.[/b]

January 30 - Kenya Airways plane with 179 aboard bound for Lagos crashes
near Abidjan. 10 people survive, including 3 Nigerians.

February 2 - Senator Waku, a representative of the ruling People's
Democratic Party, suspended from the Senate for after allegedly saying
that a military coup would be good for the country.

February 9 - The US Special envoy to Africa, Jesse Jackson, arrives Lagos
at the head of a trade delegation to Nigeria. The 20-man delegation are to
explore possible trade relationship between the two countries. Reports
said the U.S. is to invest about $3 billion in NIgeria.

February 9 - Senate rescinds Senator Waku's suspension over coup statement

February 13 - Nigeria soccer team loses to Cameroon in the final of the
African Cup of Nations in Lagos..
Scores: Nigeria 2-2 Cameroon (3-4 on penalties)

February 13 - Finance Minister Adamu Ciroma seriously injured in a car
crash

February 14 - President Obasanjo asks for evidence about former president
Ibrahim Babangida's stolen wealth

February 15 - Senate passes an amended version of President Olusegun
Obasanjo's anti-corruption bill. The bill's name was also changed from
the "Anti-Corruption Bill" to the "Corrupt Practices and Other Related
Practices Bill".

February 16 - Concorde plane makes first landing ever on Nigerian soil in
Lagos

February 21 - Several thousand Christians demonstrate in the northern
Nigerian city of Kaduna against calls from the Muslim community for the
introduction of Islamic Sharia law. At the weekend before, several
thousand Muslim women from across the state staged another rally demanding
Sharia law be imposed.

February 21-23 - Carnage in Kaduna as demonstrators clash

February 24 - President Obasanjo says that Sharia implementation is
"unconstitutional"

February 28 - 29 Almost 300 people massacred in some southeastern
Nigerian towns (Aba, Umuahia, Owerri, etc.) , in reprisals for the
killings of hundreds of people in the north last week.

February 28 - President Obasanjo visits Kaduna

February 29 - Emergency Council of State meeting, featuring a meeting
with the Northern Governors from which there is reported that there is
"consensus" to put on hold implementation of Sharia. "It was decided and
agreed that, as far as the Sharia law is concerned, we will return to the
status quo ante," Abubakar told reporters after the meeting.

March 1 - Niger State Governor Abdulkadir Kure, one of four northern
governors who had signed legislation introducing Sharia in their states,
announced he was lifting the strict Islamic code. "If suspending Sharia
is the sacrifice some of us have to make to sustain the nation's unity, I
abide by it," he said.

March 1 - In a broadcast on radio and television ,, President Obasanjo
says that he had been saddened and shocked by the violence in Kaudna. "I
could not believe that Nigerians were capable of such barbarism against
one another.this has been one of the worst instances of bloodletting that
this country has witnessed since the civil war."

March 2 - Speaking to the BBC Hausa service, the northerner and former
military ruler Muhammadu Buhari said the pledge to withdraw Sharia
legislation had been "extracted" from the northern governors. "It is not
true that the council had agreed that the Sharia be suspended... Alhaji
Atiku Abubakar met with the 19 northern governors where a pledge was
extracted from them," he said. And former civilian president Shehu
Shagari, also from the north, said in a written statement that the meeting
chaired by Obasanjo was not competent to direct the state governments to
withdraw the law. "The only way it can do so, in my opinion, is by taking
the matter to court which is the only body competent to intepret the
constitution," he said.

March 3 - Fighting between Ile-Ife and Modakeke The feud revolves around
local politics and a dispute over land ownership rights.

March 5 - Obasanjo turns 63 years old.

March 6 - Northern emirs meet President Obasanjo, and afterwards issue a
communique: "The discussions were thorough, frank and comprehensive..[we]
appeal to the people of Northern States in particular and the country in
general to live with one another in harmony"

March 7 - The 5 South-Eastern governors declare that they want a
Confederation in Nigeria and a Sovereign National Conference

March 8 - Three people were killed and two churches burned down in the
city of Sokoto in clashes around the university campus during a
demonstration by Muslim students

March 11 - Schedule meeting betweeen South-South and South-Eastern
governors called off at last minute

March 13 - One-time chairman of the defunct National Electoral Commission
(NEC), Prof. Eme Awa dies in the US at the age of 78.

March 15 - President Obasanjo sacks NEPA's management and puts a crisis
committee in charge of the national electricity company, NEPA, because of
what he called its woeful failure. The nine-man committee which will now
run NEPA will be made up of individuals whose reputations the president
could vouch for, and who will report directly to him.

March 15 - CHIEF of Air Staff (CAS) in the Buhari and Babangida
administration, Air Marshal Ibrahim Alfa (rtd.) dies in Jos at age 57.

March 22 - Buba Bello Karegarke Jangedi, convicted by an area court
sitting in Talata-Mafara area of the state of Zamfara for stealing a cow,
has his right hand amputated according to newly-instituted state Sharia
Penal Code. Outrage is expressed in much of the country.

March 22 - At least 50 people in Umuichiechi-Umungbede village in the
southeast Nigerian state of Abia burned to death when petrol gushing from
a vandalised pipeline catches fire as they collected it in buckets and
tins

March 23-24 - President Obasanjo visits Ile-Ife and Modakeke and talks
peace with community leaders

March 27 - FEDERAL Ministry of Commerce grants patent right to Dr.
Jeremiah Abalaka, the surgeon who claims to have developed both preventive
and curative vaccines for the AIDS virus.

March 28 - Fifteen people killed and churches burnt in Damboa, Borno
State, in unrest between Muslims and Christians .

March 29 - The Finance and Appropriation Committees of the National
Assembly approves a budget of 677.5 billion naira (about seven billion US
dollars), in contrast to a N598 put forwarded by President Obasanjo

April 3 - Northern governors agree to set up a joint Moslem-Christian
committee to try to end weeks of bloodshed over the adoption of Islamic
sharia law by some states in the region. "We have resolved to constitute a
committee made up of Moslem and Christian leaders to hold a dialogue on
those aspects of sharia not included in the penal code and arrive at a
consensus for adoption," said a communique issued after the talks in the
northern city of Kaduna

April 3 - PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo carries out minor cabinet reshuffle,
moving Information Minister, Chief Dapo Sarumi to the Office of the
Co-operation and Integration in Africa while Prof. Jerry Gana replaces him
at the Information Ministry.

April 8 - The National assembly blocks a request from the president for
about $80m in order to enable him to buy an airbus from the Sultan of
Brunei.

April 10 - Chief Anthony Enahoro, NADECO leader, returns to Nigeria via
London after four years away in exile in the United States

April 11 - Feuding in Ogoniland among rival factions leaves a few people
dead

April 17 - President Olusegun Obasanjo receives a copy of the reworked
budget for 2000, approved by parliament

April 18 - Senator Arthur Nzeribe introduces a petition to impeach
President Obasanjo.

April 18 - Former ECOMOG commander Maxwell Khobe, Sierra Leone's chief of
defence staff, Nigeria's Brig. Gen. Maxwell Khobe, dies

April 24 - Symbolic reburial of Ken Saro-Wiwa in Ogoniland - in the city
of Bane

April 26 - Senator Nzeribe withdraws petition to impeach Obasanjo

April 26 - The first indigenous Chief of Air Staff , Brigadier General
George Kurubo dies in Port Harcourt, River State after a protracted
illness

April 26 - A religious crisis erupted in Saki, Oyo State, leading to the
razing of three churches and five vehicles belonging to different
Christian groups

May 1 - President Obasanjo announces new minimum wage of N5,500 at May Day
rally in Lagos

May 3 - President Obasanjo writes to the National Assembly saying that the
only condition on which he would sign the Appropriation Bill as already
passed by the assembly was for the assembly to pass a resolution exempting
him from implementing disputed parts of the bill.

May 4-5 - More fighting between Ife and Modakeke residents leaves about 25
people dead and more than 50 wounded

May 9 - The authorities in Luxembourg say they have frozen bank accounts
belonging to the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha containing more than
$600 million. The Luxembourg deputy state prosecutor, Georges Heisbourg,
said that eight accounts in a Luxembourg subsidiary of an unnamed German
bank were blocked.


May 9 - The key prosecution witness in the attempted murder trial
involving Lt. Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi and four other senior military and
police officers, said a killer squad, instituted by the late General Sani
Abacha used AK- 47 rifles to shoot the publisher of the Guardian
newspaper, Chief Alex Ibru

May 9 - Students clash to local vigilantes in Offa, Kwara State

May 10 - Fire guts domestic section of Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos

May 10 - THE Senate passes the Bill for an Act to amend the National
Minimum Wage Act to provide for a raised National Minimum Wage. The bill
was presented to the Senate May 4 by President Olusegun Obasanjo. The new
minimum wage is N5,500.00, up from N3,500.

May 11 - Senate passes minimum wage bill, raising minimum wage from N3500
to N7,500.

May 17 - The Nigerian upper chamber of parliament, the Senate, approves
the appointment on yesterday of Abel Guobadia as new head of the country's
electoral commission in replacement of the deceased Justice Ephriam Apata.

May 22 - MASSOB leader, Ralph Uwazuruike hoists the Biafran flag in Aba at
No. 175 Faulks Road

May 22 - 23 two days of renewed clashes between Muslims and Christians.
In Kaduna leave more than 200 people dead and hundreds of buildings burned
down

May 23 - Four principal officers of Enugu state House of Assembly removed
from office. They include the Speaker, Dr Festus Uzor, his Deputy, Mr
Linus Ali, the Majority Leader, Prince Uchenna Igwesi and the Chief Whip,
Mr Hyacinth Nsude. They are replaced with Kenneth Ogbozor (Speaker),
Jonathan Chukwuma (Deputy speaker), Uche Ekete (Majority Leader) and
Fidelis Ezema (Chief Whip).

May 24 - Scores of of supporters of the Movement for the Actualisation of
the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) march through some streets of the
commercial city of Aba, waving the Biafran flag.

Monday, May 29 - One year anniversary of latest return to civilian rule.
In a speech to the nation, President Obasanjo announces that Biafran
soldiers previously dismissed are now to be considered just retired

May 29 - Sharia Penal Code in Sokoto State takes effect (2nd state in
which it occurs, after Zamfara).


Source:
Mobolaji E. Aluko, PhD
Burtonsville, MD, USA
May 30, 2000



Seun, nlfpmod, mynd44

It can be seen that tribal and ethnic clashes which led to significant loss of life were the order of the day following the first year of post military democracy. 24 years later, the story has barely changed

Na so so clash clash I dey see here.

COMRADES, and till date we're still living in the woes

LibertyRep:
Na so so clash clash I dey see here.

Omo the thing weak me sha. Just a day after OBJ was sworn in and the country never rested again that year.

Dougad:
Omo the thing weak me sha. Just a day after OBJ was sworn in and the country never rested again that year.

Was the country resting before?

Simeonjoe1:
Was the country resting before?

I don't think it's far fetched to at least expect peace for a year after doing away with military rule and experiencing democracy.

I would assume the president and newly elected officials would be given some time to work through issues but everyone was taking matters into their own hands leading to clashes and deaths across every region in the country.

Dougad:
Omo the thing weak me sha. Just a day after OBJ was sworn in and the country never rested again that year.

OBJ's butt was on a very hot seat that time.
He had it rough at the beginning.

Peace in Nigeria, we pray.

WhizdomXX:
I be waffarian.

Then you must be among those who hailed the kidnapping and destabilising of oil companies there.

All of them packed up and ran away after all those things your people did. Now warri is a shadow of itself