Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria - He should be tall. Kind, of course. And generous, especially when it comes to buying all those little trinkets that a woman desires. "A little handsome," but not too much, says Altine Abdullahi. "It's a danger. " In northern Nigeria, it is a truth almost universally acknowledged that a woman of a certain age, and in a certain situation in life, must be in want of a husband. But if the woman in that certain situation is a divorcee or a widow, finding a husband isn't easy, even without the shopping list of desirable qualities ticked off by Abdullahi (a divorcee)

As the World Health Assembly convenes in Geneva this week, one item on the agenda will be polio, or more specifically, how to finally deliver on an epic promise made a quarter-century ago: to liberate humankind from one of the world's most deadly and debilitating diseases. The world's war on polio has been as ambitious an undertaking as the successful campaign to eradicate another great public health menace, smallpox. Slowly but surely we have advanced on that goal. Polio, a highly preventable disease, today survives in only three countries: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.

Re "Oil Firms Accused in Nigerian Abuses," Feb. 24: Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has done well to call for a federal investigation of the role of American oil companies in Nigeria. It is time we Americans took a good look at our effect on that country and its struggle for democracy and human rights. American oil money has long supported the dictators there, a fact that the European media have been spotlighting for years. I know the situation firsthand. My seven years of missionary service were cut short in 1996 when the Nigerian government denied my residency permit in order to punish the Catholic bishops for speaking out. Thank you for bringing our attention to Nigeria with your reports on the national elections and the oil industry.

KANO, Nigeria - He should be tall. Kind, of course. And generous, especially when it comes to buying all those little trinkets that a woman desires. "A little handsome," but not too much, says Altine Abdullahi. "It's a danger. " In northern Nigeria, it is a truth almost universally acknowledged that a woman of a certain age, and in a certain situation in life, must be in want of a husband. But if the woman in that certain situation is a divorcee or a widow, finding a husband isn't easy, even without the shopping list of desirable qualities ticked off by Abdullahi (a divorcee)

World Cup 2010: NIGERIA FIFA ranking: 22 Overall World Cup record: 4-6-1 Coach: Lars Lagerback Best performance: Second round, 1994, 1998 Overview: The Super Eagles have turned to Lagerback for help, recognizing that the Swedish coach has a proven, albeit modest, track record of tournament success. Lagerback's problem is that Africa's most populous country expects to win it all and its soccer federation is chronically interference-minded. The team does not have anyone remotely as inspiring as former star Jay-Jay Okocha, but Ayegbeni Yakubu, John Mikel Obi and Obafemi Martins will do. Nigeria could cause a stir if its fans travel in numbers to South Africa.

The youngest victim of the massacre was a baby, villagers said, born just a couple of hours before the attack on Kuru Karama. There was not much warning that January morning, only the call to prayer ringing out at the wrong time, 10 a.m., a sure sign of trouble. The town had been surrounded by mobs of Christian men, who, residents said, were seeking to slaughter as many Muslims as possible. Police said 326 people were killed in the attack on the village near Jos in central Nigeria.

? Eight people were killed and three were injured Friday in car bombings that hit Nigeria's capital near a parade marking the 50th anniversary of independence, police said. The two explosions occurred an hour after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, Nigeria's biggest rebel group, issued an e-mail warning saying it had planted several bombs and telling people to evacuate the area. A Reuters cameraman said security forces and firefighters in the capital, Abuja, had been trying to douse a fire in a car after the first explosion when the second blast struck.

I entirely agree with the analysis of Nigeria's importance to the United States in the article by Adonis Hoffman, "Nigeria Heads Towards Civil War, and the World Looks Elsewhere" (Opinion, Aug. 7), but accusing Gen. Sani Abacha of retreating from democracy is unfair. The political situation in Nigeria is vastly more complex than what the article portrays. The legal authority, which organized the June 12, 1993, election, annulled it before announcing the results and then stepped down.

A Nigerian military official said Saturday that about 700 people were killed in the northern city of Maiduguri during recent fighting between police and a radical Islamist sect. The toll was previously thought to be around 300. Col. Ben Ahanotu said mass burials had begun because bodies were decomposing in the heat. The Islamist compound destroyed last week by government troops is one of the burial sites, he said.

Nigeria's last prominent militant leader agreed to halt fighting in the oil-producing Niger Delta and surrendered his weapons Sunday in return for an unconditional pardon. Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo, whose gunmen were behind many attacks on the oil industry in the western Niger Delta, handed over rocket launchers, machine guns and explosives to Defense Minister Godwin Abbe at his camp in Oporoza in Delta state. "It is an act of patriotism that Tompolo and his group surrendered their arms," Abbe said at the ceremony.

KANO, Nigeria - In an attack that didn't happen - well, not officially - a police inspector and four of his officers were ambushed by Islamist militants last month in this northern Nigerian city. Two of them died, two crawled away and hid in a ditch, and the inspector, shot in the leg, called on his cellphone for help. It arrived eventually, but only after he had bled to death. Northern Nigeria is a region under siege. Boko Haram militants mount attacks almost daily and security forces retaliate in a scattershot way, often mowing down civilians.

The U.S. is relying more on Canada and Saudi Arabia for its crude oil needs as imports and production in other supplier nations recede to some of their lowest levels in years, according to a report released by the Energy Department. The top five foreign suppliers of crude have remained unchanged, but there have been important developments in some of those countries. The U.S. is importing less oil than it has since 1999 because of a combination of factors such as lower demand since the global recession and increased domestic production in states such as Texas and North Dakota.

"Who's your Daddy?" That was the chant from the Gardena Serra student section on Thursday night at the Anaheim Convention Center, and Daddy Ugbede was enjoying every second of it. "That's my name," the 6-foot-7 senior from Nigeria said. "I hear it every game. I like it. " Ugbede came through with 32 points, making 14 of 20 shots, to help Serra (29-2) defeat La Verne Lutheran, 69-59, in the Southern Section Division 4AA championship basketball game. When it comes to size and athletes, Serra is near the top in Southern California.

The Nigerian man who tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear aboard a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day 2009 has been sentenced to life in prison. Speaking briefly in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Thursday, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 25-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, called his sentencing "a day of victory" and said he was "proud to kill in the name of God," according to wire service reports. A criminologist who analyzed the transcripts of the FBI interrogation of Abdulmutallab wrote in a report submitted to the judge that the would-be bomber was unrepentant.

A militant Islamic group whose almost daily attacks have put Nigerians on edge left the country stunned Saturday after a well-coordinated strike with disturbing echoes of Al Qaeda's brand of mayhem. More than 150 people were killed in the Friday evening carnage in the northern city of Kano. The group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks, whose targets included the secret service headquarters, an immigration office and a passport office. It was the group's most deadly strike, far exceeding previous death tolls.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's bungled effort to raise the country's fuel prices to the market rate has hurt his international reputation as a potential reformer and infuriated a population tired of decades of rapacious government. The nation incurred almost $1.3 billion in economic losses during a nationwide strike that followed Jonathan's announcement Jan. 1 that the government was ending a fuel subsidy that kept gasoline prices low, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday.

The attacks came in the night, as the villagers slept. Hundreds of Muslim herdsmen armed with guns and machetes swooped down on three Christian villages outside Jos in central Nigeria, killing more than 120 people early Sunday, according to witnesses. There were contradictory reports on the casualties. Some said more than 120 were killed, while others put the number at about 200. The massacre in volatile Plateau state -- long beset with ethnic-religious violence -- was apparently a revenge attack.

Unrest continued to spread across Nigeria on Tuesday amid new sectarian violence and a nationwide strike over fuel prices and government corruption in the oil-rich country. Police said one person was killed when a mosque and Islamic school were attacked in Benin City, in the south of the country. Ten people were reportedly arrested in the attack, the latest religion-fueled violence in a country divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a largely Christian south. In recent weeks, the radical Muslim sect known as Boko Haram, which seeks the implementation of sharia , or Islamic law, has attacked churches and other civilian outposts.

A bomb blast during Christmas mass left 35 people dead and dozens wounded at a Nigerian church near the nation's capital of Abuja. The radical Muslim sect Boko Haram claimed responsibility for both the Abuja-area explosion, which left bodies on rooftops and in nearby gutters, as well as a bombing near a church in Jos, in which one police officer was killed. In all, at least 39 people were killed Sunday during ongoing sectarian violence in Nigeria, which also included at least three explosions in Yobe, an agricultural state in the country's northeast that has often been at the heart of fighting between security forces and Boko Haram.