An "all-out war" on corruption is being fought in Africa, the president of the continent's most populous nation said this weekend at Harvard.

President Olusegun Obasanjo of the Federal Republic of Nigeria spoke to a packed ARCO Forum early Saturday of his country's promising future.

"Our commitment to democracy today is not an option," he said. "It is a fundamental imperative."

Africa has outgrown some of the problems it faced right at the end of colonization in the 1960s, the president said.

"Three decades on, we are now wiser about the military's ability to deliver either democratic governance or material and cultural development," he said.

The corruption of the last decades, in which some leaders became richer than their countries, is slowly giving way to free government, he said.

"The right of free expression, the right to advocate a different viewpoint, and to arrive at a consensus after free discussion, must all be considered as profound human needs," he said, before being interrupted by applause--one of more than a score of instances of spontaneous cheering.

The audience in the ARCO forum was lively and engaged during Obasanjo's speech, frequently shouting out answers to his rhetorical questions and suggesting policy areas to work on.