NAIJAFEED

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Nigerian Rotimi Babatunde wins Africa's top literary prize

Described as Africa's leading literary award, the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing has been awarded to Nigerian Rotimi Babatunde for his short story entitled Bombay's Republic published in the Mirabilia Review.

Chair of the judging panel, Bernardine Evaristo announced Babatunde as the winner of the £10 000 prize at an awards dinner held on the evening of Monday, 2 July 2012, at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

Evaristo said, "Bombay's Republic vividly describes the story of a Nigerian soldier fighting in the Burma campaign of World War Two. It is ambitious, darkly humorous and in soaring, scorching prose exposes the exploitative nature of the colonial project and the psychology of independence."

Babatunde's fiction and poems have been published in Africa, Europe and America in journals which includeDie Aussenseite des Elementes and Fiction on the Web and in anthologies. He is a winner of the Meridian Tragic Love Story Competition organised by the BBC World Service and his plays have been staged and presented by institutions which include the Halcyon Theatre, Chicago and the Institute for Contemporary Arts. He is currently taking part in a collaboratively produced piece at the Royal Court and the Young Vic as part of World Stages for a World City. Rotimi lives in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Also shortlisted were:

Billy Kahora from Kenya for Urban Zoning

Stanley Kenani from Malawi for Love on Trial

Melissa Tandiwe Myambo from Zimbabwe for La Salle de Départ

Constance Myburgh from South Africa for Hunter Emmanuel

Alongside Evaristo on the panel of judges this year included cultural journalist, Maya Jaggi; Zimbabwean poet, songwriter and writer Chirikure Chirikure; associate professor at Georgetown University, Washington DC, Samantha Pinto; and the Sudanese CNN television correspondent, Nima Elbagir.

As the winner, Babatunde will be given the opportunity of taking up a month's residence at Georgetown University, as a writer-in-residence at the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice. The award covers all travel and living expenses and will also be invited to take part in the Open Book Festival in Cape Town in September 2012 and events hosted by the Museum of African Art in New York in November 2012.

Previous winners

Last years' winner, Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo has subsequently been awarded the highly regarded two-year Stegner Writing Fellowship at Stanford University, in the United States.

Previous winners are Sudan's Leila Aboulela (2000), Nigerian Helon Habila (2001), Kenyan Binyavanga Wainaina (2002), Kenyan Yvonne Owuor (2003), Zimbabwean Brian Chikwava (2004), Nigerian Segun Afolabi (2005), South African Mary Watson (2006), Ugandan Monica Arac de Nyeko (2007), South African Henrietta Rose-Innes (2008), Nigerian EC Osondu (2009) and Sierra Leonean Olufemi Terry (2010).

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Compensation begins for the bereaved families of Dana Air victims

About nine families of the 153 persons who died in the June 3 Dana air crash, Tuesday collected part payment as compensation from the airline as stipulated by the conventions guiding the aviation sector.

The payment also came on a day the airline received completed insurance forms for 68 victims, four of which were members of staff of the company and had been submitted for verification.

Also, the airline presented cheques Tuesday to the displaced residents of Iju-Ishaga, an outskirt of Lagos, who were affected by the crash as part of efforts to ensure their proper rehabilitation.

Confirming the payment, Dana Head of Corporate Communications, Mr. Tony Usidamen, said the airline was fully aware of the mandatory requirement by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), for interim benefits to be paid to the families of the victims within 30 days of the accident.

Accordingly, he said the airline's lead underwriter in Nigeria had begun the compensation process by issuing interim benefit cheques to nine claimants yesterday, following the legal verification of their documentation and next of kin status.

While advising claimants to come to the chambers of Yomi Oshikoya & Co, appointed by the insurers in Lagos, in order to conclude advance payment formalities, Usidamen however said the airline was in contact with all other families who have submitted relevant documents to the airline's Crisis Management Centre (CMC) in Lagos and Abuja. Admitting that some of the bereaved families were yet to come to submit their document because they were still mourning, the airline said advance payment claims would be concluded on case by case basis as at when claimants find it convenient to come forward. He said: "We appreciate that the statutory payments cannot compensate for any of the precious lives lost in the accident but we hope that it will lessen the pains of the families knowing that they are not alone in these extremely difficult times.

"Dana Air shares in the pains of the affected families and continues to offer every form of assistance required by the hospital management and overseas laboratory to ensure that the process is completed as soon as possible, so that the families can lay their loved ones to rest.

"Depending on the update from the Chief Medical Director of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Prof Wale Oke, on Monday, more DNA samples have been collected and will be sent to the United Kingdom for testing shortly."

While noting that investigations are ongoing, he said the airline will continue to co-operate fully with and offer all support to the investigating authorities. However when contacted, Mr. Mike Uchegbu, who lost his brother, Chukwuebuka, in the crash said he was not aware of any compensation by the airline, neither could he identify any other family that has been paid.

He said: "I don't know if people were compensated as the airline is claiming because my family did not receive any payment from them. They cannot say we have not finished documentation because everything required document is with them.

"You just informed me that nine families have been compensated but what is that minute number compared to the higher number of persons that dies in the crash? By law, the families are supposed to be compensated within 30 days and yesterday marked a month of the crash."

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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

NYSC members protest deployment to crisis prone states

Hundreds of corps members for the 2012 Batch ‘B’ yesterday besieged the Gowon House headquarters of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Abuja, seeking immediate redeployment from the northern states over fears of Boko Haram attacks.

The corps members, mainly from the South-West, South-East and South-South geo-political zones, sought immediate re-deployment from states such as Yobe, Plateau, Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Adamawa, Bauchi and Borno.

The impatient youths who were visibly afraid of Boko Haram attacks in the northern parts of the country declined all entreaties from workers of the NYSC to first resume at their states of posting before seeking re-deployment, which is the usual process.

“We prefer to die here instead of being killed by Boko Haram in the North”, some of them said, insisting that it was too risky to even set foot on the states.

They blocked the entrance of Gowon House, preventing movement of vehicles in and out of the premises even as a corps member said: “Let them give exemption letters, that is better than serving in Borno State”

However, Director of Mobilisation, Mrs. Mercy Kolajo, said that the corps members have to report to camp first before they could be considered for re-deployment.

According to her, redeployment can only be done in the states where they have to fill forms and not at the headquarters.

“The 2012 Batch ‘B’ prospective corps members who have collected their call-up letters from their institutions should immediately proceed to their respective orientation camps for registration and camping exercise. Whoever is interested in seeking redeployment should make a request for relocation while in camp.

“We appeal to parents to let their children go. They are going to be safe. NYSC knows what to do in the case of states with challenges”, she said.

Also, Direct of Public Relations, Mrs. Abosede Aderibigbe, added that any corps member who feels threatened has the right to apply for re-deployment, adding that loitering around the headquarters will not help.

Meanwhile, a group under the aegis of Young Journalists’ Forum, has tasked the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the Ministry of Youths Development on the security of lives of youths deployed to the ‘troubled zones’.

The forum, in a statement signed by its President, Ayodele Samuel, and Secretary, Zacheus Somorin, urged the relevant security agencies to deploy strategies and manpower that would guarantee the lives of these future leaders.

The statement read: “The NYSC remains a unifying factor in our nationhood with the primary aim of fostering national unity and not national disaster in the course of serving their nation and humanity.

“We call on all security agencies, state government and indeed all peace-loving Nigerians to partner with the commission in ensuring an absolute protection and safety of all corps members in their states.”

Also, the Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) said the inability of the federal Government to arrest, prosecute and punish armed hoodlums in parts of Bauchi, Yobe and Borno states who only last year massacred more than a dozen participants of the NYSC scheme makes it a crime against humanity for the same government to deliberately deploy other sets of graduates to the volatile states in the North to be exposed to even more deadly violence.

HURIWA in a statement jointly signed by its National Coordinator and Media Affairs, Emmanuel Onwubiko and Miss Zainab Yusuf, called on government to either disband the NYSC scheme or convert it to compulsory one year non-combat military service whereby the participants would only be restricted to work in military formations spread across the country.

The non-governmental organisation stated thus: “While we note that in recent years, some young Nigerian graduates from the South who were deployed to the North for the compulsory one year national service have lost their lives to the activities of political hoodlums and armed insurgents, the Federal Government has sadly failed to bring these perpetrators to face the consequences of their dastardly crime in the competent courts of law”.

“We are even the more shocked that the same government that has failed to restore law and order in the volatile northern states, has also decided to deploy thousands of young graduates mainly from the South to serve in these violence-prone states such as Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, Bauchi, Kano and Plateau. We reject this unwise action by the Federal Government in its totality and we appeal to leaders of conscience in all segments of the society to publicly denounce this move to send out young, innocent, unarmed Nigerian youths to be slaughtered by armed hoodlums”, HURIWA affirmed.

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Baby factory syndicate discovered in Rivers, Nigeria

Police in Rivers State have smashed a syndicate, that specialised in selling new babies. Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mr Ben Ugwuegbulam, who confirmed the development to Vanguard, said the Police arrested a husband and his wife involved in the illicit trade.

He said the two specialised in kidnapping girls and arranging for them to get pregnant, while they would hide the pregnant girls in their custody until they delivered.

Ugwuegbulam said the suspects confessed that as soon as the girls deliver, they would sell the babies. He said: “Rivers State Police Command had arrested one Chigozie John and his wife, Akwarama and rescued three pregnant women held as captives in the suspects place or residence somewhere in Akpajo.

“On interrogation, the husband and wife confessed to the offence of trafficking in new babies and further admitted that the three pregnant women found in their house were procured to deliver babies that would be sold as soon as they were delivered of their babies.”

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Monday, July 2, 2012

Nigerian extradited to America over $45 million health care fraud

Godwin Chiedo Nzeocha, 45, a naturalized United States citizen originally from the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has been returned to the United States to stand trial in a $45 million health care fraud case, United States Attorney Kenneth Magidson announced on Thursday.

Nzeocha was charged October 19, 2009 with conspiracy to commit health care fraud, 39 counts of health care fraud, three counts of mail fraud, and three counts of money laundering in relation to his role in the City Nursing Services of Texas Inc. health care fraud conspiracy.

United States security agents were unable to arrest Nzeocha after he was charged in 2009 but was later arrested in Nigeria and extradicted back to Houston on Wednesday 27th June, 2012.

The accused person has since Wednesday made an initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate George C. Hanks, Jr., where the United States requested that he should be remanded in federal custody pending further criminal proceedings.

According to the indictment, Nzeocha signed patient file documents as the provider of physical therapy services he was not qualified to provide and, according to evidence provided during trial of his alleged co-conspirators, which were not, in fact, provided to Medicare beneficiaries.

The indictment also alleges Nzeocha handed out cash payments to recruiters who brought Medicare beneficiaries to City Nursing and to Medicare beneficiaries in return for signatures on blank patient treatment forms.

To date, five people have been convicted in this massive health care fraud conspiracy, including City Nursing's owner, Umawa Oke Imo, who is now serving 27 years in prison.

Nzeocha faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of the health care fraud, conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and money laundering charges, upon conviction. A conviction for mail fraud carries an additional maximum punishment of up to 20 years in prison.

This case has been investigated by the FBI, Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, the Department of Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector General, and the Texas Attorney General's Office-Medicare Fraud Control Unit. Special thanks is extended to the Nigerian government and the Office of International Affairs in the Justice Department's Criminal Division, who provided assistance. Assistant United States Attorney Julie Redlinger is prosecuting the case.

An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence. A defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law.

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