Six men shot and killed the mother of a Harvard senior near her home in Lagos, Nigeria, yesterday.

Kudirat Abiola, 44, an outspoken critic of Nigeria's military regime and the wife of jailed opposition leader Moshood Abiola, was in her car when she and her driver were shot at close range.

Her doctor said she died about two hours later in the operating room at Eko Hospital.

One of Abiola's daughters, Hafsat O. Abiola '96, directs the Harvard Committee on Nigeria, a student group.

In an interview last month with The Crimson, Hafsat Abiola said her mother was a symbol of democracy in Nigeria.

She said she was disturbed by her mother's decision to stay in Nigeria after the military government charged her with publishing seditious material.

"It's very difficult to stand by and watch," Hafsat Abiola said. "But I understand what kind of ideas influence my mother's choices and my father's."

She said activists "pay a cost."

"Perhaps if I were in the same position I would make that choice, but I'm not sure," she said.

Hafsat Abiola was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Kudirat Abiola openly criticized the military government of Gen. Sani Abacha. Her husband, a millionaire who was widely believed to have won Nigeria's nullified 1993 presidential election, was jailed on a charge of treason in 1994 after trying to take office.

Hafsat Abiola said her father has suffered physical abuse and psychological torture during his imprisonment. The government has continued to delay his trial, she said, "because the fact is, they don't want him tried and found innocent."

Witnesses to yesterday's shooting said the six men fired on Kudirat Abiola's white Mercedes Benz yesterday. morning as she was returning from a visit to a neighboring city.

Witnesses said the car swerved off the road, and the men moved in to fire at close range.

The car's windshield and back window were shot out, the witnesses said. Police are searching for a gray Peugeot 505 that fled the scene, the Lagos state police command said.

Opposition politicians in Nigeria, expressing shock at the killings, suggested the government may have played a role in the shootings.