LAGOS

Unidentified gunmen attacked an oil facility in Nigeria operated by France’s Total on Monday using high explosives, sources at private security companies said. It was unclear whether there were any casualties or damage to the facility in the attack. A Total spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Nigerian militants used dynamite to blow up the home of vice-president-elect Goodluck Jonathan in southern Bayelsa State early on Wednesday, killing two police officers, police said. Jonathan was not in his village of Otu-Eke at the time of the attack on his country home, federal police spokesperson Haz Iwendi said.

At least 30 people were killed when three vehicles burst into flames after colliding on a road in southern Nigeria, police and local press said on Monday. ”About 30 bodies were removed from the scene of the accident. The bodies were burnt beyond recognition,” a senior police office said by telephone.

Nigeria’s Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), said late on Monday it will resume attacks on oil pipelines in the south of the country. Mend, which security sources describe as the best-equipped, and most media-savvy militant group in the country, has in the past tended to make good on such threats.

Nigerian militant group the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said all the hostages taken from an Italian-operated offshore oilfield earlier on Thursday have been released. The self-styled leader of Mend said his group had not intended to take more hostages, having seized six foreign workers from a United States-operated oilfield on Tuesday.

Up to 17 foreign workers in Nigeria’s oil industry were kidnapped by gunmen on Thursday, including up to six from an offshore platform. It was the second time within a year that the Mistras facility, located off the southern Nigerian state of Bayelsa and operated by Italian oil company AGIP, has been targeted.

The Governor of Nigeria’s Plateau state, who faced money-laundering charges, has resumed work after five months in hiding following a Supreme Court order for his reinstatement, private television channels said on Monday. Joshua Dariye was removed from office by a faction in the central state’s legislature late last year.

Armed men attacked an oil-rig security vessel at a facility of a multinational oil company in Nigeria’s southern oil-rich state of Bayelsa, officials said on Friday. Unconfirmed industry sources said six people were thought to have been wounded in the attack late on Thursday, while three could have been kidnapped during the attack.

Gunmen in Nigeria’s southern Bayelsa State on Monday kidnapped two Lebanese nationals, two days after a British oil worker was seized from an offshore rig, national police spokesperson Haz Iwendi said. ”It is true that the two Lebanese nationals were kidnapped this morning in Bayelsa State,” Iwendi said, without giving details.

More than 70 people were burned to death in northern Nigeria when a tanker lorry caught fire as they were scooping fuel from it, police said on Wednesday. The accident happened in Kaduna State on Monday evening, the police spokesperson for Kaduna, Saad Yahaya, said. ”More than 70 people have been confirmed dead,” he said.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire on Friday on two Lebanese workers in southern Nigeria’s Rivers State, killing one, police and industry sources said. "The men were shot early this morning. We believe they were on their way to the airport when they were attacked. One died immediately while the other was seriously injured," a senior police officer said, refusing to be identified.

Hostage takers in Nigeria released nine Chinese oil-worker captives, officials said on Sunday, amid rising violence in Africa’s biggest petroleum producer. More than two dozen other foreigners were still being held in Nigeria’s southern oil-pumping region, after weeks of stepped-up attacks in the restive region.

Bird flu has claimed its first human victim in Africa’s most-populous nation, killing a young Nigerian woman due to graduate from university and be married this year, officials and the victim’s fiancé said. An outbreak of H5N1 bird flu hit Nigeria last year, but no human infections had been reported until Wednesday.

Nigerian Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Olusegun Obasanjo of buying arms to suppress unrest in the oil-rich Niger Delta rather than pacifying the region with development, his aides said on Wednesday. "This government approved $2-billion, not to develop the delta, but to buy arms to suppress the people of the region," Abubakar was quoted as saying.

Nigerian separatist militants released 125 inmates when they stormed a police station in Port Harcourt in an attack to free their leader that claimed at least two lives, police said on Tuesday. "Heavily armed men raided our station and freed 125 inmates" during Sunday’s raid, state police spokesperson Ireju Barasua said.

Nigerian gunmen have abducted two or three Chinese oil workers in the southern delta state of Bayelsa, police said on Thursday. The men were working for the Chinese National Petroleum Company when they were seized by the gunmen, who also looted the company’s office, police said.

Nine South Korean pipeline workers kidnapped in Nigeria’s restive southern oil region have been released, officials said. The nine Koreans and one Nigerian kidnapped on Wednesday were freed on Friday with the help of an unarmed neighbourhood-watch group and no ransom was paid, a Bayelsa state spokesperson said.

Nigerian armed separatists holding four foreign oil workers on Sunday threatened more attacks on oil facilities, while authorities sought five Chinese telecommunications workers also kidnapped in the Niger Delta. Shortly after the announcement, the Nigerian military said one of its lieutenants had been abducted in the region.

Four foreign oil workers held hostage by armed separatists in Nigeria’s Niger delta region will be allowed no further contact with the outside world, the group holding them said on Saturday. "All four hostages have been relocated and will not be permitted to communicate with the outside world until their eventual release," the Movement for the Emanicipation of the Niger Delta said.

Nigerians traded recriminations on Wednesday over who was to blame for the deaths of hundreds of people burned alive in a fuel explosion in the heart of Lagos, the country’s teeming economic capital. Many blamed the government for allowing poverty to reach such depths in Africa’s top oil producing nation that ordinary people were ready to risk their lives for a bucket of petrol.