Video - Nigeria Super Falcons determined to win the FIFA Women's World Cup

In under three weeks this year's women's football world cup will begin in Canada. African champions Nigeria's Super Falcons have wrapped up their training in Abuja as they head off to Canada.

British Nigerian John Boyega and Star Wars lead actor talks about growing up in England

John Boyega has risen to fame by reason of his acting talent and a will to succeed — shooting as far as the biggest roles in Hollywood.

This came after another Nigerian, David Oyelowo, featured prominently in the 2014 Selma, a chronicle of Martin Luther King’s campaign to secure equal voting rights through an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965.

Defying the odds in a notorious Peckham neighbourhood in England, Boyega, 22, would be playing a lead role in one of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster films, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

He had featured in a number of movies, including Attack The Block, The Whale, Imperial Dreams, the film adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun as well as popular TV series 24: Live Another Day.

But Boyega’s story tells of a life pitched with the harshest of conditions in Peckham, a rough area, where surviving as a young Nigerian was difficult. The area has remained a black spot in the minds of Nigerians living in the United Kingdom since 2000 when 10-year-old Abimbola Taylor was stabbed to death in the neighbourhood.

Boyega was born to Nigerian parents in Peckham, where “gangs, guns and knives were part of everyday life.

“To us that was normal; it was just how we grew up,” a friend who was raised on the same estate as Boyega and his two older sisters, Grace and Blessing, told The Daily Telegraph.

“But theatre kept John out of trouble completely. The theatre was his second home, it was the only place I saw him,” he continued.

Damilola was about the same age as Boyega when he was discovered bleeding to death in a stairwell of North Peckham Estate, just before his 11th birthday.

He had left Nigeria with his parents for England, where his sister was to seek medical care for epilepsy. The trial of his murderers lasted almost 10 years, with two brothers eventually convicted of the crime and sentenced to eight years in prison.

Another Nigerian, Samuel Ogunro, when he was 17, was found shot in the back of the head in a burning car in Peckham in 2010. His murder allegedly had been ‘arranged’ by a South London gang member, who was in prison at the time.

Boyega’s friend said that “not a lot of people knew” about Boyega’s acting because he kept it quiet.

“Everyone else does football when they’re young,” he explained to the newspaper, adding: “John didn’t play football, he was more interested in acting, so he didn’t want to make a big fuss about it.”

He noted: “It was a rough area but he had a nice family, I saw him going to church with them every Sunday.”

Another friend, 22-year-old Daniel Ross, said that the area had been “very, very violent” when he and Boyega were teenagers.

“There were drugs, stabbing, a lot of gang affiliation. You would never see John on the street or hanging around gangs though. I only saw him in church or in acting school,” he stressed.

Demi Rump, 22, was a close friend of Boyega’s during their school years. He went to Westminster City School while she attended a girls’ school next door.

“A lot of boys in his year are now in prison or dead. Everyone was going down one route towards the end of school – taking drugs, selling drugs, gangs, that sort of thing – but John went down another. I am so thankful he got out of it,” she said.

Boyega found solace in Theatre Peckham, a performing arts centre on the corner of his Fifties Estate.

Teresa Early, the theatre’s artistic director, recalled the first time she saw Boyega act, aged nine, in a play at Oliver Goldsmith Primary School, saying she knew he was talented at the time.

She invited Boyega to join the theatre school, a special programme for talented children aged nine to 14, and, after securing financial assistance from a hardship fund, he enrolled.

Boyega spent almost every day after school at the theatre, as well as weekends, Mrs. Early told The Daily Telegraph. “He was (at the theatre) 24/7, it was what he thrived on. His father was a preacher and he wanted him to be a preacher too,” she said.

His father, Samson, mother, Abigail and Blessing are all trustees at the Wall of Praise Christian Centre in South Bermondsey.

Ms. Early said: “I had a chat with John’s father when he was about 12 or 13. As long as John stayed out of trouble they were quite happy. And as John made his way, his father began to think there was some wisdom in it.”

At 16, Boyega moved to South Thames College to study Performing Arts, and joined the Identity School of Acting in Hackney, which helps aspiring actors from multicultural backgrounds.

Guardian

Video - 12 year old girl carries out suicide bombing in Nigeria

A girl about 12 years old carried out a suicide attack at a bus station in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday, killing seven and injuring 31, witnesses said, shortly after officials revealed that Boko Haram militants had recaptured a strategic town in the region.

“A girl aged about 12 detonated an explosive under her clothes as she approached the station’s perimeter fence,” said Danbaba Nguru, a shopkeeper who witnessed the attack in the town of Damaturu.

The head of the local Sani Abacha hospital, doctor Gara Fika, said six bodies and 32 injured had arrived there with one person dying after being admitted.

The Damaturu bus station has been repeatedly targeted in a string of previous suicide attacks.
“I was in the station when I saw the young girl arrive,” said bus driver Musbahu Lawan. “I think she noticed the guards checking people at the gates and she decided to detonate the explosives in the middle of the crowd outside the gates.” Nguru added: “The road leading to the gates is always full of small traders... I was lucky not to have been hit.”

No claim of responsibility for the attack has been made. In February, a woman suicide bomber attacked the same bus station, leaving seven dead and 32 injured.

The deputy governor in neighbouring Borno state, Mustapha Zannah, said Friday that he had seen a security report indicating that Boko Haram has recruited several suicide bombers to help counter a regional military operation against them.

And on Saturday Zannah announced the fall of Marte, located on a strategic trading route between Nigeria and neighbouring Cameroon and Chad, to the Islamists.

“It is sad as we have been made to understand that Marte has today completely fallen under the control of the insurgents, which to us is a very huge setback,” he said.
The town has changed hands between the jihadists and government troops numerous times since 2013.

A regional military coalition of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon has claimed a series of major victories against Boko Haram since launching sweeping offensives against the jihadists in February.
But the Islamist fighters, who recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State extremists controlling swathes of Iraq and Syria, have been pushing back. The jihadists killed at least 55 people in two raids on villages near Maiduguri, the first assault on the northern city in three months.

“Even if 90 percent of our communities have been liberated, the war is not yet over,” Zannah cautioned early Saturday. Boko Haram’s six-year insurgency has claimed some 15,000 lives and displaced about 1.5 million people.

Nation

Nigeria military destroy 10 Boko Haram camps

Nigeria's military says it has destroyed 10 Boko Haram camps, killed many militants and captured heavy weaponry in the northeastern Sambisa Forest.

This comes after a surge in attacks by the Islamic extremists including suicide bombings, assaults on a business school and villages and a repelled night-time raid by hundreds of fighters on the biggest military base in northeast Nigeria.

One soldier was killed by a land mine and two were wounded when troops overran 10 Boko Haram camps on Saturday, said the Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade, in a statement Sunday night.

Olukolade and other Nigerian officials had said Boko Haram's main fighting force was trapped in the vast Sambisa Forest following a 14-week multinational offensive that drove them out of dozens of towns and villages where they had declared an Islamic caliphate.

But some must have escaped to press last week's attack on Giwa Barracks in Maiduguri, the biggest northeastern city about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the forest.

The forest offensive had destroyed some 20 other camps, according to the military, before getting bogged down by land mines and other booby traps laid by the insurgents, soldiers told The Associated Press. They insisted on anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters.

"The operation to clear the terrorists in Sambisa and other forests is continuing as troops in all fronts have been alerted to be on the lookout for fleeing terrorists," Olukolade said. "The Nigerian Air force is maintaining an active air surveillance to track the movement of terrorists for appropriate action."

The ground offensive, backed by bombing by jet fighters and covering fire from attack helicopters, had allowed the military to free some 700 girls and women captives. There has been no word on the fate of boys and young men kidnapped by Boko Haram.

The Defense Ministry has made no comment about the latest Boko Haram surge, which killed at least 60 civilians in the past 10 days, half of them villagers who died in army shelling to repulse the Maiduguri attack.

News Tribune

Drug trafficker extretes 70 wraps of cocaine while in custody

 A suspected drug trafficker has told officers of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency how he ended up attempting to smuggle cocaine into Nigeria from Brazil.

Celestine Okonkwo, who was returning from Sao Paulo, was arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, after he tested positive to cocaine ingestion.

The suspect later excreted 70 wraps of cocaine weighing 1.326 kilogramme, according to Hamisu Lawan, NDLEA commander at the airport.

Mr. Okonkwo told investigators that he sold used clothes at Idumota market, in Lagos, before he was lured abroad with a promise of better job.

“I will never forget the day a young man came to my shop to buy shirt,” said Mr. Okonkwo, 39. “He told me he is from Anambra and that he lives in Brazil. He also promised to help me with a good job opportunity over there.

“Honestly, I was excited and felt it was answer to my age-long prayer. He collected my phone number and left. This was how it all started.”

Three months later, according to the suspect, the man called to inform him he had prepared an international passport and also secured a travel visa.

“Then he told me to get set to travel any time,” Mr. Okonkwo said. “Few weeks later, he brought my ticket and I travelled to Brazil in January 2015

“He gave me the name of the hotel where I will stay pending when he will get me a job. I was eventually abandoned to suffer. When I exhausted my money, I began to sleep in a church. I also began to work for a Nigerian woman who owns a restaurant in order not to starve to death.”

The suspect stated that drug trafficking was not originally discussed with his supposed benefactor before he left Nigeria.

“Nobody discussed drug trafficking with me while in Nigeria,” Mr. Okonkwo said.

“It was after I had lived in the church for some months that my sponsor located me in Sao Paulo. I was told that there is no free lunch in Brazil and that I have suffered and experienced difficult life in Brazil.

“This was the point they introduced drug trafficking as the only way out. They said that was what people do to make money. It took me about seven hours to swallow 70 wraps of cocaine. I was inexperienced because it was my first time. They promised to pay me N400,000 when I get to Nigeria.”

Mr. Okonkwo said he regretted his actions, more so as he had ended up disappointing his wife and daughter who are living with his parents in the village.

“God bless Nigeria,” he said. “There is no poverty here except the person chooses to be poor.”
Ahmadu Giade, chairman of NDLEA, said Mr. Okonkwo’s story should serve as a warning to those seeking to travel out of the country in a hurry.

“There is nothing wrong in seeking greener pastures but people must be properly guided,” said Mr. Giade.

“Travelling out of the country without money to pay for your accommodation and feeding is ill-advised. Those who promise job opportunities abroad are after their selfish interest.”

Mr. Giade also added that his agency is determined to investigate and expose Mr. Okonkwo’s sponsors.

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