LAGOS

The top 16 floors of a 24-storey office block collapsed in central Lagos on Wednesday, blocking the main commercial street through one of Africa’s biggest cities and leaving at least one dead and 24 injured. The building had been weakened by a fire that swept the structure earlier in the week.

At least six people were killed in clashes over the weekend in south-western Nigeria, police said on Monday, while several incidents of violence were also reported in the north in the run-up to the country’s controversial census. President Olusegun Obasanjo has called for a headcount in Africa’s most populous country.

Nigerian separatist rebels threatened to step up their attacks on foreign-owned oil facilities on Wednesday after dashing hopes that their three Western hostages would soon be released. A spokesperson for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta confirmed in a statement that the hostages had been split up and warned of imminent raids across the region.

Nigerian separatist guerrillas who are holding three Western hostages said on Thursday that they had fought off an attack by the military in a fierce gun battle on the Niger Delta creeks. Military spokespersons could not initially confirm or deny there had been a clash, but a boat captain operating in the area confirmed he had seen injured troops.

Militants holding four foreign hostages in Nigeria claimed on Sunday they would release the captives soon, according to a statement purportedly from the militant group. The hostages were seized near a Shell oil field on January 11 by a group that also claimed responsibility for other oil industry attacks that have cut Nigerian production by almost 10%.

Four Shell foreign oil workers have been abducted from an offshore oilfield in southern Nigeria, a company spokesperson said on Thursday. The Nigerian press said two of the Shell employees were Britons and the two other Hondurians, who were aboard a tanker, the <i>Sea Eagle</i>, loading crude oil in an offshore extraction zone.

Two plane crashes which killed more than 200 people, including schoolchildren, and a clampdown on opposition figures were the striking events that blighted Nigeria’s social and political landscape in 2005. ”2005 is a year that is ending on a catastrophic note and I do not expect any radical change from our leaders in 2006 because they are bereft of good leadership,” said reverend Gabriel Osu, spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos.

Shell said on Saturday it has resumed limited operations in southern Nigeria after the explosion of a pipeline but warned it is still not in a position to honour its commitments to clients. ”One of our fields has partially reopened in Kolo Creek, and there is limited loading at Bonny,” a spokesperson said.

Nigerian Aids workers on Saturday welcomed a government announcement of free treatment for people suffering from the disease but questioned whether the government could fulfil its promises. The government will distribute free anti-retroviral drugs to up to 500 000 HIV/Aids patients from January next year.

At least eight people were reported on Thursday to have died in an explosion that set ablaze a pipeline in the oilfields of southern Nigeria, as the Shell oil company said it is unable to make deliveries to customers. The oil giant has declared a state of force majeure, a legal term allowing a party to a contract to breach its terms legally.

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell in Nigeria was struggling on Wednesday to put out a fire that engulfed a pipeline allegedly sabotaged on Tuesday by unknown persons in the southern Niger Delta region, a company spokesperson said. The fire was apparently caused by a dynamite attack, according to an initial probe.

The impeached governor of Bayelsa state in oil rich southern Nigeria was on Tuesday charged with 40 counts of corruption and money laundering in a Lagos court. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha skipped bail in London last month where he was facing money-laundering charges and ran home to escape justice.

A Nigerian jetliner carrying 110 passengers and crew crashed on Saturday as it approached a southern city in stormy weather, killing 103 people. Seven people survived, officials said. Reports said the plane apparently overshot the runway during a thunderstorm. An airport worker described a horrific scene: ”The place where I’m standing now is scattered with corpses.”

Police broke down the gate of a huge housing complex to oust thousands of civil servants and their families on Friday in the latest mass eviction by a government struggling to gain control of its chaotic and crowded cities. Amnesty International has called such evictions in Nigeria a human rights scandal.

Hundreds of Nigerian troops deployed on Monday to the capital of the country’s biggest oil producing region after militant youths rallied around a state governor accused of embezzling millions of dollars, the military said. ”We have troops deployed in Yenagoa. They went in this morning. Their numbers are in the hundreds,” said Major Said Hamed.

Nigeria is to review the safety of the ageing fleet of passenger jets operated by its small private airlines following a crash which killed 117 people, President Olusegun Obasanjo said on Tuesday. An investigation has been launched to find out why a Bellview Airlines Boeing 737 plunged to the ground and disintegrated shortly after taking off from Lagos on Saturday.

A Nigerian airliner on a scheduled flight is missing and presumed crashed, officials said on Sunday, adding that helicopters have been scrambled to find any survivors. Once the plane had been missing for more than eight hours, officials from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (Faan) confirmed that it may have plunged into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff.