The Nigerian Red Cross has launched an appeal for relief assistance for more than 57,000 people displaced in recent communal conflicts across the country, officials said last Thursday.

Clashes between navy troops and ethnic Ijaw militants near Nigeria's southern oil town of Warri resulted in the death of five civilians, heightening tension in the town and other parts of the Niger Delta, community activists said on Sunday.

Following the advocacy and legal victory that led to the existence of the current 30 political parties in Nigeria, it has become critically important to review the role of the media, especially the broadcast media, in the electoral process. This is imperative given the capacity of the media and, in particular, the broadcast media to influence and shape public opinion. This is according to the text of a press conference called by The Media for Democracy in Nigeria (MFD) Group And CREDO on equitable access to the broadcast media by all political parties.

Amnesty International is urging all candidates in Nigeria's upcoming presidential, federal and state elections to commit themselves publicly to place the prevention of human rights abuses during elections at the heart of their electoral campaigns.

Nigeria's parliament has voted to scrap a landmark anti-corruption law and replace it with a controversial new act stripping President Olusegun Obasanjo of many of his powers to appoint financial investigators. The House of Representatives approved new rules proposed by the Senate that could render obsolete the work of an anti-corruption commission established by the president after the return of civilian rule in 1999.

The convoy of Gani Fawehinmi, a candidate in next month's presidential election, has been attacked as he returned home after a campaign. He said that the gang of four machete-wielding men asked for him by name but he was in a different car to the one attacked. Mr Fawehinmi, a human-rights-lawyer-turned-politician, is one of 19 challengers to President Olusegun Obasanjo in next month's election but correspondents say he is unlikely to win.

Over a four-week period that began on 18 February, every Nigerian aged 18 years and above is required to register for a national identity card. According to officials of the Department of National Civic Registration, which is in charge of the programme, at least 60 million Nigerians are estimated to be eligible for registration. The main objective of issuing identity cards to Nigerians, according to the government, is to create a national database of information, that will aid effective government.

As a young Nigerian girl, Pearl Nwashili saw women come crying to her grandmother, bleeding and bruised from beatings at their husbands' hands. "I wanted to clean them, sew up their clothes, I wanted to heal the kids with sores, I just wanted to see people happy again as fast as possible," she says. As an adult in Lagos, she studied microbiology and earned degrees in public health as a way to help her people. With a grant from the Ford Foundation and facilities donated by Nigeria's government, Nwashili set up walk-in health centers at eight major Nigerian "motor parks," where hundreds of truck drivers, taxis and buses wait for loads and seek entertainment, food and rest in the meantime.

A Nigerian non-governmental organisation has concluded that ethical concerns loom high in HIV drug trials in the country. The Centre for the Right to Health (CRH), based in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria, made this assertion in a recent report on the experiences of People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) during recently conducted drug trials.

At least 44 people, including seven policemen, have been killed in clashes between nomads and farmers in north-eastern Nigeria. Police were sent to quell the unrest on Saturday, but according to police spokesman Chris Olakpe "were killed in cold blood by the warring factions".

A public hearing in the Nigerian Senate will begin next week into the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), widely regarded in Nigeria as under-performing and heavily criticised for alleged corrupt practices.

Three new media facilities have been unveiled in Nigeria that aim to help journalists improve reporting of development aspects of science, health, environment and population. The facilities - a media resource and advocacy centre, a computer 'club house' and access to an online population database - are being officially inaugurated by Finjap Njinga, the director of the United Nations Information Centre, Lagos.

Mercy escaped her slavers last year. Like many Nigerian women smuggled or lured into Italy with the promise of jobs, Mercy was forced into prostitution to earn her freedom. But escape did not end her nightmare. Three weeks after speaking publicly to human rights groups about her experience, her sister was reported dead in Florence, true to the threats made by her former captors.

A judicial committee set up by Nigeria's parliament had asked Anglo-Dutch oil firm Shell to pay $1.5 billion in compensation to a community in southern Nigeria, officials said. The panel, headed by former chief justice Mohammed Bello, was set up in December 2000 by the house of representatives after the Ijaw people of Bayelsa state filed a petition demanding compensation from Shell for "the harmful impact of its oil production and exploration activities for  over 60 years".

Militia and vigilante violence continues to pose a real threat to security in Nigeria, especially in the period leading up to elections in April 2003, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released last week. One of the more notorious groups is the O'odua People's Congress (OPC), an organization active in the southwest, which has killed or injured hundreds of people over the last few years. The 58-page report, "The OPC: Fighting Violence with Violence," provides detailed accounts of killings and other abuses by the OPC since the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo came to power in 1999.

A Nigerian government panel on Monday confirmed allegations of $197-million fraud in a state-run oil firm before it was privatised two years ago. The government last August set up the panel to investigate allegations that management of African Petroleum Limited (AP) failed to disclose the true financial status of the company before it was sold off to an indigenous oil firm, Sadiq Petroleum Nigeria Limited.

No fewer than 65 women from various parts of the country are to vie for various political offices in the forthcoming elections under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the office of the party National Woman Leader, Mrs. Josephine Anenih has said.

Lagos Lawyer Chief Gani Fawehinmi may be fielded as the joint presidential candidate of 28 political parties to stand against President Olusegan Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari, both of whom are retired generals and former military rulers.

At the last count, more than 30 communal clashes, bordering on religious ethnic conflicts have been recorded throughout the country between 1999 and 2002 with each claiming hundreds of lives and properties, running into several millions of naira. Similarly, many people, including women and children had been displaced in the process, resulting in untold hardship and suffering for them. As the incidence of ethnic/religious conflicts becomes worrying, a national workshop on the methods and techniques of arms control through the promotion of a culture of peace in Nigeria was put together recently to find lasting solution to the menace.

The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has warned that it would not hesitate to close down any electronic medium which violates the establishment's guidelines on broadcasting. The Director-General of NBC, Dr. Silas Yisa said: "NBC is not particularly happy that some electronic media organisations in the country have been operating as if they are lords unto themselves."