Nigeria

The main milestone in preparations for the 2003 elections will be the Nominating Convention of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on 3-5 January, probably at Eagle Square,...

After the loss of more than 200 lives in riots blamed on the attempt to hold the Miss World contest in Abuja, a row is erupting over how...

A symbol of regional cooperation, the Nigeria-São Tomé e Príncipe Joint Development Zone (JDZ), launched only in January, looks close to collapse.

On 2 October Nigeria banned imports of all textiles in a bid to revive its own ailing industry. It now depends on imports from Asia, some of them...

Iraq could yet rescue President Olusegun Obasanjo. The prospect of an United States invasion there is driving up the world price of oil, and oil contributes over 75...

Two weeks ago President Olusegun Obasanjo considered threats by the House of Representatives to impeach him if he didn't resign as 'a joke carried too far' by a...

West Africa in general - and Nigeria in particular - is suddenly gaining from a re-evaluation of global strategy in the United States following the 11 September 2001...

The Igbo people of south-east Nigeria took a terrible battering in the civil war of the 1960s, and the region's businesses were almost all destroyed. The recent achievements...

Igbo politics are boiling with preparations for next year's general elections. Since the dream of an independent Biafra was crushed in 1970, many Igbo have felt marginalised, and...

Religion is moving fast up the political agenda, as elections loom next year. From antagonistic theological positions, Christian and Muslim fundamentalists explain Nigeria's growing poverty, corruption and crime;...

Nigeria's popular charismatic movement took root with Joseph Ayo Babalola's Christ Apostolic Church in the 1930s. In the 1970s, the late Benson Idahosa of the Church of God...

Nigeria's banks are dynamic, indigenous and very profitable. Their attitude to financial regulation is another story. Some of the country's biggest financial egos are now at war with...

Union Bank, First Bank and United Bank for Africa control over a third of the sector. Mid-level banks range from stars to the technically insolvent. Small banks often...

It is a measure of Nigeria's political class that in next year's presidential election, the two most likely candidates - Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari - are retired...

The army is back at the centre of politics, three years after it handed over to an elected government whose head, President Olusegun Obasanjo, is himself a recycled...

In its attempt to clean up the banks, the Central Bank of Nigeria risks sparking a crisis. It wants to deter banks and multinationals from dealing on the...

Africa's biggest privatisation so far, the US$1.3 billion deal for control of Nitel, Nigeria's state telecoms company, is unravelling. A consortium of Nigerian businesses, banks, state governments and...

When British Prime Minister Tony Blair visits President Olusegun Obasanjo this week, he will find his host facing something like a civil war. Officially, the two leaders will...

The chief sponsor of the new party movement is Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, the former military leader who bankrolls the United National Democratic Party (UNDP), run by the veteran...

The murder of Attorney General and veteran politician Chief Bola Ige on 23 December raises new doubts about the prospect of free elections in 2003. He was murdered...