Stories written by Toye Olori

RELIGION-NIGERIA: One Year On, Perpetrators of Violence Remain At Large

One year after some 900 people were slaughtered in clashes between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo has failed to prosecute those responsible for the cycle of violence, a Human Rights Watch report charges.

POPULATION-NIGERIA: Should Census Make Discretion the Better Part of Valour?

More than a decade after its last headcount, Nigeria is preparing to conduct the country's fifth census this year. However, religion and ethnicity - long the bane of national life - appear set to bedevil the process.

ENVIRONMENT: Nigerian City Battling with Mountains of Garbage

Tonnes of garbage dot market places, bus stops and bridges, overwhelming efforts to clean up Nigeria’s commercial hub, Lagos.

CULTURE-AFRICA: Weak Dollar, Civil Wars Hurting Arts Business

Foundiku Ousman started his arts business with three friends, after raising a small capital of about 700 dollars, at Founmban in western Cameroon, in 1997. Today he is regarded as a wealthy man in a trade where only hard work opens the door to success.

ENVIRONMENT: Illegal Gold Mining Ruining Rural Nigeria

Disused pits dug by illegal gold miners dot the expanse of land which once served as farmland. Before the gold rush, the villagers in this sprawling farming community, called Igun, used to produce cash crops like cocoa, coffee and cola nuts.

ECONOMY-NIGERIA: Refineries That Aren’t Worth the Name

It has been dubbed the "paradox of plenty". Although Nigeria is the sixth-largest oil producer in the world, fuel shortages have become a common feature of life in the West African country over the past two decades.

HEALTH-NIGERIA: Abortion Law Takes a Toll

The fight for human rights in Nigeria has received ample coverage, as has that for fairer distribution of oil revenues – and the battle to curb endemic corruption. But, Nigerian women have another, and often more pressing fight on their hands – for abortion rights.

HIV/AIDS-NIGERIA: School Urged to Re-admit Student Living with Virus

The debate around a journalism school in Lagos, which has withdrawn the admission letter of a new student, after learning that he is living with HIV, doesn’t seem to go away.

HEALTH-NIGERIA: A Visionary Plan For Preventing Blindness

It is 08.00 in Iba Town - a suburb of Nigeria's southern economic hub, Lagos - and people have defied heavy rains to start lining up outside a mobile clinic that treats eye disorders. The queue will ultimately include hundreds of peasant farmers, fishermen, traders, school children and senior citizens.

RIGHTS-NIGERIA: Keeping Children Out of the "Go Slows"

It's a phenomenon that became noticeable in the 1980s, and is now a permanent feature of the urban landscape in Nigeria: children hawking goods on the streets.

POLITICS-NIGERIA: Porous Border Fuelling Gunrunning

Nigeria’s police are cracking down on illegal firearms which, they say, are threatening Africa’s most populous country.

POLITICS-NIGERIA: Ruling Party Consolidates Power in Local Elections

The ruling People's Democratic Party in Nigeria has won local elections in almost all the 31 states where polls were held this weekend - even as election-related violence claimed up to 50 lives.

POLITICS-NIGERIA: Little Excitement Over Local Government Elections

Low voter turnout, boycotts and a lack of ballot papers in various wards have marred local government elections in Nigeria, which took place on Saturday (Mar. 27) in 31 of the country's 36 states.

DEVELOPMENT-NIGERIA: Cocoa Farmers Learn to Escape the Middleman

The prospects for cocoa farmers in West Africa have not appeared rosy in recent years, what with declining cocoa prices and reports of exploitive labour practices on their properties.

HEALTH-NIGERIA: Pharmaceutical Firms Support Beleaguered Drug Agency

Pharmaceutical manufacturers in Nigeria have rallied around the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration Control - this after possible arson attacks on two buildings that house agency premises.

CORRUPTION-NIGERIA: Police Anti-Graft Squad Has Limited Success

Two years ago, Nigeria's Inspector-General of Police - Tafa Balogun - came into office promising to clamp down on corrupt police officials.

ECONOMY-NIGERIA: Pensioners Become Beggars

While African culture may venerate the aged, the continent's pensioners don't always find themselves living out a peaceful retirement. This is nowhere more true than in Nigeria, where the collapse of pension schemes has pushed many former civil servants into poverty.

DEVELOPMENT-NIGERIA: Compensation Disputes Haunt Anniversary of Ikeja Blast

Relatives of those who died during the 2002 explosions at a military barracks in Lagos have boycotted a ceremony to commemorate the event, Tuesday - this to show their displeasure at government's treatment of blast survivors.

ECONOMY-NIGERIA: Nationwide Strike Suspended

The Nigeria Labour Congress announced Wednesday that it was suspending a nationwide stay away that had been called to protest against a fuel price increase.

/UPDATE/ECONOMY-NIGERIA: Emergency Stockpiling as Fuel Strike Looms

A court of appeal in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, has ordered the Nigeria Labour Congress to suspend a proposed strike that had been scheduled to start on Wednesday. It has also ordered authorities to reverse the one cent petrol tax that is at the heart of the labour dispute.

LABOUR-NIGERIA: Union Leaders Call for Strike Over Fuel Tax

A showdown is looming between Nigeria's labour unions and government over a controversial fuel tax, which consumers want the authorities to scrap.

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