Nigerian media on Clinton's visit

In this week's Africa media watch, the Nigerian media wonders how far the two-day visit of arguably the world's most powerful man will benefit Africa's most populous country.

He has only a short time left in office but US President Bill Clinton is making a second trip to Africa, paying more attention to the continent than any other US leader.

The city prepares for Bill

Ordinary Nigerians appear to be in favour of Mr Clinton's visit this weekend. A poll conducted in the Post Express showed that of some 1,500 respondents nationwide, almost 80% said the trip would be of "huge benefit" to the country and was proof that Nigeria was no longer a pariah state.

But nearly 20% of those polled were pessimistic, saying that the budget outlay for Mr Clinton's reception would drain the nation's wealth, giving a tiny number of Nigerians a way to line their pockets.

The debt millstone

Some newspapers also expressed concern over the state of Nigeria's coffers as a whole.

Tempo said the visit offered a window of opportunity for the economy but recalled the Clinton administration's "less than tepid support" for a debt relief initiative put forward by President Olusegun Obasanjo as he tried to pull Nigeria out of military rule.

Africa's debts are traceable to the corner that the batons of the colonialists pummelled Africa into

The Guardian

Nigerian radio agreed that the visit could rejuvenate the economy by encouraging foreign investment and launching Nigeria into the league of newly-industrialised countries.

But The Guardian newspaper argued that the course of history had left all of Africa incapable of coping with its debt burden and that the developed world had a responsibility to help.

"Africa's debts are indirectly traceable to the prostrate and disadvantageous corner that the batons of the colonialists and slave trade pummelled Africa into...

"The debt millstone round the fragile neck of Africa provides the West with a golden opportunity to demonstrate impressively that they truly rue those inhuman exploits of their progenitors," it commented.

The paper said that although Mr Clinton should be welcomed wholeheartedly as "a great friend of Nigeria", his visit would seem an "anticlimax" if he did not make a significant statement on debt relief.

Fuel for Niger Delta violence

As well as doubts over the debt issue, This Day newspaper reported that some interest groups in the Niger Delta were resentful that Mr Clinton was limiting his trip to the capital, Abuja.

The Niger Delta Congress (NDC) said the fact that a man representing Nigeria's biggest buyer of crude oil was ignoring the area would only serve to accentuate feelings of marginalisation and provoke restlessness there.

How much will he really see?

"Abuja's sustenance is solely dependent on the Niger Delta region... The feeling here will be one of abject neglect and recklessness if Bill Clinton does not visit," the NDC said.

"The people will lose more faith with the Nigerian state and the quest for the much-sought peace will be elusive," it added.

Abuja - limited view?

The Guardian lamented the fact that Mr Clinton's visit was restricted, saying that seeing the region for himself could be instructive for him.

Abuja's sustenance is solely dependent on the Niger Delta region

Niger Delta Congress

"Some of the world's worst human rights abuses are taking place there in the name of oil... President Clinton would be able to see over 100 gas-flaring holocaust sites which constitute 76% of natural gas flared in Nigeria," the paper said.

"He might want to ask Chevron and Mobil a question or two about why they are indifferent to environmental safeguards that are mandatory in their home country."

The Guardian noted that although Abuja was the political and diplomatic capital, it did not yet have the diversity of civil rights and political movements which had contributed to Nigerian democracy in the past decade.

"It is regrettable that the president will literally be shielded from contact with the democratic and human rights constituency that braved the barricades," it said, adding that the arranged meetings were unlikely to give Mr Clinton a chance to meet grassroots organisations.

US embassy 'mistreating Nigerians' The Vanguard reported that although Mr Clinton was expecting a warm welcome in Abuja, Nigerians were allegedly being treated badly by US embassy staff.

The Federal Executive Council said it would formally protest against the alleged maltreatment of Nigerians seeking visas from the US embassy.

Some in government are not pleased

"We treat Americans well in Nigeria and we want our citizens to be given the same worthy treatment," the paper quoted Minister of State Dubem Onyia as saying, noting that some two million Nigerians were working in the USA and contributing to that economy.

"The protest is going to be one of the high points of our bilateral talks during Clinton's visit to Nigeria," he said, adding that hundreds of Nigerians had suffered "molestation" from US embassy officials.

'Con-man' cashes in The Vanguard reports that scores of women willing to work as usherettes for the president's trip have fallen victim to a crafty con artist.

A character named Uncle Mike allegedly duped the would-be usherettes in the run-up to the visit by collecting applications for the jobs and charging a "processing fee" of almost $100.

He then told his clients that he was on his way to the US embassy in Lagos to deal with "protocol problems".

"We were shocked to discover later that evening when we went to Uncle Mike's house to find out what to do next that he was no longer living at the house that he used as his residence and office," one female graduate said.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.