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/ 19 October 2007
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell has reopened a gas plant of 300-million standard cubit feet in southern Nigeria that was shut down last week because of a fire on its supply pipeline. ”Utorogu gas plant, which was shut in a bit to starve the fire, has reopened and gas supply is ramping up,” the company said in a statement late on Thursday.
Politics in Nigeria remains mired in violence and corruption eight years after the end of military rule, says Human Rights Watch in a report released on Tuesday. In some states of the federation, unelected but immensely powerful ”godfathers” dominate the political scene, having gained control over politicians, the report says.
At least 30 people drowned in a river in the remote north-western Nigerian state of Kebbi after two dug-out boats they were travelling in collided head-on, the Red Cross said on Friday. One of the boats was laden with petroleum products when it collided with the other boat, which was carrying traders.
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/ 27 September 2007
Floods that have left hundreds of thousands of Africans homeless across vast swathes of the continent have claimed 64 lives in Nigeria and 33 in Burkina Faso, government and aid officials said on Thursday. Nigeria’s Red Cross said the death toll covered a period since mid-July, while 22 000 people have been displaced in 10 sometimes arid northern states.
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/ 24 September 2007
Western oil companies reinforced security in Nigeria on Monday after a rebel group threatened to resume attacks on Africa’s largest oil industry, but security sources played down the risk of a major disruption. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta threatened fresh attacks on oil facilities.
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/ 24 September 2007
A Nigerian militant group whose attacks have slashed crude production in Africa’s oil giant apparently announced an end to its voluntary ceasefire and vowed a fresh campaign of violence in the restive southern region.
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/ 20 September 2007
A Nigerian governor has sacked the entire 34 000-strong workforce in his state for refusing to heed a call to suspend their one-month-old strike over pay, a government spokesperson said Thursday. Public-sector workers in the south-western state of Oyo launched the industrial action last month.
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/ 14 September 2007
Nigerian troops on Friday raided a community in the restive Niger Delta in a bid to dislodge armed gangs who have been terrorising the local population there, a military spokesperson said. The operation "began at 10am [local time]. The objective is to hunt down the militants from the creeks," Major Musa Sagir said.
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/ 12 September 2007
A 32-year-old Nigerian man appeared in court on Tuesday on a charge of instructing his monkey to bite a teenager, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported. Prosecutor lawyer Thaddeus Joseph told an Abuja magistrate’s court that Sunday Adeyemi on September 2 instructed his monkey to bite 11-year-old Samson Sule.
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/ 12 September 2007
Eight inmates of a prison in south-west Nigeria were killed in an attempted jail break, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported on Tuesday. The NAN quoted Oyo state controller of prisons Mauren Omeli as saying 14 inmates and four wardens of Agodi prison in Ibadan were also seriously injured during the attempt.
Authorities in southern Nigeria on Thursday officially extended a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Port Harcourt, the region’s oil capital, for a further week. ”The curfew is being extended for a further one week,” the state executive council announced. The curfew was put in place last Friday after the military battled local gangs, leaving dozens of people dead.
South Africa’s Standard Bank has bought control of IBTC Chartered Bank, it’s adviser said on Tuesday, in the first foreign takeover of a Nigerian bank since a sector reform in 2005. Standard Bank had already secured a 33% stake in an agreed purchase last September and offered -million for a further 17% in a tender offer that closed on Monday night.
Conditions in Nigerian prisons are appalling with ”forgotten inmates” locked away for years without trial simply because their files have been lost, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. ”The circumstances under which the Nigerian government locks up its inmates are appalling,” the rights group said.
A corruption scandal is rattling Nigeria’s navy after officials revealed that two vice-admirals and eight officers now retired are suspected of having been involved in contraband petrol trafficking in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Contraband petrol represents a huge loss for Africa’s biggest oil-producing country.
A major Nigerian opposition party that is challenging President Umaru Yar’Adua’s electoral victory in court has rejected an offer to join his government because it considers it illegitimate, a party spokesperson said on Friday. Yar’Adua invited the three main opposition parties to join his government in an effort to offset a perceived lack of legitimacy after the April polls.
Gunmen who kidnapped a three-year-old British girl in southern Nigeria said they would kill her unless her father takes her place, the girl’s mother told the BBC on Friday. ”They say I can bring my husband to swap with the baby,” Oluchi Hill, a Nigerian national, told the British broadcaster.
About 20 passengers drowned in the River Benue in central Nigeria when their dug-out boat capsized after hitting an object, police said on Tuesday. The boat was carrying about 40 passengers, mostly ethnic Fulani cattle herders fleeing from the district of Guma to the Benue state capital Makurdi after a dispute with local farmers.
Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has been elected chairperson of the board of trustees of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), barely a month after leaving power, his aides said on Thursday. The 70-year-old retired general was elected PDP chairperson on Wednesday.
Nigeria was slowly returning to normal on Sunday after labour unions and the government reached an accord ending a four-day general strike that had paralysed Africa’s most populous nation. The two labour umbrella organisations called off their strike on Saturday after President Umaru Yar’Adua gave a commitment on fuel prices.
Four foreign hostages employed by oil services giant Schlumberger were released unharmed on Saturday after more than three weeks in captivity, security sources said. The men, from Britain, France, The Netherlands and Pakistan, were abducted on June 1 from the company’s residential compound in Nigeria’s oil capital Port Harcourt by kidnappers disguised as riot police.
Nigeria’s crippling general strike entered its third day on Friday after overnight talks between labour unions and government ended in deadlock. Banks and schools remained closed across the country. The price of what little fuel was available on the black market continued to climb with public transport costing four times the usual price.
A strike in Africa’s top oil producer began on Wednesday after unions rejected government concessions on fuel prices as too little too late. The offices of Western oil companies operating in Nigeria were closed along with most other businesses, but oil production and exports were uninterrupted, company officials said.
Unidentified gunmen have occupied an oil pipeline-switching centre in Nigeria and are preventing local security forces from leaving, company officials said on Monday. About two dozen Nigerian workers and soldiers are being held after the attack on Sunday on a flow station in southern Bayelsa state, Italian energy giant Eni Spa said in a statement. No injuries were reported, it said.
A former Nigerian militia leader whose release has raised hopes of improved security in the oil-producing Niger Delta has pledged to continue his struggle for local control of oil wealth, but not in a criminal way. The situation in the region remains volatile despite the release of Mujahid Dokubo-Asari on Thursday.
Nigeria’s new government is moving quickly to bring its oil-producing delta region back from the brink of anarchy, but violence in Africa’s top producer is still driving away investment. resident Umaru Yar’Adua’s early efforts to build confidence among militant leaders are already showing results and two armed groups have freed a total of 19 hostages.
A Nigerian armed group fighting for control of oil resources in the Niger Delta region said on Monday that it will release all foreign hostages in its custody. The statement, purportedly from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, gave the names of ten captives it said it planned to release later in the day to two powerful local leaders.
Two weeks after stepping down as president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo is hitting the books and resuming university studies, close aides said on Friday. The 70-year-old retired general, who stepped down on May 29 having served a constitutional maximum of two four-year terms, began coursework at the National Open University in Lagos on Thursday.
Gunmen disguised as riot police have abducted four foreign workers from the residential compound of oil-services giant Schlumberger in Nigeria’s oil city Port Harcourt, authorities said on Saturday. Kidnapping has become an almost daily occurrence in the anarchic Niger Delta, home to Africa’s largest oil industry, and about 30 foreigners are now being held.
Gunmen kidnapped three people, including Asian expatriates, from the residential compound of chemical company Indorama in oil-rich southern Nigeria on Friday, a senior police officer said. ”There was an attack on the Indorama residential compound. Three people were taken,” Rivers State Police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu said.
Nigerian oil unions have suspended a two-day strike in the national oil company after the government agreed to a pay rise and other benefits, a union leader said. The strike had threatened to halt oil shipments from the world’s eighth-largest exporter and worsened fuel shortages across Nigeria.
Nigerian oil unions pulled many staff from crude export terminals on the second day of a strike on Friday, but shipments from the world’s eighth largest exporter were uninterrupted, authorities said. The strike by union members in the national oil company and the Department of Petroleum Resources, the industry regulator, began on Thursday.
Gunmen kidnapped six foreign oil workers including a South African from a ship off the coast of Nigeria on Friday, industry sources said, bringing to 22 the number of foreigners held in Africa’s top oil producer. Shots were fired during the abduction by suspected militants in two speed boats, which took place off the coast of the Niger Delta.