Bermuda must never stop fighting dictators wherever they may be in the world, a Nigerian journalist told local Rotarians yesterday.

And liberalisation by the army-dominated Nigerian government would have to be protected by the international community or the people would never be free, he warned.

Dapo Olorunyomi, an exile from the West African country since 1993, said it was not until his arrest by the Nigerian military that he understood the role people in other countries play in defending freedom.

Mr. Olorunyomi told Hamilton Rotarians that he had been an anti-apartheid activist during his college years and had once refused to let an Amnesty International activist borrow a projector.

It was to be used for a presentation about human rights abuses around the world, and the man went away with "hurt feelings''.

He forgot about the projector incident until he was in prison and a guard inquired about his many friends overseas.

"He told me they had more than 2,000 letters from `my friends' from around the world,'' Mr. Olorunyomi said.

Mr. Olorunyomi explained the man assumed he knew all of the people.

He added: "The first thing I remembered was that projector. When I got out I contacted that Amnesty Youth worker and told him what had happened to me.'' He said this was an example of why people must not be complacent about human rights abuses around the world.

Mr. Olorunyomi, 40, was arrested and charged with treason after writing articles critical of the military junta.

An ethnic Yoruba from Lagos, he is now senior fellow at the Panos Institute in Washington D.C. which works to improve international understanding of regional and global development issues.

He expressed his "profound gratitude'' to the Bermudian people for remembering him as he waited for months without charge or trial.

"The natural question for me was where is Bermuda?'' he added. "I want to say thank you.'' Oil lay at the root of the government's abuses and stranglehold on power, he said.

Nigeria has the largest non-Persian Gulf oil production in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and has large reserves rivalling Siberia and Alaska.

"The 1973 Arab Israeli War led to all the government's problems and corruption in the system,'' he said, adding the military had been welcomed into power.

Mr. Olorunyomi said since the military takeover in 1983 there had not only a brain drain -- more than 4,000 doctors in the US are from Nigeria -- but many young people had left.

He said all of his teachers at the University of Ife had left the country to escape persecution, including Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka.

"Soldiers have only one logic,'' he explained. "When you challenge them they respond with the logic of war. We were complacent. We thought it would never happen to Nigeria.'' Mr. Olorunyomi told The Royal Gazette South African leader Nelson Mandela expressed outrage in 1995 at the execution of Ogoni poet Ken Saro-Wiwa but had not done much since.

He added: "It is surprising considering how much support Nigerians and Nigeria gave to the anti-apartheid movement. I do not want to speculate why.'' Of the recent liberalisation and freeing of prisoners by the dictatorship, Mr.

Olorunyomi said: "We have seen it all before. But it does not necessarily lead to democracy. The international community must make the regime move forward.''