By James Rupert
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, January 20, 1999; Page A21

LAGOS, Nigeria—By the most obvious measures, Nigeria's six-month-old transition from military to civilian rule is going well. The government of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar has held credible elections for local and state authorities, and black Africa's most populous country is entering high campaign season for the election of its first national civilian leadership in 15 years.

Nigerian and foreign analysts warn that the transition could be disrupted before Abubakar hands over power on May 29, notably by continued upheaval in the oil-rich Niger River delta region or by corrupt military officers unwilling to cede power and its riches. Still, a successful shift to civilian rule appears to be more likely, and people are beginning to ask how a civilian government will address Nigeria's multiple crises, of which the delta uprising and a crunch in government finances will be the most urgent.

The army has ruled for 28 of Nigeria's 38 years, compressing what was a federal republic into an authoritarian, centralized state. Hausa-speaking Muslims of the north have dominated both the army and its governments, suppressing demands by other groups -- principally ethnic Ibos and Yorubas -- for more power.

Especially under the two previous ruling generals, Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha, those in power have stolen billions of dollars from the state and let the economic infrastructure of the country collapse. Abacha's sudden death last June elevated Abubakar, who a month later announced the return to civilian rule.

Nigerian and international election monitors declared that local elections in December and state elections Jan. 9 were fair, and Abubakar appears to have broad acceptance for his plan to decree a restoration of the constitution that was used during Nigeria's last experiment with civilian rule, from 1979 to 1983. Nigerians display more confidence that, after the army's many broken promises to quit power, Abubakar intends to see the process through.

Even among Nigerians who were skeptical of Abubakar's intent at the start, "people think the military is going to go this time," said Ayo Obe, a Lagos attorney and president of a national human rights group, the Civil Liberties Organization. "The concern now is that they are stoking up a lot of problems" for a civilian government to deal with, she said.

However the voting turns out, Nigeria's next government will be a broad, perhaps awkward, coalition. Two of the three parties that qualified for national elections are umbrella groups that lack detailed policy positions on the country's problems. Rather, in a measure of how Abacha's legacy dominates politics, the parties are best defined by their attitude toward him.

The People's Democratic Party, a broad coalition led by politicians who opposed Abacha publicly, has won at least half the votes nationwide in each round of elections so far. The All People's Party, which includes many civilians who served in Abacha's camp, is dubbed by many the "Abacha People's Party" and this month took just over a third of votes in the state elections. It is seeking to form a joint ticket with the third party, the Yoruba-dominated Alliance for Democracy, which has swept voting in the densely populated southwest.

The People's Democratic Party's most prominent presidential hopeful is Olusegun Obasanjo, the only one of Nigeria's ruling generals to have handed power back to civilians. But Obasanjo is unpopular among his fellow Yorubas and has failed to deliver his home region to the party. Analysts say this could swing the nomination to Alex Ekwueme, a prominent Ibo who served as vice president in the previous civilian government in the early '80s.

The government is trying to calm the disorder in the delta before the presidential election is held Feb. 27. The delta, heart of an oil belt that provides 80 percent of government revenue, has been in a state of near insurrection since August, as impoverished ethnic groups demand a share of the oil wealth pumped from beneath their lands.

In recent weeks, authorities and oil companies have talked many cells of village youths into allowing the reopening of oil fields the youths had seized last fall in the latest uprising.

But many groups, radicalized by years of unfulfilled government promises, remain unpacified. Armed mystical cults of the Ijaw god of war, Egbesu, secreted in trackless creeks and mangrove swamps, have the potential to ignite a prolonged guerrilla war in a region thick with vulnerable oil installations, a Western diplomat said.

After troops fired on an Ijaw protest march, squads of militant gunmen swept in from the swamps to attack troops in Bayelsa state over several days this month, reportedly leaving 20 people dead. In an indication of the delta's danger to the political transition process, the fighting forced cancellation of state elections in Bayelsa. Abubakar sent hundreds more troops to the state, where they search travelers on the roads, arresting youths whose backs bear the tattoos of the Egbesu cults.

The troops are untrained for policing duties, have shown poor discipline and often are Hausa speakers unable to communicate with the local tribes, said Obe, the attorney and human rights activist. Human rights groups and newspapers say Bayelsa residents report frequent looting and assaults by the troops.

Obe and others said Abubakar has failed to make any dramatic gesture for reconciliation in the delta. He has called for talks rather than violence, but has "provided [no] . . . forum for this so-called dialogue," said Tell, a Nigerian newsmagazine.

Showing Washington's concern, the U.S. Embassy this month dispatched its chief political officer to meet contesting groups and discourage violence. Jesse L. Jackson, a Clinton administration envoy to Africa, is to visit the delta in coming weeks, a U.S. official said.

Another danger that Abubakar cannot ignore is that some military officers, unwilling to give up corrupt moneymaking that the armed forces have pursued in power, might attempt a coup to prevent the civilian takeover, analysts said. Abubakar has campaigned against that danger, touring military units to argue that the armed forces must step down for their own good,

After months of securing his position by placing allies in key posts, notably on the ruling military council, Abubakar in recent weeks has "has begun to shut down the corrupt business deals of prominent officers" who were at the core of Abacha's government, said a Western diplomat who asked not to be named. One such move was Abubakar's scrapping of a dual exchange rate for Nigeria's currency, the naira. The system allowed certain government officials to buy hard currency at the rate of 22 nairas per dollar, compared with the unofficial rate of about 85 nairas.

Abubakar also ended a government monopoly on fuel imports, under which Abacha-era officials received kickbacks from importers. And, in a step expected to choke off smuggling of fuel -- reportedly by corrupt officers and their business partners -- Abubakar let fuel prices rise, particularly for gasoline, which at 48 cents per gallon was being smuggled to neighboring countries. The government and fuel marketers set a price of $1.10 per gallon before street protests forced them to back down to 88 cents.

Abubakar's currency and fuel import reforms are the first steps of many demanded by international lenders before they will reschedule Nigeria's nearly $30 billion external debt or provide new credit to the government. And credit is likely to be necessary.

Abubakar has been spending heavily for urgently needed changes that Abacha long neglected. He gave a raise to impoverished civil servants and is paying for repairs to oil refineries whose collapse has made this oil giant dependent on imported fuel.

But Abubakar has been unable to alleviate the fuel shortage or revive the economy, and the prospect of low global oil prices for at least another year means the new civilian government will be strapped for cash from its start.