A Nigerian satellite hailed at its launch last year as the vanguard of an African communications revolution has failed and cannot be recovered, officials said on Wednesday.

The satellite -- which was launched to provide phone, broadband Internet and broadcasting services to rural Africa -- was switched off last week due to a battery charging problem.

Members of the Joint Task Force (JTF) were recently engaged in a gun duel with the Niger Delta militants in a bloody shoot-out in the Nigeria oil-rich creeks of Bayelsa State.

According to The Punch

RIYADH, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The surge in oil to nearly 100 dollars a barrel has raised 'significant' concerns that the high prices will hit demand in the longterm, Nigerian Oil Minister Odein Ajumogobia said Saturday.

The minister, speaking on the sidelines of a summit of leaders here, said: 'There must be concern that the high price will eventually surpress demand.'

RIYADH, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - The surge in oil to nearly 100 dollars a barrel has raised 'significant' concerns that the high prices will hit demand in the long term, Nigerian Oil Minister Odein Ajumogobia said Saturday.

The minister, speaking on the sidelines of a summit of leaders here, said: 'There must be concern that the high price will eventually surpress demand.'

He added: 'We've seen it before when we had a high price that led to recessionary tendencies, which depressed demand and then the price crashed.'

LAGOS, Nov 17, 2007 (AFP) - Nigerian stock prices rose 3.8 percent this week as the index closed at 53,291.68 points from 51,596.62 the previous week, brokers said Saturday.

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Gunmen abducted two children of employees of the French energy group Total/Elf on Monday in Nigeria's Port Harcourt region of the oil rich Niger Delta, a security source said.

The children, aged five and six, were snatched early Monday on the way to school, but no ransom has been demanded yet, hours after the kidnapping.

Small children of prominent Nigerians in the Delta region have become targets for kidnappers in recent months.

LAGOS, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Nigerian stock prices rose 0.2 percent last week as the All-Shares index closed at 51,316.89 points, brokers said Monday.

Investors traded 2.7 billion shares valued at 42.4 billion naira in 56,473 deals compared with 1.8 billion shares valued at 26.13 billion naira in 32,774 deals the previous week.

Market capitalisation stood at 8.23 trillion naira.

Seventy-five stocks appreciated in value with African Petroleum chalking up 5.34 naira to close at 112.24 naira per share.

A total of 59 stocks fell in value last week.

LAGOS, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - A Nigerian electoral court has annulled the election of a state governor for the second time in 10 days, press reports said Sunday.

The electoral court in northwestern Kebbi state invalidated the election win of governor Saidu Dakingari from the ruling People's Democratic Party, following complaints from two opposition parties.

It judged the PDP's nomination of Dakingari as gubernatorial candidate -- shortly after he had defected from an opposition party -- was an illegal move.

LAGOS, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Three foreigners and four Nigerians were kidnapped Sunday from an oil rig run by Anglo-Dutch giant Shell off southern Nigeria, industry and security sources said.

The nationality of the foreign hostages was not known. The attack targeted an oil field that was also raided by kidnappers last year.

More than 200 foreigners, mostly oil workers, were kidnapped in the Niger Delta in the 18 months to June amid a rebellion over distribution of oil revenues in the energy-rich region.

LAGOS, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Three foreigners and four Nigerians were kidnapped Sunday from an oil rig run by Anglo-Dutch giant Shell off southern Nigeria, industry and security sources said.

The nationality of the foreign hostages was not known. The attack targeted an oil field that was also raided by kidnappers last year.

KANO, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, a 24-year-old physics undergraduate in northern Nigeria, takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in the back yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts.

'It took me eight months to build this one,' he said, sweat pouring from his forehead as he filled the radiator of the banana yellow four-seater which he now parks in the grounds of his university.

KANO, Nigeria, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - An election petition tribunal Saturday annulled the election of Sa'idu Usman Dakin-Gari as the governor of northern Nigeria 's Kebbi state for electoral irregularities.

Justice Aoudover Kaka-an who headed the five-person panel said Dakin-Gari, who decamped from the opposition All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to clinch PDP nomination weeks before the April 14 election, did not withdraw his membership from ANPP and no document existed to show his acceptance by the PDP.

LAGOS, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - Gunmen in oil-rich southern Nigeria have seized the 70-year-old mother of a federal lawmaker, family and police sources said on Saturday.

'It is true. I have received the news, but the kidnappers are yet to make any contact with us,' said Henry Seriake Dickson, a member of the House of Representatives and son of the woman.

Iniobong Ekaette, police spokesman for Bayelsa state, also confirmed the incident.

LAGOS, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - A fire broke out at a southern Nigerian gas plant run by Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell on Friday, the day after it was reopened following closure because of a blaze last week, officials said.

'The incident happened at the same spot as last Friday's. A helicopter fly-over shows there is a burning boat in the vicinity but it can't be ascertained yet that it is sabotage,' Shell spokesman Aori Obaigbo told AFP.

LAGOS, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell has reopened a 300-million-standard cubit feet gas plant in southern Nigeria that was shut down last week because of a fire on its supply pipeline.

'Utorogu Gas Plant which was shut in a bit to starve the fire has reopened and gas supply is ramping up,' the company said in a statement late Thursday.

It said production resumed at the plant after temporary repairs on the 10-inch Utorogu-Ughelli pumping station condensate trunkline that was set on fire on October 12 by suspected vandals.

LAGOS, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - The Nigerian naira rose against the dollar this week in the foreign exchange market, closing at 123.1 from 124.4 the previous week, dealers said Friday.

A total of 13 banks participated in the official market where the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sold 40.05 million dollars, up from 18.5 million last week, they said.

Against the euro and pound sterling, the naira climbed to 174.64 and 250.48 from 176.1 and 253.9 respectively.

ABUJA, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - A simplistic understanding of Sharia Islamic law in 12 Nigerian states is leading to rights violations of detainees and women, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday.

'We are concerned that many officials, judges and members of the public have a simplistic understanding of Sharia that ignores the protection it grants an accused as well as the many rights it grants women,' the rights watchdog's executive director Ken Roth told a press conference in the Nigerian capital.

ABUJA, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Nigeria's House of Representatives remained closed Thursday as parliamentarians travelled to the northern Katsina state to attend the burial of a lawmaker who died the previous day, an MP said.

Lawmaker Aminu Safana, 46, died Wednesday during a rowdy parlimentary brawl that was meant to be a hearing on the outcome of a corruption probe into house speaker Patricia Etteh, but the cause of death remained unclear.

'We are not sitting today,' parliamentarian Salihu Abdulkareem told AFP, adding that the next sitting is likely to be next Tuesday.

LAGOS, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - A Nigerian parliamentarian died Wednesday following a fight that erupted in the House of Representatives over a graft probe of the speaker, a member of the house said.

'It is sad. In four months we have lost three members, and this one, in this circumstance, it is very sad,' Mercy Alumona-Isei, the head of the house comittee on culture, told AFP.

It was not immediately apparent whether the dead lawmaker, Aminu Safana from the northern Katsina state, was injured in the fight or whether he collapsed.

LAGOS, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - A Nigerian court has denied a request by the jailed Biafran separatist leader to attend his mother's funeral, saying the death certificate tendered was not from a government hospital.

Local media said lawyers for Ralph Uwazuruike had presented a death certificate from a private hospital where the woman died as part of the conditions for bail set by the Abuja High court during a hearing on October 3.

LAGOS, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left Nigeria Tuesday at the end of a three-day visit, the first by an Indian premier to the oil-rich west African country in 45 years, state media reported.

Today, the African Finance Corporation (AFC) is no longer an idea, but has become a concrete reality, having received endorsements from major stakeholders and development partners. Professor Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank who conceived the idea two years ago and has been its chief motivator, gives a progress report. Excerpts:

What is the vision behind the African Finance Corporation (AFC)?

Irrepressible Chukwuma Soludo, a Professor of Economics, is Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank. In this no-holds-bared interview, he speaks passionately about the on-going robust engineering of the country’s financial system in an ambitious project that will transform Nigeria as Africa’s financial hub, in a visionary programme called Financial System Strategy (FSS) 2020 — an economic imperative that seeks to make Nigeria one of the 20 pre-eminent economies in the world by the year 2020. His views are candid, and expressed with lucidity and infectious conviction and logic.