The inland Niger delta of Mali is a unique wetland ecosystem that supports a million farmers, fishermen, and herders and a rich diversity of wildlife. But now, the country’s president and Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi have begun a major agricultural project that will divert much of the river’s water and threaten the delta’s future.

A deadly spate of sectarian violence in Nigeria's central Plateau State since 24 December 2010, has killed more than 200 people, Human Rights Watch has said. The victims, including children, have been hacked to death, burned alive, 'disappeared', or dragged off buses and murdered in tit-for-tat killings. The Nigerian government should act swiftly to protect civilians of all ethnicities at risk of further attacks or reprisal killings, and allow the United Nations secretary-general's special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Francis Deng, to visit the state, Human Rights Watch said.

While the passing of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Act in May 2007 ‘sent very positive signals about Nigeria’s desire to sustain its leadership in the global initiative to the world’, NEITI needs to be subject to a number of new amendments, writes Uche Igwe.

Nigeria’s opposition parties failed to agree on a joint candidate to face President Goodluck Jonathan, the flag bearer of the ruling People’s Democratic Party, in April’s presidential election, the parties said. The inability to reach an accord comes ahead of the deadline for all parties to submit the nomination papers of their candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission. 'Each party is at this time pursuing their fortunes separately,' Dapo Olorunyomi, chief of staff to Nuhu Ribadu, the candidate for the Action Congress of Nigeria, said in a telephone interview.

Nigerian soldiers opened fire on students in central Nigeria in late January in a fresh round of violence that also saw churches and mosques set ablaze, officials and witnesses said. A hospital official said 24 people were admitted with bullet wounds and one person had died, but the commander of a military task force in the region said only four students were shot and injured when soldiers fired in self-defence.

A candidate for governor in the north-eastern Nigerian state of Borno has been shot dead, officials say. Modu Fannami Gubio and at least four other people, including a 10-year-old child, were killed by men on motorbikes after Friday prayers in Maiduguri city. Mr Gubio was the candidate for the opposition All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) in April's elections.

Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth International have filed an official complaint against oil giant Shell for breaches of basic standards for responsible business set out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The organisations claim that Shell’s use of discredited and misleading information to blame the majority of oil pollution on saboteurs in its Niger Delta operations has breached the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The complaint was filed with UK and Netherlands government contact points for the OECD.

A deal valued at nearly US$30 billion that will increase Nigeria’s refining capacity is on the cards. But is there a catch for Africa’s largest oil producer? Khadija Sharife investigates.

Nigeria's foreign minister on Monday called on the United Nations Security Council to authorise force in Côte d'Ivoire as West African nations seek to further pressure strongman Laurent Gbagbo to quit power. Odein Ajumogobia, in an editorial published in Nigerian newspapers, said the crisis 'single handedly precipitated by Mr Laurent Gbagbo ... will inevitably lead to anarchy and chaos, or worse, a full-blown civil war' if not resolved.

Ekpo Eyo’s ‘From Shrines to Showcases: Masterpieces of Nigerian Art’ – a book on the country’s myriad artistic works – is a ‘masterpiece in its own right’, writes Kwame Opuku. But while Eyo exhibits masterful knowledge of Nigeria’s rich gamut of artistic endeavour, the fact that so many of these works remain held outside of the country – seemingly not to be returned – is scandalous, Opuku concludes.

Nigeria's ruling Peoples Democratic Party has nominated incumbent Goodluck Jonathan as its presidential candidate after fending off a primary challenge in the country's mainly Muslim north. Jonathan's nomination on Friday allows him to stand in the April presidential elections, which are viewed as one of the most important in the history of Africa's most populous country.

Despite some progress, Nigeria is lagging behind its peers in reducing deaths among children under five. The mortality rate remains worryingly high for newborn infants – 700 children less than 28 days old die in the country every day. A new report published by Nigeria’s Ministry of Health however acknowledges that the mortality rate for children has fallen by about a fifth since 1990, but this progress has been unevenly spread – with important implications for health policy.

At least 20 people have been killed in clashes in the central Nigerian city of Jos following a protest against the killing of seven Muslims in a nearby village. The violence is believed to have begun after news spread that Muslims had been killed by Christian youths in an attack on a bus. Nigerian soldiers fired into the air to disperse youths burning vehicles and tyres in Jos in protest at the killings, villagers said on Saturday.

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan is working hard to convince people that he will ‘deliver credible elections’, with the appointment of electoral commissioner Attahiru Jega. But, writes Uche Igwe, ‘a functional system rather than an individual is what is needed’ to sanitise a process that has become ‘a vehicle for electoral fraud’.

With Nigeria not yet compliant with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), Uche Igwe calls for greater transparency in the country’s extractive industry.

Nigeria has dropped charges against former US Vice-President Dick Cheney over a 1990s bribery scandal, anti-corruption officials say. The case focused on bribes paid by engineering firm KBR while it was a subsidiary of Halliburton, a firm headed by Mr Cheney at the time. Nigerian officials said Halliburton agreed an out-of-court deal worth $250m (£160m). The firm has not commented.

As families count the cost of another military operation against militants in the Niger Delta, analysts say up to now government efforts to quell violence are hampered by corruption and fail to get at the deep-seated causes of unrest in the region. Residents told IRIN hundreds of families are still displaced more than two weeks after the crackdown. According to the military's Joint Task Force (JTF), the 1 December attack by its troops on the village of Ayakoromor, 50km south of Warri, was a planned operation, targeting suspected criminals. But the Red Cross says thousands of people fled, many taking refuge in swamps, then heading to nearby villages.

Uche Igwe travels to Nigeria’s Bayelsa State and, despite an influx of oil dollars, finds appalling poverty, lack of infrastructure and a volatile pre-2011 election period.

US drugmaker Pfizer hired investigators to find evidence of corruption against the then Nigerian attorney-general to convince him to drop legal action against the company over a drug trial, the UK's Guardian newspaper has reported, citing leaked US diplomatic cables. Nigeria's Kano state sued the world's largest drugmaker in May 2007 for $2bn in damages over testing of the meningitis drug, Trovan, which state authorities said killed 11 children and left dozens disabled.

US embassy cables have revealed a top executive's claims that Shell 'knows everything' about key decisions in government ministries. The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main
ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians' every move in the oil?rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable. The cache of secret dispatches from Washington's embassies in Africa also revealed that the Anglo?Dutch oil firm swapped intelligence with the US, in one case providing US diplomats with the names of Nigerian politicians it suspected of supporting militant activity, and requesting information from the US on whether the militants had acquired anti?aircraft missiles.