The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, opened the Inaugural Meeting of the Nigerian Science and Technology Education Funds Mobilizing Committee at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 16 May 2006. Nigeria’s Education Minister, Chinwe Nora Obaji, also attended. In his speech, Mr Matsuura called all education planners and teachers to actively engage in promoting interest in science among youth, especially girls.

After the Nigerian parliament threw out a bid to change the constitution and enable President Olusegun Obasanjo to stay in office for a third consecutive term, uncertainty is growing over who may succeed him in less than 12 months.

The chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission says he will bring corruption charges against 24 state governors when their terms end next year. The governors currently enjoy constitutional immunity from criminal prosecution.

The world is again recognising the importance of the Nigerian telecoms market in the development of the African digital age as it shifts attention to Lagos, Nigeria between July 31 and August 3, 2006 for the third annual African VoIP Forum.

In an in depth interview, Nigeria's Nobel Laureate, Professor Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka gives his opinion on recent Constitutional amendments, corruption within educational institutions and the role of young activists in the current political climate.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday urged Nigerians never to compromise on good governance and to shun corruption, in a speech to the nation marking the return of democracy seven years earlier.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has announced a major shake-up of his country's military. The chiefs of the defence staff and air-force have been dismissed, along with the national security adviser. The army chief has been promoted to chief of defence staff. No reasons have been given for the decisions.

Open Letter to Nigerian Environment Minister: Request for information on activities on cassava production in Nigeria

We are writing to you in recognition of the fact that your ministry is the National Focal Point on Biosafety in Nigeria. We are encouraged to write because the policy stance of Nigeria on biosafety issues is in consonance with the tenets of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to which Nigeria is a Party. One of the primary elements of that Protocol that is universally valuable is the Precautionary Principle. We also note that our national as well as international biosafety instruments place a premium on access to information and public participation in decision making processes on biosafety matters.

The political instabilities in Nigeria during Abacha's regime in 1993/94, which was an aftermath of the annulment of the June 12, 1992 presidential election won by the late business mogul Chief M.K.O. Abiola created an acute scarcity of kerosene that was seriously felt in different parts of the country. The kerosene scarcity led to the invention of "Abacha Coal-Pot" - a locally made cooking stove that uses charcoal., reports this article by the Indigenous Peoples Rights Crusaders

The Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has ordered Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, to pay $1.5 billion about N210 billion into the coffers of Central Bank of Nigeria, in favour of the Ijaw Aborigenes of Bayelsa State.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo here on Monday announced that the country has developed a 10-year plan on its educational development program at all levels. Speaking at a conference on financing, Obasanjo said with the program in place, he believed the country was ready to benefit from any foreign aid in the sector.

Chairman of the National Action Committee on HIV/AIDS, Professor Babatunde Osotimehin has attributed the recent 1.4 per cent drop in the disease prevalence nationwide to increasing political and financial commitment by the government and donor agencies. He said Nigeria, with an estimated 2.9 million people living with the HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) had received $180 million (about N23 billion) from the Global Fund Against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, despite its suspension of a $50 million (about N6.4 billion) grant to the country.

Following a National Assembly vote against a constitutional amendment that would have let him seek another term in office, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has announced he will leave office when his second term expires. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan previously had urged Obasanjo to keep the country's constitution intact and cede power to a successor.

Nigeria, which has ambitions for international and African leadership, is currently debating a Bill that if passed will lead to a crackdown on gay rights. Cary Alan Johnson and Fadzai Muparutsa says the governments is crushing a minority to make points with conservatives.

The National Assembly of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is debating a bill that makes same-sex marriage as well as any form of protest for gay rights punishable by five years in prison. Make no mistake - the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act is not about gay marriage, which is essentially a non-issue in Nigeria. The intent of the proposed law is to further vilify and stigmatize an increasingly vocal minority.

Official debate on the bill hasn’t even started and already public attacks on homosexuals are on the rise. In the Federal Capital Abuja last month, a male couple was beaten by a mob shouting anti-gay slurs. The Sunday Sun weekly newspaper recently reported the expulsion of 15 “homosexual suspects” from the Nigerian Defense Academy in Kaduna citing the anti-gay position of the government to justify its action.

Why would a country with a vigorous a civil society, a relatively free press, and a vocal political opposition find itself debating such an undemocratic piece of legislation? Why do most Nigeria experts feel that the proposed bill would pass with little or no opposition with parliamentarians disregarding the long struggle Nigeria has waged for rule of law in their country - first against a brutal colonialism and then in the face of a series of repressive military dictatorships? Where are the voices of reason which, despite personal discomfort with homosexuality, will name this Act for what it is - a bigoted piece of hate speech posing as Nigerian family values?

With Nigeria facing major political, social and economic challenges, this attack on the country’s highly homosexual minority seems calibrated to curry favor with religious conservatives - Christian and Moslem - who agree on very little, but find common ground with the government in the condemnation of gay men and lesbians.

Same sex attracted people have always been part of Nigerian culture, but now many politicians and religious leaders want to characterize homosexuality as “unAfrican” and “immoral”. A “sodomy” conviction can already get you up to 14 years in prison in most of Nigeria and in the states of the north operating under Sharia law the penalty is death. The proposed Prohibition Act would make gay meetings, the registration of gay organizations, and any “public show of same sex amorous relationship directly or indirectly in public and in private (sic)” punishable by five years in prison. The bill would make media debate of sexual rights, any gathering of gay men and lesbians -political or social - and any private intimate relationship between two people of the same sex a crime. Extortion, already a common feature of the lives of most Nigerian gay men and lesbians, would know no bounds.

Passage of the proposed legislation would constitute a major violation of international and regional human rights standards and challenge the protections of freedom of speech, assembly and association in Nigeria’s own constitution. Even the US State Department has expressed concern that the proposed law would be inconsistent with Nigeria’s international obligations.

The proposed curtailing of free speech is particularly frightening in light of the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria, where 5.4% of adults are HIV positive. HIV outreach workers must be free to provide HIV education and other services to men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women and to engage in frank, respectful discussions about human sexuality with all their clients. Anything less will jeopardize Nigeria’s HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment efforts.

The debate over same-sex marriage is likely to rage for years, but the right to participate in that debate - or the debate over other controversial topics - should be sacrosanct. Nigeria has proclaimed itself ready to lead Africa, and the world, in the 21st century, by lobbying for a permanent seat on a proposed reconfiguration of the UN Security Council. The attack on basic human freedoms embodied in the Prohibition Act is a throwback, exposing the reactionary leanings of a government willing to crush an unpopular minority to make points with conservatives.

Nigerian media has reported that gay rights activists “stormed” the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Abuja in December of last year demanding their rights. In fact, openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Africans did participate in that conference, asking their governments, international donors and AIDS service organizations to pay greater attention to the HIV vulnerability of men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women. In response to this request, the Nigerian government is proposing legislation that threatens their very existence. In a country making claims to moral and political leadership on a continent struggling for economic justice, isn’t it already crystal clear that no part of the African family is expendable?

* Cary Alan Johnson is Senior Specialist for Africa with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission; Fadzai Muparutsa is Board Member,
Coalition of African Lesbians

* Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

Nigeria's anti-fraud squad launched a probe on Monday into allegations lawmakers have been bribed to change the constitution to allow President Olusegun Obasanjo to extend his hold on power. The investigation came days before a vote on the bill to amend the constitution in the Senate.

Reacting to a heavy-handed secret police raid on a TV station on 14 May, Reporters Without Borders has urged the Nigerian authorities to show more restraint towards the press and said it feared there could be more attacks on journalists critical of a proposed constitutional amendment to allow President Olusegun Obasanjo to run for a third term.

African leaders meeting last week at a special summit on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, threw down a challenge to their governments by setting bold new targets to be achieved by 2010. At the end of the gathering to review progress in implementing the 2001 Abuja Declaration on AIDS, TB and Malaria, a major resolution was passed, declaring that at least 80 percent of those in need, especially women and children, should have access to HIV/AIDS treatment, including antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, care and support.

Nigeria's vice-president has said that the Senate decision to throw out a bill which would have let the president seek re-election will strengthen democracy. "The decision is one of the best things to happen to Nigeria," said Atiku Abubakar, who wants to contest next year's elections himself. The question of allowing President Olusegun Obasanjo a third term has divided Nigeria and the ruling party.

Militants in Nigeria's volatile oil-producing region detonated a car bomb late Saturday and issued a warning that investors and officials from China would be "treated as thieves" and targeted in future attacks. The threat came as Chinese President Hu Jintao returned home from a week-long tour of Africa in which he reached a series of deals securing access to oil and other resources to meet the needs of China's booming economy.

The Coalition of Groups for Women Advancement (COGWA) has rejected the draft bill on Constitutional review currently before the National Assembly, and instead called on members of the National and State Assemblies, and the Presidency to come up with a fresh bill that will address gender concerns for the purpose of fairness, justice and equity.