Nigerian women win 2013 L'oreal award for "Women in Science Partnership"

Two Nigerian scientists have bagged the UNESCO L'Oreal "Women in Science Partnership" award for their contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge in the country.

The awardees were recognized in the Laureates and Fellows categories in Paris.

Francisca Okeke, the first female Head of Department, University of Nigeria Nsukka bagged the 2013 Laureate award for her significant contributions to the study climate change. She was the only recipient in that category from Africa and the Arab nations and the third Nigerian Laureate since the UNESCO-L'Oreal partnership was established in 1998.

The second Nigerian recipient, Eucharia Nwaichi, an environmental biochemist from the University of Port Harcourt joined 15 other young scientists in the International Fellows category. She was recognized for her research on "Scientific Solution to Environmental Pollution."

Four others also got awards in the Laureate category with each representing Europe, Latin America, North America and the Asia Pacific regions.

The international jury which selected the 2013 awardees was led by Nobel Prize winner, Ahmed Zewail.

Ms. Okeke told the Western Europe Correspondent of NAN that she would continue to encourage women to participate in the development of science and technology in the country. She noted that cultural challenges were impeding on women's participation in global innovations, stressing that "even though it is seen as a male dominated field, people like us inspire others."

Mariam Katagum, Nigeria's Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, said candidates who met the criteria were selected by a jury based on their submitted projects.

"Two important elements are respecting the deadline and also making their submission through the Nigerian National Commission for UNESCO because that gives it authenticity," she said. "For us as delegates, as soon as we knew we had possible candidates from Nigeria, we ensured that due process was followed. There is no interference as you can see; an international jury determined the outcome."

According to her, they awardees have become role models for girls. "For us as a country, we need to encourage more girls to go into science. We can only do that by providing the environment, access to quality education and making sure that the facilities that will make them interested in science subjects are in place," she said.

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Chinua Achebe passes away at 82

Nigeria's literary icon and publisher of several novels, Chinua Achebe, is dead.

Mr. Achebe, 82, died in the United States where he was said to have suffered from an undisclosed ailment.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt he died last night in a hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

A source close to the family said the professor had been ill for a while and was hospitalised in an undisclosed hospital in Boston.

The source declined to provide further details, saying the family would issue a statement on the development later today.

Contacted, spokesperson for Brown University, where Mr. Achebe worked until he took ill, Darlene Trewcrist, is yet to respond to our enquiries on the professor's condition.

Until his death, the renowned author of Things Fall Apart was the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown.

The University described him as "known the world over for having played a seminal role in the founding and development of African literature."

"Achebe's global significance lies not only in his talent and recognition as a writer, but also as a critical thinker and essayist who has written extensively on questions of the role of culture in Africa and the social and political significance of aesthetics and analysis of the postcolonial state in Africa," Brown University writes of the literary icon.

Mr. Achebe was the author of Things Fall Apart, published in 1958, and considered the most widely read book in modern African Literature. The book sold over 12 million copies and has been translated to over 50 languages worldwide.

Many of his other novels, including Arrow of God, No Longer at Ease, Anthills of the Savannah, and A man of the People, were equally influential as well.

Prof Achebe was born in Ogidi, Anambra State, on November 16, 1930 and attended St Philips' Central School at the age of six. He moved away from his family to Nekede, four kilometres from Owerri, the capital of Imo State, at the age of 12 and registered at the Central School there.

Mr. Achebe was a consistent critic of various military dictators that ruled Nigeria and was a loud voice in denouncing the failure of governance in the country.

Twice, he rejected offers by the Nigerian government to grant him a national honour, citing the deplorable political situations in the country, particularly in his home state of Anambra, as reason.

Below is how Brown University profiled him on its website:

"Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is known the world over for having played a seminal role in the founding and development of African literature. He continues to be considered among the most significant world writers. He is most well known for the groundbreaking 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, a novel still considered to be required reading the world over. It has sold over twelve million copies and has been translated into more than fifty languages.

"Achebe's global significance lies not only in his talent and recognition as a writer, but also as a critical thinker and essayist who has written extensively on questions of the role of culture in Africa and the social and political significance of aesthetics and analysis of the postcolonial state in Africa. He is renowned, for example, for "An Image of Africa," his trenchant and famous critique of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Today, this critique is recognized as one of the most generative interventions on Conrad; and one that opened the social study of literary texts, particularly the impact of power relations on 20th century literary imagination.

"In addition, Achebe is distinguished in his substantial and weighty investment in the building of literary arts institutions. His work as the founding editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series led to his editing over one hundred titles in it. Achebe also edited the University of Nsukka journal Nsukkascope, founded Okike: A Nigerian Journal of New Writingand assisted in the founding of a publishing house, Nwamife Books–an organization responsible for publishing other groundbreaking work by award-winning writers. He continues his long-standing work on the development of institutional spaces where writers can be published and develop creative and intellectual community."

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166 Feared Dead in boat accident

A boat traveling from Oron in Akwa Ibom State to Malabao in Equilateral Guinea, yesterday, capsized at the Calabar Waterways with no fewer than 166 passengers feared dead.

Eyewitnesses said the passengers were traveling in a "giant-sized wooden boat" when it capsized at 40 nautical miles along the coast of Calabar off Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, waterways".

Investigation shows that 45 corpses of some of the victims have been deposited at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, UCTH, mortuary.

But Mr David Akate, the Assistant Director, Information, Cross River Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, who confirmed the incident, did not give further details.

The eyewitnesses said the boat was carrying 168 passengers, adding that rescue efforts were still going on.

A marine transporter at the Calabar Inland Waterways, Mr Ikechukwu Egwu, also confirmed the incident. He said the passengers of the boat were mostly Igbo traders who were heading for Gabon, adding that they were mostly from the South East states who headed to Oron in Akwa Ibom to board the wooden boat because it was cheap.

"They are mostly Igbo traders who headed to Oron to board the wooden boat because it was cheaper," he said.

The victims' corpses were being deposited in UCTH Calabar instead of Malabo, where the mishap occurred, because they were believed to be Nigerians

A statement by spokesman of National Emergency Management Agency, Mr Y A Shuaib however said "Nigerian rescuers have recovered 9 bodies while two survivors have been taken to UCTH Calabar", adding that rescue continues.

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