Category Archives: Nigeria

‘I’m a fighter’: WTO’s first female, African head ready for battle

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, set to be named director general, joins as global trading system facing make-or-break moment

Even for an economist, there are lots of very large numbers in the life of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. As the chair of Gavi, the vaccine alliance, she has overseen the annual immunisation of millions of children. When managing director of the World Bank, she oversaw $81bn (£58bn) worth of operations. In her stints in charge of Nigeria’s finances, she tackled Africa’s most populous country’s $30bn debt. And she has 1.5 million followers on Twitter.

There are lots of smaller numbers too: the 20 non-profit organisations that have appointed Okonjo-Iweala to their advisory boards, the major banks and corporations she has advised, the 10 honorary degrees in addition to her own doctorate, 20 or so awards, dozens of major reports authored, and the books.

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Nigerians can bring claims against Shell in UK, supreme court rules

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Ogale and Bille villagers say Shell oil operations have caused severe pollution including to their drinking water

Two Nigerian communities can bring their legal claims for a cleanup and for compensation against the oil company Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary in an English court, supreme court judges have said.

In what lawyers said was a “watershed moment” for the accountability of multinational companies, on Friday the court overturned a decision by the court of appeal, and ruled that the cases against Shell could proceed.

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Lagos traffic creating ‘life or death’ situations for women trying to reach hospital – report

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Study of pregnant women travelling to health facilities found journeys took up to four times longer than online maps suggested

The heavy traffic and bad roads of Lagos have been baffling online mapping tools with potential “life and death implications” for people trying to reach the city’s hospitals, research has found.

Researchers looked at cases of pregnant women trying to reach hospital in Nigeria’s most populous city, infamous for its roads, and found they faced a journey of up to four times longer than computers and satellites suggest, which mean the models for access to healthcare facilities are also out of kilter.

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‘Finally some justice’: court rules Shell Nigeria must pay for oil damage

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Nigerian farmers win claim for compensation in The Hague after 13-year battle

A Dutch court has ordered Shell Nigeria to compensate farmers for major oil spills they say caused widespread pollution.

On Friday an appeals court in The Hague rejected Shell’s argument that the spills were the result of sabotage, saying not enough evidence had been provided.

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‘The system is rigged’: Seun Kuti on reviving Fela’s political party

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The musician and youngest son of the Afrobeat legend has been galvanised to act after police brutality in Nigeria

“For 60 years nothing has really been solved in this country,” Seun Kuti says. “Healthcare, education, electricity, transportation, welfare – nothing has been accomplished.”

Galvanised by the brutality meted out by Nigerian police against protesters in October last year, the 37-year-old Grammy-nominated musician and youngest son of the Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti resurrected his father’s socialist political party, the Movement of the People. Against a backdrop of widespread and mounting frustration over how Nigeria is run, he hopes the MOP can be a vehicle for change in 2021.

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Nigeria launches ‘biggest job creation scheme’ in its history after long delay

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Initiative aimed at shielding young people from economic impact of Covid-19 will provide 750,000 paid placements

Nigeria has launched a much-delayed programme that promises to provide jobs for more than 750,000 young people amid worsening youth unemployment.

The scheme, launched this month, is being hailed by government officials as the largest job creation initiative in the country’s history.

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Nigeria cattle crisis: how drought and urbanisation led to deadly land grabs

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The death toll of animals and humans is mounting as herders seeking dwindling reserves of pasture clash with farmers

In February last year, Sunday Ikenna’s fields were green and lush. Then, one evening, a herd of cattle led into the farm by roving pastoralists crushed, ate, and uprooted the crops.

“I lost everything. The situation was sorrowful, watching another human being destroy your farm,” says Ikenna, a father of 10 who farms in Ukpabi-Nimbo in Enugu state, southern Nigeria. “I farmed a smaller portion this year because I am still scared of another invasion.”

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Gender conversion ‘therapy’ made me suicidal. I fear for other young Nigerians

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A survivor warns against the harmful practices many are forced to undergo to try to change their sexuality or gender identity

When I was nine, my parents took me to a traditional healer. He used a razor to make three incisions on the insteps of my feet, my wrists, my elbows, my forehead and on the back of my neck. As blood started to flow, the healer rubbed a concoction of herbs into the incisions and gave me a potion to drink. He took alligator pepper and rubbed it on various parts of my body. There was a rooster, into which he cast the “demon” inside me. The rooster was slaughtered and thrown into the river, supposedly taking my sexuality with it.

In boarding school, I met a boy who I would say was my first love. We talked about everything and liked to take long walks. But he struggled. I watched him struggle to accept his sexuality. He felt there was something wrong with him but I didn’t know how to help him. For me it was different. It wasn’t just about sexuality; it was also about gender. I was born male but I have never felt like a man.

When I was 22, in university, I met a transgender woman. She was a lot more open, more cosmopolitan, more upfront about what she wanted. I’d never met anyone like her. We had a sisterhood –– fun, graceful, pure. It was as if the scales fell from my eyes.

What part of me has been lost in the effort to make me fit a heteronormative, socially acceptable form?

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Boko Haram kidnaps 40 loggers and kills three in north-east Nigeria

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Hostages have been taken and three bodies found in the Wulgo forest, close to the border with Cameroon

Boko Haram jihadists have seized about 40 loggers and killed three others in north-east Nigeria near the border with Cameroon, militia sources and residents have said.

The hostages were rounded up by the insurgents on Thursday in Wulgo forest near the town of Gamboru, where they went to collect firewood, the sources said.

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Nigerian schoolboys meet president after kidnap ordeal

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Some of 344 children recount their ordeal as they meet with Muhammdu Buhari in Katsina

Nigeria’s president, Muhammdu Buhari, has met with more than 300 schoolboys kidnapped a week ago in the country’s restive north-west as authorities celebrated their freedom amid widespread anger in the country at deepening insecurity.

The 344 boys arrived in the city of Katsina on Friday morning, relieved to be free but exhausted from a week spent in captivity following their abduction by local bandit groups in a raid claimed by the Islamist militants Boko Haram. They were rescued on Thursday night from a forest enclave, according to the governor of Katsina state, Aminu Masari.

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Group of 344 kidnapped Nigerian schoolboys handed to government

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Katsina state governor reveals rescue in televised interview, after abduction claimed by Boko Haram

More than 300 schoolboys kidnapped in northern Nigeria have been rescued, the Katsina state governor has said.

The 344 boys, whose abduction was claimed by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, were on their way back to Katsina, Aminu Masari told the state broadcaster on Thursday.

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Boko Haram claims responsibility for kidnapping hundreds of boys in Nigeria

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Doubts over Islamist extremists’ involvement in abduction of more than 300 students last week

The leader of Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group that abducted hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria six years ago, has claimed responsibility for the mass abduction of students in north-western Katsina state last week.

In an audio tape released on Tuesday, Abubakar Shekau said: “Our brothers were behind the abduction in Katsina.”

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Landmine casualty rates in Nigeria now fifth highest in the world

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Mines laid by Boko Haram and other groups leave millions at risk, particularly in Borno state where insurgency most acute

More than 100 people were killed or injured by landmines across north-east Nigeria in the first three months of this year, according to a new report.

Mines laid during the conflict between Boko Haram, other armed groups and the Nigerian army left 408 people dead and 644 injured between January 2016 and August this year, says the Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a landmine clearance charity. Since March 2018, the country has recorded an average of five landmine casualties a week. Actual numbers are thought to be higher due to underreporting. The first 15 weeks of this year saw one casualty a day.

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Nigerian police say 400 pupils missing after gunmen attack secondary school

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Some students ran for safety as police exchanged fire with bandits ‘armed with AK-47 rifles’

Hundreds of Nigerian students are missing after gunmen attacked a secondary school in the country’s north-western Katsina state, police have confirmed.

The Government Science secondary school in Kankara was attacked on Friday night by a large group of bandits who shot “with AK-47 rifles”, a state police spokesman said.

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Nigeria: Hundreds of pupils feared missing after bandit attack on school

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About 400 pupils thought missing or kidnapped after gunmen stormed secondary school in Kankara

Bandits armed with assault rifles attacked a secondary school in Nigeria’s north-western Katsina state late on Friday, police said, and two local people told Reuters hundreds of students were missing.

The gunmen stormed the Government Science secondary school in Kankara district at about 9.40pm, and police at the scene returned fire, allowing some students to run for safety, police spokesman Gambo Isah said in a statement.

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Sub-Saharan Africa named riskiest investment region due to violence

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Annual global terror index highlights attacks in Mozambique and DRC and says human rights abuses are driving violence

Militant violence and abuses by security forces have made sub-Saharan Africa the riskiest region in the world for business and investors, a new report says.

Seven of the world’s 10 highest-risk countries for militant violence are in the region with significant deteriorations in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to the annual Terrorism Intensity Index released on Friday by risk consultants Verisk Maplecroft.

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Nigerian pop star Davido: ‘Africans were made fun of. Now everyone wants us’

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The singer was taking a good-time sound to the world – but after his song Fem became the anthem of the EndSars protesters, he joined them on the streets

The buoyant, trumpeting chords of Fem, the opening track on Davido’s fourth album, A Better Time, suggest an artist who is vivacious, free of self-doubt, revelling in the limelight. David Adedeji Adeleke, 28, is part of a generation of Afrobeats artists who have blown the African dance-pop genre on to the global stage over the last decade; his songs have become the feelgood soundtrack of Nigeria’s nightlife, and made him one of his continent’s biggest pop stars.

Yet “Fem”, meaning “shut up” in pidgin, has taken on a different meaning. Last month, Lagos governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu pleaded with EndSars protesters, who had taken a stand against police brutality. The largest protest movement in Nigeria for decades had erupted, incensed at the abuses by the infamous and since disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars). As the protesters outside the government secretariat in Lagos grew impatient, a DJ at the demonstration suddenly played Fem, already a hit across the country. Scores began belting out his lyrics, drowning out the governor’s futile pleas. In a culture where reverence for authority figures can be brutally enforced, protesters recast the song into a defiant statement.

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At least 110 dead in Nigeria after suspected Boko Haram attack

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Attack took place in village near Maiduguri, with assailants targeting farmers in rice fields

At least 110 people have been killed in an attack on a village in north-east Nigeria blamed on the Boko Haram jihadist group, according to the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country.

“At least 110 civilians were ruthlessly killed and many others were wounded in this attack,” Edward Kallon said in a statement after initial tolls indicated 43 and then at least 70 dead from the massacre on Saturday by suspected Boko Haram fighters.

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Boko Haram kill dozens of farm workers in Nigeria

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Up to 43 slaughtered and a further six seriously injured, say anti-jihadist militia

Boko Haram fighters killed at least 43 farm workers and wounded six in rice fields near the north-east Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Saturday, anti-jihadist militia told AFP.

The assailants tied up the agricultural workers and slit their throats in the village of Koshobe, the militia said.

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