OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday 4.45PM.
FORMER Nigerian senator Polycarp Nwite — jailed last year by the late military ruler General Sani Abacha — was released on Monday. Nwite’s release comes after a general amnesty was granted to political detainees by the new ruler, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, last week.
Nwite, who sat as chairman of the senate’s intelligence and security committee between 1992 and 1993, has been detained without trial in the capital Lagos since his August arrest.
Meanwhile some 1850 barrels of oil were on Monday reported to have leaked out of a Shell pipeline in the south-eastern Delta area of Nigeria. Shell said the spill was noticed on Friday, but it did not give any explanation for the cause.
The delivery line has been closed in to stop further outlets of crude oil into the environment, it said, adding that the fuel had flowed on to land areas where a clean-up had already begun.