Morocco has recalled its ambassador to Nigeria, in a row over whether the president of Nigeria is trying to use the king of Morocco to win over Muslim voters before Nigeria's elections this month.
Last week, the Moroccan royal palace said the king had declined a request for a telephone conversation with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. Nigeria's foreign ministry denied the snub on Monday and said the two leaders had spoken extensively.
Jonathan, a Christian from southern Nigeria, will face former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim northerner, in elections on March 28. The election is expected to be the most closely fought since the end of military rule in 1999.
Nigeria's population is roughly split between Christians and Muslims. Both parties, the ruling People's Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress, have been using religion to bolster support.
"Morocco confirms, in the clearest and strongest terms, that there has never been a phone conversation between the King Mohammed VI and the president of this country," a statement from the Moroccan foreign ministry said.
The Nigerian foreign ministry said it was "preposterous to suggest that Mr. President's telephone call to the Moroccan monarch was intended to confer any electoral advantage."
A spokesman for the ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the recall.
Morocco cited "the hostile, recurrent and unfriendly positions of the Nigerian government with regard to the Moroccan Sahara issue and the sacred Arab-Muslim causes" as a reason for declining Jonathan's call.
Nigeria is one of the main supporters, along with Algeria and South Africa on the continent, of the independence movement Polisario Front in the disputed Western Sahara.
The territory is a tract of desert the size of Britain that has lucrative phosphate reserves and possibly oil, is the focus of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute, between Morocco and the Polisario guerrillas.
Reuters
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Video - Nigerian military re-capture more towns from Boko Haram
Nigeria's military said Tuesday it had only one town left to recapture from Boko Haram militants in the north-eastern state of Yobe, a former stronghold of the group. This as Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin mobilize forces to help Nigeria defeat the group, after it seized large swathes of territory and staged cross border attacks.
Nigeria ranked 2nd in most affordable internet service in emerging economies
Nigeria has ranked second as the country with the most affordable Internet in emerging nations according to a study conducted by Alliance for Affordable internet (A4AI).
In a presentation by Sonia Jorge, executive director, A4Ai, at the Ericsson and Alliance for Affordable Internet programme at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain recently, Nigeria was buoyed by a strong leadership and regulation of the industry, robust broadband strategy, effective competition in the telecommunications sector, efficient spectrum allocation, universal access to rural and underserved population, and infrastructure sharing, among others.
Jorge said “Nigeria comes second in the Affordability Index’s ranking of developing economies – scoring higher than other African developing economies like Kenya, Morocco and Uganda, and higher even than some emerging economies, including Mexico, South Africa, Thailand and Tunisia.
The backbone infrastructure in Nigeria has improved significantly over the last decade, with multiple players, including Phase 3, Glo 1, Suburban Telecom, Multilink and MTN, building fibre networks that crisscross the country.
Minister of Communications Technology, Dr Omobola Johnson who spoke at the forum said what will grow the internet in Nigeria is local content and not over-reliance on YouTube and other such social media channels.
She said “What will drive the internet is relevant, local content. The most visited sites in Nigeria are the job and the news sites, not social media.”
Johnson informed that the decision of the Nigerian government that ICT was primary leading to creation of the Communication Technology Ministry has positively affected the fortunes of the sector.
She hailed the commitment of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to the development of broadband technology in the country, pointing out that on presentation of the Broadband Report to him in 2013, the president immediately gave the implementation go-ahead.
His action has added impetus to what is happening in the sector.
Nigeria’s regulator, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), plans to award seven licenses to regional infrastructure companies to extend broadband infrastructure nationally.
The first two of these were awarded in early 2015 to MainOne and HIS Communications to provide services in Lagos and North Central states, respectively.
The government is also working to improve infrastructure sharing among these operators, who have traditionally built overlapping fibre networks.
The nascent “Smart States” initiative, which sees states committing to reduce the cost of broadband access by reducing taxation and simplifying regulation, is also a positive step.
Nigeria’s mobile broadband penetration rate stands at just 10 per cent despite the fact that close to 40 per cent of Nigerians use the Internet – and the government has put in place policies to increase this penetration level to 30 per cent by 2018.
Leadership
In a presentation by Sonia Jorge, executive director, A4Ai, at the Ericsson and Alliance for Affordable Internet programme at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain recently, Nigeria was buoyed by a strong leadership and regulation of the industry, robust broadband strategy, effective competition in the telecommunications sector, efficient spectrum allocation, universal access to rural and underserved population, and infrastructure sharing, among others.
Jorge said “Nigeria comes second in the Affordability Index’s ranking of developing economies – scoring higher than other African developing economies like Kenya, Morocco and Uganda, and higher even than some emerging economies, including Mexico, South Africa, Thailand and Tunisia.
The backbone infrastructure in Nigeria has improved significantly over the last decade, with multiple players, including Phase 3, Glo 1, Suburban Telecom, Multilink and MTN, building fibre networks that crisscross the country.
Minister of Communications Technology, Dr Omobola Johnson who spoke at the forum said what will grow the internet in Nigeria is local content and not over-reliance on YouTube and other such social media channels.
She said “What will drive the internet is relevant, local content. The most visited sites in Nigeria are the job and the news sites, not social media.”
Johnson informed that the decision of the Nigerian government that ICT was primary leading to creation of the Communication Technology Ministry has positively affected the fortunes of the sector.
She hailed the commitment of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to the development of broadband technology in the country, pointing out that on presentation of the Broadband Report to him in 2013, the president immediately gave the implementation go-ahead.
His action has added impetus to what is happening in the sector.
Nigeria’s regulator, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), plans to award seven licenses to regional infrastructure companies to extend broadband infrastructure nationally.
The first two of these were awarded in early 2015 to MainOne and HIS Communications to provide services in Lagos and North Central states, respectively.
The government is also working to improve infrastructure sharing among these operators, who have traditionally built overlapping fibre networks.
The nascent “Smart States” initiative, which sees states committing to reduce the cost of broadband access by reducing taxation and simplifying regulation, is also a positive step.
Nigeria’s mobile broadband penetration rate stands at just 10 per cent despite the fact that close to 40 per cent of Nigerians use the Internet – and the government has put in place policies to increase this penetration level to 30 per cent by 2018.
Leadership
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Video - Activists pressure Nigerian government to find kidnapped schoolgirls
The abduction of some 270 school girls in northeastern Nigeria highlighted the dangers that women caught up in armed conflict face. The incident sparked global condemnation and a social media campaign to rescue the girls. But today, the hashtag 'Bring-Back-Our-Girls' is only being used by a small group of activists in the capital Abuja.
Monday, March 9, 2015
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