[iwar] Queen visits fake African village due to security

 NEW KARU, Nigeria : Hundreds of Union Jack waving villagers cheered
Queen Elizabeth II as she was escorted by a truck of soldiers into a
dusty village market near Abuja to meet "real Nigerians".

But all was not as it seemed as the queen walked through the heavily
guarded neatly organised market in New Karu village, meeting people
bartering over prices of groceries, stamping grain and eating
barbecued meat around a fire.

"We hear the queen has met real Nigerians," said a laughing Robert
Ibo, as he watched the royal convoy pass from a roadside restaurant.
"Those people are not market people, they are actors from the city."

"I will take the queen to a real market. But I think she would faint
if she saw a chicken having its head chopped off," said Ibo.

The New Karu market, separated from Nigerian reality by a 10-foot
(three-metre) wall with a razor fence, is in fact a stage set for a
BBC radio soap opera to be broadcast across west Africa.

The queen's spokeswoman told journalists this week that the monarch's
main purpose in coming to Nigeria was "to meet as many Nigerians as
possible".

But this has become unlikely as two scheduled visits -- to the chaotic
port city of Lagos in the south and Kano in the north, where Islamic
fundamentalists often hold anti-west protests -- were cancelled and
local villagers were kept away from the staged market by heavily armed
policemen.

Queen Elizabeth's walkabout -- during her first visit to Nigeria since
it gained independence from Britain almost half a century ago -- was
conducted under tight security, with the world on high alert for
another terror attack.

More than 100 machinegun and baton-wielding police officers in formal
black uniforms kept a close watch on the crowd who gathered on the
roadside to watch the royal motorcade.

The queen was escorted into the compound by a truck full of heavily
armed Nigerian soldiers, while many villagers from the real New Karu
sat back in restaurants drinking beer and eating sausage rolls.

The set of the soap opera "Voices" is a far from cry the real Karu,
where there is no running water, plumbing or electricity in the
village and trash is piled up around the low cost houses.

"Security has been very tight," said villager Nelson Anyaoku.
"Policemen came early this morning and searched the houses and shops
near to where the queen will be visiting. It was very irritating."

The British press has poked fun at the visit to the market, but the
BBC insists it is a worthwhile project.

Steven King, a representative of the BBC's World Service Trust
charity, said the show would be broadcast on radio across west Africa
from next February.

"It's a bit of a soap opera drama containing social issues that affect
Nigerians," he said.

One of the actors from the show gave the queen a traditional Nigerian
gift before a plaque was unveiled to commemorate her visit.

Earlier on Thursday, the queen, accompanied by Nigerian President
Olusegun Obasanjo planted a palm tree at a ceremony marking the
opening of the first part of the Nigerian capital's Millennium park.

Nigeria has been through a turbulent history of civil war, military
coups and corruption since independence in 1960.

- AFP

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Received on Fri Dec 5 12:34:10 2003