The Federal Government has threatened to revoke the N2.75 billion contract for the construction of the Oguta River Port, Osse-Motor in Aguta Local Government Areas of Imo State, following the inability of the contractor to effectively mobilise to site, nine months after the contract was awarded.

On Tuesday, March 16, thousands of Nigerians marched on the capital, Abuja, to show their frustration with the woes that continue to besiege the country. This sort of protest has not been a common feature of the Nigerian political scene – at least not in this decade– though this demonstration is one of several that have taken place this year.

Nigeria's acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, has dissolved the country's cabinet. Mr Jonathan became acting president in February amid the continuing illness of President Umaru Yar'Adua.

Nigeria has recalled its ambassador to Libya after leader Muammar Gaddafi suggested Nigeria be divided into two states - one Christian and one Muslim. The foreign ministry said the Libyan leader's statement was "irresponsible". Earlier in the week a senator had called Col Gaddafi a "mad man".

As the cultural and political world of the old ruling forces in Nigeria collapses, Horace Campbell calls for the country to look to the work of visionary leaders like the late Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem to create ‘new definitions of independence and emancipation’. Nigerians of all classes should ‘tap into the inherent strength of their linguistic and religious diversity,’ says Campbell, ‘and organise from the grassroots’ to bring about the ‘transformation that the country yearns for’.

There’s an assumption that despite multiple deprivations, Nigerians can ‘take solace in the knowledge’ that they have democracy, writes Moses Ochonu. But the kind of democracy practised by Abuja has delivered neither improved standards of living nor abstract benefits such as press freedom or human rights, instead providing the perfect cover for ‘massive corruption’, says Ochonu. It is ‘not what Nigerians signed up for in 1999; if we do not act urgently, it will consume us all,’ Ochonu warns.

Efforts to portray Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan as a positive alternative to Umaru Yar'Adua are strongly misplaced, writes Kola Ibrahim. While the current power tussle and political crisis have granted a range of players the opportunity to 'loot the nation blind', Ibrahim contends, the inclination of labour movement leaders to cuddle up to Jonathan in a mutually profitable alliance is deeply treacherous to the working people they purport to represent.

Police in Nigeria have arrested around 200 people following weekend attacks on three Christian villages in which hundreds of people were thought to have been killed. The central city of Jos, at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south, has been tense since Sunday's attacks, blamed on northern settlers, on the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Ratsat just south of the Plateau state capital.

Nigeria's acting president should make sure that the massacre of at least 200 Christian villagers in central Nigeria on March 7, 2010, is thoroughly and promptly investigated and that those responsible are prosecuted, Human Rights Watch has said.

Foremost environmental rights advocacy organization in Nigeria, Environmental Rights Action (ERA), has accused the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas major, Shell, of not being a good corporate citizen in the country. ERA claimed in a statement that the warning by Shell that Nigeria’s declining oil output will be aggravated if the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is passed into law was an attempt to frustrate the move by the country to bring sanity into the sector and recover some level of sovereignty in relation to the resource.

Hundreds of women have taken to the streets of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, and the central city of Jos in rallies against Sunday's massacre near Jos. The women, mostly dressed in black, demanded that the government protect women and children better.

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Nigeria, Professor Maurice Iwu, announced here Thursday that the commission would release the comprehensive time-table for the conduct of the 201 1 general elections on Tuesday.

Following the tragic killings of predominantly women and children in Jos, Nigeria, on 8 March's International Women's Day, Horace Campbell honours the memory of the victims along with 'the millions of poor women whose lives are devalued everyday'.

Federal Government has said henceforth, patients attending Federal Government Hospitals can now report on the quality of services through SMS. With the support of MTN and Glo GSM Networks, who are providing the platform with which the service are being provided, the Federal Ministry of Health said it is poised to check the activities of quacks through the Patients' Feedback Platform with the generic shortcode 30500.

Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has barred ministers from making public comments as the country's leadership crisis continues. The order was sequel to stinging comments by Minister of Information and Communication, Dora Akunyili, on the secrecy surrounding the lingering ill-health of President Umaru Yar'Adua and the clandestine manner in which he was ferried to Nigeria last week, after spending 93 days in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.

Pan African Devevlopment Education and Advocacy Porgramme (PADEAP) Nigeria is situated in Funtua, Katsina State Nigeria. Northwest Nigeria is currently the focus of our work. With an estimated 36 million people, it is one of the most populated zones, yet one of the most neglected in terms of infrastructure. Consequently, the zone has high rates of maternal and child mortality and poverty, low literacy rates and an abysmally large literacy gap between men and women.

With Nigeria locked in a constitutional crisis, Funmi Feyide-John discusses the role of the US government's interference. While praising the Nigerian government for its ability to calmly transfer power to Vice-President Goodluck Johnson following President Umaru Yar'Adua's absence due to poor health, Feyide-John writes, the US's alleged favouritism towards particular political players risks severely undermining democracy in Nigeria through casting whoever ultimately ends up as president as a foreign puppet. In meeting former military dictator Ibrahim Babangida in Yar'Adua's absence, Feyide-John stresses, the US's actions give credence to suggestions of its intent to secure a Nigerian base for its AFRICOM (Africa Command) initiative and bolster its access to oil, as part of political dabbling which will doubtless have a lasting impact on Nigerian politics.

Nigeria's much-bashed electoral umpire Maurice Iwu is under fire again, after the country's main opposition party Sunday demanded his sack over a series of allegations. Iwu heads Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and has been widely vilified for organising what local and foreign observers consider to be the worst elections in the country's history in 2007.

Nigeria's ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua has returned home after spending 92 days in Saudi Arabia, where he has been undergoing medical treatment, but no one has yet confirmed seeing him. A text message sent to the telephone handsets of several State House correspondents in Abuja in the early hours of Wednesday alerted them to the President's arrival.

Nigeria's new presidential motorcade, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's birthday cake, Sarkozy's Rwanda visit and the East African Community's proposals for the creation of a regional electoral commission all feature in Gado's