Developed by Jidaw Systems Limited, a ICT training, consulting and web content provision firm in Nigeria, the Nigeria Computers blog is a public online resource for Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) in Nigeria. With an aim to promote ICT4D in Nigeria, the blog will provide information, insights and opportunities to network. The blog’s focus on ICT4D content is geared towards ICT for job creation, business development, entrepreneurship, youth empowerment and poverty alleviation.

A large shipment of weapons has been seized by Nigeria's State Security Service at the port in Lagos city. The secret police say they intercepted 13 containers, some of which had rocket launchers and grenades and other explosives hidden under tiles. Experts identified the artillery rockets as Norinco rockets - a type used by the Taliban in Afghanistan - suitable for high-intensity warfare.

As the number of children known to have been poisoned by lead continues to mount, a UN team has recommended the government help communities clean up the informal gold-mining sector, rather than quash it altogether. Some 400 children have died of lead poisoning over the past six months, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), but many thousands more are suspected to have been poisoned. Official figures will be released only once the US Center for Disease Control has finished its two-month survey.

Ibrahim Bello says he can earn $23 in two hours extracting gold from the ground, more than he can make in two months from cultivating millet. Such is the economic draw of the 'gold rush', with impoverished farmers digging up rocks by hand in open mines, that many are in denial about its devastating consequences. At least 400 children have died from poisoning caused by illegal gold mining since March because the ore being unearthed around their villages contains high concentrations of lead, contaminating the air, soil and water.

Twenty Nigerian citizens and a non-governmental organisation are challenging the indigene/settler dichotomy legally before the Federal High Court in Nigeria. The Federal High Court, Kaduna, presided over by Hon. Justice Mohammed Lawal Shuaibu, adjourned the case to 24 November 2010. The applicants contend that the indigene/settle dichotomy impacts negatively on the enjoyment of fundamental human rights enshrined in Nigeria’s constitution and African and international human rights law.

Nigeria's main militant group on Tuesday threatened to carry out another attack in the capital Abuja, weeks after it claimed responsibility for twin car bombings on the West African country's independence day. The threat was contained in a statement by Jomo Gbomo, spokesman for the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), reports xinhuanet.com.

A September US Court decision dismissed a case against Shell for human rights abuses in Nigeria, with the sweeping claim that corporations could not be held liable under international law for human rights abuses. And a UN Environmental Programme report on oil in the Niger Delta, due to be completed early next year and funded by Shell Oil, is reported to include, without alternate views, claims from Shell that 90 per cent of oil spills from its facilities are due to sabotage or attempts at theft rather than to negligence. The AfricaFocus Bulletin available through the link provided contains several articles and blog commentaries on the two new developments.

Francodus wonders whether Nigeria at 50 might more accurately be seen as a 50–50 split of the country.

Nigerian security forces have arrested the brother of Henry Okah, a former leader of the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), over his suspected involvement in deadly bombings in Abuja, the capital, on October 1. Charles Okah was taken into custody at his home in the southern city of Lagos on Sunday.

Bomb blasts killed 12 and injured 8 people in Abuja during Nigeria’s 50th anniversary celebrations on 1 October. Dibussi Tande finds the country’s bloggers ‘torn between sadness for the innocent victims, anger at the perpetrators, and outrage at the federal government for its inept handling of events before and after the blast.’

British high street banks have accepted millions of pounds in deposits from corrupt Nigerian politicians, raising serious questions about their commitment to tackling financial crime, warned Global Witness in a report published today. By taking money from corrupt Nigerian governors between 1999 and 2005, Barclays, NatWest, RBS, HSBC and UBS helped to fuel corruption and entrench poverty in Nigeria, says the organisation.

Nigerian former militant leader Henry Okah will be kept apart from other prisoners at a Johannesburg prison until his bail application is heard next week, his attorney said on Tuesday. 'By agreement between us and the state Mr Okah will be held in a single cell at the Johannesburg Correctional Centre,' his attorney Rudi Krause told Sapa.

Women in Nigeria remain victims of gender discrimination, especially in politics. This monograph examines the possibility of utilising the First Lady’s institution to achieve gender mainstreaming and consequently terminate the sustained feminine marginality in Nigerian politics. The study finds that the First Lady’s office is self-serving as successive First Ladies since the Babangida military era are merely utilising their positions to mobilise and rally support for their husbands in power.

Following the 1 October bombs in Abuja, suggestions have been made that northern interests in Nigeria were attempting to convey a message to President Goodluck Jonathan in response to his 2011 presidential ambitions, writes Cameron Duodu. While political declarations around responsibility for the bombing confuse the public, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) ‘elders’ are in discussions over whom to endorse as the 2011 party candidate.

Efforts to treat children poisoned by lead and to clean up contaminated sites in northern Nigeria's Zamfara State are being hampered by the reticence of communities to divulge cases, for fear of a government ban on lucrative illegal gold mining. Lead poisoning linked to informal mining has killed over 400 children under five since March 2010, according to the United Nations. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the medical relief agency, noticed high numbers of convulsions and deaths among children in Dareta and Yargalma villages in Zamfara State in March 2010, and started investigating.

As Nigeria marks 50 years of independence on 1 October, Horace G. Campbell surveys both the country and the African continent’s ‘struggle to create a society where humans can live in dignity.’ The Nigerian people’s search for ‘a new mode of politics, and new forms of economic relations’, says Campbell, is ‘part of the larger struggle for unity and peace in Africa.’

With Nigeria marking 50 years of independence on October 1 and campaigning for the 2011 elections already kicking into action, Sokari Ekine presents posts on the country’s controversial political scene, in this week’s round up of the African blogosphere.

Gunmen in Nigeria have hijacked a school bus carrying 15 children and demanded a $130,000 ransom for their release. The kidnapping, which occurred on Monday, is believed to be the first in Abia state in Nigeria's oil-rich south, according to Geofrey Ogbonna, a police spokesman.

Between 20,000 and 40,000 Nigerian women and girls have been trafficked to Mali, with many of them populating brothels in the West African nation, according to the executive secretary of Nigeria’s Agency for the Prohibition and Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP), Simon Chuzi Egede. The number does not include the thousands that have also been trafficked to other African nations, including Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Libya and Morocco, Egele told a press conference in Abuja Wednesday.

In Frantz Fanon’s analysis of colonial relations in Algeria, Okello Oculi looks at Nigeria’s political trajectory from independence until today. Fanon argued that violence was a means to regain self-respect. Oculi critically examines this claim in the context of Nigerian events such as the war in Biafra and violence in the Niger Delta.