Aliko Dangote builds $3.5 million business school in Nigeria

Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has donated a $3.5 million building to the Bayero University, Kano in northern Nigeria. The building, which is named after the Nigerian billionaire, will be the premises of the newly established Dangote Business School.

Speaking at the school’s opening ceremony which was attended by the Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Dangote told guests that the school was part of his contributions towards driving entrepreneurship education at the highest level in Nigeria. The Dangote Business School has been accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC), and will be first business school in Nigeria to offer the Doctor of Business Administration (PhD) programme in the country. Dangote also disclosed that talks are ongoing to develop strategic partnerships between the Dangote Business School and the Harvard Business School in the U.S.

’My interest for supporting higher education in Nigeria stems from the belief that we can and we should provide the same quality of education here in Nigeria like anywhere else in the world. Good quality education is fundamental in breeding a vibrant economy and society. My goal for this business school is for it to become a reference point when it comes to learning how to do business successfully in Nigeria and in Africa. This means that this business school should carry out studies and researches that are specific to our needs and ways of doing business which would allow more information to be shared globally on how Africans can do business,” Dangote said at the ceremony.

The Dangote Business School is made up of a 650-seating capacity auditorium, two theatres, four lecture halls, two libraries, and an incubation center.

Forbes

Video - Nigerian Government sets up commission of inquiry into mass abduction

Nigeria's government has set up a commission of inquiry into the mass abduction of the Dapchi schoolgirls. It's the biggest kidnapping since Chibok in 2014. CGTN's Kelechi Eme-kalam spoke to the strategist of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, on how best to secure schools in the volatile area of north-eastern Nigeria.

Aid workers killed in Nigeria by suspected Boko Haram militants

Suspected Boko Haram militants killed at least 11 people including three aid workers in an attack on a military facility in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state late on Thursday, according to two security reports seen by Reuters.

The raid in the town of Rann marks the latest high-profile attack by militants in the northeast, coming less than two weeks after militants abducted 110 girls from a school in the town of Dapchi in neighboring Yobe state.

The United Nations confirmed three aid workers, all Nigerian nationals, were killed in the attack in Rann, near the Cameroon border, and said a female nurse was missing, feared abducted. It said it was also concerned other civilians may have been killed or injured.

Four soldiers and four police officers were also killed, according to the Nigerian security reports seen by Reuters.

The militants, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and truck-mounted guns, initially overpowered soldiers in a firefight at the military facility but the armed forces later regained control, according to the two reports.

The attack is a further setback for President Muhammadu Buhari, who took office in May 2015 vowing to improve security and who has repeatedly said the Boko Haram insurgency has been defeated.

The government said on Friday that it was extending to neighboring countries the search for the girls taken in Dapchi, which is some 400 km (250 miles) west of Rann.

Borno state, where Rann is situated, is the epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgency, which aims to impose a strict interpretation of Islam in northeast Nigeria. More than 20,000 people have been killed and some two million forced to leave their homes since 2009.

Two of the aid workers who died were contractors with the International Organization for Migration, working as coordinators at a camp for 55,000 displaced people in Rann, the United Nations said. The third was a doctor employed as a consultant for UNICEF.

“We call on authorities to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice and account,” Edward Kallon, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, said in a statement.

Mohammed Abdiker, of the U.N. International Organization for Migration, said staff were“outraged and saddened” by the death of their colleagues.

Attacks on aid workers are rare, but not unheard of. In December, four people were killed when a World Food Program (WFP) convoy was ambushed in Borno state.

Boko Haram held a swathe of territory in northeast Nigeria around the size of Belgium in late 2014. It was pushed out of most of that land by Nigeria’s army, backed by troops from neighboring countries, in early 2015.

Although it has failed to control large areas of land since then, the group continues to carry out suicide bombings and gun raids in northeast Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

The camp for displaced people in Rann was bombed in an accidental Nigerian Air Force strike last year, killing up to 170 people.

Reuters

72 dead in Nigeria from Lassa fever

Nigeria is facing its worst Lassa fever outbreak on record, with 72 people confirmed to be dead from the virus and 317 infected, according to the World Health Organization.

A further 764 are suspected to be infected, and 2,845 contacts have been identified.

On average, Lassa fever is deadly in 1% of all individuals infected, with higher rates of 15% morbidity among people hospitalized for the illness. As of Sunday, the case fatality ratio was 22%, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.


Although it's endemic to the country, Lassa fever numbers have never reached this proportion before, according to the WHO.

Nigeria's Centre for Disease Control said Wednesday that it was facing an "unprecedented outbreak" that has spread to 18 states since it began in January.

The disease can cause fever and hemorrhaging of various parts of the body -- including the eyes and nose -- and can be spread through contact with an infected rat. 

Person-to-person transmission is low but has been seen in Nigerian hospital settings this year. Fourteen health workers were infected, of whom four died within eight weeks.

The WHO said Wednesday that health facilities were overstretched in the southern states of Edo, Ondo and Ebonyi, and it is working with national reference hospitals and the Alliance for International Medical Action to rapidly expand and better equip treatment centers.
It also hopes to reduce further infections to hospital staff.

"The ability to rapidly detect cases of infection in the community and refer them early for treatment improves patients' chances of survival and is critical to this response," said Dr. Wondimagegnehu Alemu, the WHO representative to Nigeria.

State health authorities are mobilizing doctors and nurses to work in treatment centers. Four UK researchers have also been deployed to Nigeria to help control the unusually large outbreak. 

"Given the large number of states affected, many people will seek treatment in health facilities that are not appropriately prepared to care for Lassa fever," Alemu said.

"The risk of infection to health care workers is likely to increase."

Lassa fever is endemic in most of West Africa, especially Nigeria, where it was discovered in 1969.
Edo, Ondo and Ebonyi states account for 85% of cases, said Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, director of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, in a statement.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, touching, eating or sniffing foods and other household items that have been contaminated by multimammate rat feces or urine can aid transmission.

Nigerians, especially in those three states, should "continue focusing on prevention by ensuring they prevent access to their foodstuff by rodents," Ihekweazu said.

There is risk of the virus spreading to other West African countries due to increased migration, said Dr. Oyewale Tomori, professor of virology at Redeemer's University in Nigeria and the former regional virologist for the WHO's Africa Region.

"There is always cause for alarm in West Africa, where the rodent host of can be found in virtually all countries of West Africa," he said.

Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone have all reported cases of Lassa fever over the past month, according to the WHO, but risk of further international transmission is low for now.

CNN

Video - Nigerian Painting of princess sold for $1.6 million at an auction in London

A painting by the renowned Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu that had been missing for decades, has sold for record 1.6 million dollars, at an auction in London. Enwonwu's 1974 classic painting of the Ife princess Adetutu Ademiluyi, known as Tutu, is widely celebrated in Nigeria, with reproduction posters found in many homes. Three were painted in the early 1970s and famously disappeared in an art world mystery that is until one was discovered in a very ordinary London apartment late last year.