The new Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has set up a panel to investigate human rights abuses over the past five years.

The panel, to be chaired by a retired supreme court judge Chukwudifu Oputa will investigate killings and other violations up until the end of military rule last month.

The panel has also been given the responsibility for recommending how past injustices can be redressed, as well as suggesting ways to prevent future abuses.

Correspondents recall that several public figures have died in suspicious circumstances including Kudirat Abiola, the wife of Chief Mashood Abiola, the presumed winner of Nigeria's annulled election in June 1993. She was shot in her car in Lagos.

Her killers have not been found.