Thursday, December 8, 2016
Video - Nigeria's farmers adapt to climate change
In Nigeria, farmers are facing expanding deserts and increasing drought. One farmer explains how he's dealing with the new challenges.
Video - Nigerian navy conducts drills to sharpen skills against pirates, oil thieves
Nigeria's navy has been carrying out sea drills to better prepare sailors to tackle piracy. The sea exercises are also intended to sharpen the navy's skills in the fight against pipeline vandalism in the oil-rich Delta region. Militants' attacks on oil installations have significantly cut Nigeria's production, affecting revenue. The navy says it's determined to end the attacks, as CCTV's Deji Badmus reports.
President Buhari claims Boko Haram is finished as a fighting force
Almost exactly a year after he proclaimed that the Nigerian military had “technically defeated” Boko Haram, President Muhammadu Buhari has again insisted that the end is coming for the Islamist militant group.
At a security conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar on Tuesday, the Nigerian president said that members of the militant group—which has fractured into a faction loyal to long-time leader Abubakar Shekau and another affiliated to the Islamic State (ISIS) militant group—had been surrendering “en masse” in Chad, and that regional military forces were preparing a final onslaught on the group’s hideout in the remote Sambisa forest. “As far as Boko Haram is concerned in the Lake Chad Basin area, I think they are done for,” said Buhari.
The comments echoed a similar pronouncement Buhari made in December 2015, when he told the BBC that “technically, we have won the war” against the militant group. Buhari’s logic was that Boko Haram had reverted to guerrilla tactics—using young girls as suicide bombers, for example—and no longer resembled an “organized fighting force” capable of “conventional attacks on centers of
Deaths in Boko Haram-affected states
Boko Haram’s armed insurgency, which began in 2009, has been heavily concentrated in northeast Nigeria. The group was founded in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, and previously held territory also in the neighboring states of Yobe and Adamawa.
From January to December 2015, a total of 7,309 deaths were recorded in these three states, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker. While this tool does not identify the perpetrators of the deaths, it is safe to assume that Boko Haram is the main contributor: no other group has been as active or deadly as the Islamist militants, who were named as the world’s deadliest militant group in 2014, ahead of ISIS, by the Institute of Economics and Peace.
So far in 2016, the number of casualties attributable to the group in those three states has dropped by a third. Boko Haram has killed 2,306 people in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. While Boko Haram has regularly used suicide bombing as a tactic, the group has also shown it still has the capacity to attack settled communities, contrary to Buhari’s December 2015 comments: in January, suspected Boko Haram militants attacked the village of Dalori, burning homes and livestock and killing more than 80 people.
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria
As well as causing thousands of deaths, the militant group has displaced millions of Nigerians during the course of its conflict. There were 2.15 million IDPs in Nigeria as of December 31, 2015, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, which is run by the Norwegian Refugee Council. Of these, an estimated 85 percent were displaced as a result of Boko Haram’s insurgency, and more than 1.4 million IDPs were located Borno state.
Over the past year, the number of IDPs in Nigeria has fallen: the United Nations Refugee Agency estimated around 1.82 million people remain displaced inside the West African country as of December 2. But as Boko Haram has been squeezed within Nigeria, it has spawned out into neighboring countries in the Lake Chad Basin. A total of 2.25 million people are displaced in the region, including substantial populations in Niger, Chad and Cameroon. And the needs of these IDPs continues to grow: the U.N. on Friday launched a $1bn humanitarian appeal to cope with the crisis in northeast Nigeria, saying that 5.1 million people could face serious food shortages over the next year. The appeal led President Buhari to accuse the U.N. and others of exaggerating the situation’s severity with “hyperbolic claims.”
Territory held by Boko Haram
At the peak of its insurgency in early 2015, Boko Haram was estimated to control more than 11,000 square miles of territory—an area the size of Belgium. But Nigerian military advances and the establishment of a regional task force in 2015 gradually reclaimed ground from the group. During his December 2015 interview with the BBC, Buhari claimed that Boko Haram controlled a maximum of four local government areas (LGAs) in Borno state, and none within Yobe or Adamawa. Nigeria has a total of almost 800 LGAs.
In his speech in Dakar on Tuesday, Buhari asserted that Boko Haram is no longer in control of a single LGA in Nigeria, nor of any meaningful territory. The Nigerian military has said that the militants are pinned back into the Sambisa forest and that soldiers are increasingly advancing upon their positions.
Conclusion
President Buhari again appears to have acted prematurely in declaring Boko Haram finished as a fighting force. Nigeria and its allies have substantially limited the number of deaths perpetrated by the militants and rolled back their territorial gains.
The Buhari administration has also made important symbolic gains against Boko Haram, chiefly the freeing of 23 of the 276 girls abducted from their school in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, in April 2014. Prior to 2016, none of the Chibok girls had been freed, excluding the 57 girls who escaped from the group on the night of the abduction.
But Boko Haram remains a potent paramilitary force: scores of Nigerian soldiers have been killed or gone missing in recent clashes with the militants in Borno, suggesting that the group retains the capacity to battle the military. Boko Haram is still displacing people in Nigeria and beyond, and while it allegedly no longer holds any territory, the group appears well-suited to asymmetric warfare. It may be some time yet before Nigeria can truly say that Boko Haram’s insurgency is over.
At a security conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar on Tuesday, the Nigerian president said that members of the militant group—which has fractured into a faction loyal to long-time leader Abubakar Shekau and another affiliated to the Islamic State (ISIS) militant group—had been surrendering “en masse” in Chad, and that regional military forces were preparing a final onslaught on the group’s hideout in the remote Sambisa forest. “As far as Boko Haram is concerned in the Lake Chad Basin area, I think they are done for,” said Buhari.
The comments echoed a similar pronouncement Buhari made in December 2015, when he told the BBC that “technically, we have won the war” against the militant group. Buhari’s logic was that Boko Haram had reverted to guerrilla tactics—using young girls as suicide bombers, for example—and no longer resembled an “organized fighting force” capable of “conventional attacks on centers of
Deaths in Boko Haram-affected states
Boko Haram’s armed insurgency, which began in 2009, has been heavily concentrated in northeast Nigeria. The group was founded in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, and previously held territory also in the neighboring states of Yobe and Adamawa.
From January to December 2015, a total of 7,309 deaths were recorded in these three states, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker. While this tool does not identify the perpetrators of the deaths, it is safe to assume that Boko Haram is the main contributor: no other group has been as active or deadly as the Islamist militants, who were named as the world’s deadliest militant group in 2014, ahead of ISIS, by the Institute of Economics and Peace.
So far in 2016, the number of casualties attributable to the group in those three states has dropped by a third. Boko Haram has killed 2,306 people in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. While Boko Haram has regularly used suicide bombing as a tactic, the group has also shown it still has the capacity to attack settled communities, contrary to Buhari’s December 2015 comments: in January, suspected Boko Haram militants attacked the village of Dalori, burning homes and livestock and killing more than 80 people.
Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria
As well as causing thousands of deaths, the militant group has displaced millions of Nigerians during the course of its conflict. There were 2.15 million IDPs in Nigeria as of December 31, 2015, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, which is run by the Norwegian Refugee Council. Of these, an estimated 85 percent were displaced as a result of Boko Haram’s insurgency, and more than 1.4 million IDPs were located Borno state.
Over the past year, the number of IDPs in Nigeria has fallen: the United Nations Refugee Agency estimated around 1.82 million people remain displaced inside the West African country as of December 2. But as Boko Haram has been squeezed within Nigeria, it has spawned out into neighboring countries in the Lake Chad Basin. A total of 2.25 million people are displaced in the region, including substantial populations in Niger, Chad and Cameroon. And the needs of these IDPs continues to grow: the U.N. on Friday launched a $1bn humanitarian appeal to cope with the crisis in northeast Nigeria, saying that 5.1 million people could face serious food shortages over the next year. The appeal led President Buhari to accuse the U.N. and others of exaggerating the situation’s severity with “hyperbolic claims.”
Territory held by Boko Haram
At the peak of its insurgency in early 2015, Boko Haram was estimated to control more than 11,000 square miles of territory—an area the size of Belgium. But Nigerian military advances and the establishment of a regional task force in 2015 gradually reclaimed ground from the group. During his December 2015 interview with the BBC, Buhari claimed that Boko Haram controlled a maximum of four local government areas (LGAs) in Borno state, and none within Yobe or Adamawa. Nigeria has a total of almost 800 LGAs.
In his speech in Dakar on Tuesday, Buhari asserted that Boko Haram is no longer in control of a single LGA in Nigeria, nor of any meaningful territory. The Nigerian military has said that the militants are pinned back into the Sambisa forest and that soldiers are increasingly advancing upon their positions.
Conclusion
President Buhari again appears to have acted prematurely in declaring Boko Haram finished as a fighting force. Nigeria and its allies have substantially limited the number of deaths perpetrated by the militants and rolled back their territorial gains.
The Buhari administration has also made important symbolic gains against Boko Haram, chiefly the freeing of 23 of the 276 girls abducted from their school in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, in April 2014. Prior to 2016, none of the Chibok girls had been freed, excluding the 57 girls who escaped from the group on the night of the abduction.
But Boko Haram remains a potent paramilitary force: scores of Nigerian soldiers have been killed or gone missing in recent clashes with the militants in Borno, suggesting that the group retains the capacity to battle the military. Boko Haram is still displacing people in Nigeria and beyond, and while it allegedly no longer holds any territory, the group appears well-suited to asymmetric warfare. It may be some time yet before Nigeria can truly say that Boko Haram’s insurgency is over.
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Video - Nigerian athlete raises awareness about traditional cloth
A 47-year-old Nigerian is using sports to preserve the culture of his community's ethnic wraps. Adjarho David Obaro -- nicknamed "World Wrapper Man" -- has run long distance races in a wrap that's 34 metres long and weighs four kilograms. Over the weekend, he ran 15 kilometres in Lagos as part of a fundraiser for his former school.
Nigeria women's football team launch sit-in protest for not receiving payment after winning Africa Cup of Nations
Nigeria's women's team have launched a sit-in protest in an Abuja hotel as they seek allowances and bonuses for winning the Women's Africa Cup of Nations from the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
The Super Falcons players clinched their eighth African title on Saturday with a 1-0 win over hosts Cameroon.
They say the NFF promised them that their outstanding allowances for qualifying and their win bonuses would be sorted before the start of the competition.
The players are now holding out for both in their hotel.
"We are tired of the lies and false promises from the NFF," one player, who insisted on anonymity, told BBC Sport.
"They told us we would be paid before the tournament in Cameroon, but that never happened.
"We continued playing and now we are owed additional allowances and bonuses for winning the competition itself.
"We have made it clear to the NFF president and general secretary that we are going nowhere until all our monies from the qualifying and the competition in Cameroon have been paid."
The NFF, which receives direct funding from government, is in dire straits after Nigeria slipped into recession in August for the first time in more than a decade.
Since March, Super Falcons coach Florence Omagbemi and her assistants have only received a month's salary.
The NFF has said in a statement that its general secretary Mohammed Sanusi met with the players and officials at the Agura Hotel on Tuesday.
"The NFF is not happy owing players and coaches, but present severe economic challenges inform that it can only continue to seek the understanding of these persons, as well as hoteliers, travel agents, management and staff until the situation improves," Sanusi said in a statement.
"All organisations, whether government or private, are feeling the pinch.
"We know we have financial commitment to you (players and officials of Super Falcons) and we have not at any time stated otherwise. But the money is not readily available.
"I have come to appeal to you, to understand the situation of the federation, to understand the situation of the country at the present and exercise patience.
"We will pay you all monies you are being owed as soon as we receive same from the government."
Despite this latest appeal by the NFF, the Super Falcons insist that they do not trust the federation's promises and will not be calling off their sit-in protest as requested.
"Contrary to what was said in that statement, Mr Sanusi used some strong words during our meeting," another player told the BBC.
"Our coach (Omagbemi) has gone unpaid for months, she lost her father yet she went to the tournament and won it for Nigeria.
"They can't treat the Super Eagles (the men's national team) like this. The only thing we understand right now is for them to pay and stop making promises."
It is not the first time the Super Falcons and the NFF have clashed over unpaid bonuses and allowances.
Twelve years ago, the team remained in their hotel in South Africa for three days after the Nigeria FA (NFA) failed to pay their bonuses for winning the 2004 African Women's Championship.
Pay rows have often surrounded Nigerian teams, with coaches not paid regularly, while players have boycotted training during important qualifiers or at major tournaments over unpaid bonus.
The poor financial position of the NFF has already forced the country to cut their backroom staff and slashed the salaries and allowances of the various national team coaches, excluding new Super Eagles manager Gernot Rohr.
The Super Falcons players clinched their eighth African title on Saturday with a 1-0 win over hosts Cameroon.
They say the NFF promised them that their outstanding allowances for qualifying and their win bonuses would be sorted before the start of the competition.
The players are now holding out for both in their hotel.
"We are tired of the lies and false promises from the NFF," one player, who insisted on anonymity, told BBC Sport.
"They told us we would be paid before the tournament in Cameroon, but that never happened.
"We continued playing and now we are owed additional allowances and bonuses for winning the competition itself.
"We have made it clear to the NFF president and general secretary that we are going nowhere until all our monies from the qualifying and the competition in Cameroon have been paid."
The NFF, which receives direct funding from government, is in dire straits after Nigeria slipped into recession in August for the first time in more than a decade.
Since March, Super Falcons coach Florence Omagbemi and her assistants have only received a month's salary.
The NFF has said in a statement that its general secretary Mohammed Sanusi met with the players and officials at the Agura Hotel on Tuesday.
"The NFF is not happy owing players and coaches, but present severe economic challenges inform that it can only continue to seek the understanding of these persons, as well as hoteliers, travel agents, management and staff until the situation improves," Sanusi said in a statement.
"All organisations, whether government or private, are feeling the pinch.
"We know we have financial commitment to you (players and officials of Super Falcons) and we have not at any time stated otherwise. But the money is not readily available.
"I have come to appeal to you, to understand the situation of the federation, to understand the situation of the country at the present and exercise patience.
"We will pay you all monies you are being owed as soon as we receive same from the government."
Despite this latest appeal by the NFF, the Super Falcons insist that they do not trust the federation's promises and will not be calling off their sit-in protest as requested.
"Contrary to what was said in that statement, Mr Sanusi used some strong words during our meeting," another player told the BBC.
"Our coach (Omagbemi) has gone unpaid for months, she lost her father yet she went to the tournament and won it for Nigeria.
"They can't treat the Super Eagles (the men's national team) like this. The only thing we understand right now is for them to pay and stop making promises."
It is not the first time the Super Falcons and the NFF have clashed over unpaid bonuses and allowances.
Twelve years ago, the team remained in their hotel in South Africa for three days after the Nigeria FA (NFA) failed to pay their bonuses for winning the 2004 African Women's Championship.
Pay rows have often surrounded Nigerian teams, with coaches not paid regularly, while players have boycotted training during important qualifiers or at major tournaments over unpaid bonus.
The poor financial position of the NFF has already forced the country to cut their backroom staff and slashed the salaries and allowances of the various national team coaches, excluding new Super Eagles manager Gernot Rohr.
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