Lagos - A controversial Nigerian preacher who predicted a series of calamities in Nigeria in the past two months, and hinted at a change of government, has been detained, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Pastor Tunde Bakare late last year predicted that trouble would befall Nigeria in January and February - only for the country to witness a series of ethnic clashes and a munitions explosion in Lagos that left more than 1 000 dead.
Bakare also said last year that the man to lead the nation out of trouble would come from the north of the country.
Nigeria's current president, Olusegun Obasanjo, comes from the south while most other possible pretenders to the presidency in 2003 elections come from the north.
The newspaper, This Day, said on Sunday that Bakare had been detained and had his passport confiscated by agents of the State Security Service (SSS) on his arrival in the country on Saturday from Ghana.
It quoted his lawyer, human rights activist Gani Fawehinmi, as protesting his arrest and calling for his release.
"We are in a democracy... Pastor Bakare has constitutional rights... to make whatever prediction as the spiritual leader of the Latter Rain Assembly," Fawehinmi said.
"Mr President is stepping on very dangerous grounds. Even the military did not go this far," he said.
Neither the SSS nor the police was immediately available for comment on the report. - Sapa-AFP