Nigerian Librarian Arrested in
Civil Liberties Crackdown
Nigerian librarian Pius Udo was one of five workers arrested May 11 as more than 30 government agents stormed the offices of Nigeria's Civil Liberties Organization in Lagos. Udo had returned home just the day before from a stay in the United States on a USIA exchange program.
A May 12 Associated Press story quoted the civil liberties group's executive director, Abdul Oroh, as saying, "The military junta is increasingly becoming desperate. We have committed ourselves to freeing this potentially great country from the shackles of military dictatorship."
Bill Middleton, a USIA librarian formerly stationed in Nigeria and now in Argentina, reports that Udo is responsible for the creation of "not just a library for the CLO's headquarters, but a whole library system, with materials on democracy and human rights in several major cities around Nigeria," despite "regular harassment from the government."
Posted May 25, 1998.
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