His ramblings about who killed Dele Giwa, a well-known journalist, and other key events, recorded verbatim, expose him as a brutal tyrant of limited brainpower.

ECONOMIST: Modern African history

Mr Babangida, who ran Nigeria from 1985 to 1993 and who is still both immensely wealthy and politically influential could be questioned about the killing in 1986 of a leading journalist, Dele Giwa, then editor-in-chief of Newswatch, and about the annulment by the armed forces of the 1993 presidential elections apparently won by Mr Abiola.

ECONOMIST: Nigeria