The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), with headquarters in Ibadan (Nigeria), is seeking candidates for a Manager of the project “Promoting Sustainable Agriculture in Borno State” (or PROSAB) funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and is implemented with a broad range of local stakeholders and regional partners. The position will remain open until a suitable candidate is found.

President Umaru Yar'Adua's administration has halted an initiative of his predecessor to privatise 102 elite public secondary schools across Nigeria. “The manner and rush in which the pubic-private partnership arrangement was put in place did not give room for consideration of wider views and ideas on how best the schools could be effectively and efficiently managed,” said Education Minister Igwe Aja-Nwachukwu in a 27 September statement.

A Nigerian court allowed the federal government on Wednesday to serve a summons on U.S.-based drug maker Pfizer Inc to defend itself against a $6.5 billion lawsuit over a drug trial. The federal government and the northern Nigerian state of Kano are suing Pfizer for a combined $8.5 billion in damages over the 1996 trial of Trovan, a new drug tested on children during a meningitis epidemic.

Floods that have left hundreds of thousands of Africans homeless across vast swathes of the continent have claimed 64 lives in Nigeria and 33 in Burkina Faso, government and aid officials said on Thursday. Nigeria's Red Cross said the death toll covered a period since mid-July, while 22,000 people have been displaced in ten sometimes arid northern states of the most populous nation in Africa, as well as in the Lagos area, the huge economic capital in the south-west.

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua recently declared the energy crisis a national emergency, but aid groups say he should also declare a state of emergency in the health service. 'So far there is no evidence the government will act quickly to bring succour to the poor', said Osita Ezechukwu, a volunteer at the anti-poverty group Social Rights Initiative.

Nigerian armed group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) has threatened to resume its campaign of kidnapping foreigners and attacking oil facilities, ending a four-month ceasefire. They made the announcement in an email to the media on Sunday, denying government reports that the group's leaders had been arrested in Angola

Every night besides the town hall of Athens, next to Omonia square, where the narrow streets of the popular entertainment hub district Psirris begin, black girls from Nigeria gather to work. The beautiful young Nigerians, between 20 and 25 years old, are victims of trafficking, forced to prostitute themselves for little money.

The leadership of Nigeria's House of Representatives acted against the rules in approving contracts worth US$5,000,000 to renovate two official residences and buy 10 cars, a panel of legislators said on Wednesday. The scandal over the contracts has paralysed the House, where emotions run so high that members came to blows last Thursday during a hearing by the investigative panel after some of them shouted 'thief!' at Speaker Patricia Etteh.

A Nigerian governor has sacked the entire 34,000-strong workforce in his state for refusing to heed a call to suspend their one-month old strike over pay, a government spokesperson said on Thursday. Public-sector workers in the south-western state of Oyo launched the industrial action last month to force Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala to pay increases approved by his predecessor.

Nigeria is lagging behind in the provision of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for people living with HIV/Aids, and only one out of five people who need the drugs have access to them, according to a new study. Nigeria has a five-year plan to scale up ARV therapy, aimed at providing one million people with the life-prolonging treatment by 2009, but there are indications that it may not meet that target unless the government provides substantially more resources.

Reporters Without Borders condemns a violent assault on Tope Abiola, the deputy editor of the privately-owned Nigeria Tribune daily newspaper, who was beaten unconscious by prison guards and police at Agadi prison in Ibadan (in the southwestern state of Oyo) on 11 September while trying to cover the aftermath of a riot by inmates. “Nigerian journalists are often subjected to violence on the least pretext, without anyone ever being punished,” the press freedom organisation said.

On 13 September it was announced that 18 cross-dressers in the Bauchi state in Nigeria were granted bail, after been charged with indecent dressing and vagrancy. The news spread internationally after their arrest more than two weeks ago amid renewed concerns of prejudice and homophobia.

A total of 109 primary and secondary schools have been selected as beneficiaries of the first phase of the 'Schools, University Access Programme to Digital Lifestyle' project of the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) an initiative of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The projects to be completed in the next six months would include equipping the benefiting schools with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools.

State government plans to demolish several slums in the unstable southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt could spark ethnic tensions, fuel violence, and leave up to 100,000 homeless. Rivers State Governor Celestine Omehia announced on 21 August his government would demolish 25 slum districts in the ramshackle waterfront area of the city that currently houses between 50,000 and 100,000 people, according to local estimates.

Charges against the 18 Nigerian men arrested in Bauchi at Denco Hotel have changed from those of alleged sodomy and alleged attendance of a same-sex marriage to those of indecent dressing and vagrancy. Aged between the ages of 18 and 21, the men are now charged with contravening Article 372 section 2(E) of the Bauchi State Islamic code which prohibits cross-dressing and the practice of sodomy.

Nigeria's anti-corruption police is working to uncover who allegedly received $6 million in bribes from a U.S. oil services executive who has been indicted in the United States, the head of the force said on Thursday. U.S. prosecutors have accused Jason Steph, a former manager at Willbros Group Inc., and others of bribing Nigerian officials between 2003 and 2005 to help the Houston-based firm secure a $387 million contract to build a gas pipeline.

Some 7,292 refugees from Sierra Leone and Liberia resident in Nigeria are to be integrated into the country under the terms of a multi-party agreement signed by ECOWAS, UN refugee agency UNHCR and the three countries, an ECOWAS statement said here Tuesday.

The recent raid on a Chinese software piracy syndicate would benefit the fight against piracy in Nigeria, according to the Licensing and Compliance Manager at Microsoft Nigeria, Mr. John Okereke. Speaking in Lagos, Mr. Okereke said, the result of what he described as the largest investigation and raid of its kind in the world,would boost the Nigerian software market.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/broadcasts/damienugwu.jpgDamien Ugwu from the Nigerian Civil Liberties Organisation speaks to Sokari Ekine from Pambazuka News about endemic police torture in the Nigerian justice system.

CLO estimates that five people a day are being unlawfully killed by the police. Most vulnerable are unemployed youths accused of armed robbery. Damien Ugwu explores the reasons why torture and murder are common place and the cultural and political roots of the problem.

Music in this podcast is brought to you by Busi Ncube from Zimbabwe, kindly provided by .

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has announced his cabinet, almost three months after he was elected. Four members from his predecessor's administration have been given key positions, suggesting Olusegun Obasanjo will still be influential.
In the new line-up, the president will double as energy minister just like Mr Obasanjo did before him. This will make Mr Yar'Adua responsible for Nigeria's petroleum industry and its troubled power sector.