Education plays an important role in the creation and improvement of human capital, which is in turn essential for economic growth and development. As well as the benefits to society as a whole, education provides private returns to individuals: the higher an individual's educational attainment, the higher that individual's expected starting salary and the steeper the rise in earning capacity over time. This Eldis study endeavours to determine the relationship between years of schooling and earnings (rate of return) in Nigeria.

Nigeria plans to free some 25,000 inmates, many of whom have been awaiting trial for years, in a bid to decongest overcrowded and unhygienic prisons and improve its human rights record. "The issue of awaiting trial inmates has become an endemic problem in Nigeria," said Justice Minister Bayo Ojo after a cabinet meeting late Wednesday (January 4). "The conditions of the prisons are just too terrible. The conditions negate the essence of prison, which is to reform."

Security forces in Nigeria have killed 12 men they say were stealing oil from a pipeline in the southern Niger Delta. Officials said that a gun battle broke out when troops on patrol came across a group using heavy drilling equipment to siphon oil from a pipeline. Three others in the group, in the remote Oghara community, were wounded and five were arrested. Correspondents say oil theft is a common practice in one of Africa's biggest oil-producing countries.

Nigeria's anti-corruption agency is investigating a former state governor who is widely expected to run for president in 2007 in connection with funds looted during the rule of General Sani Abacha, a spokesman said on Wednesday. The probe into the accounts of Buba Marwa, who was military administrator of Lagos state under Abacha, is the first attempt by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to go after a highly placed official from that era over looted funds.

Nigeria in 2006 will begin a program that aims to provide antiretroviral drugs at no cost to about 250,000 HIV-positive residents, the country's National Action Committee on HIV/AIDS announced last month, Reuters reports. Only about 40,000 of the 3.5 million HIV-positive people in the country currently receive subsidized antiretroviral treatment.

Women in the northern Nigerian state of Kano are ignoring a ban stopping them travelling on public motorbike taxis. On Monday (December 12) religious authorities began implementing the ban passed earlier this year. In accordance with Sharia law, men and women are not allowed to travel together on public transport. The women say there are not enough public transport alternatives in the state that adopted Sharia law in 2000.

"We, the undersigned human rights activists and representatives of various Nigerian civil society organizations hereby resolve as follows: To launch a campaign of action and challenge of the looming and emerging dictatorship in Nigeria. As we have done in similar circumstances in the past, we as civil society organizations, stand united and will defend our democracy and our fatherland. We are returning to the trenches and to the barricades from where we fought military dictatorship to a standstill, to once again fight another kind of dictatorship, dressed in civilian garbs."

Nigeria and other African nations need to provide comprehensive health care, including antiretroviral medications, to HIV-positive people at no cost in order to prevent treatment interruptions and drug resistance, Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Tuesday at a news conference, Reuters reports. MSF this week at the 14th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa in Abuja, Nigeria, released a study that surveyed 122 HIV-positive patients who came to an MSF clinic in Lagos, Nigeria, after receiving treatment from other clinics or hospitals.

Experts last week said the subject of teaching abstinence to prevent HIV/AIDS led to debate among many attendees at the 14th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa, which took place in Abuja, Nigeria, Agence France-Presse reports. About 7,500 representatives, primarily from African nations, attended the six-day conference, which had the theme "HIV/AIDS and the Family".

Nigeria will return the impeached governor of oil-producing Bayelsa state to Britain, where he jumped bail to escape a money-laundering trial, President Olusegun Obasanjo said on Saturday. A court in London has charged Diepreye Alamieyeseigha with laundering 1.8 million pounds. Alamieyeseigha fled Britain last month and returned to Nigeria, where as governor he enjoyed immunity from prosecution. But on Friday the Bayelsa state assembly stripped him of his immunity by impeaching him, and he was immediately arrested.

This site aims to build understanding of the real economic situation of Africa's most populous country, with the aim of lifting Nigeria out of debt and poverty. The site includes news from inside Nigeria, and analysis of the economic situation and the latest debt negotiations. If you would like to receive the regular newsletter, go to the subscribe
section on the homepage.

More facts have emerged on why the over N30 billion grant made available to Nigeria for the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by an international financial institution, Global Fund, was suspended. A letter addressed to the Federal Ministry of Health by the Fund, said "serious concerns have been raised about grant implementation and the ability of the principal recipient to achieve the goals of the grants".

The Program Officer will be responsible for developing, monitoring and evaluating the Foundation's West Africa programming in media, arts and culture. The program's overall goal is to promote the use of media, arts and culture as key resources for strengthening social, cultural and economic development.

The Nigerian government in a landmark move has paid compensation to families of six people wrongly shot and killed by police. Police Affairs Minister Broderick Bozimo on Friday (December 2) paid out cheques of three million naira (US $21,000) each to representatives of the families of five men and one woman killed by police in June 2005. The police had claimed the six were armed robbers, killed while trading gunfire with police in the Apo district of the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Bozimo said a judicial inquiry launched by the government found “incontrovertible evidence” the victims were not armed robbers. “Government therefore exonerates the six victims and apologises to their families and in fact all Nigerians,” he said.

Shops, schools and banks were shut in many parts of southeast Nigeria on Monday (December 5), the first day of a two-day strike called by a separatist group refusing to abandon its long fight for an independent state. The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) called the stay-at-home protest to back a demand for independence for the region's ethnic Igbos. The group is also protesting the continued detention of its leader, Ralph Uwazurike, currently facing trial for treason. One MASSOB activist said the strike was but a "warning" of things to come if their leader is not released.

Nigeria's ruling People's Democratic Party has ended a key meeting without ruling on the issue which is threatening to split the party - and the nation apart. The row between President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar is over the question of whether to change the constitution to let Mr Obasanjo stand for a third term. Analysts say Mr Obasanjo is positively disposed to serving a third term in order to consolidate the economic reforms which he is pursuing and to continue his fight against corruption. He is said not to trust Mr Atiku or any potential successors to continue these policies.

The British government has drawn sharp criticism from development charities for taking a debt repayment from Nigeria which dwarfs the UK's entire annual aid budget for the African continent. The Group of Seven leading industrial countries, which met in London over the weekend, are soon to receive $12.4bn (£7.2bn) from Africa's most populous nation as part of a debt rescheduling package agreed this year by the Paris Club of creditor countries. As Britain is Nigeria's largest creditor, it is set for a windfall of £1.7bn in the coming months - considerably larger than the £1bn-a-year portion of the European Union rebate that Tony Blair has offered to give up.

President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that the governor who jumped bail on money-laundering charges in the UK and escaped home is "shameful" to Nigeria. Mr Obasanjo was commenting for the first time in public on the case of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, although he has asked the UK for an explanation. Mr Alamieyeseigha was expelled from the ruling PDP party last Thursday. He also faces corruption charges in a special court, which can strip elected officials of their immunity.

UNHCR Country Representative Alphafonso Malanda said that 1.5 million dollars would be spent to resettle internally displaced Nigerians and the reparation of Nigerians that sought refuge in Cameroun owing to conflicts. He said that the National Commission for Refugees had funded the reconstruction of destroyed structures and facilities of the affected communities so that the displaced Nigerians could return to their original abode.

It was "Folake" who was jailed after she accused a man of rape. A domestic worker, she said her employer’s husband had forced her into his bedroom and made her watch a violent videotape before forcing her to have sex. A medical examination supported her allegation. Yet she was the one brought to court, charged with slander for making the accusation, and remanded in prison until her family could raise the bail money to have her released. The material evidence of the crime, handed over to the police, was later said to have disappeared. No charges were brought against the man she accused.