20091219

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's leaders still need to shed some of the attitudes and values built up under military rule if Africa's most populous nation is to reach its full potential, according to a review by its continental peers.

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is part of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), set up eight years ago to try to make African leaders promote democracy and good governance in return for increased Western investment.

"Corruption in the political and economic spheres primarily explains poverty in Nigeria," says the report, presented in Abuja late on Thursday by Nigerian economist Adebayo Adedeji.

"Nigeria also faces the challenges of reversing some values and attitudinal practices, particularly during the later part of its military history," it said.

Nigeria vies with Angola as Africa's top oil producer yet the majority of its more than 140 million people live on less than $2 a day, many with limited access to power or clean water.

It emerged from military rule a decade ago but critics say democracy still has a fragile hold.

Since General Abdulsalam Abubakar ceded power in May 1999, elections have been far from exemplary in a country that considers itself the biggest democracy in the black world.

The polls which brought President Umaru Yar'Adua to power in May 2007 were so marred by intimidation and vote-rigging that international observers said they were not credible.