Publicly accessible list will allow schools and hospitals to conduct background checks
Campaigners have hailed the launch of Nigeria’s first sex offender register as a vital step towards tackling reported cases of sexual abuse, which are rising across the country.
The publicly accessible onlineregister of people prosecuted for sexual violence since 2015 will allow public bodies and police authorities to conduct background checks and identify repeat offenders.
Continue reading...Activists warn muzzling of press under President Buhari could herald return to dark days of military rule
Fisayo Soyombo was eating an evening snack in Lagos in late October when a colleague called to warn him about a plan hatched by Nigerian government officials at a clandestine meeting to arrest him.
Hours earlier, the second in a three-part undercover series by the Abuja-based investigative journalist on corruption in Nigeria’s criminal justice system had been published.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch said people were chained and faced physical and sexual violence in both state and religious centres
Nigeria has been urged to end all forms of abuse in state-run mental health institutions as well as religious healing centres.
In a report published on Monday Human Rights Watch (HRW) said thousands of Nigerians with mental health conditions face prolonged detention, chaining, physical and sexual violence or forced treatment, including electroshock therapy.
Continue reading...Bumi Thomas, whose sister got citizenship, wins appeal against removal from UK
Two Windrush sisters who describe themselves as inseparable are celebrating after a judge ruled that one of them should not be sent back to Nigeria.
Bumi Thomas, 36, was at risk of removal from the UK and at one point was given 14 days to leave, while her sister Kemi, 38, was not because of their different dates of birth.
Continue reading...Our two-year study shows the lake has been stable since the 1990s. Costly ‘solutions’ shift focus from the complex causes of the region’s deadly crisis
Lake Chad is a hydrological miracle – a life-giving, freshwater lake in the Sahara desert. But the region around the lake has been engulfed in a violent crisis for more than a decade, which has left nearly 10 million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
Military crackdowns on insurgent groups such as Boko Haram have failed to end the violence. Bringing durable peace to the region requires unpicking a Gordian knot of many interlinked factors: poverty, sectarian mistrust, political marginalisation and corruption. The risks posed by the climate crisis to the rainfall-dependent livelihoods of the people of Lake Chad are an important strand of this challenge.
Continue reading...Photographer Robin Hinsch travelled to the Niger delta, visiting the gas flaring sites, artisanal refineries, and meeting the communities living in the hugely polluted environments caused by the oil industry
Covering 70,000 sq km (27,000 sq miles) of wetlands, the Niger delta was formed primarily by sediment deposition. It is home to more than 30 million people and 40 different ethnic groups, making up 7.5% of Nigeria’s total land mass.
Continue reading...Five years after she last saw her daughter, Yana Galang fears the world has forgotten a tragedy that splintered families and is now the subject of an award-winning documentary
Last week, Yana Galang left her small farm in Borno state, Nigeria, in the care of seven of her eight children and travelled by bus and train for the first time to the capital, Lagos. From there, she became the first member of her family ever to board a plane, and came to New York.
The mother of one of the 112 Nigerian schoolgirls of Chibok still missing after being abducted by Boko Haram in 2014 came to the city during the UN general assembly, on a mission to remind the world that – five years on – their children still have not been brought home.
Continue reading...Tributes paid to the inspirational Nigerian campaigner and writer, who was hit by a car outside his home in Port Harcourt
A leading activist, journalist and writer who fought for the environmental rights of Nigerians in one of the most polluted places on earth has died after being hit by a car.
Friends and colleagues of Patrick Naagbanton described him as highly respected in the Niger Delta, Africa’s most important oil-producing region. They said his death, and the absence of his work holding the government, companies and individuals with interests in the region to account, would leave an enormous hole.
Continue reading...Aid agencies strongly deny Nigeria’s claims they are diverting funds to Boko Haram
Nigeria has been warned it risks a humanitarian disaster if the government goes ahead with its threat to throw aid agencies out of the north-east of the country, claiming they are in league with extremist Islamic groups.
A spate of aid offices have been forcibly shut after unproven claims they have been acting as conduits for cash that has ended up with Boko Haram, or Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap).
Continue reading...Children rescued from the school were said to have been abused and starved
More than 300 captives, most of them children and many in chains, have been rescued from a building in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna.
All the children, seen by a Reuters reporter at the scene, were boys aged from five to their late teens. Some had their ankles manacled and others were chained by their legs to large metal hubcaps.
Continue reading...Action Against Hunger urges authorities to allow ‘life-saving’ work to continue after sanction imposed without ‘notice or explanation’
The Nigerian army has ordered Action Against Hunger to close its main office in Maiduguri, in Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno state, amid allegations the group has been “aiding and abetting terrorism”.
Soldiers forced the organisation to stop its work in the region on 18 September.
Continue reading...Court rules deportees may have evidence about death of Oscar Okwurime in Harmondsworth
The deportation of three men from the UK to Nigeria on Tuesday night was halted by the high court because they may be able to provide evidence about the death of a man in a detention centre.
Oscar Okwurime died in Harmondsworth detention centre next to Heathrow airport last Thursday. In an order made in the high court on Tuesday preventing the three men flying, Mr Justice Butler said: “There is a serious issue that there should not be a removal of persons for whom there are grounds to believe that they may have material evidence to give in relation to the death of Oscar Okwurime.”
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch says thousands of children were detained in distressing conditions by military over last six years
The Nigerian military arrested thousands of children it suspected of involvement with Boko Haram, holding them in squalid conditions for years in some cases, according to a new report.
Some of the children detained were as young as five, and others described being crammed into overwhelmingly hot, crowded cells in a notorious military facility in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri called Giwa barracks, said a report released by Human Rights Watch.
Continue reading...At least 10 people have been killed so far this month in a surge of attacks targeting foreign-owned businesses in and around South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg. What is behind the wave of xenophobia?
Continue reading...As war of words continues over potential loss of assets, mixed messages of negotiation and scam emanate from government
Nigeria’s top government officials have met to discuss their next move in the $9bn (£7.4bn) energy scandal that is poised to cost their economy dear.
As they exited Monday’s high-level meeting, chaired by vice-president Yemi Osinbajo, the participants remained tight-lipped, refusing to comment on the talks.
Continue reading...Five killed and businesses attacked in wave of violence against immigrants
Police in South Africa are struggling to contain an outbreak of violence against foreigners in major cities that has claimed five lives, ruined dozens of businesses and brought condemnation from other African countries.
President Cyril Ramaphosa condemned the violence on Tuesday and said he was calling in ministers with responsibility for security “to make sure that we keep a close eye on these acts of wanton violence and find ways of stopping them”.
Continue reading...Traumatised refugee children are being enticed by tempting offers of escape from poverty, then sold into slavery – but survivors are fighting back
At the age of 15, Aisha and Halima were abducted from their compound in north-eastern Nigeria by Boko Haram insurgents. For a year they were held in captivity, and were raped. They managed to escape their captors, and find their way across the desert to a camp in Madinatu, in Borno state.
Though they had made it to relative safety, life in the camp was hard for the traumatised teenagers. They had had no contact with their family since their abductions, and there was little to eat. They had to fend off unwelcome advances by local community law enforcers, including members of the Civilian Joint Task Force, who, they say, offered food in exchange for sex.
Continue reading...Government says it will not stand in way of justice after 77 Nigerian nationals are among 80 suspects indicted in US
Nigeria’s federal government has urged the international community not to let a minority of individuals tarnish the country’s reputation after the revelation of a high-profile financial crime investigation by the US government.
At the same time officials warned Nigerian nationals across the globe that they will not stand in the way of justice being administered on those who break the law in other countries.
Continue reading...UK court ruling over aborted project means country will have to pay one-fifth of its foreign reserves to gas supply company
Nigeria’s government stands accused of letting down its 201 million residents by failing to complete a gas supply and production agreement that would have transformed their lives. Instead, the country will now have to pay $9bn (£7.4bn) in penalties or risk having its assets seized.
The accusation is being levied at the federal republic by lawyers representing Process and Industrial Developments Ltd (P&ID), a gas supply and engineering company, following a UK court ruling that paves the way for the seizure of assets belonging to Africa’s richest country. The extraordinary figure represents one-fifth of the country’s declared foreign reserves of $45bn.
Continue reading...Unicef report points to three-fold increase in number of schools closed in the region in two years due to intensifying conflict
More than 1.9 million children are forced out of school across west and central Africa due to rising violence and insecurity, putting them at higher risk of recruitment by armed groups, the UN’s children agency has warned.
In an urgent report published on Friday, Unicef revealed that more than 9,000 schools have been shut down as of June this year in eight countries; Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.
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