The tendency of Western commentators to dress up African tragedies in the patronizing logic of relativism
A private plane and a Nigerian minister are at the centre of a $1-billion corruption scandal
South Africa and Nigeria need each other in many ways. It is time the countries start behaving like it again and strengthen the common interest.
Nigeria’s Senate has passed a motion condemning a string of attacks on Nigerians in South Africa and ordered its foreign affairs committee to look into the matter urgently. Senator Grace Bent, who sponsored the motion, noted ”with serious concern the protracted and unabated intimidation, brutalisation and cases of robbery and sundry attacks”.
A rebel group from Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta said it attacked two major oil pipelines there on Monday in what it called a message to the United States. In an email, a faction of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said its commandos had carried out attacks against the pipelines located at Isaka River and Abonnema River.
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/ 26 February 2008
Nigeria’s prisons are a ”national scandal”, filled with thousands of inmates who have never been convicted of any crime while some prisoners wait decades to face trial, Amnesty International said on Tuesday. The human rights group said only about 35% of Nigerian inmates have been convicted in court.
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/ 20 February 2008
A rebel group from Nigeria’s oil producing Niger Delta demanded on Wednesday that lawyers, relatives and the Red Cross be allowed to see their detained leader, Henry Okah, to confirm he is alive. The government denied a report by the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta that Okah had been shot dead.
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/ 28 January 2008
A protest held by the Biafra National Congress outside the Nigerian high commission in Pretoria on Monday called for the for ”immediate and unconditional” release of Ralph Uwazuruike, leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra. This was in addition to a call for recognition of the independent state of Biafra.
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/ 11 January 2008
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) on Friday claimed responsibility for the blaze that started earlier in the day on a tanker berthed in Port Harcourt, the country’s main oil hub. "Mend confirms that its Freelance Freedom Fighters working inside the oil industry detonated a remote explosive device," the group said in a statement.
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/ 23 November 2007
Central Abuja looks like a modern capital with wide streets and a spectacular skyline. But four years after a massive urban demolition programme began, little progress has been made in resettling the roughly 800 000 people that the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions estimates have been displaced.
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/ 15 November 2007
Unknown attackers blew up a Nigerian crude oil pipeline on Thursday, extending a month-old resurgence of violence against Africa’s top oil producer and dashing hopes for a government peace drive. The pipeline attack at Royal Dutch Shell’s Forcados oil terminal was a setback to the company’s efforts to restore output from the Niger Delta.
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/ 12 November 2007
Nigeria’s secret police have arrested several people suspected of having links to the al-Qaeda network in three of the country’s predominantly Muslim states, a spokesperson said on Monday. ”Our operatives arrested the suspects in Kano, Kaduna and Yobe states,” State Security Service spokesperson Ado Muazu said.
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/ 21 October 2007
Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi, a 24-year-old physics undergraduate in northern Nigeria, takes old cars and motorbikes to pieces in the back yard at home and builds his own helicopters from the parts. ”It took me eight months to build this one,” he said, sweat pouring from his forehead.
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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.
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/ 24 September 2007
Western oil companies reinforced security in Nigeria on Monday after a rebel group threatened to resume attacks on Africa’s largest oil industry, but security sources played down the risk of a major disruption. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta threatened fresh attacks on oil facilities.
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/ 24 September 2007
A Nigerian militant group whose attacks have slashed crude production in Africa’s oil giant apparently announced an end to its voluntary ceasefire and vowed a fresh campaign of violence in the restive southern region.