Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah tops BBC top 10 books of 2013

 Chimamanda Adichie is supremely smart. She has won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (for Purple Hibiscus), the Orange Broadband award (for Half of a Yellow Sun), and a MacArthur 'genius' grant. With Americanah, a star-crossed love story that spans three continents, she proves she is also supremely funny.

Ifemelu leaves her boyfriend behind in Nigeria to study in the US. After her initial disorienting days as an immigrant and a string of humiliating jobs, she finds an outlet in a satiric blog. "Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black," she writes. She becomes a Princeton fellow and dates a Yale professor. After 13 years her heart brings her back to Lagos, where she is not 'black'. She's Igbo. And Americanah.

Adichie is fearless when writing about love, hate and shades of blackness. She tempers her directness with wry humour as she holds up a mirror so we can see ourselves.

For the full top 10 list click here

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Video - Flash mob surprises travellers at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria

The staff of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Terminal 2 thrilled their travellers to a flash mob in celebration of the holiday season.

Video - Nigeria's medical sector goes on strike

Medical workers in Nigeria have begun a five-day warning strike on Wednesday, to force the government to consider its request for needed reforms in sector.

To cushion the effect of the strike however, the management of a National Hospital in Abuja says measures have been put in place to mitigate the effect of the five-day warning strike declared by the leadership of the Nigeria Medical Association.

The spokesman for the hospital, Dr. Tayo Haastrup, said that patients requiring emergency services would be attended to pending the suspension of the strike action.

“Other medical workers are on ground to cushion the effect of the strike,” Dr. Haastrup said.

Resident Doctors in Calabar, the Cross River State Capital, are observing the strike.

The Vice Chairman, Nigeria Medical Association of Resident Doctors, CMD Teaching hospital Calabar, Thomas Agan, confirmed that the state chapter of the medical association is solidly in support of the strike, saying it is for the overall good of the health sector.

In Ondo State, medical doctors in public hospitals also complied with the national warning strike.

A visit to the Ondo State Specialist Hospital in Akure by Channels Televisions’ crew revealed that the strike has taken effect. There was absence of a usual busy scene at the premises.

The Doctors were not on duty but Nurses and other supporting staff were on ground to attend to the patients.

The Chairman, Ondo State Chapter of Nigeria Medical Association, Dr. Dokun Nuel, described the decision of the Doctors to embark on the strike as unfortunate but maintained that the NMA had twice extended ultimatum given to the Federal Government to meet their demands which were still left unattended to.

There was full compliance in Edo State, as doctors were not present at hospitals visited by Channels Television.

In Edo State, the Vice Chairman, Nigeria Medical Association, Edo State branch, Dr. Sunday Yerimo, giving reasons for the nationwide industrial action, explained that the Health sector needed revitalisation in order to render quality service to Nigerians.

According to Dr. Yerimo, Nigerian Medical institutions need total transformation.

“Government should provide the needed finances to train workers and upgrade its facilities,” he said.

The Nigeria Medical Association in a communique issued in Minna after its National Executive Council’s meeting said the association was constrained to declare an industrial action with effect from Wednesday, December 18, 2013 in recognition of the extremely poor progress in the resolution of the demands of the association.

The associations last ultimatum issued to the government expired on Saturday, December 14, 2013 and the association is insisting that there is no going back on their demands.

End To Medical Tourism

After the meeting of the union on Sunday the president, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, said: “Nigerians need to rise up to their responsibility, demand answers to some of these issues that are confronting our governmental system. We cannot have a government that says they are building up yet they seem to be in slumber over issues that affects fortune, destiny and value of our country.

“We have a responsibility to our members as much as we also have a responsibility to our society. We cannot allow this to continue, we have a limit to issuance of ultimatum otherwise it would seem as if we do not understand the strategy of engagement”, Enabulele appealed to the public.

He further appealed to members of the public to bear with the union during the period of the strike.

The association has bemoaned the abysmal six per cent health coverage of Nigerians and has called on the government to urgently invest more in the health of Nigerians through a Universal Health Fund.

It stressed the need for a government sponsored Hospital Development and Intervention Fund (HDIF) in the health industry to drive the development of modern and world class health infrastructure in Nigeria and put an end to medical tourism.

Channels

5 month nation wide university strike comes to an end

A five-month strike by lecturers which closed all public universities in Nigeria has been called off after the government paid for refurbishments.

Lecturers are returning to work because the government had deposited money into a development fund for campuses, union leaders said.

The government had initially pledged to spend $1.3bn ($800m) to refurbish badly maintained public universities.

Nigeria is Africa's main oil producer, but its infrastructure is poor.

Education Minister Nyesom Wike had threatened to dismiss lecturers who failed to return to work by 4 December.

However, members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) defied the ultimatum, continuing with the strike until it was called off on Tuesday.

ASUU has received proof that the government had deposited a significant amount of the $1.3bn into a fund at the central bank, union leaders are quoted by local media as saying.

"We implore our members to go back to class and the government to keep to every part of the agreement," ASUU official Karo Ogbinaka told the private news station Channels.

About 1.2 million students study at Nigeria's public and private universities, AFP news agency quotes the National Universities Commission as saying.

BBC

Nigerian government to sue telecom providers for poor service

The Federal Government is to prosecute telecommunications operators, found to be fleecing subscribers through poor service delivery.

The Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson, made the announcement at a news conference in Lagos on Monday.

She said the ministry had commenced collaboration with the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) to sanction operators rendering poor services or collecting charges from subscribers for services not rendered.

"The ministry, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the CPC are now working together to deliver appropriate customer redress to telecoms subscribers.

"These will include but not limited to rebate on airtime, usage irregularities, inaccurate billing and options to opt out of unsolicited SMS messages," the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quotes her as saying.

She said over 120 millions telecoms subscribers in the country had been at the receiving end of poor service delivery that had made it impossible for them to make or receive calls.

The minister said that subscribers had also been at the receiving end of insufficient customer care lines, unrelenting sales promotions by the networks and deceptive broadband speed adverts by service providers.

Johnson said that the imposition of fines on the service providers for which the NCC collected N1.7 billion 18 months ago had not made the companies to provide better services.

She noted, however, that the ministry had reached out to state governments to reduce the multiple taxation imposed on the telecoms operators, saying that the cost of right of way on federal highways had been reduced by about 90 per cent.

"We have also negotiated an agreement with State Governments to reduce cost of right of way on state highways and for them to also reduce the charges on infrastructure," she stated.

She said that the ministry had since reached understanding with the Lagos, Ekiti, Cross River and Rivers Government on outright waivers on some charges imposed on telecoms providers.

According to her, the Federal Executive Council has also approved a new bill on cyber crime which has severe penalties for wanton destruction of telecommunications infrastructure.

The NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Dr Eugene Juwah, said the commission had issued a Dec. 31, 2013 deadline to stop telecom operators from selling SIM packs or expanding their networks if they failed to improve services.

The Director-General of the CPC, Mrs Dupe Atoki, said the council had constituted a consumer education taskforce to enlighten consumers on their rights and privileges.

Atoki pleaded for more funds from the Federal Government to enable the CPC to work harder to achieve the goals for which it was established, assuring Nigerians that the company would live up to expectations.

Leadership