Anti-bomb squad member Sergeant Sunday Badan died in the line of duty as he was trying to disarm an improvised explosive device at unguwar Sarki Kaduna.
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Nigeria has continued to drop in position in the world football ranking. In a February ranking by FIFA, Nigeria dropped from 45th which it was in January to 56th position, even as current African champions, Zambia climbed to 43rd position.
However, despite losing on penalties in the African Cup of Nations final, Côte d'Ivoire moved up to 15th remaining Africa's highest-positioned team.
Aside from the two finalists, third-placed Mali now 44th, as well as host nations Gabon 45th, and Equatorial Guinea 110th have made considerable ground.
The results of 51 international matches have been taken into account in compiling the current edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola Ranking, of which 32 took place as part of the CAF Africa Cup of Nations and 19 were friendlies.
The next FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking will be issued on 7 March 2012, one week earlier than originally planned.
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As the new electricity tariff comes on stream April 1, this year, the federal government says that it has budgeted the sum of N60 billion to subsidise the effect on the rural urban poor this year.
Minister of Power, Professor Barth Nnaji, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja.
Only recently, the federal government announced that from April 1, this yearthe tariff on electricity will be increased by 88 per cent. It is expected that this new rate would be announced before the privatisation of the 18 power generating, distribution and transmission companies this year.
Confirming the development, the minister said:"This year the sum of N60 billion will be made available to ensure that the urban and rural poor do not feel the tariff."
The minister however, said that Nigeria was ranked second to the last in the countries that pay electricity tariffs in Africa.
"What we want is for Nigeria to be in the middle, tariff-wise. The tariff is for the middle class. The urban poor will not be affected. Even when the subsidy is finally removed, there will be some cushioning for the poor," the minister explained.
The subsidy, he said, would be classified -residential and commercial, for easy reference, just as they would attract different rates. The classifications for the residential tariffs are R1, R2 and R3, while that of commercial are C1, C2 and C3.
To ensure that all users of power benefit from the tariff subsidy, Nnaji, said that government planned phasing out the practice of estimated billing by electricity users. This would ensure that they have meters.
The minister said that presently, power generation stood at 4,400 megawatts, adding that an additional 1,000 megawatts would be added by the end of the year when four power plants would be commissioned.
He said that the improvement in the megawatts being generated became possible due to the refocusing of dormant capacities which ensured that power supply was no longer epileptic.
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Struggling against apparent security and economic challenges that have caught the attention of the world, Nigeria and her leaders received words of encouragement and hope from former American President Bill Clinton who spoke in Lagos Monday at the 17th Annual THISDAY Awards for Excellence.
Clinton said it takes a long time to grow democracy. According to him, what deepens democratic ethos is the recognition that people belong to different factions. He argued for respect for the majority, as well as minority and individual right.
As he parted the country Monday night with more words of encouragement, Clinton said Nigeria is not alone in its challenges. “Even if you have economic successes, you will still fight for political freedom,” he said.
Pinpointing his source of concern for Nigeria, Clinton said, “I’m really worried about your security problems. I hope the president and the appropriate ministers can figure it out.
“But from my experience as a public servant, I know that it is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence without giving people something to say yes to.”
In a veiled reference to the Boko Haram menace, he warned that the rampant poverty that is plaguing the country is felt most acutely in the Muslim north and is fuelling the religious violence now tearing at the nation.
“You can’t just have this level of inequality persist. That’s what’s fuelling all this stuff,” said Clinton.
“It is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with violence,” Clinton said. “You also have to give people something to look forward to when they get up in the morning.”
However, Clinton acknowledged Nigeria cannot rule out using military or police force when dealing with the instability.
Making references to startling discoveries recorded by scientists working with the Clinton Foundation, the former U.S. president said genetically what the entire world has and needs in common are important.
He ended his submissions by insisting that Africa and the world needs Nigeria, stressing the fact that Nigeria contributes the fourth largest contingent of soldiers to UN peacekeeping operations around the world.
The former U.S. president, who had to be excused to proceed on his journey to Colombia Monday night, was persuaded to carry out the very important function of handing over the pristine trophies to the honourees, beginning with the Lifetime Achievement Awards.
There were 25 of them in this category adjudged by THISDAY’s Board of Editors as having made gigantic contributions to the progress and development of Nigeria.
Only two women, Mrs. Priscilla Kuye, a legal practitioner and Mrs. Aduke Alakija, a former ambassador, were recognised in this category.
In handing out the awards, Clinton was assisted by Mrs. Cherie Blair, wife of the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair.
However, the 17th THISDAY Awards held at the Eko Hotel and Suites in Victoria Island, Lagos, was more a celebration of 45 Nigerian women of distinction.
Each of them, according to Mr. Nduka Obaigbena, Chairman/Editor-in-Chief of Leaders and Company Ltd., publisher of THISDAY Newspaper, who moderated the event, said the honourees broke barriers, touched lives, and made a difference in a world dominated by men.
As the women were called to the podium to receive their awards, Obaigbena justified the recognition accorded them, while congratulating them for shattering the glass ceiling.
Responding to a question by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former President Clinton said it was becoming old-fashioned for anyone, whether as a husband or in any other capacity, to believe that he can only have the advantage by keeping the other person down.
Clinton added that one of the ways to maintain the presidential system of government and make it less expensive is to have a shorter political campaign period, discouraging big campaign financiers and encouraging smaller contributors.
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A purported spokesman for Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists late Monday threatened the group would soon launch attacks on mobile telephone firms for their alleged complicity with security agents.
In a phone conference with reporters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, a man who claimed to be Boko Haram spokesman Abul Qaqa said the sect would "soon launch attacks" on mobile phone operators and state-run regulator Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
He accused them of complicity with security agents in bugging the phones of sect members to track them.
"We have realised that the mobile phone operators and the NCC have been assisting security agencies in tracking and arresting our members by bugging their lines and and enabling the security agents to locate the position of our members," he said.
Boko Haram has previously used similar conferences with journalists in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, the group's base, to make public statements.
"It was with the connivance with the mobile phone companies operating in Nigeria and the NCC that the security agents were able to locate Abu Dardaa and Kabiru Sokoto and arrest them," Qaqa said in the local Hausa language.
Nigeria has five major mobile phone operators with a total subscriber base of around 90 million.
South Africa-based MTN is the largest mobile operator in Nigeria. Other operators include the United Arab Emirates' Etisalat and Indian-owned Airtel.
Early this month, security sources said they had arrested Abul Qaqa, but the Islamists rejected that claim, saying another senior Boko Haram member, Abu Dardaa, was the one in custody.
On Friday, Nigerian security agents re-arrested Kabiru Sokoto, a prominent sect member in a village in eastern Taraba state, four weeks after his escape from police custody in suspicious circumstances.
Sokoto is believed to be the mastermind of the Christmas day bombing of a church near Nigeria's capital Abuja that killed at least 44 people.
Boko Haram's deadliest attack yet occurred on January 20, when coordinated bombings and shootings killed at least 185 people in Nigeria's second-largest city of Kano.
The group also claimed responsibility for the August suicide bombing of UN headquarters in Abuja that left at least 25 people dead.
It has in the past claimed to be fighting for an Islamic state in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, but its demands have repeatedly shifted.
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