Nigeria opens biggest investigation of abuses

In this story: Many weeks of testimony One case already before the courts RELATED STORIES, SITES

ABUJA, Nigeria (Reuters) -- President Olusegun Obasanjo sat solemnly in a chair reserved for observers on Monday as Nigeria launched its landmark public hearings into human rights abuses in the country.

Having turned down a more regal seat, Obasanjo also declined to speak at the formal opening ceremony, packed with human rights campaigners from Nigeria and abroad.

"I have no comment to make. Today is for the human rights commission," Obasanjo said.

The generals who ruled Nigeria for years looked likely to dominate the list of people to be summoned before the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission.

Many Nigerians hope the inquiry will open up Nigeria's traumatic era of military dictatorship in the same way South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission did after the apartheid era.

Obasanjo set up the commission within a month of taking office as elected president in May 1999 at the end of 15 years of brutal rule by the military.

Although Obasanjo himself was at the helm as military ruler for three years until October 1979, he was the first of Nigeria's many ruling generals to step down voluntarily.

He was later jailed on phoney charges of coup plotting by dictator Sani Abacha, whose sudden death in 1998 cleared the way for Nigeria's return to democracy.

Many weeks of testimony

Monday's session was purely ceremonial, with hearings due to stretch over the next 12 weeks.

Obasanjo initially established the inquiry to unearth abuses stretching back to the first military coup in 1966 -- a period that would have covered the civil war over breakaway Biafra in which over a million people died.

But overwhelmed by the flood of petitions during its tour of the country's 36 states, the commission narrowed its focus to 150 cases dating back to the 1983 coup against President Shehu Shagari.

"These are the cases that constitute gross abuse or violation of human rights," commission chairman Chukwudifu Oputa, a retired supreme court judge, told Reuters.

Oputa did not list the cases to be heard, but one of those expected to feature is the mystery parcel bomb killing of top investigative journalist Dele Giwa in 1986.

Giwa's lawyer has consistently alleged a state link in the killing, which took place during the rule of General Ibrahim Banbagida.

Also expected to feature is the prison death of powerful tycoon Moshood Abiola, the presumed winner of a 1993 presidential poll which was scrapped by Babangida as Abiola headed for victory.

One case already before the courts

The killing of one of Abiola's wives, Kudirat, by gunmen in a Lagos street is already the subject of a court drama in which one of Abacha's sons and the late dictator's security chief are facing murder charges.

The 1995 hanging of author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other minority Ogoni activists, the death in prison of northern politician Shehu Musa Yar'Adua and assassination of pro-democracy activist Alfred Rewane -- all under the Abacha regime -- are other incidents that will likely come under scrutiny.

"Our commission is not on any witchhunt," Oputa said in his opening speech. "This mandate is simply to find ways and means of healing the wounds of the of the past, in order to achieve reconciliation based on truth and knowledge of the truth in our land and thereby restore harmony to our country."

Interest in the hearings has been heightened by the fact that, with the possible exception of Abacha, most of the prominent people likely to be accused are still alive and, in some cases, very much in the public eye.

As Obasanjo left the ceremony, commission member Yusuf Bala Usman, an outspoken leftist university teacher, jokingly told him that some of the petitions concerned Obasanjo's tenure as military ruler.

"I am ready to testify anytime I am called upon," Obasanjo replied.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

See related sites about Africa

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.