Police fired gunshots and tear gas on 21 March to disperse a tense crowd that gathered near the site of a leading opposition candidate’s election rally in the volatile Nigerian city of Jos. A number of what appeared to be wounded people were also being taken in the direction of a hospital by police in the city in central Nigeria.

CISLAC of Lagos ‘note with great concern the tendency of some political parties and politicians to flagrantly disregard the provisions of the Electoral Act in the run-off to the April 2011 elections’ in Nigeria.

A Nigerian militant group claimed responsibility for an attack on an Agip oil facility in the Niger Delta on Wednesday (16 March), but the military said it was an isolated incident carried out by local youths. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in a statement emailed to media that its fighters had carried out the attack on the Clough Creek oil flow station late on Tuesday and warned of more strikes on energy infrastructure.

Two weeks before Nigeria's election, Ike Okonta takes aim at progressive politics in Nigeria - or the lack thereof. He traces the crisis back to the rule of General Ibrahim Babangida in the 1980s, when universities were devastated by economic policy.

Oil bearing and hosting communities of the Niger Delta, Nigeria's main oil and gas basin, and Environmental Rights Action (ERA) concluded a meeting in Effurun, Delta State, resolving to mount pressure on the Federal Government to urgently regulate oil activities in the country. In a communique, the two parties explained why government should regulate the extractive industry. According to them, 'the Nigerian Government should exercise its statutory powers to regulate oil and other extractive industry activities to bring an end to impunity and environmental degradation in the Niger Delta and other parts of the country.'

Since the unveiling of the 2011 political campaigns, the Nigerian media landscape has been very busy. Nigeria comprises 36 states and Abuja, and there is at least one television station each, as well as a handful of privately owned television houses. Lagos State, being home to almost every ethnicity in Nigeria, has the biggest share of these stations, more so considering its status as the former capital. To avoid political conflicts in campaign strategies, most politicians prefer to go to the private television stations for their television commercials, otherwise known as TVCs, says this article from Free African Media.

Nigerian environmental and human rights activist Nnimmo Bassey talks to The Africa Report's Khadija Sharife about Nigeria's upcoming elections, the prospects for political change and whether Nigeria will go the way of North Africa.

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has threatened to sue a local newspaper, NEXT, over its report on Sunday that he voted four times during the 2007 general elections, when he was a state governor and a vice presidential candidate under the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Accusing the newspaper of waging a 'malicious campaign of falsehood and calumny' against him, the President also demanded a retraction of the story, which the paper credited to whistleblower website Wikileaks. NEXT, quoting Wikileaks, said the disclosure that Jonathan, then the governor of oil-producing Bayelsa, voted several times was made by the Governor of southern Edo state and former labour leader Adams Oshiomhole to US Political Officers (poloffs), who visited him shortly after the court victory in his election petition.

African countries, which have not ratified the various African Union protocols regarding gender and the rights of women, should urgently do so to preserve gender equality and equal access to education for women and girls. The Alliances for Africa, a Nigeria-based civil society organisation, said on Tuesday (08 March) that this year's 100th anniversary celebration of the International Women's Day, was also critical because it marked the start of the AU Decade of Women (2010-2020).

Building on momentum from a mass voter registration drive, a coalition of several youth empowerment groups and blogs, including Vote or Quench, Enough is Enough Nigeria, Sleeves Up, and Nigerian Leadership Initiative, are calling for the first-ever presidential youth centered debate in Nigeria. Looking ahead to the April elections, the debate would focus on the key issues affecting a critical voting demographic, with the age group of 30 and under representing 70 per cent of the population.

Lead poisoning linked with illegal gold mining has killed a further 400 children in northern Nigeria since November, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said. Reuters reports that the latest figures suggest the death toll from the crisis in the northern state of Zamfara is rising after the United Nations said lead poisoning in the region had killed at least 400 children between March and October last year.

Three people were killed and 21 injured by an explosive device thrown from a car at an election rally near Nigeria's capital Abuja on Thursday, the latest act of political violence ahead of nationwide polls next month. The device missed the centre of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) rally in the town of Suleja, on the northwestern edge of Abuja, but landed close to where street traders were working, police said.

The head of a parliamentary science committee has expressed dismay at drastic cuts planned for Nigeria's capital development budget for science. The cuts were highlighted last week (9 February) during a hearing by the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology. The government will slash the budget, which funds buildings and equipment but not salaries, from 53 billion naira (US$350 million) in 2010 to US$33 million in 2011.

Multiple pre-dawn explosions rocked opposition offices in oil-rich southern Nigeria, the latest in a wave of attacks ahead of April elections, police and the party said Monday (21 February). The explosions went off at the Labour Party campaign offices in Bayelsa, President Goodluck Jonathan’s home state.

The conference will highlight what happens to a people and its environment when land access falls into the hands of speculators. What landlords and land speculators do is to hoard land by holding onto them for many years without developing them, hoping that someday they can be sold at a very good profit.

A stampede at a political rally killed 11 people as Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan spoke, highlighting the insecurity in the country as it prepares for elections in April. As Jonathan began his speech at the soccer stadium in Port Harcourt, some people tried to leave to avoid the traffic out of the stadium, while others pushed inside. As well as the 11 who died, at least 46 others needed hospital treatment.

There have been clashes between police and opposition protesters in Lafia in north-central Nasarawa state. Witnesses say police fired tear gas and shot in the air to disperse the crowds who were burning tyres in the streets. The unrest follows the stoning of President Goodluck Jonathan's convoy in Lafia earlier this week while he was campaigning for April's election.

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, has recommended a drastic restructuring of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in order to ensure greater transparency and credibility of certain oil sector payments and receipts in the national oil and gas behemoth. NEITI's recommendation was made in its latest reconciliation report, which covered the period of 2006 to 2008 and published on the website of the extractive industries watch-dog.

The Nigerian government refused to discuss a prisoner transfer agreement with Britain unless the Crown Prosecution Service dropped corruption charges against a favoured member of the ruling party, leaked documents disclose. Britain is keen to secure an agreement allowing the transfer of more than 400 prisoners back to Nigeria. But talks over the agreement stalled after Britain refused to drop charges against James Ibori, a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party, who is accused of stealing more than £196m of state funds and channelling 'dirty money' to Britain, report the Daily Telegraph.

A radical Muslim sect responsible for killings across northeastern Nigeria demanded on Monday (6 February) that troops withdraw from the troubled region and that the government rebuild destroyed mosques. A spokesperson for the sect, known locally as Boko Haram, issued the demand after the group recently claimed responsibility for killing seven people, including the dominant gubernatorial candidate in Borno state.