Explosion, fire at Canadian High Commission in Nigeria kills 2

An explosion at the Canadian High Commission in Nigeria's capital of Abuja killed two people and sent another two to hospital, according to the fire service that responded to the call.

"A tanker that was inside the generator building exploded ... killing two men who worked for the company managing the generator," Mercy Douglas of the FCT Fire Service told CBC News.

"Two people outside the building were injured by the explosion," she added. "They are in hospital having treatment."

An eyewitness who tweeted a video of the fire captured large plumes of black smoke billowing up from behind the building.

In a social media post, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said that officials were working to "shed light on what caused this situation."

"I send my heartfelt condolences to the families of the two people killed in this tragedy," Joly said.

Douglas said the fire service got a call at 11:55 a.m. Monday reporting the tanker explosion inside the generator building on Diplomatic Drive in the city's central business district.

Firefighters in Abuja subdued the fire and were back at the station by 1 p.m., Douglas said.

Douglas was unable to confirm whether any of the people killed or hospitalized held Canadian citizenship.

In a statement issued Monday afternoon, Global Affairs Canada said one of the two people killed was a "locally engaged employee."

"Global Affairs Canada extends its sympathies to the families of those killed and wishes a speedy recovery to those injured," the statement said. "We can confirm all other staff at the High Commission are safe and unharmed."

Global Affairs said it's working with local authorities to determine the cause of the explosion and the High Commission will be closed until further notice.

"An investigation will be carried out, but at this point everything points to an accident rather than a deliberate act," the department said.

By Peter Zimonjic, CBC

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House of Representatives in Nigeria reject plan to buy presidential yacht

Nigeria's lower chamber of parliament has rejected the government's plan to buy a presidential yacht for $6m (£5m), a senior lawmaker has said.

Nigerians had criticised the plan as a waste of money on luxuries during an economic crisis.

Lawmakers instead moved the $6m to the student loan budget, doubling its allocation, Abubakar Bichi said.

President Bola Tinubu took office in May with a promise to cut waste, and ease people's financial hardship.

But he triggered an outcry after he tabled a supplementary budget in the National Assembly for approval, with the planned purchase of the yacht listed under the Nigerian Navy's proposed capital expenditure of $53m.

Human rights activist and former lawmaker Shehu Sani reacted by saying that "the poor can't be struggling for survival in a canoe while their leader is yachting".

Mr Tinubu's spokesman Temitope Ajayi distanced the president from plans to buy the yacht.

"From what I know, the request for a yacht, however it is named or couched in the budget is from the navy and they must have operational reasons for why it is required," he said.

The budget was approved by the House of Representatives on Thursday.

But Mr Bichi, chairman of the influential House Committee on Appropriation and a member of Mr Tinubu's ruling party, told local journalists that lawmakers had declined to approve the allocation for a presidential yacht.

The budget also earmarks $36m for State House expenditure, including the purchase of luxury vehicles and the construction of a presidential office complex.

The government is also planning to spend $15m (£13m) on the presidential air fleet.

The controversy comes at a time when Mr Tinubu is under intense pressure over the cost-of-living crisis, and a massive fall in the value of Nigeria's currency, the naira, against the dollar.

Nigeria's annual inflation rose to 26.7% in September, according to official statistics.

A leading advocacy group in Nigeria, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (Serap), said the purchase of a yacht could not be justified when "137 million Nigerians live in extreme poverty".

It added that their plight worsened after Mr Tinubu scrapped a fuel subsidy in his inaugural speech as president, causing the price of fuel and other basic commodities to rise.

Activist Omoyele Sowore accused the government of spending on luxuries while it "maintains the miseries of the Nigerian populace".

Mr Ajayi said the president and his vice-president were not planning to add new vehicles to their fleet, and were using "inherited vehicles" from the previous administration.

He said the budget for vehicles was for hundreds of civil servants and political aides working at State House.

By Farouk Chothia & Wycliffe Muia, BBC

Related story: SUVs and Yachts in Nigeria Budget During Economic Hardship

SUVs and Yachts in Nigeria Budget During Economic Hardship

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s first supplementary budget includes a fleet of SUVs for himself and his wife, a presidential yacht and the renovation of his villa amid a cost-of-living crisis for some of the poorest people in the world.

The proposal — which seeks additional funding beyond the annual budget approved by Tinubu’s predecessor — comes as the government asks Nigerians to persevere through pain caused in part by a raft of economic reforms ushered in by the new president. Africa’s most populous country faces rampant unemployment, soaring food prices and a plummeting currency.

Federal lawmakers approved the president’s request for extra spending on Thursday, but eliminated the provision of 5 billion naira ($6.01 million) to buy a presidential yacht. Instead, the doubled the allocation to a student loan fund to 10 billion naira, according Abubakar Bichi, chairman of an appropriations committee in the House of Representatives.

The lawmakers approved 1.5 billion-naira proposed to purchase SUVs for the office of First Lady Oluremi Tinubu — an amount larger than that allocated to many individual federal colleges. The supplementary budget also proposes almost 6 billion naira to purchase SUVs for the presidency — more than the amount initially allocated to fund a student loan program for poor families.

A spokesman said the president didn’t ask for a yacht and criticized coverage of the budget. The “public attack” is because of the “very simplistic way some of the line items are described by civil servants, who prepare the budget,” Temitope Ajayi said in a column posted to a local media outlet. New vehicles, he said, will be used by aides and civil servants, not Tinubu himself.

The legislature has also been slammed for buying hundreds of its own expensive SUVs.

Tinubu, who took office in May, ended a popular but costly fuel subsidy and removed currency restrictions that saw prices spike and the naira sharply devalued. That’s left many households struggling to survive in Africa’s most populous nation, where at least 40% of its more than 200 million people live in extreme poverty.

Last year, the country spent about 96% of its revenue servicing debt and the government plans to raise 9 trillion naira to help fund next year’s budget.

By Nduka Orjinmo, Bloomberg

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