Attack on wife of jailed Nigerian president

Olusegun Obasanjo's house ransacked

The wife of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Stella Obasanjo has been violently attacked in her home in Abeokuta, Nigeria, by assailants thought to be government-sent. Obasanjo, who is Chairman of the Advisory Council of Transparency International, was jailed in a secret military tribunal by the regime of General Abacha in 1995. Stella Obasanjo was manhandled, hit over the head with a gun and threatened to be killed.

According to reports reaching the Berlin-based anti-corruption NGO, Transparency International (TI), the raiders spent several hours at the Obasanjo home, making off with virtually all of its contents. During the attack traffic normally passing by the house was conspicuously diverted and resumed after the incident.

General Obasanjo is chair of the NGO's Advisory Council and his imprisonment has been described by the Transparency International as being the result of "trumped-up charges and concocted evidence heard at a secret trial alleging an offence being committed in Nigeria at a time when General Obasanjo was shown to be in New York attending a Board meeting of the trustees of the Ford Foundation".

"This bears all the hallmarks of being yet another instance of officially-sanctioned violence," said TI Chairman, Prof. Dr. Peter Eigen, who expressed deep concern for Mrs. Obasanjo who is reported to have been badly hurt by her assailants.

For further information,

• our press officer in Berlin

  Mr. Jeff Lovitt

  Tel. 49-30-343 8200

  press@transparency.org

  or

• our Executive Director,

  Mr. Jeremy Pope,