More than 100 people were killed when a ruptured fuel pipeline exploded and caught fire at a remote village in southeastern Nigeria last Thursday, Red Cross and local government officials said.

Shell has bowed to pressure from Tony Blair and human rights campaigners by publishing details of payments made to the Nigerian government, which amounted to $900-million last year. The information is included in a new report on its operations in the turbulent west African nation, which also shows the Anglo-Dutch company produced 15,5-million tons of greenhouse gases.

Nigeria and Sao Tome have pledged to publish the financial results of their next licensing round for a $270m oilfield. The decision is a breakthrough for the UK-led campaign to reduce corruption in oil and mineral-rich developing countries by pushing governments to disclose the amount of money international companies pay to develop their resources.

It's been more than a year since Nigerian mother Amina Lawal was sentenced to death by stoning. The repeated postponement of her appeal has exacted its own toll, writes the author of this article, Festus Eriye, from Katsina, Nigeria.

The Nigerian government has ordered a probe into a $2.4 million bribe, allegedly paid by U.S.-based oil service company, Halliburton, to some Nigerian tax officials, news media reported Wednesday.

Although the 2003 elections have come and gone the exercise is still raising some dust. The role played by the media as the people's watch-dog came under review with the verdict that they could have done better. This was the consensus at a day-long roundtable discussion.

Nigerian university lecturers have ended a six-month strike to demand improved government funding of education in compliance with the ruling of an industrial arbitration panel. The strike had brought teaching to a halt in the universities of Africa's most populous nation.

The Country Director will manage the IFES program in Nigeria. Primary responsibilities will include program management and implementation, and management of the IFES field office in Abuja. The Country Director is also responsible for identifying new opportunities for IFES within the existing program and beyond.

Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria has announced the commencement of a two-year project to reduce HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination in the media and other identified communities in Nigeria. The project aims to harness the capacity of the Nigerian media and communities as a potential force for change to reduce the high levels of HIV-related stigma and discrimination in the country.

Bad news comes in bunches, says this commentary in Nigeria's The Vanguard newspaper, and what the nation has been told recently about happenings in the oil and gas sector has been mostly bad news - underlining the reasons why Nigeria ranks as the second most corrupt nation on earth.

Nigeria on Wednesday warned potential investors about fake documents offering crude oil for sale on behalf of the state-run oil group Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The NNPC said fraudulent persons and groups are offering non-existent crude oil for sale, using forged documents.

The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo has been rated by Nigerians on the level of interference in the work of the mass media and on freedom of expression generally. The verdicts were delivered via an opinion poll conducted by The Guardian newspaper. The poll, which sampled 2800 opinions, saw 40.5 percent or 1,134 of the respondents answering "Moderate Degree" to the question: "To what extent has government allowed newspapers and magazines to operate without interference?"

A two-day conference on women's participation in politics opened in Abuja this week, with a call on women to work towards neutralising male-dominance in politics, with a view to contributing towards the sustenance of democracy in the country. Held by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), the conference is expected to analyse and work out strategies for supporting women's participation in politics.

The retired major-general with a mission to fight the corruption in Nigeria's public life works from an office in the back yard of a small poultry business in the sprawling outskirts of Lagos. Bearded, wearing a grey singlet and jeans, he cuts an unusual figure for a former top-brass officer. Ishola Williams heads the Nigerian branch of Transparency International, the anti-corruption lobbying organisation whose last ranking classed Nigeria as the world's second most corrupt nation, after Bangladesh. He sees in Nigeria a whole political system that has successfully resisted attempts to change its habits.

A controversy has erupted in Nigeria over the sale to a foreign company of the rights to a patent on a locally developed drug for sickle cell anaemia. The drug, NIPRISAN, was developed by a traditional medicine practitioner working in collaboration with researchers at Nigeria’s National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Development (NIPRD) in Abuja.

The European Commission (EC) has initiated a new health programme worth 44milion euros (about N6.6billion) to promote immunisation activities in six states in Nigeria. The programme, christened 'Partnership to Reinforce Immunisation Efficiency' (PRIME), is expected to cover one state each in the six geo-political zones. These are Abia, Cross River, Gombe, Kebbi, Osun and Plateau states.

Recent evidence indicates that the number of child deaths due to malaria in Africa has begun to increase, and that this is attributable to failing medicines and medicines of poor quality. Surveys indicate that due to high levels of resistance to the drugs in use, almost half of the money spent on anti-malarial medicines is being used to pay for inappropriate treatments.

The main concern of the Nigerian government was not to run the most open election possible, but rather to remain in power by whatever means possible, according to the conclusion of an analysis of the recent elections by the Centre for Democracy and Development. However, the CDD said: "Despite all the discrepancies and malpractice recorded, we can still suggest that the election was not an invalid episode, even though it was far from free and fair."

The All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) presidential candidate at the April 19 polls, Muham-madu Buhari has insisted that the second term of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government which began last Thursday is illegal. In a statement entitled "Democracy Shall Yet Come Alive" Buhari re-iterated his earlier position that the election which gave Obasanjo the second tenure was not fairly and freely secured. President Obasanjo and all the 36 state governors were all sworn-in last Thursday for their second term in office.

The federal government has mobilised six of its agencies to fight money laundering, according to the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Chief Joseph Sanusi. Sanusi said the Nigerian National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) are to cooperate with the newly constituted Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) in helping the Nigeria Police fight the problem.