Nigeria’s oldest newspaper, the Daily Times, did not appear on Friday as more than 1 000 workers protested the non-payment of their salaries and allowances over the past 15 months, workers and unions said. Nigeria’s state-run privatisation agency recently sold off the newspaper group to a private firm.
Nigeria warned Sudan on Thursday that if it does not allow African Union peacekeepers and diplomats to resolve the Darfur crisis it will end up facing less friendly pressure from outside the continent. ”What has to be made clear is that if Sudan will not yield to gentle and African pressure it will have to succumb to extra-African pressure that might not be so gentle,” said Remi Oyo, spokesperson for President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Atrocities ‘continue in Darfur’
Nigerian police have recovered 20 human skulls and more than 50 corpses in a raid on two black-magic shrines in an "evil forest" in the south of the country, police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu said on Thursday. Ogbaudu said that 30 suspected cultists have been arrested in the raid on the shrines in Okija.
Indigenous oil workers in Nigeria, the world’s sixth-largest oil producer, are angry with multinational oil companies operating in the country’s Niger Delta region over the influx of foreign oil workers, mainly from the United States and Europe. Communal unrest is also taking a toll on the country’s oil production.
The debate around a journalism school in Lagos that has withdrawn the admission letter of a new student after learning that he is living with HIV does not seem to go away. Adegboye Ibikunle’s dismissal by the Nigerian Institute of Journalism has sparked protests by civil societies who demand that the college take him back.
"Leaders come and go, but there will always be workers’ unions." This is the philosophical view that Elder Linus Ukamba, senior assistant general secretary of the Nigerian Labour Congress, has adopted towards plans by President Olusegun Obasanjo to dismantle the union federation.
Nigeria is to send troops to assist in the peace process in southern Sudan, where Africa’s longest running civil war appears to be on the brink of being resolved, an army spokesperson said on Thursday. Defence authorities have yet to decide whether the troops will be under the auspices of the United Nations peacekeeping mission.
Nigeria’s largest cellphone company with about two-million subscribers, South African-owned MTN , has run dry of pre-paid scratch cards due to what officials describe as ”logistical problems”. Hundreds of thousands of angry subscribers have been left unable to replenish their accounts for the past five days.
Millions of Nigerian workers stayed out on strike for the second day on Thursday as union leaders turned up the pressure on President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government over soaring fuel prices. In the commercial hub, Lagos, filling stations remained shut, markets lay deserted and banks were closed.
Children played soccer in the deserted streets of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest city and businesses and schools shuttered their doors across Nigeria on Wednesday as unions representing millions of workers launched a general strike over fuel-price hikes. The strike threatened oil exports from Nigeria, Africa’s largest producer.
At least 43 people were killed when a critically overloaded Nigerian truck carrying passengers and building materials plunged off the road and flipped over, rescue officials said on Wednesday. ”It was overloaded and speeding when it swerved off the road,” said Oheri Osondu, a senior officer of the Federal Road Safety Commission.
It’s a phenomenon that is now a permanent feature of the urban landscape in Nigeria: children hawking goods on the streets. A wide-ranging Child Rights Bill that was signed by President Olusegun Obasanjo in July last year seeks to check child hawking by prescribing penalties for the parents and guardians who allow children on to the streets.
Africa’s leading mobile phone operator Vodacom said on Monday it was terminating a management pact with its Nigerian partner barely two months into a five-year agreement, and dropping plans to invest -million (R1,3-billion) in it. On April 1, Vodacom signed a five-year pact to manage Econet Wireless Nigeria Limited.
Nigeria’s main body representing Christians claimed on Thursday that more than 400 members of its community were killed by Muslim mobs in two days of attacks in the northern city of Kano. The claim was impossible to verify immediately, and Kano’s chief of police, Abdul Ganiyu Dawodu, dismissed it.
Police have restored order in a Muslim village in Nigeria’s central highlands that was attacked by militants from a Christian ethnic group, sparking a clash in which at least 67 people died, an official said on Tuesday. Villagers who fled following Sunday’s overnight attack have said the final death toll could be as high as 350.
More than 30 people were feared drowned after the boat they were travelling on capsized on Lagos lagoon near Nigeria’s biggest city, police spokesperson Emmanuel Ighodalo said on Tuesday. The victims were returning from a burial when their boat capsized.
Nigeria’s universities are under the grip of cult gang members. About 20 cult groups operate in the country’s universities. They indulge in criminal acts such as rape, robbery and extortion. They also coerce lecturers into awarding them good grades. Strict lecturers, who refuse to cooperate, are often shot dead in their offices.
The Voice of Nigeria, Nigerian state radio’s international broadcast network, has been forced off the air by a power cut, workers in the organisation said on Friday. The network went silent on Tuesday after an electrical transformer outside its Lagos headquarters exploded.
Nigeria’s police are cracking down on illegal firearms that, they say, are threatening Africa’s most populous country. Nigeria’s police chief issued an order to crackdown on the illicit firearms three weeks ago. Since then, large numbers of weapons have been retrieved and 105 suspects arrested.
Several pirates were killed and three Nigerian soldiers were injured in a gun battle in the oil-rich swamps near the city of Warri in the unruly Niger Delta, a military spokesperson said on Tuesday. He said the clashes occurred on Sunday night when the smugglers ran into a patrol team at the Jones Creek flowstation.
The state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has sacked seven senior managers over multimillion-dollar fuel imports fraud, a spokesperson for the firm said on Monday. The dismissal of the senior managers in the commercial department of the group was approved at the weekend by President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Nigerian troops shot four river pirates, killing two of them, when an armed gang attempted to hijack a group of oil barges belonging to the Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell, a miltary spokesperson said on Friday. Major Said Ahmed said a gunbattle erupted overnight on Wednesday at Shell’s Ogomu facility.
Nigeria’s defence authorities have set up a special panel to investigate the conduct of military officers detained amid rumours of a plot to overthrow the elected government, a spokesperson said on Thursday. ”Many military officers are undergoing investigation,” defence spokesperson Colonel Ganiyu Adewale said.
Nigeria’s armed forces have cancelled all leave and called troops back to barracks, military sources said on Thursday, amid rumours that disgruntled officers have been canvassing support for a coup d’état. ”We security forces don’t take any rumour lightly,” one naval captain said.
For many Nigerians, daylight hours are too busy to spend on commuting. As a result, they use nights to travel between the various towns and cities where they conduct business. But, fatigue, poor visibility and bad roads have taken their toll in the form of accidents.
At least 18 people, including a soldier, were killed when Nigerian troops raided a town to quell a protest over ballot-rigging in last week’s local government election, a local reporter said on Tuesday. Some press reports, citing witnesses, put the death toll in Sunday’s clash as high as 30.
Oil is the undisputed kingpin of Nigeria’s economy, contributing more than 90% of its export earnings. But more than four decades after the start of oil extraction in Nigeria, the industry remains in foreign hands — much to the frustration of local entrepreneurs.
Low voter turnout, boycotts and a lack of ballot papers in various wards have marred local government elections in Nigeria, which took place on Saturday in 31 of the country’s 36 states. About nine people were also reported to have been killed the day before the vote in Port Harcourt, eastern Nigeria, in what some viewed as a political attack.
The prospects for cocoa farmers in West Africa have not appeared rosy in recent years, what with declining cocoa prices and reports of exploitive labour practices on their properties. Organisations like the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture have been working to assist these farmers, however.
Nigeria’s second largest mobile operator Econet Wireless Nigeria has signed a -million network expansion deal with Swedish equipment provider Ericsson, company executives said on Monday.
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/ 18 February 2004
Just about everything about Nigeria’s mushrooming movie industry is huge, apart from its latest generation of stars; a team of dwarf actors whose small statures belie their towering ambitions.
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/ 17 February 2004
Nigeria’s Niger Delta region is one of the largest wetlands in the world. It is a source of great irony, therefore, that people living in the area struggle to get hold of clean drinking water: they take what they can from creeks and rivers. Providing safe drinking water for the country’s 120-million people will require considerable investment in the future.