Tributes to President Jimmy Carter have also come from current and former African leaders, led by Kenyan President William Ruto, who described Carter as "a powerful champion for global peace and human rights" in a statement this morning.
Among the most expressive tributes has come from Nigeria's former president Olusegun Obasanjo, who was military leader of Nigeria during Carter's presidency, and later elected president in 1999.
The U.S. and Nigeria worked together to increase pressure on the apartheid regime in South Africa, Obasanjo told Arise TV, a Nigerian broadcaster.
"We worked very closely together for the final (end) of colonialism in southern Africa and for the eradication of apartheid. And what was achieved in the early 1990s, the foundation was laid in those days of Jimmy Carter," he said in an interview this morning.
"I have very fond memories of president Jimmy Carter," he added.
Carter visited Nigeria in 1978 on the first state visitby a U.S. president to sub-Saharan Africa, a year after Obasanjo visited the White House.
Obasanjo described Carter as "a great leader, by any standard" and a humble president, "a man who understands power. But he also understands that the beauty of power is really not in using it."
"Power lies in people knowing it's there and you not using a hammer to kill an ant," he said. "And that is what you see in President Carter."
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