As a rickety garbage truck rattled to a halt and discharged its contents, Francis Adigwe, an unemployed textile engineer turned scavenger, rushed over and emerged with his find of the day, a piece of metal he estimated will bring in more than $2. Adigwe is haunted by two concerns, the toll that the job he has done since he was laid off five years ago is taking on his health and his ever-dwindling chances of finding a wife.

In attempts to clampdown on homosexuality, some angry Nigerian citizens devoted to torment and victimise the gays and lesbians in that country. The media is believed to be at the helm of infiltrating the recent spate of attacks in Nigeria on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. This followed a series of articles published by some newspapers such as The Nation, PM News, The Vanguard and The Sunday Sun indicating that House of Rainbow Metropolitan Church – an all-inclusive congregation in Nigeria according to a lead member – is exclusively gay.

Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has announced its rejection of the recommendations of the Senate’s Information Committee on the Freedom of Information Bill, saying if passed as proposed it would be the worst access to information law in the world and would bring Nigeria to ridicule.

Since it’s formation in 1914, Nigeria as a nation has like many others gone through a plethora of ‘ups’ and ‘downs’. As a country, it has been shaped by generational experiences on multiple tiers and maintains its status as perhaps Africa’s most complex nation. Speaking about the nation’s problems for many is the next topic in conversation right after asking about the weather or the price of garri in the market.

Channels TV, the privately-owned TV station that was closed on 16 September for wrongly reporting that President Umaru Yar’Adua was about to resign because of ill health, was given permission by the National Broadcasting Commission on 19 September to resume broadcasting. The NBC also confirmed the release of all the Channels TV journalists who were arrested.

Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) says it is developing computer softwares that would monitor internet services in the country as a way to combat cyber crimes. Spokesman of the Commission, Femi Babafemi, who disclosed this to IT World, said the Commission is partnering with Information and Communication experts to develop the software.

International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Kaduna branch, has said it would stamp out cases of rape and sexual abuse in the state. Kaduna State's Chairperson, Mrs Sa'adatu Sambo, said this in Kaduna, during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria.

Nigerian police have arrested more than 200 suspected militants in raids in the oil-rich Niger Delta, authorities say. Some suspects are accused of recruiting youths to target oil installations around Port Harcourt. The military commander in Rivers State was cited as saying his men had found almost all militant camps there, and he would mount a campaign to destroy them.

Independent Advocacy Project, IAP, Nigeria’s leading governance group has called on the federal government to immediately lift its suspension of the independent Channels TV, free staff members being detained and make a public commitment to restrain its agents from further clamping down on the media.

This latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the political and economic implications of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) departure from Ogoni land and gives recommendations on resuming peaceful oil operations in the economically strategic and politically volatile region. “If handled carefully, this transition could persuade some of the Delta’s armed groups that non-violence can produce progress on their demands”, says François Grignon, Crisis Group’s Africa Program Director.

Nigeria has accounted for 10% of the 5.2 million global maternal deaths, research finding released by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) showed.The report showed that 52,000 Nigerian women die of pregnancy-related complicated annually.

Paul Abayomi Ogundeji, a member of the editorial board of the Lagos-based private daily, Thisday newspaper was on August 17, 2008, at about 10.30pm local time, shot dead in Dopemu, a suburb of Lagos metropolis by unidentified gunmen. Mr. Ogundeji, was ambushed by the bandits while returning home. Nothing was removed from the Kia Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) which he was driving.

Mr. Luka Binniyat, Energy Reporter with the Lagos-based independent daily, Vanguard newspaper was, on August 20, 2008, at about 2:50pm local time, beaten and brutalized with gun butts by security personnel attached to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Abuja on the orders of Dr. Levi Ajounoma, its Corporate Affairs Group General Manager (GGM). He sustained injuries including spraining his left elbow.

Environmental Rights Action / Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has condemned the September 2 arrest and detention of a group of around 25 people including journalists attending a community forum on gas flaring at Iwherekan community (Delta State). The arrests were made by Nigerian soldiers at the Iwherekan community gas flaring site operated by oil giant Shell.

Nigerian militants on Monday attacked a Shell-operated oil installation, forcing the evacuation of nearly 100 people, in a third day of heavy fighting with security forces in the Niger Delta region. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) declared an "oil war" on Sunday and warned all oil workers to evacuate the delta immediately, threatening to further disrupt production in the world's eighth largest oil exporter.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/395/50528NigeriaNollywood_l.jpg"I don't sell cocaine," says the video vendor in Kano's Rimi market when I ask for Adam Zango's music video CD Bahaushiya. He is not referring to the white powder, but instead a new illegal substance -- Hausa films that have not passed through the Kano State Censors Board. The video CD in question is an especially hot drug: a series of six music videos satirising corrupt old men, lamenting fickle girlfriends, and featuring dancing Hausa girls.

Andrew Berends, the American filmmaker who had been detained by Nigerian State Security Services was returned to the United States Wednesday. He was escorted to his plane by Nigerian immigration officers without an explanation as to why he was being sent home. Berends was never charged with a crime, and had a legal business visa in his passport at the time of his detainment.

Pandemonium broke out in Igueben Local Government Council of Edo State when a widow and mother of three, Patience Iyah was set ablaze by her uncle, Ahmed Okoro Evbohon over her refusal to take to prostitution abroad. The attack which took place when the widow arrived her village for the burial ceremony of a late relation created confusion in the community as the villagers wondered whether all was well with him.

Andrew Berends, an established, award-winning American filmmaker and journalist from New York, was detained Sunday August 31st by the Nigerian military along with his translator, Samuel George, and Joe Bussio, the manager of a local bar. Andrew entered Nigeria legally in April 2008 to complete a documentary film. 

Andrew was held in custody without food, sleep, or representation, and with limited water for 36 hours. He was questioned by the army, the police, and the State Security Services in Port Harcourt. He was then temporarily released, with an order to the SSS office at 9AM Tuesday morning. The State Security Services has confiscated his passport and personal property. Andrew's translator, Samuel George, remained in custody over night.

The US State Department is aware of the situation, and an attorney has been retained on Andrew's behalf. We, Andrew's friends, family, and colleagues, are deeply concerned that he has been held without cause and are calling for his safe treatment and immediate release.

* Contact Aaron Soffin at Phone: 917.887.4063 / 212.712.2781 or by email at: [email][email protected]

**Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

While formal publishing companies in Nigeria languished through the economic crises that accompanied the structural adjustment programmes of the late 1980s and early 1990s, young Hausa writers began writing about their lives and contemporary problems they faced. Bypassing formal publishers, they self-published their novels, often with the help of a writers' cooperative.

Although the books were dubbed ‘littattafan soyayya’ (romance novels) for the predominant themes of love and marriage, the novels -- written in colloquial Hausa that reflects the rhythms of everyday speech -- also serve as muckraking critiques of a corrupt elite and the failures of the older generation.

Women writers dominate the field, perhaps because of the large female readership; their work explores the daily life and tensions of women’s lives in contemporary Northern Nigeria. According to Balaraba Ramat Yakubu, the head of Kallabi Writer’s Association, a group of women writers, there are over 300 Hausa women publishing novels in Northern Nigeria.

The large female readership has caused anxiety, mostly from male authority figures, about a supposed negative effect the novels have on young girls. In May 2007, A Daidaita Sahu, the Kano state agency for the ‘reorientation’ of society, organized a book and film burning at a local girl’s school.

That book burning, however, was a tame threat compared to the new requirements that the Kano State Censorship Board, under the leadership of Director General Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, is seeking to impose on writers. In a letter to Kano's five writers' organisations dated Aug. 12, the board confirmed that it wanted each writer in the state to register individually before they can publish or distribute writing.

At 25, Sa'adatu Baba has twenty-three books in print and another twenty that are not yet published. She is also an executive committee member of the Association of Nigerian Authors and a student of Languages at Bayero University.

She spoke with IPS writer Amina Koki Gizo in Kano on 16 August about her writing and the current crisis Hausa writers are facing.