General Sani Abacha

More than 20 people are to be summoned to the Nigerian probe including: Lesar; Gilbert Chagouri a leading Lebanese businessman under the Sani Abacha regime; Ely Calil a London-based Lebanese businessman embroiled in a legal battle with Equatorial Guinea's government over allegations of his involvement in a coup attempt in March; former Chair of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) company Mohammadu Dikko Yusufu; two former Oil Ministers Don Etiebet and Dan Etete; and Tesler who has admitted receiving $140 mn...

Just over a year later that human rights imperative met a major challenge when General Sani Abacha's regime in Nigeria executed the writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa...

Etiebet was sacked five months later by the military Head of State Sani Abacha who he claimed then targeted him 'for elimination'...

Sani Abacha Head of State November 1993 to June 1998...

He is close to President Olusegun Obasanjo and was a confidant of his military predecessor General Sani Abacha for whom he lobbied against sanctions at the Commonwealth Summit in Edinburgh Scotland in 1997...

It was the presidency that handled 'a gift' of 20 000 barrels of oil a day from Nigeria's then military leader General Sani Abacha between August 1996 and June 1998...

Sources close to the inquiry say he may sub poena testimony from British-based lawyer Jeffrey Tesler who works regularly for Halliburton and was close to officials under the late General Sani Abacha in power when the LNG project began...

Since returning to power as civilian President in 1999 Obasanjo has overhauled the military dismissing any officers who had held political postings in the military regimes led by Generals Sani Abacha Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari...

Then in the mid-1990s when Nigeria was under General Sani Abacha and Obasanjo had been gaoled for coup plotting it was Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge who chaired the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group which suspended the Abacha regime and pressured it not to hang Obasanjo...

Most secretaries general face accusations of bias: the last incumbent a Nigerian Emeka Anyaoku was accused of being anti-Nigerian by the late General Sani Abacha's regime...