Sunday, March 16, 2014
Video -16 feared dead in stampede at recruitment drive in Abuja
Over 125,000 applicants in Abuja and Lagos alone chasing 4,500 jobs! 16 feared dead in the scramble. Thousands fainted from stampede and exhaustion.
Many more applicants thronged the remaining 35 states of the federation.
These casualty figures from the recruitment test centres of the National Immigration Service (NIS), held across the country, yesterday, told the story of Nigeria’s frightening unemployment situation.
In Lagos and Abuja alone, 56,000 and 69,000 applicants respectively sat for the job test.
Thousands of others took the exercise in other state capitals.
NIS allegedly raked N6billion from the applicants as processing fee.
Each applicant paid N1,000.
At the National Stadium, Abuja, which was the centre for the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, eight applicants were reported dead.
Four others were feared dead at the Port Harcourt, Rivers State centre, three in Minna, Niger State and one in Benin-City, Edo State.
Unconfirmed reports claimed the Benin-City victim was a pregnant applicant.
Stampede was reported in Akure where 12,000 were invited for the test.
Thousands of certificates were allegedly lost at the Ondo State centre.
At the Abuja centre, the thousands of applicants were overwhelmed with emotions as eight of their colleagues were allegedly taken to the mortuary.
About 50 were said to have fainted and several others injured.
The tragedy, it was learnt, happened in the morning when the crowd of applicants was trying to gain entry into the test venue.
The test eventually started around 3.30p.m.
One of the applicants at the centre, Abubakar Isah Wada, told Sunday Vanguard, yesterday.
“Government is not treating unemployed youths well. Due to this disorganised nature of our country and lack of discipline, some persons died this morning and several fainted,” Wada said.
“Government needs to recognise the plight of unemployed graduates and not waste time and money on issues that are not important to the development of this country”.
Another applicant said: “Immigration (NIS) should have divided the applicants and run this test on different days rather than bringing all of us here like this to pass through this suffering. If President Jonathan really wants to come back in 2015, this is his ticket”.
At the National Hospital, Abuja, the Director of Management Information, Mr Tayo Haastrup, confirmed the death of seven persons and 40 sustaining various degrees of injuries in the stampede at the recruitment venue.
Poor crowd control
At the Liberation Stadium, Port Harcourt venue where four applicants reportedly died, no fewer than 23, 000 sat for the test.
Some of the applicants blamed the incident on poor crowd control. According to them, the 16,000 capacity stadium was relatively small to accommodate the 23,000 that turned up for the exercise.
They said security men had a hectic time controlling the crowd of applicants. “Some applicants who were finding it difficult to get into the stadium suddenly started pushing their way through. Some persons reportedly stepped on those who fell on the ground,” an eye witness said.
According to him security men had to fire shots into the air to stop those still outside from pushing to get inside the stadium. ” More persons would have died if the security men had not shot into the air. The shot stopped those who were outside from pushing in “, he stated.
Some of the applicants said they lost the originals of their certificate during the commotion.
Sunday Vanguard gathered that a pregnant woman was among those who died from exhaustion.
But the spokesman for the NIS in Rivers State, Mr Bisong Abang, denied deaths during the stampede. He however said those who sustained injuries were treated by medics on ground, adding that those who turned up for the screening exercise far exceeded the number of applicants.
Some critical cases were rushed in an army ambulance vehicle with registration number NA 307 EOI to hospital for medical attention.
Applicants were still being attended to by NIS officials at the time our correspondent left the stadium.
Examiner confused
At the Minna centre, four of the 11,000 applicants were said to have died while scrambling to gain access into the examination hall.The candidates had reportedly been subjected to standing on the queue for several hours while the chief examiner was calling the applicants into the hall. It was learnt that the candidates, having waited for hours and becoming restless, started shunting which led to a stampede leaving the examiners confused.
In an effort to bring orderliness, officers of the NIS stationed at the Women’s Day Secondary School, venue of the test, fired cannisters of teargas into the crowd. This led to several of the applicants falling down and trampled upon.Three of them were reportedly confirmed dead. The remains of the applicants, it was learnt, were deposited at the Minna General Hospital. Contacted,Controller of Immigration in Minna, Ezekiel Kaura, confirmed that five people were rushed to hospital after the stampede but could not confirm how many people died. He also said 11,000 applicants were expected to sit for the test.
Many of the 12,000 applicants, who sat for the examination at the CAC Grammar School, Akure, lost their certificates in the stampede that attended the exercise.
Tragic town
The NIS recruitment exercise in Benin-City turned tragic when a pregnant woman died at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium Benin-city venue after collapsing. About 20 others were said to have been injured.
She reportedly died in a stampede. The 20,000 applicants who came from different states of the South- south thronged the stadium at about 5am but it was learnt that screening could not start till about 2:30pm.
Many of the applicants complained bitterly that the exercise was poorly conducted and wondered why people could be subjected to such inhuman treatment.
PDP shocked by deaths
In the meantime, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday, challenged government agencies, as well as elected and appointed officials at all levels to redouble their efforts to curb unemployment in the country, just as it described the death of the NIS applicants as shocking and unfortunate.
In a statement by the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, the party, while calling for investigation into the remote and immediate cause, said it was extremely grieved by the death of the young Nigerians.
Vanguard
At least 100 dead in attack on village in Kaduna, Nigeria
At least 100 villagers have been killed in Nigeria's central Kaduna state in attacks linked to disputes between ethnic groups, officials say.
Heavily armed men entered three villages in the Kaura district in the south of the state.
It is not clear who was behind the attacks, but residents blame members of the mainly Muslim Fulani tribe.
Central Nigeria has often witnessed violence stemming from disputes over land and religion.
Thousands of people have been killed in recent years in violence blamed on semi-nomadic Fulani herdsmen attacking Christian farmers.
A member of Kaduna's state assembly, Yakubu Bitiyong, visited the scene of the most recent attacks, which took place on Friday night.
Most of those killed in the villages of Ugwar Sankwai, Ungwan Gata and Chenshyi, had been so badly burned they could not be identified, he told the BBC. Houses were destroyed by fire and food supplies looted.
Mr Bitiyong said two of the attackers were also killed and their bodies taken away by police, who have sent in reinforcements.
The unrest is not connected with the continuing Islamist insurgency carried out by the Boko Haram group, which wants to impose Sharia law in the north.
The attacks in Kaduna came only a day after reports emerged of 69 people being killed over several days in northern Katsina state when dozens of armed men arrived in villages on motorbikes.
Violence in that area has also been blamed on Fulani attacking local farmers from the Muslim Hausa ethnic group, rather than the Christian community.
BBC
Heavily armed men entered three villages in the Kaura district in the south of the state.
It is not clear who was behind the attacks, but residents blame members of the mainly Muslim Fulani tribe.
Central Nigeria has often witnessed violence stemming from disputes over land and religion.
Thousands of people have been killed in recent years in violence blamed on semi-nomadic Fulani herdsmen attacking Christian farmers.
A member of Kaduna's state assembly, Yakubu Bitiyong, visited the scene of the most recent attacks, which took place on Friday night.
Most of those killed in the villages of Ugwar Sankwai, Ungwan Gata and Chenshyi, had been so badly burned they could not be identified, he told the BBC. Houses were destroyed by fire and food supplies looted.
Mr Bitiyong said two of the attackers were also killed and their bodies taken away by police, who have sent in reinforcements.
The unrest is not connected with the continuing Islamist insurgency carried out by the Boko Haram group, which wants to impose Sharia law in the north.
The attacks in Kaduna came only a day after reports emerged of 69 people being killed over several days in northern Katsina state when dozens of armed men arrived in villages on motorbikes.
Violence in that area has also been blamed on Fulani attacking local farmers from the Muslim Hausa ethnic group, rather than the Christian community.
BBC
Friday, March 14, 2014
Nigerian best selling author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wins Americia's National Critics Book prize
The writer's work tells the story of a Nigerian woman who moves to the US to pursue a college education.
In 2008, her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, won the UK's Orange Prize and Purple Hibiscus was longlisted for the Booker Prize four years earlier.
Other category winners for the US honour included Sheri Fink's book about Hurricane Katrina.
Her account of the patients, staff and families who took shelter in New Orleans' Memorial Hospital during the devastating storm took the non-fiction prize.
Frank Bidart won the poetry section for his collection Metaphysical Dog, while Amy Wilentz was honoured with the autobiography award for her account of journeys to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake in the country. 'It takes an outsider'
For the first time, a special award was given for a debut writer, crossing all categories.
Anthony Marra was honoured with the prize for his novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomena.
Adichie's third novel was also named as one of the New York Times' top 10 books of 2013.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the author said her book drew on her own experiences as an African living in the US, particularly with African Americans.
"I don't know race in the way an African American knows race… Sometimes it takes an outsider to see something about your own reality that you don't," she said.
Her preceding work, Half of a Yellow Sun, is set during the Biafran War of the late 1960s and has been adapted into a forthcoming film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton.
The writer is also in the running for the UK's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction - formerly known as the Orange Prize - for Americanah.
The National Critics Book Prize was first awarded in 1974 and is open to writers of all nationalities whose work has been published in the US.
BBC
Related stories: Video - Best selling author Chimamanda Adichie talks about her new book and gives praise to Lupita Nyongo
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Attack by gunmen leave 69 people dead in Katsina
Gunmen on motorbikes in Katsina state killed at least 69 people and torched several homes in attacks on four villages, a local lawmaker said Thursday, amid rising communal tension in the region.
The state’s police chief, Hurdi Mohammed, who gave a lower toll of 30 dead, told AFP the violence was perpetrated by ethnic Fulani herdsmen who have been blamed for scores of deadly raids.
“So far, 69 bodies have been recovered from the attacks carried out by a large group of gunmen riding on motorcycles,” said Katsina lawmaker Abbas Abdullahi Michika of the violence which first broke out late Tuesday. “The victims include men, women and children.
Rescue teams are still combing nearby bushes in search for more bodies,” he told AFP. He specified that 47 people were killed in the village of Mararrabar Maigora while seven deaths were recorded in both Kura Mota and Unguwar Rimi.
Another eight people were killed in Maigora, according to Michika. Fulani leaders have for years complained about the loss of grazing land which is crucial to their livelihood, with resentment between the herdsmen and their agrarian neighbours rising over the past decade. Most of the Fulani-linked violence has been concentrated in the religiously divided centre of the country, where rivalries between mostly Muslim herdsmen and mostly Christian farmers have helped fuel the unrest.
While there is no religion element to the conflict in Katsina, which is overwhelmingly Muslim, tensions between the Fulani and ethnically Hausa farmers have worsened in recent months. Residents have blamed the Fulani for several violent robberies this year.
Three people were killed earlier this month in Katsina when suspected Fulani gunmen opened fire at a checkpoint. The police chief insisted the attacks were not linked to Islamist group Boko Haram, whose insurgency has killed more than 500 people in the northeast already this year.
Vanguard
The state’s police chief, Hurdi Mohammed, who gave a lower toll of 30 dead, told AFP the violence was perpetrated by ethnic Fulani herdsmen who have been blamed for scores of deadly raids.
“So far, 69 bodies have been recovered from the attacks carried out by a large group of gunmen riding on motorcycles,” said Katsina lawmaker Abbas Abdullahi Michika of the violence which first broke out late Tuesday. “The victims include men, women and children.
Rescue teams are still combing nearby bushes in search for more bodies,” he told AFP. He specified that 47 people were killed in the village of Mararrabar Maigora while seven deaths were recorded in both Kura Mota and Unguwar Rimi.
Another eight people were killed in Maigora, according to Michika. Fulani leaders have for years complained about the loss of grazing land which is crucial to their livelihood, with resentment between the herdsmen and their agrarian neighbours rising over the past decade. Most of the Fulani-linked violence has been concentrated in the religiously divided centre of the country, where rivalries between mostly Muslim herdsmen and mostly Christian farmers have helped fuel the unrest.
While there is no religion element to the conflict in Katsina, which is overwhelmingly Muslim, tensions between the Fulani and ethnically Hausa farmers have worsened in recent months. Residents have blamed the Fulani for several violent robberies this year.
Three people were killed earlier this month in Katsina when suspected Fulani gunmen opened fire at a checkpoint. The police chief insisted the attacks were not linked to Islamist group Boko Haram, whose insurgency has killed more than 500 people in the northeast already this year.
Vanguard
Video - Nigeria demands justice for Nigerian brutally mistreated by South African police
Nigeria has protested to South Africa about a "merciless attack" by police on one of its nationals in Cape Town, its foreign ministry has said.
An amateur video on social media sites purportedly shows the man being stripped, assaulted and handcuffed by policemen and security guards.
Nigeria had sent a "strongly worded" note to Pretoria, demanding justice for the man, the ministry said.
Two South African police officers have been arrested.
Rights groups have often accused South African police officers of brutality, incompetence and corruption.
"The Nigerian High Commission will continue to monitor the case with keen interest until justice is achieved," the ministry said in a statement.
South Africa's police watchdog, the Independent Police Directorate, has said the officers would be charged with assault.
About 17,000 registered Nigerians live in South Africa, but correspondents say there are many more illegal immigrants.
Last year, Mozambican national Mido Macia died after being dragged behind a moving police patrol van in a town east of Johannesburg.
Nine officers are standing trial for his killing.
BBC
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