Nigeria Nullifies Election

ABUJA, NIGERIA, JUNE 23 -- Nigeria's military dictatorship today nullified the June 12 presidential election that was to have returned Africa's most populous nation to civilian rule.

Britain condemned the generals who run Nigeria and warned it might sever ties with its former colony. The United States said it was suspending aid to the Nigerian government. Activist groups said they would organize nationwide strikes and protests.

The government threatened to impose a state of emergency if disturbances break out. This West African regional power of at least 88.5 million people is a caldron of ethnic and religious tension.

Voiding of the election is likely to further alienate Nigeria from Western nations, which have been encouraging democratic movements in Africa. The International Monetary Fund has said it would not discuss new financial help for Nigeria until a civilian government takes over.

Critics had predicted that Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who took power in a 1985 military coup, would not let the election results stand, even though both candidates for president are close friends of his.

Nigeria has been under military rule for 23 of its 33 years of independence. It has been plagued by government waste, corruption and mismanagement, widespread strikes and violent feuds between Muslims and Christians and among 250 tribal groups. The country is a leading oil exporter, but it owes creditors $27.5 billion.

Many Nigerians, made cynical by decades of military coups and unfulfilled promises of democracy, greeted nullification of the election numbly.

"People are disturbed and worried, but on the whole nobody wants to compound the crisis," said Salisu Muhammad, spokesman for the National Labor Congress in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city.

Meeting with his generals in Abuja, the capital, Babangida formally rescinded his promise to resign Aug. 27 and turn power over to a civilian president. It is the fourth time in three years that he has torn up a timetable for democracy.

The decree annulled an election apparently won by billionaire industrialist Moshood K.O. Abiola. The Abuja High Court had ordered the results suppressed June 15 after Babangida's supporters filed a complaint claiming irregularities in the election.

"How can the government abandon its own transition program?" asked Femi Oredien, spokesman for Abiola's Social Democratic Party. "They were the ones who said they would return the country to civilian rule."

In Washington, the State Department called Babangida's decree an "outrageous decision" and said it was suspending direct aid to the Nigerian government -- about 5 percent of a $22.8 million aid program.

"We are intensely disappointed," a State Department official said. "Because of the size and potential of Nigeria, we are concerned about a ripple effect elsewhere."

British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said Britain might break ties.

The Nigerian military ostensibly based its decision on confusion caused by a series of court rulings sought by Babangida's supporters, who challenged the fairness of the election the dictator had orchestrated. International monitors did not report widespread fraud at the polls, although the turnout was estimated at only 30 percent.

"These steps were taken to save our judiciary from being ridiculed and politicized locally and internationally," Babangida's decree said.

The twists began two days before the election, when the Abuja High Court ordered balloting postponed pending action on a lawsuit filed by wealthy Babangida supporters who said the presidential campaign was rigged. The National Electoral Commission ignored that ruling and went ahead with the vote.

With the votes partially counted, Abiola held a big lead over another Babangida confidante, millionaire banker Bashir Othman Tofa. At this point the Abuja High Court ordered the results suppressed.

The electoral commission obeyed that ruling, then ignored orders from other federal courts to release them.

Babangida has been accused of staging the entire sequence of events to create confusion that would permit him to remain in power.

Abiola, who claimed victory on Friday after a human rights group issued what it said were final results, drew broad-based support in Lagos and throughout the country, while Tofa's backers were concentrated mostly in the Muslim north.

Both Abiola's Social Democratic Party and Tofa's National Republican Convention were registered by the military government in 1989 after it rejected 50 other parties. A new legislature was elected last July, with the Social Democrats winning majorities in both houses, but the presidential election, originally scheduled for 1990, was postponed several times.