LAGOS (Reuters) – The view of Lagos from the top of the Eko Hotel must be familiar to many of the fund managers and strategists who jet in to Nigeria periodically, scouting for investment opportunities.

In the distance, rows of bright lights reflect on the water like the skyline of any oceanside city. Elsewhere, dots of yellow flicker like fishing boats on the waves.

LAGOS (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell said on Wednesday it planned to spend $2 billion upgrading and replacing its gas gathering facilities at 26 locations in Nigeria’s Niger Delta in order to reduce flaring.

Gas flares burn day and night from onshore oilfields in the Niger Delta, one of the world’s biggest wetlands, creating a health hazard to nearby communities and contributing to global warming, environmentalists say.

LAGOS (Reuters) – The death of Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua is unlikely to plunge Africa’s most populous state into crisis, but it intensifies what was already shaping up to be the fiercest succession race since the end of military rule.

Yar’Adua has been absent from the political scene since last November, when he left for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, and his deputy Goodluck Jonathan has been running the country since February, when he assumed full powers as Acting President.

LAGOS, May 4 (Reuters) – A rift in Nigeria’s ruling party
ahead of presidential polls, resurgent crime in the Niger Delta
oil region and tough financing conditions for businesses and
consumers are clouding an otherwise bright investment outlook.

Africa’s most populous nation is a compelling frontier
market and some foreign investors are slowly returning to its
capital markets, but its volatile politics with elections due by
early next year means many remain on the sidelines for now.

LAGOS, April 21 (Reuters) – A violent mob prevented police in Nigeria from arresting former Delta state governor James Ibori, a political powerbroker wanted in connection with money-laundering allegations, police said on Wednesday.

Senior officers including a deputy inspector general and the Delta state police commissioner went to apprehend Ibori on Tuesday but were ambushed and attacked as they entered Oghara, his hometown in southern Nigeria’s oil heartland, police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said.

"They went to his place and a mob attacked them and damaged some vehicles. The police retreated," Ojukwu said.

Local newspaper reports said the mob were armed and had exchanged fire with police but Ojukwu could not confirm this.

"I am not aware of any gunfire but I know they were a violent mob … They attempted to prevent police from having access to him to have him arrested," he said.

Ibori, one of Nigeria’s most influential and controversial politicians, is a member of the Elders’ Committee of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and was instrumental in the rise to power in 2007 of President Umaru Yar’Adua.

Yar’Adua returned in February from three months in a Saudi clinic, where he was being treated for a heart condition, but remains too sick to govern. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has said fighting corruption is one of his top priorities.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria’s anti-corruption police, said last week it wanted to question Ibori over allegations that 44 billion naira ($290 million) was looted from Delta state government coffers while he was governor. [ID:nLDE63C1WN]

Ojukwu said a court order for Ibori’s arrest had been served on the police at the start of the week and vowed to use "all legal means" to apprehend him.



CORRUPTION CHARGES

Ibori has maintained the charges against him are born out of political rivalry at the heart of the PDP. [ID:nTAT558397]

His spokesman, Tony Eluemunor, said the planned arrest of the former state governor and the removal of his police guards on Tuesday were in breach of a previous court ruling.

"EFCC agents have been harassing people in Ibori’s houses in Lagos, Abuja and Oghara in total disregard of that court order," Eluemunor said.

The EFCC charged Ibori in 2007 with looting more than $85 million during his eight-year tenure as governor of Delta, one of three main oil-producing states in the southern Niger Delta, but a court dismissed the charges in December.

The EFCC has said it will appeal.

Several of Ibori’s associates are also facing money laundering charges in the United Kingdom, where a court froze $35 million worth of his assets in August 2007 on suspicion they were the proceeds of corruption.

Ibori is one of several former state governors to have been charged by the EFCC in cases which were seen as a litmus test of Yar’Adua’s commitment to fighting corruption. But they made little progress under his administration.

Nigeria’s 36 state governors have discretionary powers over millions of dollars of public funds and critics say they sometimes behaved like feudal monarchs, doling out cash as perks to political supporters and persecuting opponents. (For more Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: af.reuters.com/ ) (Editing by Giles Elgood)

LAGOS, April 6 (Reuters) – Uncertainty over the shape of
Nigeria’s new cabinet, how a presidential succession will play
out and the threat of unrest in two of its most turbulent
regions are clouding an otherwise bright investment outlook.

Africa’s most populous nation remains a compelling frontier
market for foreign investors but its volatile political climate,
which poses risks to everything from oil production to banking
reforms, means many remain on the sidelines for now.

LAGOS, April 1 (Reuters) – Uncertainty over the shape of
Nigeria’s new cabinet, how a presidential succession will play
out and the threat of unrest in two of its most turbulent
regions are clouding an otherwise bright investment outlook.

Africa’s most populous nation remains a compelling frontier
market for foreign investors but its volatile political climate,
which poses risks to everything from oil production to banking
reforms, means many remain on the sidelines for now.

ABUJA, March 4 (Reuters) – A militant faction in Nigeria’s Niger Delta said on Thursday it had blown up an oil facility operated by Italy’s Agip <ENI.MI>, its second attack in as many days, and warned foreign oil companies to leave the region.

There was no independent confirmation of the attack.

The Nigerian military confirmed there had been an oil spill in the Niger Delta on Thursday but said it has had no contact with militants in the area where the sabotage was said to have taken place.

"I just spoke with my field commanders in Tura Manifold and they denied having any encounter with militants," a Nigerian military spokesman said in a statement.

"Though there is a spill on Brass River I cannot confirm what caused the spill."

The Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC), a coalition of militants and community leaders not previously known for such strikes, said in a statement emailed to the media it had blown up Agip’s Tura manifold in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

"We demand the immediate vacation of all the international oil companies operating in the Niger Delta territory pending future negotiations (with the authorities)," it said.

The JRC on Wednesday claimed an attack on Royal Dutch Shell’s <RDSa.L> Kokori flowstation in Delta state. Shell confirmed an explosion had damaged the unmanned facility but said there was no impact on output as it was not producing.

Renewed unrest in the heartland of Africa’s biggest oil and gas industry would be troubling for Nigeria at a time when Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is trying to stabilise government in the absence of the country’s ailing leader.



FIRST ATTACKS IN SIX MONTHS

The strikes mark the first significant attack on the energy industry in more than six months, following an amnesty programme led by President Umaru Yar’Adua last year under which thousands of gunmen laid down their weapons.

Yar’Adua returned from a three-month absence for medical treatment in a Saudi hospital just over a week ago but remains too frail to govern. Jonathan, who is from the Niger Delta, has made maintaining peace there one of his top priorities.

Attacks by militants in the Niger Delta between 2006 and 2009 crippled Nigeria’s oil output, preventing the OPEC member from pumping much above two-thirds of its 3 million barrels per day (bpd) installed capacity.

The amnesty programme brought a lull in the violence but militant fighters had complained that Yar’Adua’s absence was stalling the programme, with stipends going unpaid and promises of training not materialising.

The most damaging strikes on Nigeria’s oil industry in recent years were carried out by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the region’s umbrella militant group, whose top field commanders accepted amnesty.

MEND has said it is waiting to see what progress Jonathan will make in getting the amnesty programme back on track before it decides whether or not to reinstate a ceasefire.

The group told Reuters on Wednesday it was not involved in the JRC attack on Shell, leading some security experts to suggest the JRC’s actions were isolated and unsupported, leaving the amnesty programme still able to go ahead.

"It was carried out by a splinter group, looking for further recognition. It is to be expected that not all groups will work for peace," said a security expert who wished not to be named.

"The security forces need to deal with these renegades in order to allow time for peace and development in the Niger Delta," he added. (Additional reporting by Austin Ekeinde in Port Harcourt; Editing by James Jukwey)

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigerian Vice President Goodluck Jonathan will keep full executive powers for now, the presidency said on Thursday, in an apparent bid to ease fears of a power struggle after the return of ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua.

Yar’Adua’s surprise arrival on Wednesday after three months in a Saudi hospital raised concern that a cabal around him was fighting to sideline Jonathan and retain influence in Africa’s most populous nation, a major oil exporter.