This paper examines how oral tradition - "verbal arts or oral literature, customs, belief and other institutions, arts including games, as well as musical instruments" - can be used to foster reading on the part of the African child. Research examined written prose, some of it in the Nigerian indigenous language (Yoruba), in an effort to explore linguistic and cultural differences of child authors (ages 7-15) based on the way they tell their stories. Findings suggest that African children can be stimulated to read if they are first told a story; storytelling should be encouraged, the author urges, especially in the primary and lower secondary schools.

Nigeria convicted a former police chief in a $150 million money-laundering case on Tuesday, but anti-corruption campaigners said the jail term was so short it undermined the war on graft. Tafa Balogun, the most senior official to be convicted in a corruption case, will spend six months in jail as his eight sentences of six months each are to run concurrently. He was fined 4 million naira, while about $150 million in cash and property will be confiscated by government.

The release and re-arrest of members of a Yoruba organisation this week (November 17) have marked the latest chapter in Nigeria's bid to contain ethnic unrest in various parts of the country. Fredrick Fasehun and Gani Adams, leaders of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), were initially jailed with four other members of the group after clashes broke out in the commercial capital of Lagos last month between rival OPC supporters.

A court in Nigeria has delivered two more guilty verdicts in the country's biggest ever international fraud trial. Two defendants, Frank Nwude and Nzeribe Okoli, were found guilty of swindling a Brazilian bank out of $242m. The pair deceived an employee at the Banco Noroeste of Sao Paulo into transferring large sums of the bank's money to accounts around the world. In return the man had been promised kickbacks from a fictional Nigerian state contract.

In a historic judgment, the Federal High Court of Nigeria has ordered companies to stop gas flaring in the Niger Delta, as it violates guaranteed constitutional rights to life and dignity. In a case brought against the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (Shell), Justice C. V. Nwokorie ruled in Benin City that the damaging and wasteful practice of flaring by all the major companies, including ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, TotalFinaElf and Agip, as well as Shell, in joint ventures with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, cannot lawfully continue and must stop.

Source: Friends of the Earth

Nigeria recently made a $6.4 billion payment to the Paris Club that fell in step with the schedule laid out by the International Monetary Fund to help the African country write off 60% of its $30 billion debt. Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters that once the government spent another $6 billion under the Paris Club accord, after an IMF review scheduled in March, its total foreign debt would decline to $5 billion from $35 billion now.

President Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed support for the proposal by the African Union (AU) to increase the membership of the United Nations (UN's) Security Council to 26. He stated this at the inaugural lecture for Course 14 of the National War College (NWC), noting that Africa has a vital role to play in the planned changes in the UN's Security Council, which is geared towards global peace. President Obasanjo, who was represented at the occasion by the Minister of State for Defence, Roland Oritsejafor, said the AU was in support of the proposal by the Group of Four, dubbed Model A, except that it will give the new members veto privileges.

Nine million young people in Nigeria are to be sent text messages on Wednesday to raise awareness about HIV/Aids. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is launching its Nigerian campaign because it has the third highest number of people with the disease. Unicef is aiming to take advantage of the surge in mobile phone use in Nigeria over the last six years.

In a seven-point communiqué issued at the conclusion of the recent two-day summit on Policy Reforms and Social Dialogue between government agencies and the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), the government was called upon to equip the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRNC) with the necessary tools for professionalisation. This is with a view to eliminating quacks from the teaching profession at all the levels of formal school education. "We also called on government to actualise the Teachers Salary Scale (TSS)," the NUT President Mallam Abdulwaheed Omar revealed in an interview.

A militant leader from Nigeria's oil-region has begun a hunger strike in protest at police treatment in custody. Mujahid Dokubu-Asari's lawyer said he was not even taking water and was unhappy at being kept in solitary confinement and often moved. Last year, Mr Asari's Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force contributed to a sharp rise in world oil prices when it threatened war against oil companies.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo is in Cote d'Ivoire trying to broker a deal over who should become that country's next prime minister. "We've spoken with all the parties and asked them to make recommendations, or suggestions, on whom they would like to nominate to take up the position of prime minister," Obasanjo said.

IFES’ current program in Nigeria builds upon work that began with transitional elections of 1998-99, under which a newly established Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ushered in a civilian administration and a new era in Nigerian politics. IFES’ work in Nigeria has focused on building sustainable electoral institutions that ensure a free, fair, and transparent process. It has also grown beyond technical assistance in election management and election law reform, to encompass areas of electoral process development such as political finance reform, voter education curriculum development, access for citizens with disabilities, and many more. Over the coming 3 years, the program will seek to leverage gains in the transparency, credibility, and efficiency of the electoral process, and to extend development of the process into new areas.

The Nigerian Social Forum (NSF) is an open meeting place where groups and movements of civil society opposed to neo-liberalism and a Nigeria dominated by capital and liberal thinking congregate. It is a space that opposes any form of imperialism, unbridled capitalism, but engaged in building a Nigerian society centered on the human person. The Forum will be holding a meeting in the near future. Monitor their website for more details.

Ten years after the execution of writer and human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight fellow activists, new evidence shows that the peoples of Nigeria's oil producing Niger Delta continue to face death and devastation at the hands of the security forces. A report issued by Amnesty International reveals how poverty-stricken communities, which protest against the actions of companies or are suspected of obstructing oil production, risk collective punishment. "It is an insult to the memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his fellow campaigners that those responsible for killings, beatings and rape are still allowed to escape justice. Their campaign for economic and social rights remains as relevant as ever with 70 percent of Niger Delta inhabitants continuing to live in absolute poverty despite booming oil revenues," said Kolawole Olaniyan, Director of Amnesty International's Africa programme.

A federal High Court judge upheld a lawsuit by two amputees to lift the asylum granted to former Liberian ruler and warlord Charles Taylor by the Nigerian government. The decision represents a stirring victory for those who have sought to bring Taylor to justice and a setback for the Nigerian government, which has given Taylor protection and intervened in court to quash the suit. Taylor was indicted by the UN-mandated Special Court in Sierra Leone in March 2003 on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in contributing to the murder, rape, and mutilation of thousands in Sierra Leone. Taylor funded and orchestrated much of the violence against civilians during Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war, and pioneered the exploitation of child soldiers to undertake heinous acts. Since August 2003, when he was granted asylum, Taylor has resided in a private compound in the Nigerian city of Calabar.

On 24 October 2005, Nigeria's broadcasting regulatory agency, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), authorized Daar Communications Limited, operators of Africa Independent Television (AIT) and RayPower FM, to reopen the stations, which were shut down the previous day over alleged unprofessional coverage of an airliner crash in which all 117 passengers and crew members died. The NBC announced at about 9:00 p.m. (local time) on 23 October that it was shutting down the operations of Nigeria's leading privately-owned radio and television stations because after the stations located the site of the crash of Bellview Airlines earlier that day, AIT broadcast close-up shots of decapitated body parts and announced on location that "there could be no survivors," when the competent authorities had not fully assessed the situation and when the families of the victims had not been informed.

As salacious details of the corruption scandal involving the former Inspector General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and others continue to unravel, Nigerians have identified corruption as the nation's number one problem. The findings of the Nigerian Corruption Index (NCI), a new survey conducted by Independent Advocacy Project (IAP), the good governance group, reveals that 58 per cent of respondents say corruption is the nation's major problem while 42 per cent say it is a major problem. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Nigerian Police ranked highest among the top three institutions where bribes are most likely to be demanded. The two other institutions are the Customs and Excise Department and the National Electric Power Authority, now known as the Power Holding Corporation of Nigeria (PHCN). Reported incidence of bribery was also highest among the Nigerian Police.

The representatives of the Paris Club creditor countries met on 18, 19 and 20 October 2005 and agreed with the representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on a comprehensive treatment of its debt. This agreement implements the debt treatment framework for Nigeria announced by the Paris Club on 29 June 2005. The representatives of the Paris Club creditor countries welcomed the ambitious economic program implemented by the Nigerian authorities since 2003 and their desire to secure an exit treatment from the Paris Club. This agreement takes place after the approval by the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund of the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) on 17 October 2005 and includes a debt reduction under Naples terms on eligible debts and a buy back at a market-related discount on the remaining eligible debts after reduction.

The Chevron oil company has reopened two oil stations in Nigeria's Niger Delta region under army protection. They were closed last week after attempts by a local militia group to sabotage oil facilities. The Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force had issued the threats in protest at the detention on Tuesday of their leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari.

This article from Nigeria's The Daily Independent says that when President Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn in in May 1999, he made it clear in his inaugural speech that the fight against corruption would be one of his major programmes. In his speeches and carriage, he has continued to sing the anti-corruption song. One of the first bills initiated by the executive was the one on anti-corruption. The bill has been passed into law as the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000. The President’s anti-corruption campaign has received a lot of criticisms. Some argue that it is a one-man campaign, which is not likely to succeed. Others contend that the President is not sincere with the anti-corruption crusade.