Energy-rich Nigeria has approved a new policy requiring gas producers to direct a part of their output to the domestic market, rather than exporting it, a presidential statement said on Friday. Under the new policy regime, "all oil and gas developers in the country are to allocate a specified amount of gas from their reserves and annual production to the domestic market", it said.
Nigeria will not pour more cash into power, having spent $10-billion in the last seven years with little to show for it, until it has a clear idea of how to revamp the sector, President Umaru Yar'Adua said on Monday. Yar'Adua took power on May 29 with a pledge to declare a "national emergency" on power and energy, but he has yet to formally take the step.
Gang warfare will return to Nigeria's oil-producing south unless President Umaru Yar'Adua brings to justice politicians who have fuelled the unrest, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday. Gangs behind kidnappings and oil theft in the Niger Delta were going unpunished partly because of their connections to politicians.
A German man was released unharmed late on Tuesday in the Niger Delta in Nigeria, about 12 hours after he was seized by unknown gunmen who killed a driver and two soldiers, a source at his company said on Wednesday. The source at Julius Berger, a German-Nigerian construction group, said no ransom was paid for the German hostage.
Nigerian opposition candidate Mohammadu Buhari has asked the Supreme Court to overturn an election tribunal ruling upholding the victory of President Umaru Yar'Adua in the April 2007 vote, his lawyer said on Monday. Mike Ahamba said he filed an appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday seeking a reversal of the ruling in favour of his client.
Armed men torched a police building and several vehicles at the main jetty on Bonny Island, an oil and gas export hub in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta, a security expert working for an oil major said on Saturday. Police spokespersons could not immediately be reached to comment on the report from the industry source,
A Nigerian tribunal will rule on Tuesday whether the election of President Umaru Yar'Adua was valid, a decision that could entrench a disputed government or tip Africa's most populous nation into turmoil. Yar'Adua won a landslide victory in last April's elections but observers accused the party of widespread vote-rigging.
Nigeria will press for compensation from the South African government for its citizens who were victims of xenophobic attacks in the country, Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe said late on Tuesday in Abuja. The minister said that although no Nigerian has been killed in the wave of the attacks, many of them lost their properties while others had had their shops looted.
Nigeria's Senate has passed a motion condemning a string of attacks on Nigerians in South Africa and ordered its foreign affairs committee to look into the matter urgently. Senator Grace Bent, who sponsored the motion, noted "with serious concern the protracted and unabated intimidation, brutalisation and cases of robbery and sundry attacks".
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