Counterfeit medicines have killed dozens of children in a recent case of fake drugs in Nigeria. From CNN: Nneka and Chimezie Ononaku unwittingly poisoned their own four-month-old son Chinonso. Giving him what they thought was a baby teething medicine, they were in fact dosing him with anti-freeze. The bottle had been contaminated with a toxic chemical called diethylene glycol. More [...]

The president of Nigeria is looking for help in developing a system that would track oil in the same fashion as blood diamonds. From the AP (via the Washington Post): Nigeria’s president called Thursday for help finding a way to fingerprint crude oil stocks in order to combat the theft and lucrative overseas sale of unrefined petroleum, [...]

The BBC has an report on oil smuggling in the Nigerian Delta. From the BBC: Under cover of night dozens of barges queue up to dock at a jetty in a creek somewhere in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta. Their holds are filled with stolen oil running from valves illegally installed into a pipeline. Full, they chug downstream to meet [...]

Girls between the ages of 12 to 17 are being trafficked in Nigeria to work as domestic help. From the AFP: The trafficking of teenage girls from poor villages to northern Nigerian cities to work as domestic help for meagre wages is on the rise, officials said at the weekend. “The business of recruiting teenagers as domestic help [...]

According to the Associated Press, an estimated 300,000 poor children are either given or sold by their parents to wealthier families in Nigeria.  The article states “The children work in exchange for food, shelter and the promise of school, but often end up victims of physical and sexual abuse, according to the U.S. State Department’s annual [...]

Source: AFP, ” Nigeria military seize 12 oil trucks used for smuggling crude oil,” Google News, October 1, 2007.