Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Nigeria release squad list for the 2014 Football World Cup

Goalkeepers: Chigozie Agbim (Gombe United), Austin Ejide (Hapoel Beer Sheva), Vincent Enyeama (Lille)

Defenders: Efe Ambrose (Celtic), Elderson Echiejile (Monaco), Azubuike Egwuekwe (Warri Wolves), Kunle Odunlami (Sunshine Stars), Godfrey Oboabona (Caykur Rizespor), Kenneth Omeruo (Middlesbrough), Juwon Oshaniwa (Ashdod), Joseph Yobo (Norwich City)

Midfielders: Ramon Azeez (Almeira), Reuben Gabriel (Waasland-Beveren), John Mikel Obi (Chelsea), Victor Moses (Chelsea), Ogenyi Onazi (Lazio), Michael Uchebo (Cercle Brugge)

Forwards: Shola Ameobi (Newcastle United), Michael Babatunde (Volyn Lutsk), Emmanuel Emenike (Fenerbahce), Ahmed Musa (CSKA Moscow), Uche Nwofor (Heerenveen), Peter Odemwingie (Stoke City)

Monday, June 2, 2014

Nigerian government bans public protests for plight of kidnapped schoolgirls

Nigerian police have banned public protests in the capital Abuja for the release of more than 200 schoolgirls seized by Islamist militants in April.

Abuja police commissioner Joseph Mbu said the rallies were "now posing a serious security threat".

Nigeria has seen almost daily rallies calling for the government to take firmer action to rescue the girls.

Boko Haram militants snatched the girls from the remote Chibok village near the Cameroon border on 14 April.

In a statement, Mr Mbu said that public protests had "degenerated" and were now a security threat.

He was also quoted by the state-run Agency of Nigeria as saying that "dangerous elements" could join the demonstrations.

Nigeria's government has been facing growing pressure both at home and abroad to do more to tackle the group and bring about the girls' release.

A deal for the release of some of the abducted schoolgirls in Nigeria was close to being secured when the Nigerian government called it off late last month, the BBC has learned.

Some of the girls were set to be freed in exchange for imprisoned Islamist militants, reports the BBC's Will Ross.

Thousands of people have died since Boko Haram began a violent campaign against the Nigerian government in 2009 and in the subsequent security crackdown.

The girls, who were mainly Christian, were taken from their school in Chibok, in north-eastern Borno state and are thought to be held in a remote forested area of the state, close to the border with Chad and Cameroon.

Last month, Boko Haram released a video of some of the girls. The footage was interspersed with militants explaining that the girls had "converted" to Islam.

The UK, the US, China and France are among the countries to have sent teams of experts and equipment to help to locate them.

BBC

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Chimamanda Adichie opposes western intervention in tackling Boko Haram

 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the prize-winning Nigerian writer, has said she opposes Western military intervention against Boko Haram, the rebel group from the north of the country that recently kidnapped, and is still holding captive, more than 200 girls.
She said that while Boko Haram’s actions had forced members of her own family to flee the area, a foreign attack on her homeland would be counterproductive. “Now we have American drones helping us in this forest and even the French have sent in people – shouldn’t they be fixing their own economy?” she said.

“We can solve our own damn problems,” she added.
At the same time Adichie, speaking at the Hay Festival, welcomed the social media campaign Bring Back Our Girls that has drawn the support of many in the US, including Michelle Obama. She pointed out that the Twitter hashtag #bringbackourgirls was started in Nigeria and not, as has been claimed, in America. “It was very much a grassroots social media Nigerian campaign. The fact that westerners are sharing in something started locally is fine with me.

“I recognise that the campaign made a difference. People paid attention and then the [Nigerian] government had to sit up a little bit.”
Adichie argued that local knowledge would be more useful in finding the girls than US drones. “I’m sure that there are hunters in that area who know that forest very well. Why haven’t they been used? Why aren’t we depending on them?

“What we need is a better equipped military, a better trained military: we don’t need Americans to send people in.” Stopping herself at this point, she joked: “This is my Nigerian nationalist rant”.
Adichie was speaking about her latest novel Americanah, which explores the experience of two Nigerian immigrants – one in America and one in Britain. The author, who grew up in Nigeria, said that when she moved to the country to study she adopted an American accent to try to fit in better. “When I went to the US, I remember feeling a sense of dislocation. It was ostensibly an English-speaking country, but I couldn’t understand what people were saying.”
After an American lady in the audience asked a question, Adichie assured her that she could only tease the country because she had so much affection for the place. “It’s like a rich uncle who doesn’t remember my name but gives me pocket money,” she said to audience laughter.

The Telegraph

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Bomb blast at football match kills at least 14 in Nigeria

A bombing in a bar in Nigeria's northeast has killed at least 14 people and injured another 14 in the second attack targeting football fans in a fortnight.

The blast on Sunday hit the town of Mubi in Adamawa state, one of three in the northeast which has been under a state of emergency for more than a year as Nigeria's military has tried to crush Boko Haram's five-year uprising.

Al Jazeera's Ahmed Idriss said residents in Mubi town had told him dozens were killed in the attack.

"The police are confirming, so far, 14 people have died in the blast but locals are telling us at least 40 people may have died in that attack at the moment," our reporter said from Abuja.

The bomb exploded around 6.30pm (1730 GMT) in Gavan in the Mubi area of Adamawa and reportedly targeted fans who were watching a local club match.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Football fans targeted again

Last week a botched suicide bombing that was meant to target an open air viewing of a football match in the central Nigerian city of Jos killed three people

Adamawa has been hit by far fewer Boko Haram attacks than other parts of the northeast, but the area was the site of a gruesome October 2012 massacre at a post-secondary technical college.

Scores of students were killed in their dorms, including many whose throats were slit.

Mubi is just a few kilometres from Nigeria's border with Cameroon and near the area where two Italian priests and a Canadian nun were seized by suspected Boko Haram gunmen in April.

The three were released earlier on Sunday and flown out on board a military aircraft from the town of Maroua, heading for the Cameroon capital.

Boko Haram has carried out scores of attacks on targets it says are a product of Western influence, including sports venues and schools teaching a secular curriculum.

The group has killed thousands during its battle against the government since 2009, but the conflict has received unprecedented global attention over the last six weeks following the group's mass kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls.

The girls were seized on April 14 from Chibok in Borno state, which shares a border with Adamawa.

Nigeria's response to the kidnapping has been fiercely criticised as inept and the crisis has piled intense pressure on President Goodluck Jonathan's government to do more to end the uprising.

Aljazeera

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