Nigeria

China has a new competitor for oil resources in Nigeria, according to company leaks and media reports. Royal Dutch/Shell is understood to be looking to sell a 49.8% stake in...

Reforms in Nigeria’s oil sector, promised by Minister of State for Oil Odein Ajumogobia, will mean that some of the multibillion dollar deals with Asian companies will be reviewed...

The paradox at the heart of Nigeria's latest political drama is that President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua credibly presents himself as a politician who is serious about reinstating the...

Former Governor of Delta State James Ibori was arrested in the early hours of 12 December by officials from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) who have...

Power-brokers on all sides in Abuja seem encouraged by the surprise announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission on 8 November that the People's Democratic Party convention would...

It has been a good week for the many Nigerians who like reversals of fortunes. On 30 October, the free-spending Speaker of the House of Representatives, Patricia Etteh,...

President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua talks about the rule of law while his own party remains populated by politicians and godfathers widely suspected of corruption, electoral fraud and violence....

Renaissance Capital has a new Chairperson for its advisory committees on Nigeria and Africa. The World Bank has a new Managing Director. And both institutions have secured the...

Nigeria's President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's maiden voyage to New York to speak at the United Nations General Assembly was choreographed by an improbable band of bankers, publishers, itinerant...

It has been the worst of times in the oil capital of Port Harcourt in the 100 days since President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua was elected. And it has...

New developments in the investigations into Nigeria's $US10 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project on Bonny Island could have serious political ramifications in Washington and Abuja. Britain's...

Essentially, the new presidency started last week. President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua appointed his cabinet on 26 July and followed this four days later with a sweeping shake-up of...

At a subdued and well guarded inauguration ceremony in Abuja's Eagle Square parade ground on 29 May, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua talked about reforming Nigeria's rotten political system....

At Government House in Port Harcourt last week, waiters scurried around pouring bottles of Cristal champagne as a white jacketed crooner sang Frank Sinatra's 'My way' in honour...

The shooting dead of a Nigerian driver and kidnapping of six Russians from their compound in Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom, looks like an escalation in a complex feud...

The gulf between the aspirations of the new political team under President-elect Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and the consequences of last month's disastrous elections is widening dangerously. Many around...

Mallam Nasir el-Rufai's student friends called him 'Giant'; he stands some five foot seven inches tall. These days he is more commonly known as 'Bulldozer', because of his...

Time is pressing President-elect Umaru Yar'Adua ahead of the planned inauguration on 29 May. By then, he will have to put together his government transition team from the...

Bayelsa State's head of security, Bola Igali, barked orders into his mobile phone. 'We have a security situation developing,' he told Africa Confidential, breaking off the interview. Shooting...

Emmanuel Uduaghan, the winner of the heavily disputed governorship elections in Delta State, will have a critical economic and political role in the coming months. He is the...

Failing a cataclysmic reversal in the next week, President Olusegun Obasanjo's governing People's Democratic Party is likely to chalk up another victory at the state and federal elections...

Opposition to the governing People's Democratic Party (PDP) is split between 24 different parties, most of which cannot even dream of winning a governorship, much less the Presidency.

We examine the main contestants and predict the probable winners of the elections

Vice-President Atiku Abubakar insists that he remains a candidate in April's presidential elections despite what he describes as 'every effort to destroy' him. Behind that campaign is President...

If Atiku Abubakar has been correctly indicted for embezzlement, he is not eligible to stand as a candidate in April's presidential elections. Section 137 (i) of the Nigerian...

Voters are less worried about the upcoming elections than the would-be candidates, now battling for territory before the campaign proper starts later this month. On 29 January, the...

At the heart of policy-making for much of President Olusegun Obasanjo's two terms, the reform team of Nigerian technocrats is breaking up, raising doubts about the continuity of...

As he elegantly stretches out in a rented Mayfair apartment and insists on discussing 'policy issues not personalities', it is easy to forget that General Muhamadu Buhari headed...

Some might consider it risky for a Nigerian bank to issue a US$300 million Eurobond on the international capital markets for the first time - just three months...

General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua's shadow looms large over Nigeria's April presidential elections. Soldier-turned-politician Yar'Adua died in gaol nine years ago on trumped up charges of coup-plotting against the...

The three main parties all have their candidates, with Vice-President Atiku Abubakar the last to take a running mate in the shape of former Anambra State Deputy Governor,...