NIGERIA agreed yesterday that it will allow Jean-Bertrand Aristide to spend time there before heading to another country and it appeared last night that the overthrown Haitian leader will now leave Jamaica earlier than initially planned.

Senior foreign ministry officials were unavailable for comment on the development last night, but political sources close to the Aristide issue said that Nigeria's decision, at the request of Prime Minister P J Patterson, seem set to curtail his stay here. Nigeria made it clear that Patterson acted on behalf of the 15-member Caribbean Community (Caricom).

"Now that he is reunited with his children, Mr Aristide is a little bit more settled and is a little bit anxious to settle at his final place of asylum," said an Observer source. "He is sensitive to his personal and family security situation in the region."

But there was no specific information last night on when he would leave Jamaica or arrive in Nigeria and where he would stay in that west African country.

Aristide left office on February 29 and was taken to the Central African Republic in what he branded as a "political kidnapping" orchestrated by the United States and supported by France.

But the Americans say that they only helped him to leave Haiti in the face of a popular uprising and an advancing rebel militia.

Aristide and his wife, Mildred, arrived in Jamaica on March 15 for what the Jamaican government said was a humanitarian visit of between eight and 10 weeks to allow them to reunite with their two young daughters who were in the United States.

But Jamaica has fallen under pressure from the United States for granting temporary asylum to Aristide, claiming that his presence less than 200 miles away from Haiti was potentially destabilising. Haiti's interim prime minister, Gerard Latortue, installed after Aristide's ostensible resignation, said Jamaica's decision was an "unfriendly act".
The Aristides have been staying at a government protocol house, a sprawling ranch-style bungalow in Lydford, St Ann and so far the ousted leader has kept his promise to the Jamaican government not to make political statements or use the island as a launch pad for a power grab in Haiti.

But it is apparent that the Patterson administration would wish to defuse the tension of his presence in Jamaica and yesterday, Remi Oyo, a spokesman for Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo said that Aristide would spend a few weeks in that country's "staging post" to his final destination.

"Caricom, under the leadership of Jamaica's Prime Minister Percival Patterson, has requested Nigeria to consider giving former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti 'a staging post' for a few weeks until his movement to another country," Oyo said.

Aristide is expected to eventually head for South Africa after that country's general election next month, which Thabo Mbeki's African National Congress (ANC) is expected to win.

Caricom, which Haiti joined in 1998, had criticised Aristide's overthrow and called for investigation into the manner of his departure from Haiti.

After receiving the request to host Aristide, Nigeria undertook "widespread consultations with African leaders, the leadership of the African Union, the US government and other concerned authorities", Oyo said.

"Following the concurrence received after these consultations, Nigeria has agreed to grant the request from Caricom," she said.

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