VII. The Contemporary Period, 1945–2000 > I. Africa, 1941–2000 > 2. Regions > a. West Africa > 1996, April 11
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  The Encyclopedia of World History.  2001.
 
 
1996, April 11
 
Forty-three African countries signed a ban on nuclear arms proliferation in Africa. Other nuclear powers agreed not to do any tests on the African continent.  1
 
1998, Feb. 13
 
Nigerian troops defeated Sierra Leone's military government, previously led by rebel militant Lt. Col. Johnny Paul Koromah, and ousted it from power. This Nigerian intervention helped restore Pres. Kabbah to power after ten months of exile. Yet the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Fodaj Sankoh–led Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Sierra Leone's two main rebel factions in its civil war, continued fighting the government. Sankoh was captured twice in recent years (Jan. 6, 1999 and May 17, 2000); both times he escaped prosecution from Sierra Leone or the UN Security Council (See Oct. 23). As civil war raged in Sierra Leone, some 300,000 refugees poured into neighboring Guinea.  2
 
March 23
 
U.S. president Bill Clinton spoke to more than 250,000 people in Ghana's capital city of Accra (See 1998, March 23) as he began his 12-day tour of six African nations: Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, Botswana, and Senegal. Clinton pledged greater aid and support in all the nations he visited during the trip.  3
 
June 8
 
Military tyrant and acting president Gen. Sani Abacha of Nigeria died of a heart attack, leaving the transitional military government to Abdusdem Abubakar. On May 29 of the following year, Nigeria's first popularly elected president in fifteen years, Olusegun Obasanjo, took office (See 1999, May 29).  4
 
 
 
The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition. Peter N. Stearns, general editor. Copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Maps by Mary Reilly, copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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