Bloomberg ranks Nigeria as most stressful country in the world

Overview

Bloomberg ranked countries based on the stressfulness of their living environments.

Methodology

Seven equally weighted variables were considered: homicide rates, GDP per capita on a purchasing-power-parity basis, income inequality, corruption perception, unemployment, urban air pollution and life expectancy. Income inequality was measured by the Gini Index, where a score of 0 represents perfect equality and 100 perfect inequality. Corruption perception refers to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, which scores countries on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being the most corrupt. Urban outdoor air pollution is the annual mean concentration of fine particles smaller than 10 microns, measured in micrograms per cubic meter. Countries were allotted points for each variable based on their relative position in that category's ranking. The country with the least-stressful measure for each variable received 0 points, while the country with the highest stress level received 100 points. All other countries were scored on a percentile basis depending on their position between the two extremes. Points for the seven variables were averaged for a final score from 0 to 100, a higher score indicating a more stressful living environment. All data were the latest available. Only countries with data available for all seven variables were included.



Source(s)

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, International Monetary Fund, Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, Transparency International, World Health Organization
Last Updated

May 10, 2013
Bloomberg

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Africa's richest man speaks about the future of Nigeria

India has now become Nigeria's biggest crude oil buyer

India has overtaken the U.S. as the top buyer of Nigerian crude oil, a top Indian diplomat in Abuja has said.

Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria Mahesh Sachdev said recent statistics showed that India had been buying more of Nigeria’s crude than the U.S. over the last three months.

“India will continue to cooperate with Nigeria to improve its economy and it will also assist the country in capacity building of workers in both the public and private sectors,” Mr. Sachdev said, during a courtesy visit to the Governor of Niger state in northern Nigeria last Wednesday.

On the bilateral trade, he said the present figure stands at $10 billion, even as the total investment of India in Nigerian economy could be valued at $16.6 billion.

Mr. Sachdev disclosed that India would partner with the government of Kano state to establish a film city and also collaborate with the Niger state government to establish health care facilities as well as improve agriculture.

He also promised assistance in the state on the training of young people who wish to embark on vocational education.

Governor of the state Babangida Aliyu commended India for being one of the few countries that had kept faith with strengthening the work force.

According to him, this has helped Nigeria to develop in every ramification.

India has recently reduced its dependence on Iranian oil in the wake of the U.S. and European sanctions on the import of oil from the Islamic Republic.

The Hindu

Secondary schools in Northern Nigeria close after 42 students killed

Secondary schools in the north-eastern Nigerian state of Yobe have been ordered to close until September after a massacre at a boarding school.

Authorities said 42 people were killed in a gun and bomb attack by suspected Islamist extremists early on Saturday in the Mamudo district.

Witnesses said the assailants, believed to be Boko Haram Islamists, rounded up students and staff in a dormitory before throwing explosives inside and opening fire.

The gunmen "stormed the school around 5:30am and began to shoot at the students from different directions," said a spokesman for a military task force in the state, Lieutenant Eli Lazarus.

A senior police officer said the students were asleep when the attackers stormed their school.

It was the third school attack in the region in recent weeks, and the second in Yobe.

The government issued a statement ordering "all secondary schools in the state be closed down from Monday 8th July 2013 until a new academic session begins in September."

Boko Haram, which translates roughly to "Western education is a sin," has repeatedly targeted schools in the north-east as part of its four year insurgency.

One local resident said Saturday's attack was believed to be a reprisal for the killing of 22 Boko Haram members during a military raid in the town of Dogon Kuka earlier in the week.

The European Union condemned the Yobe school attack, as a "horrific murder by terrorists."


Calls for phone network to be restored

The state government also called on the military to restore local mobile phone services, saying a blackout was preventing residents from reporting suspicious activity.

Nigeria's military cut phone service in much of the country's north-east in mid-May, in an effort to end Boko Haram's insurgency.

Satellite phones have also been banned, with the military saying insurgents use them to plan attacks, and landlines are rare.

A number of residents had initially expressed support for the phone cut if it could lead to peace.

Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency has left some 3,600 people dead since 2009, including killings by security forces, which have come under criticism for alleged abuses.

The current military offensive was launched after President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states on May 14.

He said at the time that the insurgents had managed to take control of a number of remote, border areas of the region.

Since then, the military has claimed major successes and say they have pushed the insurgents out, but the violence has continued, indicating the gains may be short-lived.

ABC

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Nigeria's government website hacked by gay activist

An Irish hacker, angered by Nigeria's stance on homosexuality, has attacked Nigeria's official government website in an attempt to coerce President Goodluck Jonathan to veto a bill seeking to jail homosexuals.

The attack happened on Thursday night and normalcy only returned to the site at about 11.00 p.m. on Thursday. It is not known whether it was the government that regained control or whether the attackers simply suspended the attack.

The anti-gay bill, passed by Nigeria's National Assembly and generously supported by Nigerians, seeks to jail convicted homosexuals for 14 years.

"Nobody should live in fear of being jailed, when their only action is loving another consenting adult, regardless of gender," the Irish hacker, Paddyhack said.

A message left on the defaced website gave the president 72 hours to "renounce and veto this Bill... "

"Failure to follow our order will unleash a torrent of fury aimed directly at the direction of your administration, starting with some startling but unsurprising evidence of corruption in your ranks,"the hacker, who also claims to be a member of the global Anonymous group, said.

"No need to start destroying evidence. I already have it," the hacker declared.

The hacked website, Nigeria.gov.ng, is Nigeria's official website. It is the equivalent of UK's gov.uk and U.S' USA.gov. It is managed by Nigeria's information ministry.

The Thursday night attack was a continuation of an #opNigeria the attacker launched on July 1. Despite announcing his intention hours before hijacking the website, Nigeria's Information Ministry's web administrators appear unable to avert the attack.

"Just over two hours to launch of #OpNigeria," the attacker announced in his twitter diary.

The spokesperson of the ministry, Joseph Mutuah, could not explain the attacks when pressed for reasons the government is unable to provide appropriate security for its web infrastructure.

He likened it to armed robbers breaking into one's property. "They are hackers," he said.

The ICT department of the Information Ministry received N63.5 million from the national treasury this year. Of this amount, N10 million was set aside for the management of the website.


Nigeria cyber protest culture

Although the web profile of the attack suggests Irish origins, it is difficult to isolate the incident from Nigeria's growing culture of cyber activism.

Cyber warfare is fast becoming a major protest tool for Nigeria's social media community. Besides using the Internet to disseminate information, protesters use hacking skills to get government officials' attention to civil issues.

After playing a major role in the global Occupy Movement, the Internet anarchy group, called Anarchy, is lending support to clones in developing countries, including Nigeria.

Various clones operating in Nigeria have carried out operations against government Internet infrastructures as a means of protesting unfavourable policies, mostly as support for a protest in the social media community.

Early in January 2012, during the Occupy Nigeria protest, Nigeria Cyber Hack-activists, the lead clone of Anonymous, began a "Tell Them How You Feel" campaign. The group bombarded mobile phone lines of Nigerian politicians, lawmakers and top government functionaries - including the Vice president - with a million text messages each.

Thereafter, these phone numbers were published by the group on social media, inviting Nigerians to call or text them to denounce the policy.

Nigeria Cyber Hack-activist, believed to be made up of mostly young people, have been carrying out attacks on government Internet infrastructure since 2010. It was a means of protesting the lavish expenditure of the government on Nigeria's 50th anniversary - in the face of worsening poverty and infrastructure decay. The group launched attacks that crippled many government websites.

The group has a history of defacing government websites. In May 2011, they ruined several government websites, including the National Assembly's, in a campaign - Op-Nigeria - targeted at forcing government to cut waste and sign the Freedom of Information Act.

After the Occupy Nigeria protest, Nigeria Cyber Hack-activists announced it was planning an attack on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission's website in a bid to push the anti-corruption commission into arresting Messrs Femi Otedola and Mike Adenuga, earlier fingered as members of a cabal that have fuelled corruption within the oil industry.


But a day before the group's planned attack, the EFCC website was brought down.

No other group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The unannounced attack on EFCC's website suggested there were other hack groups operating in Nigeria.

In 2012 alone, up to eight hack groups, with focused operations on Nigeria, sprang up in the cyberspace - including Anonymous Nigeria, Ibomhacktivist, and the Op-Arik - used to taunt Arik Air, Nigeria's leading airline, for poor customer services.

The radical, faceless, and irrepressible groups threatened to upload stuxnet - a deadly computer worm discovered in 2010 - on Shell flow station in the oil rich Niger Delta after the government threatened them with treason and arrests.

They warned that Nigeria's cyber infrastructure was insecure and would overthrow it if the government does not meet their demands to stop corruption and political patronage in Nigeria, cut waste in governance, and prosecute members of the cabal.

Although the Nigerian government is yet to meet these conditions, the hackers have since gone under, remaining silent even on the latest attacks. It is now unclear whether the latest vandalization of Nigeria's cyber infrastructure is being carried out by them or foreign cyber-warlords.

Premium Times

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4,000 Nigerian refugees in Cameroon

Cameroon has received 4 000 refugees fleeing a Nigerian military offensive against Islamists in the north, the governor of the affected region said on Wednesday, bringing total refugee numbers from the conflict to at least 10 000.

Since mid-May, Nigerian forces have been engaged in a concerted crackdown against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, bombing their bases, raiding neighbourhoods where they are suspected to be hiding and cutting phone lines.

The remote, semi-desert region where the operation is being carried out is sparsely populated.

“There are 4 000 refugees who have come in from Nigeria and we are working out a programme with the International Red Cross to set up a refugee camp for them near the town of Mokolo,” Cameroon's Far-North region governor Fonka Awa said.

Nigeria's military was not immediately available for comment. The local Red Cross said it was still investigating.

The figure was much lower than that given by Hamed Jaha, a member of parliament in Nigeria's Borno state, who said on Monday that 20 000 had fled from the Nigerian border towns of Ashigashiya and Ngoshe into Cameroon after army raids.

Last month, the UN refugee agency said it had registered 6 000 refugees from Nigeria in neighbouring Niger.

Boko Haram has become the biggest risk to stability in Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer and second largest economy, but rights groups and aid agencies fear that the longer the offensive against it goes on, the more the local population will suffer.

A government rights watchdog said this week that violence since President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in May had forced thousands of farmers to flee their land. It said the exodus could trigger a food crisis.

The National Human Rights Commission said it had credible reports of killings, torture, rape and arbitrary detention by security forces. Nigerian authorities have yet to respond.

Reuters

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