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/ 29 October 2007
Environment ministers from 38 African countries met in Abuja, Nigeria, on Monday to discuss climate change and prepare for the United Nations global climate conference to be held on the island of Bali, Indonesia, in December. The Bali meeting is expected to produce a new global climate deal to curb carbon emissions.
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/ 24 October 2007
Nigeria’s House of Representatives adjourned for another week on Tuesday as warring sides prolonged a crisis over alleged corruption. Nigeria’s lower chamber has been paralysed since speaker Patricia Etteh was found to have broken rules in awarding contracts worth -million to renovate two official houses and buy 10 cars.
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/ 12 October 2007
Sixty-nine children in northern Nigeria contracted polio following a vaccination against the disease, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official in Nigeria said on Thursday. ”They were vulnerable [to this type of virus against] which they hadn’t been vaccinated enough. These are extremely rare cases, however,” the representative said.
Guns, machetes and looted public funds are the real instruments of power in Nigeria, where politicians backed by unelected ”godfathers” use hired thugs to win office, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 after three decades of almost continuous army dictatorship, but civilian governments have routinely abused basic human rights.
Nigerian Justice Minister Michael Aondoakaa on Friday froze a plan announced last week by the central bank to re-denominate the naira currency, saying the bank had violated the law. Aondoakaa said Central Bank Governor Chukwuma Soludo should first have sought President Umaru Yar’Adua’s written approval.
Nigeria’s new Finance Minister Shamsuddeen Usman said on Thursday he would accelerate economic transformation and sustain macro-economic stability achieved under a reform programme launched in 2003. In his first news conference since taking office, Usman also said the government would amend the 2007 budget, mostly to fund a 15% public-sector pay rise.
The Nigerian central bank said on Tuesday it will drop two zeros from Nits currency, the naira, to make money cheaper to produce and easier to handle. The reforms, which aim at working towards full convertibility and decreasing reliance on the United States dollar, will take effect August 1 2008, a statement from the bank said.
Nigeria has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world, in large part due to unsafe abortions carried out across the country, non-profit health organisation Ipas said on Friday. Between 10 000 and 15 000 deaths out of 100 000 births annually are from unsafe abortions in Nigeria, the group said.
Nigerian ransom-seekers kidnapped the 11-year-old son of a state legislator in the southern oil-producing Niger Delta, the third child abduction in just over a month, authorities said on Wednesday. Kidnappings for money have become increasingly common in the delta, although children were rarely targeted until recent weeks.
Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua came to power under the shadow of disputed elections and an overbearing predecessor, but his first two months in office have shown evidence that he is quietly asserting his authority. The soft-spoken former state governor was plucked from obscurity by former president Olusegun Obasanjo to run for the top job.
Nigerian police intercepted a truck carrying 62 people, including babies and children, in a suspected case of mass human trafficking, the agency in charge of fighting such crimes said on Wednesday. ”We think it is possible that human traffickers recruited these people,” said the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons.
Three former state governors in Nigeria were charged in court on Friday with money laundering and stealing public funds. Prosecutors working for the Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have pledged to bring to trial former governors accused of corruption who enjoyed constitutional immunity while in office.
The main rebel group in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta said on Monday the abduction of a three-year-old British girl was unrelated to political violence and the armed struggle over oil revenues would continue. Margaret Hill was released on Sunday night after four days in the hands of unknown ransom seekers.
A three-year-old British girl was freed on Sunday four days after being kidnapped in Nigeria, and her mother said the toddler was in good health except for mosquito bites. Gunmen had snatched Margaret Hill from the car in which she was being driven to school while it was stuck in traffic on Thursday morning in Port Harcourt.
A Nigerian militant group responsible for most of the attacks that have crippled the country’s oil industry has called off a one-month truce, the group’s spokesperson said on Wednesday. Gunmen attacked an oil rig and kidnapped five expatriates overnight, police said.
Tentative moves by Nigeria’s new government to subdue attacks on the oil industry have drawn mixed reactions from rebel factions in the Niger Delta and sporadic violence is hampering the fledgling peace process. A one-month truce declared by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta expires on Tuesday.
Nigeria’s President Umaru Yar’Adua declared about -million in personal assets on Thursday, saying public financial disclosures should be standard practice as his country battles to curb official corruption. Yar’Adua took power on May 29 with a promise to fight graft in one of the world’s most corrupt nations.
Nigeria’s main opposition party said on Wednesday it had signed a deal with ruling People’s Democratic Party to participate in President Umaru Yar’Adua’s new government. The agreement said the All Nigeria People’s Party would work with Yar’Adua towards a ”national consensus in tackling the country’s problems”.
Nigerian unions will start an indefinite general strike in Africa’s top oil producer on Wednesday to protest against rising prices and privatisations, the two umbrella union bodies said on Monday. The Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress called the strike after the deadline passed on an ultimatum to the government.
Nigeria filed new charges against Pfizer on Monday, seeking ,95-billion over the deaths of children who received an unapproved drug during a meningitis epidemic. The suit came after a separate court delayed two cases in which Pfizer is accused by the state of Kano of harming Nigerian children by testing them with the antibiotic Trovan in 1996.
Umaru Yar’Adua took office as President of Nigeria on Tuesday, promising to tackle a catalogue of crises in Africa’s most populous nation and conceding that his own election was ”not perfect”. In his inaugural address at a military parade ground in the capital, Abuja, Yar’Adua began by saying there were ”lapses and shortcomings” in the vote.
Umaru Yar’Adua takes office as president of Nigeria on Tuesday, inheriting a catalogue of crises compounded by doubts over his own legitimacy after a flawed election. The 56-year-old state governor was handed a landslide victory in last month’s presidential poll, described as ”not credible” by international observers.
A stay-at-home protest meant to embarrass Nigeria’s incoming president over flawed elections foundered on Monday as apathy and an unexpected public holiday diluted the effect. Nigerian cities were quieter than usual on the eve of the inauguration of Umaru Yar’Adua as president.
The two main opposition candidates in Nigeria’s flawed presidential elections last month have filed petitions seeking the cancellation of the result just before the Wednesday deadline for legal challenges. The election for a new president and federal lawmakers on April 21 were labelled ”not credible” by international observers.
Outgoing Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has embarked on a sale of state assets to allies in the private sector in the dying days of his administration, prompting accusations of double standards. Critics say Obasanjo is disregarding due process and paying off his friends with the sales within days of his handover to president-elect Umaru Yar’Adua on May 29.
Nigerian unions have called for a two-day strike on May 28 and 29 to protest against widespread vote-rigging in last month’s elections, the secretary general of the Trade Union Congress said on Thursday. John Kolawale said the strike, which will coincide with the inauguration of president-elect Umaru Yar’Adua on May 29, would not affect oil production.
The outgoing Nigerian government launched a last-minute auction of 41 oil-exploration licences on Friday, ignoring a court order not to sell two of them and widespread criticism over timing and transparency. Most Western oil majors kept away from the sale in which 10 pre-selected investors had already been given preferential bidding rights.
Fighters from the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) destroyed three major oil pipelines in Nigeria’s southern delta on Tuesday, the group said in an email statement. Mend said the Italian oil firm Agip’s Brass terminal, which normally exports about 200Â 000 barrels per day, had been affected by the attacks.
Nigerian president-elect Umaru Yar’Adua will visit seven African countries starting on Monday in his first international trip since his disputed election last month, his spokesperson said. The 56-year-old state governor, who is due to assume leadership on May 29, will visit Benin and Togo on Monday, followed by Niger, Senegal, South Africa, Algeria and Libya.
Nigerian president-elect Umaru Yar’Adua promised on Wednesday to review the conduct of the disputed April elections that gave him his mandate with a view to delivering better ones in 2011. Local and foreign observers said vote-rigging was so widespread that the elections were not credible, while the opposition has rejected the results.
Fifty people were killed during Nigeria’s flawed governorship elections earlier this month, the country’s electoral agency said on Monday. Independent National Electoral Commission spokesperson Philip Umeadi told reporters that of these, 39 were police officers and 11 were civilians.
Nigeria’s president-elect, Umaru Yar’Adua, intends to tackle violence in the oil-producing Niger Delta by initiating dialogue with militants when he assumes office after disputed elections, he told the media on Thursday. Yar’Adua said he would get to work immediately on solving the crisis in the lawless delta in southern Nigeria.