Abuja News

Nigeria — Nigeria has created a new ministry charged with pacifying the southern region of Africa's largest oil producing country. President Umaru Yar'Adua on Tuesday named former federal government secretary Ufot Ekaette as Niger Delta Affairs minister.

The development of regional infrastructure, particularly transport and energy, to facilitate the economic integration process in West Africa is the main issues being considered at a regional summit underway in Abuja, Nigeria. The one-day summit is reviewing plans drawn up...

Rilwanu Lukman, former secretary general of the oil cartel Opec, will now head the petroleum ministry. Until now it was a post the president had kept for himself, as did his predecessor Olusegun Obasanjo. Mr Lukman is widely respected and...

Gunmen at the weekend seized an oil firm vessel and held its crew off the shores of Nigeria's volatile southern Niger Delta region, the military said Monday. A military spokesman in the region, Lieutenant-Colonel Rabe Abubakar, said they were several...

A Scottish man working for an oil services firm in Nigeria was freed on Monday, two weeks after gunmen kidnapped him in the restive Niger Delta, a military spokesman said. "I can confirm he was released. Port Harcourt, the main...

MTV launches its first-ever music award program for Africa on Saturday, with acts from across the world's poorest continent nominated for prizes in the Nigerian capital. Winners were being selected by fans sending text messages, said Alison Reid, a spokeswoman...