Nigerian president testifies

By Glenn McKenzie, Associated Press, 9/12/2001

BUJA, Nigeria - Nigeria's president defended himself yesterday before the reconciliation commission he created, denying that he authorized a 1977 army attack on the home of a popular singer.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose election in 1999 ended 15 years of military rule in the West African nation, is the most prominent witness to appear before the commission since it began conducting hearings last year. He said his appearance showed that nobody in Nigeria is immune from the law.

''If I believed that kings can never do wrong, I wouldn't be here today,'' Obasanjo told the reconciliation commission stiffly.

Now, ''everybody knows we have democracy,'' he added.

Modeled on the truth and reconciliation commission that South Africa established after the end of apartheid, the panel was set up to bring to light the corruption, killings, and other abuses of Nigeria's past military regimes.

Unlike South Africa's panel, the commission is not empowered to offer amnesty, and the power of Nigeria's military makes criminal charges unlikely.

Obasanjo led a military government from 1976 to 1979. The family of late singer Fela Kuti blames him for an army raid on Kuti's home in Lagos in 1977. They say Kuti's mother died from injuries that she suffered when she fell from a window during the raid.

The soldiers who carried out the attack were never punished.

Kuti, the founder of a type of music known as Afrobeat, remains one of Africa's best-known pop stars four years after his own death, apparently from AIDS. The singer was an outspoken critic of Nigeria's military.

At the hearing held by the Human Rights Violation Investigation Panel, Obasanjo tilted his head back and answered questions for more than an hour in a slow, deliberate voice.

He denied directing, authorizing, or approving the attack.

This story ran on page A25 of the Boston Globe on 9/12/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.