The new Chairman of Nigeria's Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Ms Omoigiu, this week accused some bank chiefs of colluding with officials from the Central Bank (CBN) to steal billions of naira from public funds. According to her upwards of N1.028 billion in taxes have been collected by the banks on behalf of government but have not then been remitted into the nation's account. To date no prosecutions over this matter have been undertaken.

Just one week after similar action was taken in Abuja, policemen in Lagos stopped a second scheduled rally of the Nigeria Labour Congress. The police carried out an early morning raid on the organisation's office and then locked the main entrance, only unlocking it again later in the day. Speaking after the event, the state chairman of the National Conscience Party (NCP) said that the police action was an" invitation to anarchy" and threatened people's right to free expression.

The Nigerian Minister of Science and Technology, Professor Turner Isoun, has stated that it would benefit Nigeria tremendously if it joined the Global University System (GUS). According to the GUS, the system "helps higher educational institutions in remote and rural areas of developing countries to deploy broadband internet...and act as the knowledge centre of their community".

Nigerian mobile operator M-tel has introduced a N250 mobile phone recharge card into the market to create better access for subscribers. The move follows its market survey which revealed that most subscribers in the country could not afford the N400 recharge card and needed a lower tariff.

Action Aid

Action Aid is seeking applications for the position of country director in its Nigeria programme. The holder will be responsible for managing and strengthening the organisation's work with marginalised communities which aim to help advance human rights and social justice. The successful applicant will have a proven track record in leading development programmes, advocacy activities, fundraising and organisational development.

The oil giant Shell is challenging the authority of the Nigerian Senate by rejecting an order to pay compensation of $1.5 billion to communities in the Niger Delta affected by oil pollution. In an advertisement published in Nigerian newspapers the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) claims the Senate failed to follow "due process" in imposing the fine, announced last week. Friends of the Earth Nigeria reacted angrily to the advertisement, saying it showed that the oil giant was yet again trying to avoid facing up to its responsibilities to the local communities.

The battle of wits between the Federal Government and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) over the Labour Bill being processed by the National Assembly has shifted to the international arena as labour organisations in several African nations have started mounting pressure on government not to go ahead with the proposed law. COSATU's secretary general, Zwelinzima Vavi said the union would compile a list of local companies operating in Nigeria and lobby them to put pressure on the government to withdraw the bill.

Nigeria's Senate has ordered a subsidiary of petroleum giant Royal/Dutch Shell to pay a Nigerian ethnic group US$1.5 billion (euro1.2 billion) for oil spills in their homelands, but the legislative body can't enforce the resolution, an official said Wednesday.

Speaking at the Nigerian Bar Association's conference, the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Ribadu told delegates that "the principal reason for the failure of our law enforcement agencies is corruption, and that invariably there was no law because those that are supposed to enforce the law became the worst culprits of breaking the law."

3,000 armed anti-riot policemen prevented the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)'s proposed protest rally by laying siege to its headquarters it was alleged this week. The Congress president, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, castigated the police for trampling on the people's right to peaceful assembly and vowed that the Congress would not give up engaging the government over the labour reform bill. In a further blow to the opposition, the Abuja High Court also declined an order of injunction sought by the NLC to restrain the National Assembly from further deliberation of the bill.

A Bill seeking to establish a Media Practitioners Complaints Commission (MPCC) has been introduced in the House of Representatives, Nigeria's lower house of chamber. The Bill, titled "Journalism Enhancement Bill", seeks to establish an MPCC in each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The Commission shall have the power to take "disciplinary" action against media practitioners who flout the law.

Nigeria is appealing for US$248 million to help it provide subsidised antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for 200,000 people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2005, Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo said. Lambo told journalists on Wednesday that most of the money for this ambitious programme would probably come from the United States.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has created a body to coordinate the national response to HIV/Aids. Professor Babatunde Osotimehin, who serves as chairman of the National Action Committee on Aids, works with Nigeria's Ministry of Health, other government agencies, NGOs and international organizations to develop a comprehensive strategy. He spoke to AllAfrica's Tamela Hultman.

The Senate has approved a request by President Olusegun Obasanjo to send up to 1,500 Nigerian troops to Sudan's troubled Darfur region to serve with an African Union (AU) protection force. Senator Daniel Saror, deputy minority leader of the Senate, told IRIN on Wednesday that the upper chamber of the Federal Parliament had approved Obasanjo’s request, based “on the need to arrest the ugly situation in Sudan which we find absolutely unacceptable.”

A Nigerian environmental expert, Okechukwu Ibeanu, has been appointed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to look into the negative effect on people's rights of trafficking in and dumping toxic and other dangerous wastes, especially in developing countries.

Nigeria's federal Legislature, the National Assembly, is considering a draft law that would impose sanctions, jail-terms, fines and suspension for media outlets found guilty of sensational reporting on violent conflicts, parliamentary or inter-governmental disputes, natural disasters and other "negative trends and tendencies". The draft law, entitled the "Journalism Enhancement Bill", is presently before the House of Representatives, the lower chamber in Nigeria's bi-cameral Legislature.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) declared this week that it will conduct a peaceful rally in Abuja on Tuesday August 24th to demonstrate against President Obasanjo's proposed amendments to the Trade Unions Act. The new Bill would deregister the NLC as the only central labour organisation and add new restrictions to strike action by trade unions. Announcing the rally, the leader of the NLC said that they believe the proposed Bill to be a "violent abuse of the constitutional rights of workers to belong to trade unions."

Human Rights Watch has written to police in Nigeria to express concern about an incident which occurred on July 10, 2004, in K-Dere, Ogoniland, Rivers State, when two British activists, Tim Concannon and Tim Nunn, were taken into custody, questioned and held for more than ten hours, first by the police, then by the State Security Services (SSS). “Our concern relates not only to this particular incident, which happens to involve two British nationals, but to a broader pattern of harassment and intimidation of Nigerian activists by the security forces, particularly by the police and the SSS,” the letter said.

Nigeria's President Oluseun Obasanjo has accused the police of hiring guns to armed robbers for economic gains, his office announced on Wednesday. Obasanjo was quoted as saying at the opening of a two-day security summit in Abuja that a situation whereby 'police hire their guns to robbers' was criminal and worrisome.'

The IMF has announced that it will assist Nigeria in whatever way to repatriate her funds stashed in foreign countries by corrupt leaders and government officials. "We will give our support for any action, legal action, whatever that is taken to guarantee corruption-related revenue are taken into the judicial procedure and returned to the Nigerian people," said the Managing Director of the IMF, Mr Rodrigo de Rato, at a press briefing to end his visit to Nigeria. An estimated $4bn is believed to have been placed in foreign accounts by the late military leader, Gen. Sani Abacha and his associates.