Video - Nigeria battles infatn mortality

One million babies die each year on the day they are born globally, according to new research by Lancet and Save the Children.

Forty million women are estimated to give birth every year without medical support.

A large number of these women live in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Nigeria is trying to improve its high rate of infant mortality.

Boko Haram school raid leaves dozens dead

Suspected Islamist militants from the Boko Haram group in north-eastern Nigeria have attacked a school and shot some students, the military has said.

Dozens of pupils are reported to have been killed. Police told Reuters that all the dead were boys and that some of the bodies "were burned to ashes".

The attack took place in troubled Yobe state, the military said.

Residents of the town of Buni Yadi said the attackers struck at night, slitting the throats of some students.

They said that others were shot.

Teachers at the remote Federal Government College boarding school in Buni Yadi told the AP news agency that as many as 40 students had been killed in the assault which began early on Tuesday morning.

Hospital sources in Yobe told the BBC 29 corpses had been brought in following the attack.

'Pursuit of the killers'
The military has confirmed that an attack took place on "student hostels" but says it cannot yet give further details.

"Details are still sketchy due to lack of telephone access, and it is still not clear how many students were affected in the attack," Yobe military spokesman Lazarus Eli told the AFP news agency.

"Our men are down there in pursuit of the killers," he said.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the northern Hausa language, has frequently attacked schools in the past.

Scores of people were killed in two attacks last week. In one incident, militants destroyed a whole village and shot terrified residents as they tried to escape.

The failure of the army to destroy the militants has fuelled anger in the north-east, correspondents say.

Thousands of people have been killed since 2009, when Boko Haram launched its campaign to install Islamic law.

Tuesday's attack in Yobe is close to where suspected Boko Haram fighters killed more than 40 students last September.

The latest offensive ordered by President Goodluck Jonathan in May has been blamed for triggering reprisals by militants against civilians.

Addressing a news conference on Monday, the president defended the army's record, saying it had achieved some successes against Boko Haram and that the militants had been contained to a small area of north-east Nigeria close to the border with Cameroon.

He said that Nigeria was working with Cameroon to stop the militants from staging attacks in Nigeria and then escaping over the border.

The BBC's Will Ross in Nigeria says that Yobe has been relatively peaceful this year unlike neighbouring Borno state where at least 250 people have been killed in a series of large scale attacks by the militants.

Our correspondent says that the latest killings show the scale of the task the military still faces.



BBC

President Goodluck Jonathan defends suspension of central bank governor

 Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said on Monday his decision to suspend the central bank governor had nothing to do with the governor's exposing corruption in the oil sector.

Jonathan suspended Governor Lamido Sanusi on Thursday on allegations he had mishandled the bank's budget. Sanusi, due to step down in June, was becoming an increasingly vocal critic of the government's record on tackling corruption.

The move caused a panic selloff in financial markets.

Sanusi had been presenting evidence to parliament that he said showed that state oil company Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) failed to pay $20 billion it owed to federal government coffers, fuelling speculation his suspension was an attempt to silence a whistleblower.

"The suspension of Sanusi has nothing to do with whistleblowing," Jonathan told local journalists in a televised news conference.

"The government normally places you on suspension pending investigation, and when they conclude the investigation, you may go back if there's no case against you."

He said an audit had been done of 2012 and 2013 central bank accounts that has shown several irregularities - the 2013 audit had just come in, which was enough to convince him there was a case against Sanusi, he said.

Sanusi has said he will challenge his suspension in court.

"The president has absolute powers to suspend the central bank governor," Jonathan said. "The president has oversight function over the central bank."

Jonathan denied that $20 billion could have gone missing from state oil revenues, saying he would not even "accept that one dollar should disappear".

The governor's suspicion of fraud in one of the world's most opaque national oil companies brought him into conflict with Jonathan a year before what are likely to be closely fought elections.

Jonathan was already under pressure from several corruption scandals and a failure to quell a four and half-year-old Islamist insurgency in the north that, while more or less contained in one area, appears to be becoming bloodier than ever. More than 200 people were killed in two attacks last week.

Jonathan told the journalists the military had had some successes against Boko Haram and that Nigeria was working with Cameroon authorities to try to prevent the militants mounting attacks on Nigerian soil then fleeing back over the border.

"The communities naturally will feel government is not giving them protection," he said. "But I promise that we will continue to improve."

Reuters

Video - Suspended central bank governor Lamido Sanusi saw it coming

Ousted central bank governor Sanusi says president is sorrounded by 'incometent frauds

 Nigeria's former Central Bank chief, Lamido Sanusi on Sunday described the president who ousted him as a simple man trying to do well who has been undermined by incompetent and fraudulent aides.

Sanusi was suspended by President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday over alleged financial misconduct, a move seen by many analysts as politically motivated.

President Goodluck Jonathan and Lamido Sanusi

Sanusi has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) of misappropriating $20 billion (14.5 billion euros), allegations that earned him powerful enemies across the government.

In an interview with AFP in Lagos, Sanusi said many of the people advising Jonathan are sycophants who do not speak frankly or honestly about the extent of corruption in government.

"When you sit with President Jonathan himself he appears a nice simple person who is trying his best to do his best," Sanusi said.

"His greatest failing obviously is that he is surrounded by people who are extremely incompetent, who are extremely fraudulent and whom he trusts."

Sanusi learned of his removal from office while in Niger on Thursday and immediately returned to Lagos, where agents from the Directorate of State Services (DSS) seized his passport.

On Friday, he secured a temporary protective order from the Federal High Court in Lagos barring Nigerian intelligence agents from the DSS or police from arresting him.

"I thought taking away my passport was the beginning of infringement on my fundamental human rights," Sanusi told AFP, explaining why he had already sought court protection.

While no charges have been filed against him, Sanusi said he was prepared for whatever attacks may come.

"That we are here today means that I have taken the decision that I will face the consequences of whatever I do," he said.

He said his "fierce independence" had been an annoyance to the government since 2009, culminating with his sustained, public attack on the NNPC, widely seen as the epicentre of corruption in Africa's top oil producer.

"If I am sacrificed in whatever way, my freedom or my life... if it does lead to better accountability it will be well worth it," he said

Vanguard

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