Nigeria's national biosafety bill has been passed by the country's upper house. But those opposing it say that this month's enactment of the bill - two days before the end of Nigeria's sixth national assembly - results from a hidden foreign agenda to legalise GM organisms. Mariann Bassey, food and agrofuels programme manager for the Nigerian advocacy group Environmental Rights Action, called for a transparent process that includes the views of all stakeholders, 'not one that is shoved down our throats by biotech agents'.

At least five people have been killed after police stations were attacked in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, hospital sources say. The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida in the city said there were at least three explosions, while gunfire rang out in what is believed to be the latest attack by the Boko Haram Islamist sect. Its members have killed dozens of police officers and politicians in the city in the past year.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has applauded President Goodluck Jonathan, of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for signing into law the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill. 'The objective of the act is to make public records and information more freely available and to also protect public records and information to the extent that they are consistent with the public interest and the protection of personal privacy,' according to a statement from the presidency.

From 9-26 April, Nigeria held parliamentary, presidential and governorship elections. During the last parliamentary term, only 7.3 per cent of the representatives in Nigeria’s upper and lower houses were women. In this year’s election, 200 out of 2400 (8.33 per cent) candidates for the House of Representatives and 80 out of 720 (11.11 per cent) candidates for the Senate were women. Abiola Akiyode of the Lagos-based Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC) says that overall, 909 out of 10037 (9.06 per cent) candidates for all elective positions were women. These positions include the Presidency, governorships and parliamentary seats. There has been an overall regression in women’s representation in political decision-making positions.

Police in Nigeria freed 32 teen girls from an alleged 'baby factory' used to feed the region's exploding sex trade and human trafficking markets, authorities said. Cops in the southern Nigerian city of Aba raided the clinic, known as The Cross Foundation, Monday after receiving a tip that the owner was harboring pregnant girls and selling their babies, Nigeria's Daily Champion newspaper reported.

A bomb blast rocked a popular drinking spot by an army barracks in northern Nigeria on Sunday 29 May, killing a dozen people hours after President Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in for his first full term, officials said. A rescue worker who asked not to be identified told Reuters his colleagues had counted 12 dead bodies and that about 25 people had been wounded by the blast.

Jalaa Writers’ Collective was created in 2009 by ten Nigeria-based writers who came together in an effort to tackle the book production and distribution challenges of the local publishing industry. The business model of Jalaa is based on the premise that there exists 'a gap between professional, traditionally published books that sell in the thousands and amateurish subsidy and self-published books that sell in the hundreds'. As such, the collective aims to engage the weaknesses of the industry by pooling the talent, resources and experience of its members in a systematic and profit-oriented manner.

Traditional rulers from the oil producing communities of the Niger Delta region have called on President Goodluck Jonathan to re-examine the activities of the Joint Task Force (JTF) operating in the Niger Delta region. The call was the outcome of a two-day meeting in Port Harcourt and contained in a communiqué jointly signed by Eze Young Ogbonna and Pere Stanley Perediegha Luke, national president and national secretary respectively.

Deadly election-related and communal violence in northern Nigeria following the April 2011 presidential voting left more than 800 people dead, Human Rights Watch said 16 May. The victims were killed in three days of rioting in 12 northern states. Nigeria's state and federal authorities should promptly investigate and prosecute those who orchestrated and carried out these crimes and address the root causes of recurring inter-communal violence.

Seventy per cent of those living in absolute poverty in our world – starving or on the edge of starvation – are female. All over the world, women and children are the mass of the poor and the poorest of the poor. In Nigeria, as in many other developing countries, the new face of poverty is woman. This has become an economic phenomenon as the gap between women and men caught in the cycle of poverty has continued to widen in the past decade, a phenomenon commonly referred to as ‘the feminisation of poverty’. This underscores the fact that where an issue affects (negatively) both men and women, in most cases women suffer more than men. In the situation of single parenting for instance, families headed by women are poorer compared with those headed by men.

In the wake of President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election in Nigeria, the government is faced with the tricky task of how to diffuse the violent northern Boko Haram sect, writes Cameron Duodu.

Nigeria should tear up World Trade Organisation free trade agreements and protect its domestic industries from foreign competition, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria has said. 'We have to tear up WTO agreements and ask ourselves whether we were right to sign up to everything that's there,' Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi told an audience at Chatham House in London.

Supporters of genetically modified (GM) crop technology fear that their four-year effort to get a biosafety bill enacted in Nigeria may have been in vain if the country's upper house fails to pass it before its tenure ends at the end of May. The 2007 bill, passed by the country's lower chamber last July, is with the Senate. It is one of more than 400 bills introduced to the National Assembly between 2007 and 2010 that were highlighted by the Nigerian Bar Association last December as needing passage before 29 May. But Environmental Rights Action (ERA), a Nigerian advocacy group, said the urgency to pass the bill may stem from other motives. 'Nigerians are yet to understand and adequately contribute to the bill,' an ERA spokesperson said. 'We suggest it is stopped in its tracks.'

President Goodluck Jonathan has again stated that his promise made on the 35 per cent representation of women in governance will be fulfilled. Jonathan said recently: 'In Nigeria, today, we have many competent and credible women who have built capacities in thousands of lives, contributed immensely to building the civil, public, and private service sectors. Women have championed debt relief, grew the stock exchange, waged war against fake drugs, ensured justice and human rights and so on. These facts made me to promise during my campaigns that the 35 per cent representation of women in governance will be fulfilled.'

A Nigerian human rights group says more than 500 people died after presidential elections earlier this month. Rioting broke out when it emerged that Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian - had defeated a Muslim candidate from the mostly Islamic north. Correspondents say Nigeria is braced for possible further unrest over governorship elections on Tuesday (26 April) in most of Nigeria's 36 states.

A gay asylum seeker, Uche Nnabuife, which the UK plans to return to Nigeria, has been directly threatened with death according to an article in a Nigerian newspaper. The newspaper 'National Times' is published in Makurdi, capital of Benue State in North-central Nigeria, but circulates nationally. According to Rev Rowland Jide Macauley, a gay Nigerian priest and activist based in London but who travels to Nigeria, the threat 'will circulate'. The article said that Nnabuife would be subjected to 'jungle justice' if returned and 'his body would not be found'.

‘In reality, the targets of the uprising are the so-called leaders in the North – the political, military and business elite – as well the traditional institutions that have held the region back and truncated any attempt to educate the people and free them from the yolk of illiteracy and poverty.’ Dibussi Tande puts Nigeria’s post-election violence in context, with views from the African blogosphere.

It is only months since the US diplomatic cables released by whistleblowing website WikiLeaks made headlines around the world with their revelations about Nigeria. Among them, allegations that Nigeria's government dropped legal action against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which is accused of running a clinical trial that killed and disabled children, after the drugs company threatened to investigate the attorney-general. But as voters head to the polls for presidential and regional elections, how many will be influenced by the material published over the last few months, and could such revelations bring about real change?

Angry opposition supporters in Nigeria's Muslim north set fire to homes bearing ruling party banners Monday as election officials released results showing the Christian incumbent had gained an insurmountable lead. Witnesses said youths in the northern city of Kano were setting fires to homes that bore Jonathan party banners. Heavy gunfire also could be heard.

Results from Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission indicate that the incumbent president looks set to keep his job after winning in 21 of the 29 states whose votes have been counted. Goodluck Jonathan's ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took an early unassailable lead in Saturday's presidential elections, though results from the remaining seven states had not been declared by early Monday.