The National Assembly Joint Committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution succumbed yesterday (February 1) to massive public pressure and stepped down the controversial report recommending a third term for the President and governors. Moments before the committee’s resolution, the Northern Members Forum in the National Assembly had declared that it remained undaunted in its opposition to the plan, in spite of its endorsement by state governors at their Abuja meeting on Monday. After a charged meeting, the enlarged Mantu Committee resolved to adopt the 1999 Constitution as the working document during the proposed public hearing on the new Constitution.

This is the first formal publication of two early plays by Wole Soyinka, edited by Zodwa Motsa The Invention (1959) and The Detainee (1965). Widely regarded as Soyinka's first play, The Invention reflects the obsession with race that marked the apartheid regime, and prophetically depicts the beginnings of the crumbling of the apartheid system in the futuristic setting of Johannesburg in 1976. It expresses the concern of the African diapsora with apartheid, which was felt to be an affront to the entire race. The Detainee is a radioplay. The plot foreshadows the writer's own imprisonment and his now familiar concerns about the vagaries of African politics.

Rival youth gangs have clashed at Seme, the main border crossing between Benin and Nigeria, killing at least four people and setting fire to cars. The violence broke out on Monday after Benin police tried to arrest a suspected Nigerian thief. Lagos State police commissioner told the BBC that security forces from both countries had now calmed the situation.

The African Mentoring Project was created as a way of encouraging and supporting Africans who want to start blogging. Initially there will be a pilot project limited to Nigerian women. The idea for the project came from Nigerian blogger Ore who is presently working with a group of young women from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia on the Young Caucacus Women Project. Visit the URL provided to find out more.

Nigeria’s presidential, legislative and gubernatorial elections scheduled for 2007 have the potential to be a huge milestone in the history and development of democracy in the country, as they will be the first time one administration reaches its constitutionally mandated term limit and must hand over to a successor. The elections of March/April 2003 saw Nigeria clear the hurdle of two successive elected governments for the first time in its history: However current President Olusegun Obasanjo must step down in 2007, making the establishment of a successor elected administration in that year even more of a potential landmark.

The release of four foreign oil workers on January 30 by a previously unknown militia group underscores the chronic instability in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The oil workers were kidnapped by militants at Shell's offshore EA oil rig on January 11. While the group that claimed responsibility for the kidnappings - the Movement for the Emancipation of the People of the Niger Delta - is previously unknown, it has links to prominent local leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, the imprisoned leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (N.D.P.V.F.). Indeed, the kidnappers initially demanded the release of Dokubo-Asari in exchange for the hostages' freedom; the kidnappers also demanded that Shell pay local communities US$1.5 billion to compensate them for the environmental pollution caused by the oil company.

For most Nigerians, the electronic media are more accessible and affordable than print, according to available statistics. Radio is cheap and available everywhere in local languages. It takes precedence over the television because of the country’s epileptic power supply, the readership culture, literacy level, and the cost. World Press Review reports: "Given the literacy awareness skewed in favor of the South, most Northerners clutch a portable radio wherever they go to keep informed. After all, information is power."

Nigerian militants who have kidnapped four foreign oil workers and attacked a Shell oil platform say they are preparing to carry out more raids. The rebel group says it wants more control over the Niger Delta region's enormous oil wealth, and is demanding the release of two local leaders. Negotiations between the government and the rebels are said to be continuing.

Hundreds of Nigerians are still sleeping out in the open nearly nine months after bulldozers and armed police arrived in the Makoko community of Lagos, demolishing homes, churches, a mosque and a medical clinic. After three days of destruction, the community was obliterated, leaving about 3,000 residents - many already destitute - homeless. A report by Amnesty International, in collaboration with Lagos-based Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC), reveals how residents were given no prior notice of the demolition of their homes and property, which took place from 27 - 29 April 2005.

The Africa Regional Sexuality Resource Centre (ARSRC) calls for applications the Sexuality Leadership Development Fellowship (SLDF) Programme. The Fellowship is scheduled to take place in Lagos, Nigeria from July 10 to 28,2006. The fellowship is designed to catalyse development in the field of sexuality by incorporating rigorous intellectual work and strategic field trips that bring participants in close engagement with sexuality leaders and leadership organizations, the fellowship is structured to promote sharing of ideas, team building and collaborative work amongst participants in order to nurture relationships that last beyond the fellowship period. The course also provides an academically stimulating environment that promotes cross-cultural sharing of experiences as well as individual study.

Hope Ogbeide paid a field visit to Minna, Niger State on 17th January 2006 and wrote a report on an interview he had with Noma Usma, Secretary Coalition of Dam-affected Communities and President, Borgu Youth Council. The claims of Noma Usman were corroborated by the Chairman of Borgu Local Government Area, which hosts the Kainji hydroelectric dam.

West Africa’s oil-rich giant is convulsed over the president’s plans to run for a third term in office. Ron Singer maps the debates among political and civil-society activists who are asking if Nigerians can escape from the legacy of “one-man democracy”. As citizens prepare to return to the polls in 2007, Nigeria’s future hangs in the balance. A current initiative to change the constitution so that President Olusegun Obasanjo could run for a third term threatens to turn the nation into another of those familiar African one-man “democracies”, such as Uganda, ruled for twenty years now by Yoweri Museveni. Alternately, the initiative could plunge Nigeria into chaos.

Nigeria's government is planning a specific ban on same-sex marriages, with five years in jail for anyone who has a gay wedding or officiates at one. Information Minister Frank Nweke told the BBC the government was taking the "pre-emptive step" because of developments elsewhere in the world. "In most cultures in Nigeria, same-sex relationships, sodomy and the likes of that, is regarded as abominable." Homosexual sex is already illegal and in the north offenders can be stoned. Justice Minister Bayo Ojo said the law would also ban "any form of protest to press for rights or recognition" by homosexuals, the AFP news agency reports.

The Africa Regional Sexuality Resource Centre (ARSRC) calls for applications to its annual Sexuality Leadership Development Fellowship (SLDF) Programme. The Fellowship is scheduled to take place in Lagos, Nigeria from July 10– 28, 2006. The fellowship is designed to catalyse development in the field of sexuality.

Militants behind attacks aimed at disrupting Nigeria's oil exports said they will target all producers in the country, in a message singling out US-based Chevron. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, which has caused major disruption at Royal Dutch Shell and kidnapped four foreign oil workers, said it has also attacked installations run by France's Total and Italy's Agip, a unit of ENI. "We have decided not to limit our attacks to Shell oil as our ultimate aim is to prevent Nigeria from exporting oil," the militant group said in an email statement to Reuters.

A pledge by the Nigerian government to provide all anti-Aids drugs for free has not been met as some hospitals impose service charges, activists say. The government vowed in December to provide anti-retroviral drugs, needed to combat HIV-Aids, free of charge. The drugs have always been free, but many hospitals run by individual states still demand service charges for treating patients.

Anti-debt campaigners and some US lawmakers are joining forces to call on the George W. Bush administration to return debt arrears owed by Nigeria and to let the African nation spend the funds on health and education through a World Bank-sponsored fund. Eighteen members of the US Congress sent a letter to US Treasury Secretary John Snow and Export-Import Bank President James Lambright asking Washington to return part of the 12.4 billion dollars Nigeria will have to pay by March as part of a debt reduction agreement reached last year with the Paris Club.

Presidential aspirant, Buba Marwa, may have been released by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) last week after he agreed to refund his alleged share in a deal involving the late Head of State, Sani Abacha. It was learnt that he pledged to forfeit his properties in London, New York, Washington and Paris to the Nigerian Government in a bargain to stop his prosecution. EFCC sources said Marwa is not accused of keeping money that belonged to Abacha; rather, he was allegedly involved in a deal with the deceased and another businessman who has fled the country.

The International Development Research Centre invites proposals from teams interested in developing and establishing a multi-stakeholder information and monitoring system in two states in Nigeria: Bauchi and Cross River. This call for proposals is part of the planning phase for a proposed multi-year CA$ 15 million IDRC-CIDA collaborative initiative to support an evidence-based primary health system in Nigeria, the Nigerian Evidence-based Health Systems Initiative (NEHSI).

Nigeria will double the number of government centers where AIDS patients can get free drugs in the next three months as part of a major drive to widen access to treatment, the government anti-AIDS agency said on Friday (January 6). Nigeria started distributing anti-retroviral drugs for free this month from 33 government health facilities, scrapping a 1,000 naira ($8) fee that patients previously had to pay for subsidized drugs. “We plan to add an additional 33 centers in the first quarter,” Babatunde Osotimehin, chairman of the National Action Committee on AIDS (NACA), said in an interview with Reuters, as reported by the New York Times.