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/ 28 May 2008

Nigeria wants compensation for attacks in SA

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.

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/ 24 April 2008

Nigerian Senate slams South African crime

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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/ 5 March 2008

German released after 12-hour kidnap in Nigeria

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.

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/ 29 February 2008

Nigeria oil hub targeted in night attack

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,

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/ 8 February 2008

Nigeria adopts new gas policy to favour domestic users

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.

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/ 15 January 2008

No cash for Nigerian power without plan

Nigeria will not pour more cash into power, having spent -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.

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/ 23 November 2007

Abuja’s Utopia surrounded by urban blight

Central Abuja looks like a modern capital with wide streets and a spectacular skyline. But four years after a massive urban demolition programme began, little progress has been made in resettling the roughly 800 000 people that the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions estimates have been displaced.

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/ 21 November 2007

Nigeria wonders if leader will keep his job

Umaru Yar’Adua looks serene in the official portrait hanging in a courtroom where lawyers in black robes are trying to unseat him as president of Nigeria. But his position may be less secure than the photograph. The presidential tribunal is a special electoral court empowered to hear petitions against his victory in April by losing candidates.

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/ 15 November 2007

Nigeria hit by new oil pipeline attack

Unknown attackers blew up a Nigerian crude oil pipeline on Thursday, extending a month-old resurgence of violence against Africa’s top oil producer and dashing hopes for a government peace drive. The pipeline attack at Royal Dutch Shell’s Forcados oil terminal was a setback to the company’s efforts to restore output from the Niger Delta.

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/ 12 November 2007

Nigerian police detain al-Qaeda suspects

Nigeria’s secret police have arrested several people suspected of having links to the al-Qaeda network in three of the country’s predominantly Muslim states, a spokesperson said on Monday. ”Our operatives arrested the suspects in Kano, Kaduna and Yobe states,” State Security Service spokesperson Ado Muazu said.

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/ 9 November 2007

Nigeria to spend 7% more in 2008

Nigeria’s federal government plans to increase spending by 7% to 2,47-trillion naira (-billion) in 2008 from 2,3-trillion naira the previous year, President Umaru Yar’Adua said on Thursday. The amount allocated to spending on security nationwide and on security and development in the volatile oil-rich Niger Delta will go up by 7%.

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/ 2 November 2007

Nigerian oil rebels feud before peace talks

Two prominent rebels fighting for autonomy in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta have traded insults in a public dispute that has exposed deep divisions before peace talks with the government. The row between the two militia leaders is apparently over money, weapons and strategy, but analysts say it is a power struggle that will strengthen the government’s hand.