Nigeria offers exile to Aristide

By Anna Borzello
BBC correspondent in Abuja, Nigeria

Jean-Bertrand Aristide still has supporters in Haiti

Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been offered a temporary exile in Nigeria following a request by a group of Caribbean states.

Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson - Mr Aristide's current host - made the request on behalf of the group Caricom.

Mr Aristide, who left Haiti in late February, says he was forced out by the US. The US says he left voluntarily.

Mr Aristide fled to the Central African Republic at the end of February after three weeks of running street battles.

'Tremendous pressure'

The statement issued by the Nigerian presidential office is brief and to the point.

Haiti 'still out of control'

The Caribbean economic community, it says, under the leadership of Mr Patterson, requested Nigeria to consider giving Mr Aristide a staging post until his movement to another destination.

Nigeria, the statement adds, undertook widespread consultations with African leaders, the African Union and the US government before agreeing to grant Caricom's request.

There is no indication when Mr Aristide will arrive in the country, how long he will stay or where he will be going next.

However a senior Nigerian government official told the BBC the country had been under tremendous pressure to accept the proposal.

Host to exiles

He added that other countries in the region had elections to worry about - an apparent reference to South Africa.

Mr Aristide was ousted from power on 29 February.

He spent over two weeks in the Central African Republic with his wife before flying to Jamaica to join his children.

Prime Minister Patterson said that Jamaica decided to allow Aristide to stay for up to ten weeks.

However there has until now been no indication of where he would be going next.

Nigeria has a history of hosting ousted leaders.

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been living in exile in the south-eastern town of Calabar since August last year.