igeria's removal on Friday from a blacklist of countries that do not cooperate in the fight against money laundering should help the country attract greater foreign investment, President Olusegun Obasanjo said.

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The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had blacklisted Nigeria, ranked among the world's most corrupt countries, in 2001 because its anti-money laundering laws and enforcement regime were weak.

"With today's delisting by the FATF, Nigeria is now free of encumbrances that have the capacity to stifle the inflow of investment and economic growth," said a statement from Obasanjo's office, adding that the president was "elated".

The FATF groups 33 countries and sets policies designed to help governments tackle the financing of terrorism and dirty money passing through the global financial system.

FATF officials were not immediately available for comment on the removal of Nigeria from the blacklist. The only country now left on it is Myanmar.

Nigeria's exit is the latest tangible result from a programme of free-market reforms that a team of high-profile technocrats have been conducting since 2003 to turn around the collapsed economy of Africa's top oil producer.

Two other recent successes were a debt relief deal in which Nigeria paid back $12 billion to Paris Club creditors in return for a write-off of a further $18 billion, and an unexpectedly favourable BB- credit rating from two leading agencies.

"President Obasanjo said that Nigeria's delisting would, together with the ending of its indebtedness to the Paris Club, the BB- rating of its long-term credit status and other positive economic indices, help to attract greater foreign investment," said the statement from the presidency.

However, Obasanjo's decision on Wednesday to reassign Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the architect of the economic reforms, to foreign affairs has raised fears about the future financial management of Africa's most populous country.

Analysts, perplexed by the unexpected move, say the reforms still have a long way to go before their effects can be felt by Nigeria's 140 million people, most of whom live on less than $1 a day. Okonjo-Iweala has been replaced by her less-known deputy and economists are anxious to see if the reforms will continue.

Nigeria had been campaigning hard to exit the FATF blacklist. In 2003, Obasanjo created an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and in 2004 the National Assembly enacted an anti-money laundering act.

The EFCC has secured numerous convictions against e-mail scammers who engage in so-called advance fee fraud -- a Nigerian specialty -- including a group of fraudsters who stole $242 million from a Brazilian bank.

The EFCC's record on tackling endemic corruption among elected officials, however, is controversial in Nigeria. Critics say it has been politically manipulated as a weapon against opponents of Obasanjo, but the EFCC denies this.