Africans drop bid to oust WHO chief Nakajima

A group of African nations on Thursday dropped a bid to oust the Japanese head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) after firing broadsides of criticism at the official, Hiroshi Nakajima.

A series of speeches fiercely attacked him for alleged racial slander and incompetent management. Zambian Health Minister Michael Sata then formally withdrew a draft resolution to force Nakajima out next year. "I think he is a first offender. We have to give him the benefit of the doubt," Sata told delegates to the WHO's annual policy- setting Assembly.

The move effectively ended any threat that the widely- criticised Nakajima, a one-time pharmacologist, might have to step down before his current five-year term, his second, ends in 1998.

Earlier, Zimbabwe's health minister Timothy Stamps said the WHO Director-General was "politically astute and well- connected but mortally wounded in terms of credibility."

However, the resolution demanding that Nakajima step down by the middle of 1996 and immediately start the process of appointing a successor failed to win widespread support from outside Africa.