Police fired tear gas to disperse an anti-government demonstration in Lagos on Saturday and briefly arrested dozens of protesters, including the Nobel prize winning author and playwright Wole Soyinka. A coalition of opposition, human rights and civic groups under the name of Citizens Forum, called the march which began at Campos Square on Lagos Island. Many of the 500 or more protesters bore aloft banners and placards demanding President Olusegun Obasanjo’s resignation and describing last year’s elections that gave him a second term in office as fraudulent.

The HIV prevalence rate has slightly dropped in Nigeria. The release of the 2003 sentinel survey indicated that the prevalence rate has decreased slightly from 5.8 per cent in 2001. Previous surveys have shown that HIV prevalence has been increasing consistently from 1.8 per cent in 1991, to 5.8 per cent in 2001. Researchers, aware that HIV awareness was higher than in previous years but that this had not been translated into behaviour change, anticipated that the 2002 prevalence rate would follow the trend.

At least 57,000 people have fled their homes following sectarian violence involving Christians and Muslims in northern and central Nigeria, officials said on Friday. More than 30,000 Christians have been displaced from their homes in Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria, which was racked by religious violence on Tuesday and Wednesday, they said. A further 27,000 displaced people had sought refuge in Bauchi state in east central Nigeria following a massacre of Muslims by Christian gangs in neighbouring Plateau state earlier this month, the officials added.

Economic experts, private sector leaders and others who converged at the Pan-African University, Lekki, Lagos, over the weekend, concurred that Nigerians in the diaspora are a critical factor in the federal government's efforts towards seeking foreign direct investments (FDI) into the country. Delivering a lecture entitled "A Competitive Economy for an Oil Rich Country," 2001 Nobel Prize winner and former vice president of World Bank, Professor Joseph Stiglitz stressed the need to encourage Nigerians in the diaspora to support the development situation at home, while positing the need for the federal government to cash in on the ongoing high prices of oil in the international market.

Street urchins popularly known as area boys who disappeared from Lagos Island when the current Oba of Lagos, Oba Babatunde Rilwan Akiolu, ascended the throne, have returned in full force to the area. Investigation revealed that the area boys who were chased away by Oba Akiolu last year when he was coronated have returned and they now terrorise traders and residents, especially, those around the popular Idumota market, demanding money from them. PMNews also gathered that the area boys molest load carriers in the area by demanding money from them. Anyone who refused to pay is attacked, a resident told PMNews.

Riots erupted for a second day on Wednesday in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, where Muslim youths defied a huge security operation and launched attacks on the Christian minority to avenge a massacre of Muslims. Doctors and mortuary personnel at Kano General Hospital confirmed that the death toll had risen to 15, as gangs targeted Christians in reprisal for a May 2 massacre by a Christian ethnic militia on the mainly Muslim market town of Yelwa, in central Nigeria, which left more than 300 dead.

Sick of continued but preventable loss of their children to HIV/AIDS, the women wing of the Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (NEPWHAN), protested outside the Africa Hall of the International Conference Centre, venue of the 4th National AIDS Conference which closed last Wednesday. The women, numbering about 30 had assembled peacefully at the entrance to the venue on Tuesday, Day 2 of the conference, waiting for the plenary session to commence.

A total of 7,500 people displaced from their home's following a murderous attack by Christian militiamen on the mainly Muslim town of Yelwa in central Nigeria have been evacuated and put in the care of the Nigerian Red Cross, officials said on Monday. According to the Red Cross, the attack on 2 May by men from the mainly Christian Tarok tribe resulted in the death of more than 600 people. The victims of the massacre and those who fled Yelwa afterwards were mainly people from the Hausa and Fulani ethnic groups with roots in the north of the country.

Last week a league of non-governmental organisations met all over the world to deliberate on the Education for All (EFA) plan. The meeting which was tagged ‘Global Week of Action 2004 Roundtable on Education’ was also observed in Lagos. Various issues hindering the total achievement of the EFA goals were discussed. One of the topics discussed extensively at the roundtable, which attracted much debate, was the impact of HIV/AIDS on education in Nigeria. The participants agreed that the pandemic is having a colossal impact on the education sector of the country.

Nigerian-born Damian Iwueke has announced his candidacy for the June 12 European parliament elections making him the only non-native Maltese to contest so far. Well-known as an agent of Nigerian footballers playing in the Maltese league, as well as in business and academic circles, the 45-year-old said he wanted to represent minority groups and all those who are "fed up with the wheeling and dealing of politicians in Malta". Mr Iwueke's main slogan is "Why not?" He said that if someone asks "Why vote for Damian?" the answer should be "Why not?"

The democratic opening presented by Nigeria’s successful transition to civil rule (June 1998 to May 1999) unleashed a host of hitherto repressed or dormant political forces. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between genuine demands by these forces on the state and outright criminality and mayhem. Post-transition Nigeria is experiencing the proliferation of ethnic militia movements purportedly representing, and seeking to protect, their ethnic interests in a country which appears incapable of providing the basic welfare needs of its citizens.

The Nigerian government should immediately conduct an independent investigation into the massacre of several hundred people in Yelwa on May 2, Human Rights Watch says. The federal and state authorities should also take concrete steps to prevent a further escalation of interethnic violence in Plateau State. "Unlike the findings of previous commissions of inquiry, the results of this investigation should be made public and acted upon," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa Division. Armed members of the predominantly Christian Tarok ethnic group on May 2 attacked the town of Yelwa, in the southern part of Plateau State, apparently in reprisal for earlier attacks against Taroks by members of the predominantly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.

Homosexuality is a criminal offence in Nigeria, but gay rights groups made their first ever appearance at the country's fourth national AIDS conference in the capital Abuja this week. They called on their fellow countrymen to recognise and protect Nigeria's gay community, pointing out that it has been hit hard by the AIDS pandemic. In Nigeria, homosexual practice can carry a 14-year jail sentence under federal law.

Femi Soyinka, one of Nigeria's leading human rights activists, has decided to take a public stand against the discrimination suffered by more than one million of his countrymen and women who are living with AIDS. Soyinka, a former professor of medicine at Ife University in southwestern Nigeria, told IRIN that people living with the HIV virus and AIDS were often shunned by other members of society and treated like criminals. But he warned that their marginalisation was a major factor causing the continued spread of the epidemic in Africa's most populous country.

If current efforts to combat the effects of HIV/AIDS are not stepped up, Nigeria's economy will shrink by 20 percent, an expert has warned. Health economist Dr. Reginald Chima made the submission at a session on the socio-economic impact of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria during the ongoing 4th National conference on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. After two decades of HIV devastation, Nigeria's economy will have lost 20 percent of her gross domestic product, he said.

African women at the weekend resolved to work vigorously at all levels to enforce the fight against human trafficking. The Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF), in collaboration with a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), Ted Zachary, held an international conference on African women and gender development. Women would ensure that neither girls, women, boys or girls would be subjected to human trafficking, prostitution, slavery or other forms of degradation, the conference resolved.

One of Nigeria's opposition leaders is being investigated over possible links to recent "security breaches," the State Security Services say. Buba Galadima was arrested last Thursday but the SSS have not previously said why he was detained. He is a leader of Nigerians United for Democracy, which organised a protest rally on Monday against last year's elections, which the opposition claims were rigged.

Life on the job in Nigeria can be tough. But, it becomes even harder for those who have the misfortune to sustain injuries in the workplace. Daniel Adoga used to operate a grinding machine in a plastic factory, something which cost him his right hand. "I was on night duty that day. We were putting rubber in the machine, and suddenly it caught my hand. Before I knew it, it had started cutting my hand. That was how it happened that day,” he recalls. Nigeria's government makes no provision for employees who become disabled on the job. Employers are expected to bear the cost of treating injured workers. As a result, many injured workers find themselves in dire straits.

The Nigerian National Action Committee on AIDS last week launched a five-year "Behaviour Change Communication Strategy" to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country, Nigeria's This Day reports. The initiative provides a "strategic framework for combating HIV and AIDS that is realistic, practical and responsive to local realities," NACA Chair Babatunde Osotimehin said, adding, "It builds on internationally documented and scalable best practices and will serve as a guide for government and all its partners to help Nigerians adopt healthy behaviour and sustainable lifestyle changes to slow the HIV and AIDS epidemic".

Nigeria's top Muslim leader said on Wednesday that 300 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in Sunday's attacks by Christian militia in the town of Yelwa in the central Plateau state. Justice Abdulkadir Orire, secretary general of the Jama'atu Nasril Islam, described the killings in the remote farming town as "genocide" and said they took the death toll from three months of ethnic violence there to at least 700-800 people.