By Dan Isaacs BBC Lagos correspondent

President Obasanjo of Nigeria has ordered an investigation into a bribery allegation levelled at officials of the country's information ministry.

The allegations appear in the latest edition of the American news magazine Time.

In a society where bulging brown envelopes are synonymous with the problems of endemic corruption, it was not a very bright move by officials

They describe a meeting at which journalists representing foreign media organisations were discreetly handed brown envelopes containing around $400 each.

The meeting was chaired by Nigeria's Information Minister, Professor Jerry Gana.

He has strenuously denied that the payments were anything other than travel and accommodation expenses for those attending the meeting.

Honourable intentions?

The details of the allegations in the American magazine article are specific.

Foreign journalists had been called to attend a meeting in February entitled "Honest and accurate reporting" by the information minister in order to be berated on what the government here perceives to be a negative bias in coverage of Nigerian affairs.

Money was handed out after the meeting - $400 each for those that had made the trip from Lagos to Abuja - and it was done in unmarked brown envelopes.

Along with other foreign journalists present, I returned my package.

But in a society where bulging brown envelopes are synonymous with the country's widely-recognised problems of endemic corruption, it was not a very bright move by ministry officials, even if their intentions were honourable.

This is an acutely embarrassing episode for the Nigerian Government, but the incident here has certainly highlighted something that many here openly acknowledge: that in a country where journalists are so poorly paid, corruption is both inevitable and widespread.