Monday, October 17, 2016
Video - Nigeria's government aims to privatise stadium management
Nigeria's government says it will move to privatise management of its national sports stadiums. Sports minister Solomon Dalung says the federal government can no longer afford the maintenance costs of the stadiums spread across the vast west African country.
Nigerian football player Izu Joseph shot dead
Nigerian footballer Izu Joseph has been killed after being shot in the south of the country.
Joseph, a central defender with Premier League club Shooting Stars (3SC), was hit by a stray bullet when gunmen attacked a market in his hometown of Okaki in Bayelsa State.
"Today is a very sad day for us," Rasheed Balogu, 3SC's general manager, told ESPN FC: "This was a young boy with a lot of promise and we are devastated.
"We are still getting confusing reports about what happened exactly but we have been told that the stray bullet came from the JTF [Nigerian Joint Task Force]."
The club's official account tweeted on Monday: "A Shooting STAR is gone! Izu Joseph is gone! Flamboyant defender is gone! RIP, brother. What a life! May God strengthen his family #Tragedy."
Jubril Arowolo, media officer for the club, told sportingtribune.com: "The news came as a shock to us around 11:00 p.m. on Sunday that Izu Joseph was shot by gunmen, though we are yet to get details from the family, hopefully we will make an official statement once we get across to his family later in the day,"
The player, who was home on holiday after the end of the Nigerian football league season, was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Joseph, a central defender with Premier League club Shooting Stars (3SC), was hit by a stray bullet when gunmen attacked a market in his hometown of Okaki in Bayelsa State.
"Today is a very sad day for us," Rasheed Balogu, 3SC's general manager, told ESPN FC: "This was a young boy with a lot of promise and we are devastated.
"We are still getting confusing reports about what happened exactly but we have been told that the stray bullet came from the JTF [Nigerian Joint Task Force]."
The club's official account tweeted on Monday: "A Shooting STAR is gone! Izu Joseph is gone! Flamboyant defender is gone! RIP, brother. What a life! May God strengthen his family #Tragedy."
Jubril Arowolo, media officer for the club, told sportingtribune.com: "The news came as a shock to us around 11:00 p.m. on Sunday that Izu Joseph was shot by gunmen, though we are yet to get details from the family, hopefully we will make an official statement once we get across to his family later in the day,"
The player, who was home on holiday after the end of the Nigerian football league season, was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Video - Released Chibok girls reunite with their families
Some of the 21 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by the armed group Boko Haram have reunited with their families, following their release after 30 months in captivity.
Cries of joy filled the room as the freed girls, who had been kidnapped along with more than 200 other pupils in the town of Chibok in April 2014, met their relatives in Abuja on Sunday.
The girls were freed on Thursday, but it took days for most of the families to reach the capital for the reunion.
At the meeting, the parents of one of the girls spoke of their excitement at seeing their daughter.
"When we heard they found some of the girls, and that our daughter was among them, we slept as if the day is not going to break," Muta Abana, a father of one of the Chibok girls, told The Associated Press news agency.
"We wanted the day to break quickly, to see if the government is going to call us, to come and see that our daughter was among them."
Hawa Abana, the mother, said that Boko Haram abducted her daughter and hundreds of other schoolgirls, because "they did not want them to succeed in life".
"By God's grace she is back," she said. "She will go back to school. Boko Haram has no power again."
Eleanor Nwadinobi, women and girls manager at the Nigeria Stability and Recognition Programme, said the girls will now undergo treatment which must be tailored to individual needs, including trauma counselling and health and nutritional requirements.
"It is important that they are not attended to in isolation," she told Al Jazeera.
"They will need individual attention as the needs of one girl will differ from the other."
Also on Sunday, a presidential spokesman said a splinter branch of Boko Haram is now willing to negotiate the release of 83 more of the girls.
"The faction said it is ready to negotiate if the government is willing to sit down with them," Garba Shehu, spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari, told Reuters news agency.
Brokered deal
Boko Haram seized 276 pupils from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok in northeastern Borno state on April 14, 2014. Fifty-seven managed to escape in the immediate aftermath of the abduction, but nearly 200 other girls are still missing.
The deal for the release of the girls was brokered by the Swiss government and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Following their release, they were then taken from the northeastern city of Maiduguri and flown to Abuja to meet state officials.
On Thursday, Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's information minister, denied reports that the state had swapped captured Boko Haram fighters for the release of the girls.
He also said that he was not aware of any ransom being paid.
Mohammed said that a Nigerian army operation against Boko Haram would continue.
In recent days, the Nigerian army has been carrying out an offensive in the Sambisa forest, a stronghold of Boko Haram.
The armed group controlled a swath of land around the size of Belgium at the start of 2015, but Nigeria's army has recaptured most of the territory.
The group still stages suicide bombings in the northeast, as well as in neighbouring Niger and Cameroon.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Boko Haram release 21 kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls
Nigerian officials say 21 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram extremists more than two years ago have been freed.
Presidential spokesman Mallam Garba Shehu tweeted Thursday that the girls are in the custody of Nigeria's Department of State Services.
He said the release is a result of negotiations between the government and Boko Haram, brokered by the Swiss government and the International Red Cross. He said negotiations will continue.
The abduction of 276 schoolgirls in April 2014 brought international condemnation of Boko Haram, Nigeria's home-grown Islamic extremist group. Dozens of the girls escaped, but most remain missing.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has said the girls would only be released if the government swaps them for detained extremist leaders.
Presidential spokesman Mallam Garba Shehu tweeted Thursday that the girls are in the custody of Nigeria's Department of State Services.
He said the release is a result of negotiations between the government and Boko Haram, brokered by the Swiss government and the International Red Cross. He said negotiations will continue.
The abduction of 276 schoolgirls in April 2014 brought international condemnation of Boko Haram, Nigeria's home-grown Islamic extremist group. Dozens of the girls escaped, but most remain missing.
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has said the girls would only be released if the government swaps them for detained extremist leaders.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Nigeria set to enjoy zero interest on all IMF loans
Nigeria will now enjoy zero interest on all concessional facilities of the International Monetary Fund until 2018. The IMF's Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, disclosed this yesterday at the ongoing IMF/ World Bank 2016 General Meeting in Washington D.C. Nigeria's Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, has been negotiating to borrow from multilateral institutions to fund capital projects in the country. The cheap loans will be used to bridge the nation's infrastructure deficit in critical sectors.
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