ABUJA

A Nigerian militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), has claimed responsibility for a raid on an oil-export terminal on Thursday in which four expatriate workers were kidnapped. Mend, which staged a series of attacks on the oil industry in February, threatened to launch more attacks within days.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday blamed both local and international media for portraying Nigeria and the rest of Africa in a bad light. ”The world is being fed with images of Nigeria and indeed Africa as a bedrock of war, famine, disease, corruption, illiteracy and underdevelopment,” he said at the launch of the country’s national television station.

The crash of a commercial airliner moments after take-off in Abuja left seven survivors and 98 people dead, including the spiritual leader of Nigeria’s Muslims, Nigerian newspapers reported on Monday. Flight 053 from Abuja to Sokoto on ADC airlines was carrying 100 passengers and five crew members on a Boeing 737 when it went down on Sunday in bad weather.

Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday declared a state of emergency in the troubled Ekiti State in the country’s south-west. The governor of the state, Ayo Fayose, and his deputy, Biodun Olujimi, were impeached on Monday by the state’s Parliament on graft charges and the speaker of Parliament, Friday Aderemi, was sworn in by the state’s acting chief judge as acting governor.

Militants freed about 25 kidnapped Nigerian oil workers on Wednesday but seven abducted expatriates were still missing in another part of the Niger Delta after an unprecedented attack on a residential compound. Heightening security concerns, the United States consulate in Nigeria warned that militants may target Bonny Island, a major oil and gas export hub in Africa’s top oil producer.

Twelve Nigerian military personnel, mostly high-ranking officers, were killed in a plane crash on Sunday while six survived, the Presidency said in a statement on Monday. President Olusegun Obasanjo rushed home early from an International Monetary Fund meeting in Singapore following the crash of an air force Dornier 228 aircraft.

Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo said in Abuja on Tuesday that the exploitation and slavery of Africans in past decades were directly linked to Africa’s present economic conditions. Obasanjo said that the distortions and underdevelopment that slavery entailed continued to complicate the processes of growth and development on the African continent.

Nigeria took another step towards acquiring nuclear technology for civilian use when it officially swore in the board of the National Atomic Energy Commission. The ceremony on Monday was presided over by Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is also head of the body.

Stressing gains in financial stability and democratisation, African heads of state meeting hundreds of foreign business leaders in Abuja, Nigeria, called on Monday for stepped-up investment in the continent. ”Africa is changing. Both economic and political landscapes are improving,” said Nigerian Foreign Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

A Dutchman abducted on Thursday in Nigeria’s violent oil-producing Niger Delta is in good health but his kidnappers’ demands are not yet known, a spokesperson for Bayelsa state in the delta said on Friday. Gunmen seized the man, who was working on an unfinished Shell gas plant in Bayelsa, from a houseboat after disarming police on guard.

A summit of African leaders, farmers and international agriculture experts aimed at tackling soil degradation and food shortages in the world’s poorest continent opened on Friday in Nigeria. The African Fertiliser Summit, which began in Abuja with a two-day technical session, was being attended by about 500 delegates from across the world.

Unknown people have plunged parts of six states in the south-east and southern regions of Nigeria into darkness by vandalising electricity power lines, Power and Steel Minister Lyel Imoke said on Wednesday. The damage led to the collapse of five major 330kV towers serving the south-eastern states of Abia, Imo, Akwa Ibom and Cross River.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has described his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo’s acceptance of the scrapping of a plan to extend his tenure as an outstanding act of statesmanship, an official statement said on Tuesday. Obasanjo (69) must step down in May 2007 after serving two four-year terms.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday accepted Parliament’s rejection of a constitutional change that would have enabled him to stand for a third term in office, saying it was victory for democracy. "For me and for all members of our party, the outcome is victory for democracy," Obasanjo said.

The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment that would have allowed President Olusegun Obasanjo to run for a third term in office in 2007. ”By this result, the Senate has said clearly and eloquently that we discontinue further proceedings on this amendment Bill,” Senate President Ken Nnamani said after the vote.

Nigeria on Wednesday announced a 25-year plan to venture into space technology by manufacturing and launching locally its own satellite. Science and Technology Minister Turner Isoun said the federal Cabinet had already set up a seven-member ministerial committee to look into the details of the project.

Divisions emerged on Tuesday in the Darfur rebel group that signed a peace deal with Khartoum last week. Ibrahim Ahmed Ibrahim, top adviser to Sudan Liberation Movement leader Minni Arko Minnawi, sent a letter to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan charging that his boss had been pressured into signing Friday’s peace agreement.

Both Sudanese rebel groups fighting in Darfur refused on Friday to sign a peace deal with the Khartoum government, their chief negotiators said, despite intense pressure from international mediators. Mohammed Tugod of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said that the African Union draft peace accord failed to answer his group’s demands for Darfur’s three states to be united into a single autonomous region.

African Union leaders will meet on Thursday on the Darfur crisis hours before the expiration of a deadline set for the Sudanese parties to sign a peace agreement, officials said. ”The meeting is temporarily set to begin at 6pm local time in the Nigerian presidency,” AU spokesperson Noureddine Mezni told Agence France-Presse in Abuja.