Nigeria beat Sudan to advance to CHAN 2018 Final

Nigeria survived a sending-off to edge past Sudan 1-0 in the semi-finals of the African Nations Championship and set up a final against hosts Morocco.

They also lost first-choice goalkeeper, captain Ikechukwu Ezenwa, to injury after just 11 minutes.

They played the last half hour with only 10 men, after Ifeanyi Ifeanyi was dismissed following a nasty challenge.

Okechukwu Gabriel got the only goal of the game.

But Nigeria had to rely on some excellent saves from replacement keeper Oladele Ajiboye and some poor finishing from Sudan, who also had a man sent off late on.

Just five minutes after Ezenwa, who has also been first-choice keeper for the full national team, was forced off, Kalu Okugbue launched a long ball forward that was headed on by Anthony Okpotu into the path of Gabriel, who guided his shot home.

One of Ajiboye's first impressive saves came on the stroke of half-time as he dived to push a header on to the post, with the Sudanese claiming the ball had crossed the line. Replays showed it had not.

Thirteen minutes after the break Nigeria were reduced to 10 men as Ifeanyi slid in with both feet on his opposite number Mohamed Hashim Idris to get his second yellow card, which means he will miss Sunday's final.

Sudan created numerous chances to score an equaliser but poor finishing let them down as Ajiboye made good saves to deny Abdelrahman Maaz and Abdellatif Boya among others.

Sudan also ended the match with 10 players as Bakri Bashir was shown a straight red card as the referee adjudged he pulled Dayo Ojo just outside the area to deny him a clear goalscoring opportunity.

The Sudanese were then denied twice in injury time as Ajiboye made another good save, then he and a defender managed to scramble the ball off the line.

Awaiting Nigeria in Sunday's final are the hosts Morocco, who earlier needed extra time to beat Libya 3-1.

The last action at the tournament for Sudan will be the third-placed play-off against Libya on Saturday in Marrakech.

BBC

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Nigeria and Libya have sailed into the semi-finals of the African nations championships. Nigeria beat Angola two-one while Libya downed Congo in the penalty kicks.

Lassa fever outbreak kills 21 in Nigeria

Lassa fever has claimed a total of 21 lives in its latest outbreak in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, said Director General of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control Chikwe Ihekweazu.

A total of 77 confirmed cases have so far been recorded since the disease, which affected 10 health workers, broke out, the official said Tuesday in Abuja.

He described the situation as sober, adding that it had resulted in serious emotional trauma, fear, anxiety and sometimes anger among stakeholders.

Ihekweazu said it was high time stakeholders came together and addressed the challenges of hemorrhagic fevers, including Lassa fever.

The national coordinator said NCDC has distributed more Ribavirin drugs used in the treatment of the disease to the affected states than it had ever done in the past.

Lassa fever is a viral infection caused by the Lassa fever virus and the disease occurs all year round but more cases are recorded during the dry season.

It is spread through direct contact with urine, faeces, saliva or blood of infected rats, eating food or drinking contaminated water.

The disease can be prevented through enhanced personal hygiene, avoidance of all contact with rats (dead or alive) and keeping the house and surrounding clean.

Xinhua

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Nigeria's President, Muhammadu Buhari, has lived up to his election promise, the fight against corruption. Several former senior government officials, former military chiefs and serving judges are standing trial for alleged corruption.

French journalist asks acclaimed Nigerian author Adichie 'are there bookshops in Nigeria?'

When Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was supposed to be answering questions pertaining to feminism and the #MeToo movement, the world gravitated towards her interviewer’s “retrograde” questions.

On January 25 at “La Nuit des Idees” (The Night of Ideas) in Paris, French journalist Caroline Broue asked the author of several award-winning books, including Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus and Americanah, whether her books were read in her home country of Nigeria, and if there were bookshops.


“I think it reflects very poorly on French people that you have to ask me that question … You’ll be shocked to know that they are, yes ... They are read and studied, not just in Nigeria but across the continent of Africa,” Adichie responded.

The author was then asked to speak about her country, as Broue admitted that the French know very little about Nigeria, “certainly not enough”, and when the French do speak about Nigeria “it’s about Boko Haram and the problems of violence and security”.

“I do not expect a French person to know almost everything about Nigeria. I don’t know almost everything about France. But to be asked to ‘tell French people that you have bookshops in Nigeria because they don’t know’ is to cater to a wilfully retrograde idea – that Africa is so apart, so pathologically ‘different,’ that a non-African cannot make reasonable assumptions about life there,” Adichie responded

Adichie said that she was taken aback when her “Intelligent, thoughtful and well prepared” interviewer asked a question that was “far below the intellectual register of her previous questions.”

“I know now that she was trying to be ironic ... it was a genuine, if flat, attempt at irony and I wish she would not be publicly pilloried,” Adichie said.

Mail & Guardian