Babangida

ABUJA, Nigeria -- A young businessman walked up to a group of people in the lobby of a fashionable hotel here and produced a business card with his address in Lagos, the nation's bustling business center."

Even while his negotiations with the African National Congress stall over tribal strife, President F. W. de Klerk makes sanctions against South Africa harder to sustain. The repeal of the historic Group Areas Act and Land Acts dismantle the principal legal buttresses of South Africa's apartheid. One giant legal pillar remains, the Population Registration Act, which provides for everyone to be classified by race. The government does not know how to maintain the separate parliamentary chambers without that registration, so it looks like that law stays on the books until the next regime is negotiated.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government watched in helpless anger yesterday as Nigeria's military government scrapped the transition to democratic rule of Africa's most populous country, dealing a major setback to political progress throughout the continent.While the Clinton administration threatened to cut aid and chill relations, a senior official said there was little the United States could do to force dictator Ibrahim Babangida to accept the results of recent elections and yield power."We don't have many levers there," the official said, noting that Nigeria, a major oil exporter, is wealthy by African standards.

LAGOS, Nigeria -- A diplomatic initiative by President Clinton to help resolve Nigeria's political paralysis has generated protests here by human rights campaigners who say that the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Mr. Clinton's special envoy, may have aligned himself too closely with this country's military government to be a neutral mediator.The U.S. Embassy in Lagos announced Thursday that Mr. Jackson and a delegation of State Department and national security officials were expected to travel to Nigeria in the next few days.

ABUJA, Nigeria -- South Africa scored a major breakthrough on the road to respectability yesterday when President Frederik W. de Klerk arrived in Nigeria for an official visit that symbolized his country's new status in Africa.It was the first visit to Nigeria by a South African head of state and a sign of improved relations between South Africa and the rest of the continent as a result of Mr. de Klerk's policy of dismantling the apartheid system.Mr. de Klerk was welcomed by President Ibrahim Babangida as "the man who closed the book on apartheid.

London -- THERE WAS once a thriving population of half a million people in southeastern Nigeria, the land of the Ogoni. It is an oil-producing area that suffered much ecological damage.That damage has received worldwide publicity largely due to the efforts of a passionate writer named Ken Saro-Wiwa, himself an Ogoni.A leader of the Movement for the Salvation of the Ogoni People, he exposed the plight of the Ogoni to the United Nations Minorities Council, calling for the recognition of the Ogoni people as one of the world's endangered minorities.

NIGERIA, a pariah suspended by the Commonwealth of Nations and denounced by Nelson Mandela, has a new start. The rapid choice of an interim strongman to replace the brutal and corrupt strongman, Gen. Sani Abacha, who died of anapparent heart attack on Monday, headed off drift and anarchy.With more than 100 million people and massive oil exports, Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and potentially one of its wealthiest. It has an efficient army that has imposed democracy elsewhere in West Africa while preventing it at home.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- President-elect Bill Clinton spoke by phone yesterday with President Bush, who called from Air Force One to extend an open invitation to Mr. Clinton and his wife, Hillary, to visit the White House.Mr. Bush, on his way to Florida for a five-day vacation, invited the Clintons to come to the White House any time to ease the transition and tour the mansion. The two discussed plans for meeting in Washington, perhaps late next week."We had a nice talk this morning," Mr. Clinton said.

The puppeteer pulling the strings of Nigeria's rulers for the past decade has stepped in front of the curtain. Gen. Sani Abacha, shortly after turning 50, shortly after retiring generals who had demoted him, during protests against his machinations and a general strike, installed himself as president. He dispatched his hapless civilian appointee of August, Ernest Shonekan, and now admits that he, General Abacha, is running the place.General Abacha made the usual pledge to restore democracy and end military rule, while closing publications and local governments.

LAGOS, Nigeria -- A former military ruler appeared set last night to head the country's first civilian government in 15 years, but his rival plans to contest the results, casting doubts over Africa's most populous nation.Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, 61, overcame misgivings about his continuing ties with the generals to take a substantial lead over economist Olu Falae, 60, who campaigned on a clean break with the military.Results from 33 of Nigeria's 36 states gave 17,129 votes, or about 62 percent, to Obasanjo by last night.