At least 43 Nigerian soldiers who had just returned from a peacekeeping mission in Darfur have been killed in a road accident in the north of Nigeria, a military spokesperson said on Thursday. The soldiers, including an army captain, were in a convoy of seven vehicles in north-eastern Yobe state on Wednesday when one of them collided with an oncoming petrol tanker.
Nigeria has become the world piracy ”hot spot”, with its prized oil industry a particular target, and the raiders have exposed flaws in the country’s security. Despite the massive revenues earned from oil, officials concede Nigeria is ill-equipped to combat pirates who ply the seas with speed boats, modern machine guns and radios.
Thousands gathered on Friday around charred destruction from a deadly pipeline explosion as Nigerian firefighters doused flames triggered by the blast that had burnt for more than a day. Local officials put the death toll at 15, disputing the Nigerian Red Cross’s claim that about 100 people were killed.
Federica Angelucci, curator of photography at the Michael Stevenson Gallery, introduces Pieter Hugo’s images of the Nigerian film industry.
At least 100 people were killed and scores injured when fuel from a pipeline ruptured by an earthmover caught fire and exploded in a Nigerian village near the biggest city of Lagos, the Red Cross said on Thursday. The fireball engulfed homes and schools at Ijegun village in the Lagos district of Alimosho, and many of the dead, who included schoolchildren, were killed in the ensuing stampede.
A human rights group said on Thursday that 800 000 residents of the Nigerian capital, Abuja, were forcibly evicted over a four-year period as town planners sought to clear space for the fast-growing city. The Swiss-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions said that many of those removed were not given due notice.
Unidentified gunmen in Nigeria’s restive south have hijacked an oil-services vessel carrying 11 crew members, the military said on Wednesday. The hijackers are demanding about 000 for the release of the boat and the crew, including one Portuguese and one Ukrainian, according to military spokesperson Major Sagir Musa.
Record oil prices should mean boom times for Nigeria’s oil industry, but rising militant violence, labour unrest and years of government neglect cast a shadow over its future. Africa’s largest oil producer saw its two million barrel-a-day production halved last month by an eight-day strike at United States oil major Exxon Mobil.
Rebels who have stepped up attacks on Nigeria’s oil industry in the last month said on Sunday they were considering a ceasefire appeal by United States presidential hopeful Barack Obama. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has launched five attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta since it resumed a campaign of violence in April.
Royal Dutch Shell shut down more of its production in Nigeria after a fresh militant attack on Saturday on a flowstation in the restive Niger Delta, where local militants have stepped up a campaign of violence. Security sources said that three wells had been blown up, as well as other equipment.
The main militant group behind a string of recent attacks in Nigeria’s southern oil region said on Friday it had sabotaged another pipeline. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said its fighters hit a pipeline late on Thursday in southern Rivers State — bringing to four the number of pipelines the group has reportedly hit in the past week.
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”.
A rebel group from Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta said it attacked two major oil pipelines there on Monday in what it called a message to the United States. In an email, a faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said its commandos had carried out attacks against the pipelines located at Isaka River and Abonnema River.
More than 3 000 delegates from 193 nations will descend on the Ghana capital, Accra, on Sunday for five days of United Nations talks on globalisation — against a backdrop of rising food prices and an economic slowdown. The talks will be opened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who will warn that not everyone benefits from globalisation.
Militant youths occupied an oil installation in restive southern Nigeria on Friday, shutting down its production of 5 000 barrels a day, officials said. The oil installation — a so-called flow station installation near Yenagoa, the capital city of Bayelsa state — is operated by a Royal Dutch Shell joint venture in Nigeria.
Gang warfare will return to Nigeria’s oil-producing south unless President Umaru Yar’Adua brings to justice politicians who have fuelled the unrest, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday. Gangs behind kidnappings and oil theft in the Niger Delta were going unpunished partly because of their connections to politicians.
Thirteen students in a private Nigerian primary school died and several others were injured when a boundary wall collapsed, police said on Wednesday. ”It was an unfortunate incident. Thirteen children lost their lives while several others, including their teachers, were also injured,” Oyo state police spokesperson Bisi Okuwobi said.
Police in the north-west Nigerian state of Kebbi, home to the Argungu fishing festival, have released on bail this year’s champion, arrested last week for allegedly smuggling his winning monster catch already dead into the river, a police chief said on Sunday. The fishing champion was arrested on Friday.
Gunmen aboard a speedboat attacked a security vessel as it travelled to a major oil industry port in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, killing a Nigerian sailor, security sources said on Thursday. About 15 unknown gunmen attacked the vessel late on Wednesday as it travelled along the Bonny river towards Onne.
The risk of renewed violence in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta is increasing because militants are frustrated by a lack of concrete results from peace talks, a key negotiator said on Wednesday. Kingsley Kuku, a senior member of a government peace committee, said the government still had an opportunity to avert violence.
A powerful militia leader from Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta has accused the government of talking peace while provoking rebel commanders with army raids. Ateke Tom’s armed group is one of several in the anarchic delta that have fought with troops and attacked government targets.
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.
Nigerian opposition candidate Mohammadu Buhari has asked the Supreme Court to overturn an election tribunal ruling upholding the victory of President Umaru Yar’Adua in the April 2007 vote, his lawyer said on Monday. Mike Ahamba said he filed an appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday seeking a reversal of the ruling in favour of his client.
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/ 29 February 2008
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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/ 26 February 2008
Nigeria’s prisons are a ”national scandal”, filled with thousands of inmates who have never been convicted of any crime while some prisoners wait decades to face trial, Amnesty International said on Tuesday. The human rights group said only about 35% of Nigerian inmates have been convicted in court.
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/ 25 February 2008
A Nigerian tribunal will rule on Tuesday whether the election of President Umaru Yar’Adua was valid, a decision that could entrench a disputed government or tip Africa’s most populous nation into turmoil. Yar’Adua won a landslide victory in last April’s elections but observers accused the party of widespread vote-rigging.
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/ 20 February 2008
A rebel group from Nigeria’s oil producing Niger Delta demanded on Wednesday that lawyers, relatives and the Red Cross be allowed to see their detained leader, Henry Okah, to confirm he is alive. The government denied a report by the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta that Okah had been shot dead.
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/ 8 February 2008
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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/ 4 February 2008
Three soldiers and eight militants were killed in a gun battle at an oil pipeline hub operated by Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria’s southern state of Bayelsa, the navy said on Sunday. Shell said the Tora manifold, which sends oil to the Bonny export terminal, was not damaged in the attack late on Saturday.
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/ 24 January 2008
Cigarette packets sold in Nigeria carry a health warning: ”The Federal Ministry of Health warns that cigarette smokers are liable to die young.” But, says the government, this warning has not stopped many Nigerian youngsters from smoking. Taju Olaide says that he was unaware of the warning because he is uneducated and therefore cannot read what is printed on the cigarette packs.
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/ 15 January 2008
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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/ 11 January 2008
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) on Friday claimed responsibility for the blaze that started earlier in the day on a tanker berthed in Port Harcourt, the country’s main oil hub. "Mend confirms that its Freelance Freedom Fighters working inside the oil industry detonated a remote explosive device," the group said in a statement.