By NORIMITSU ONISHI

GBEJI, Nigeria, Oct. 28 — The Nigerian soldiers said they had come in peace, the residents of this small village recalled. The soldiers arrived, around 1 p.m. last Monday, in four armored vehicles and five trucks, and asked the men to gather at three spots on the main street.

The soldiers told the men to lie down, and ordered the women and children to leave.

"Then the commander ordered, `Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!" said Peter Mbaveluior, 30, a businessman here. "Prrrrrr!"

For the next hour, the soldiers gunned down men, and set fire to bodies and houses, the villagers said. Mr. Mbaveluior showed a reporter a list of 66 names he and others had been able to confirm as dead. Still missing were 38 men.

What happened here — and, according to local and state government officials, in at least 15 other remote villages and towns in the eastern state of Benue last week — is not fully clear yet. But what is plain is that the violence amounted to the worst violations by the military since Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and its biggest oil producer, ended nearly 16 years of military rule in 1999 and voted in a civilian government.

The attacks, coming at a time of widespread ethnic and religious violence, raised the issue of whether President Olusegun Obasanjo — himself a former military ruler — has full control over the army, which has had a long history of staging coups in Nigeria's four decades of independence.

The army, which has denied carrying out the attacks, was apparently retaliating for the killing of 19 soldiers this month in the area.

During a visit here, as well as to a nearby village called Vaase and a town called Zaki-Biam, dozens of villagers all said that Nigerian soldiers had made targets of them. All three communities bore the scars of military attacks: hundreds of simple one-story houses and stores burned down, cement walls crushed, roofs caved in, walls pocked with bullet holes. In Zaki-Biam's main market, only a couple dozen shops out of hundreds were still standing amid the rubble. Four bodies, apparently of men with no local relatives, lay on the ground, three vultures feasting on one of them.

In an interview in Makurdi, the sleepy state capital, Gov. George Akume said a "conservative estimate" was that the soldiers had killed 500 people.

President Obasanjo finally commented over the weekend, seeming to suggest on state television that the soldiers had acted in self-defense.

"Whatever they are taught to do or not to do, soldiers fight in self-defense," he said, adding that he was not "justifying any killing."

In late 1999, Mr. Obasanjo ordered hundreds of troops to Odi, a town in the Niger Delta, after 12 police officers were killed. The soldiers flattened Odi and killed many civilians. Later, Mr. Obasanjo expressed regret.

In Odi and in last week's incidents, it is not known who gave orders to kill civilians. Mr. Obasanjo served as Nigeria's military ruler in the late 1970's, and human rights violations were widespread, as they were during all the years of military dictatorship.

Since becoming an elected president in May 1999, Mr. Obasanjo has become one of Africa's most respected statesmen; as a key American ally in Africa, he has visited the White House several times.

"We are in shock and disbelief," Governor Akume said. "How could this happen with a democratic government that respects human rights, the people, and operates within the Constitution and laws of this country?"

In a strange twist, one target was Lieut. Gen. Victor Malu, who was the army's chief of staff until recently. Soldiers attacked the retired general's house in the area and killed three of his relatives.

"There is no other organization in the country that could have done this," General Malu said in a telephone interview from his house in Lagos. "Only the army has the tanks, the armored vehicles and the arms to do this. I cannot believe it was spontaneous. It must have been very carefully planned. How can you kill innocent civilians, farmers carrying yam on their heads? Can you mistake a yam tuber for a missile?"

Asked whether the army could have planned the attacks without President Obasanjo's knowledge, General Malu said: "To some extent, I can say yes. I don't think that this could have happened in a military government."

Ethnic and religious clashes have spread to almost every corner of this country, and some Nigerians are even saying that there has not been such rampant violence since the Biafra civil war in the 1960's. As Nigeria has emerged from one of the most ruinous and repressive military regimes in African history, long-simmering ethnic and religious feuds have exploded, fed by deepening poverty and often by ambitious politicians.

In this part of Nigeria, called the food basket of the country for its rich soil, conflict over farmland and political power has long pitted the Tiv ethnic group against the Jukuns in a neighboring state. In recent weeks, soldiers were deployed as peacekeepers, but the Tiv maintained that the soldiers favored their rivals.

On Oct. 12, the bodies of 19 soldiers were discovered, murdered, according to the army, by a Tiv militia. The governor said the soldiers were mistaken for Jukun militiamen disguised as soldiers. The villages attacked last week were all Tiv communities.

In Zaki-Biam, a dozen people stood outside the destroyed buildings of the local government.

"We want out of the Federal Republic of Nigeria," said Joseph Gaji, 34, an agricultural specialist. "Why should we be part of a federal government that cannot build anything for us, only destroy?"

Soldiers arrived in Zaki-Biam on Oct. 19, three days before the killings in Gbeji village. Town residents were nervous, given the killings of the 19 soldiers a week earlier, but Andrew Iornen, 42, said most were reassured when the soldiers said they had come to preserve peace.

Then, a day after the attack on Gbeji, Zaki-Biam began hearing of what had happened to the village. But it was too late. People had started on their regular business. Shortly before noon, residents said, a reinforcement of tanks and soldiers arrived. Soldiers ravaged the market. Some looted, stealing motorcycles, furniture and even yam, residents said. The local government estimates that 40 people were killed.

Now, soldiers have left the area of the attacks, although they are still stationed on the road close to Makurdi. Soldiers at many checkpoints could be seen shaking down 20 Naira bills, or 15 cents, from people fleeing the devastated areas.

Of all the villages, Gbeji, by all accounts, was the worst hit.

Many houses had been burned or smashed down. An acrid smell still filled the air. Freshly dug graves dotted the village. Flies swarmed above one mass grave after hungry dogs had unearthed the remains.

Rose Mzor, a woman in her 40's, said she had lost her husband and 20- year-old son, Emanuel, who was shot and burned beyond recognition. Her husband, Iwamde, was recognizable because of his pink robe. She buried him in front of her gutted house.

Rose Mzor said she ignored the soldiers' warning to women to leave. "I saw soldiers take the fuel that some boys were selling in jerrycans and spray fuel on the buildings," she said. "Then I saw the soldiers shooting. They shot the men and put some bodies in a pile and burned them. My son's body was burned in that pile."

Ierhemba Tsengu, a 32-year-old merchant, said he was in one of the three groups of men. The soldiers watching his group of about 100, he said, all wore regular uniforms. But a private had painted in white on the back of his uniform: "Operation No Living Thing."

"They told us to lie down and then started shooting," Mr. Tsengu recalled. "I ran away and hid in the bush. I saw so many killed."

Another survivor from that group, Kareka Nyanshima, 18, had a similar reaction. He lay down as ordered by the soldiers, but bolted at the first opportunity.

"When I saw the soldier with `Operation No Living Thing' on his back, I got afraid," he said. "So I ran for my life."

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