| Police fired tear gas and arrested dozens, including the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, during an anti-government protest Saturday in Nigeria's commercial capital. Soyinka, an outspoken opponent of previous military regimes, is also a vocal critic of President Olusegun Obasanjo's civilian government, describing Nigeria as an anarchic state in which normal government functions have been upended. The writer was among 500 demonstrators at a protest in central Lagos organized by human rights and other civic groups calling for the government's resignation. Some of the demonstrators waved signs reading "Obasanjo is a civilian dictator." Police fired tear gas to break up the demonstration after 15 minutes, arresting dozens including Soyinka and bundling them into police vans. "We were very deliberately tear-gassed," Soyinka told The Associated Press by telephone after his release from police custody. He described the police action as a "mindless and unproductive attack." |