The US Supreme Court began its new session recently by re-examining an explosive international case alleging that oil giant Shell was complicit in acts of torture by the Nigerian government. Fresh from their pivotal decision in June to uphold President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, the nine Supreme Court justices took up a case with enormously important ramifications for international human rights. The legal argument pivots on whether foreign plaintiffs have a right to file suit in American courts against US corporations accused of human rights violations, under an arcane 200-year-old statute.

As another day of Nigeria’s independence anniversary draws near, it is obvious that all is not well with the country’s educational sector. The portrait of independent Nigeria, after 52 years of its existence, is disquieting.

Nigeria and Saudi Arabia held high level talks to resolve diplomatic tensions generated by Riyadh's decision to deport 1,000 Nigerian women hajj pilgrims who were not accompanied by male guardians. Nigeria retaliated to the move by stopping all hajj flights to Saudi Arabia. Nigeria's minister of foreign affairs, Olugbenga Ashiru and Saudi Arabia's acting minister of foreign affairs, Prince Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz met in Washington and the former registered his protest to the Saudi move.

A civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Goodluck Jonathan’s government to mark the country’s 52nd independence anniversary by 'urgently committing itself to socio-economic rights reform and end systemic poverty that has remained the bane of millions of Nigerians for decades'. The organization in a public statement dated 30 September 2012 and signed by its Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni stated that, 'The struggle for political freedom and independence from colonization was widely applauded by our people but over five decades after Nigeria gained independence the country’s enormous natural resources and wealth have not been utilized for the prosperity of the country and its peoples. Rather, socio-economic conditions in post-independent Nigeria have remained precarious, and consequently millions of our citizens embarrassingly remain in poverty and misery. For such people, the promises of independence remain unfulfilled.'

On the International Day of Peace, Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka visited the United Nations – and called for armed intervention against the terrorist group Boko Haram in his home country of Nigeria. 'This is a violent organisation,' Soyika told IPS. 'What do you do with them? I am sorry, but you must fight them.' On 21 September 2012 the International Day of Peace was celebrated with a debate about how to build a global culture of tolerance.

The police in Bauchi in northern Nigeria said Sunday morning's suicide bombing at a Catholic Church in the city left three dead and 46 injured, representing an increase in the figure of one dead earlier given by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). Police spokesman Hassan Auyo gave the fIgures to journalists, saying those killed included the suicide bomber. According to Auyo, the suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vehicle at the gate of the St. John's Catholic Church after a barricade erected there prevent him from driving into the premises during the early morning Mass.

Tens of thousands of people on Saturday protested in Nigeria's second city of Kano, burning images of Barack Obama and stomping on the American flag to denounce an anti-Islam film made in the US. A crowd that included men, children and veiled women stretched for several kilometres (miles) through the city, the largest in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, condemning the film that has stirred outrage across the Muslim world.

Nigeria's main opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) on Sunday asked the Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, to resign immediately, after his son's indictment in connection with the US$6 billion fuel subsidy scam, being described as one of the biggest corruption cases in Nigeria's history.

Thousands of people have been left homeless in the Nigerian city of Lagos after a recent government-led eviction of an almost 200-year old shantytown. During last week's eviction of the Makoko slum, home to about 100,000 people, residents were given only 72 hours to evacuate before men in speedboats were sent to destroy their houses.

Despite the rhetoric, the Nigerian government has no intention of reforming its oil industry to benefit the people. Nigeria remains the global poster child for “resource curse.”

The revelation of gargantuan levels of corruption in the government’s fuel subsidy programme is sparking a groundswell of activity among the opposition and civil society groups. Opposition politicians, civic activists and trade unionists are joining forces this month to demand action against grand corruption at the heart of government. They promise it will be their biggest show of strength on Nigeria’s streets since protests in January that forced the government to back down on its plans to abolish the fuel subsidy scheme.

Authorities in central Nigeria say floods triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 35 people and left several others missing. The flooding has also destroyed or damaged at least 200 homes in Jos city, the Red Cross said on Monday 23 July.

The disastrous privatisation programme in Nigeria is the epitome of greed, avarice and corruption, benefitting a tiny elite at the expense of everyone else.

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/3382666653/">cc US D S[/url">What hopes does the first female AU Commission chairperson raise? The Lagos government has demolished an old community, leaving some 2,500 homeless. And Fahamu’s executive director writes to President Obama.

Nigeria's army has warned thousands of Plateau state residents to leave their homes as it begins an operation against those accused of a recent spate of deadly attacks. Some 100 people were killed recently after attacks on villages inhabited by Christian ethnic groups. Two senior politicians then died after gunmen opened fire at a funeral for some of the dead. Reports say thousands of Muslims are refusing to leave. Plateau state straddles the dividing line between the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria and its largely Christian and animist south.

The Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, SNEPCO, has been fined U.S.$5 billion over the massive oil spill that occurred at its Bonga oil field on December 20, 2011. This was disclosed by the director general, National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, Dr. Peter Idabor, when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Environment.

On Wednesday 27 June 2012, at approximately 7am, one bulldozer arrived at Abonnema Wharf waterfront and, under the supervision of heavily armed security forces (members of the Joint Task Force (JTF), Operation Polo Shield), began to demolish buildings in the community around 11am. Later a second bulldozer arrived. No notice was given prior to the demolition, reports Amnesty International. The demolition was carried out despite a High Court order in November 2011 restraining the Rivers State government from demolishing the community.

With the expiration of the seven-day ultimatum given to Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan and the country's Code of Conduct Bureau to provide information on the President's assets declaration, the Nigerian NGO Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) is heading to court to compel the bureau to comply with its request. 'Since the Bureau has so far failed to respond to our request after the mandatory period of 7 days; we have prepared the necessary court papers which will be filed before the court this week to compel the Bureau to discharge its constitutional responsibility,' SERAP said in a statement made available to PANA. SERAP had earlier sent a request to both the President and the Code of Conduct Bureau, arguing that the disclosure of the information requested will give SERAP and the general public a true picture of the assets of the President from May 2007 to May 2012, and will demonstrate the President’s oft-expressed commitment to transparency and accountability.

Gunmen killed several people in an attack on two Christian villages in central Nigeria's Plateau State early Saturday, officials said. Although police and army spokesmen could not give an exact toll, one politician said at least 23 people had been killed and blamed Muslim herdsmen for the attacks.

Nigeria’s health services halved the maternal mortality rate between 1990 and 2010, but in parts of the predominantly Muslim north, which is less socio-economically advanced, women are 10 times more likely to die in childbirth than in the oil-rich, predominantly Christian south. Maternal health personnel are calling for more appropriate interventions to bridge the gap. Reasons for the divide mirror those in many West African states: too few referral facilities and health practitioners - especially midwives - and inadequate antenatal equipment; too few clinics and poor roads that make accessing clinics difficult and expensive; poverty and cultural barriers to visiting hospitals.