Video - Makoko floating school collapses

A floating school built to withstand storms and floods at a lagoon in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos and educate children from a nearby slum has collapsed only seven months after its official opening.

The aid-funded Makoko Floating School offered free education to children who lived in nearby huts on stilts. Most of their parents fish for a living and, like most of the megacity’s 23 million residents, lack a reliable electricity and water supply.

Heavy rains brought down the pyramid-shaped wooden school, built on a platform held afloat by hundreds of plastic barrels, on Tuesday. None of its nearly 50 pupils were in the building when it collapsed, officials said.

Classes had already been moved to another location in late March after heavy downpours at the start of the rainy season began to affect classes.

“It is not only the floating school that collapsed. It collapsed many houses surrounding the floating school,” said David Shemede, Makoko resident and brother of the school’s director.

Building collapses are a common problem in the west African nation, sometimes due to the use of poor materials and weak enforcement of regulations. At least 30 people died when a building collapsed in an upmarket Lagos district in March.

The school was built to adapt to changing water levels and withstand the storms and floods that lash Lagos in the four-month-long rainy season. Its Nigerian architect Kunle Adeyemi said in a statement that the Makoko community was considering upgrading the structure and rebuilding an improved version of the school.

Makoko was established as a fishing village hundreds of years ago but climate change and rapid urbanisation are now threatening its way of life.

The school was officially opened in November 2015 after being in use for more than a year beforehand. It took three years to build and catered to children coming from the only English-speaking school in the area. Pupils travelled to it by canoe.

The Guardian

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Video - homeless battle in Makoko

ECOWAS fines Nigeria $3.3m over extra-judicial killings

The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, court has imposed a fine of $3.3 million on Nigeria over the extra-judicial killing of eight citizens in the Apo District of Abuja, Federal Capital Territory.

The regional court ordered the country to pay compensatory damages of $200,000 to each of the family of the deceased killed and $150,000 to each of the injured by a combined team of soldiers and operatives of the Department of State Service, DSS, during a raid of an uncompleted building at Apo Area of Abuja.

The eight Nigerians killed when the security personnel opened fire on them were later found to be commercial motorcycle (Okada) riders who were taking refuge in the uncompleted building as a result of skyrocketing cost of house rent in the capital city. 

Those killed are Nura Abdullahi, Ashiru Musa, Abdullahi Manmman, Buhari Ibrahim, Suleiman Ibrahim, Ahmadu Musa, Nasir Adamu and Musa Yobe, while the 11 injured include Muttaka Abubakar, Sani Abdulrahman, Nuhu Ibrahim, Ibrahim Mohammed, Ibrahim Aliyu, Yahaya Bello, Abubakar Auwal, Yusuf Abubakar, Ibrahim Bala, Murtala Salihu and Sanni Usman. 

A Non-Governmental Organization, NGO, The Incorporated Trustees of Fiscal and Civil Right Enlightment Foundation, had on behalf of the deceased, dragged Nigeria, the Army and Department of State Service, before regional court to challenge the legality of the killing of the eight commercial motorcyclists and the injuring of others when the securitymen invaded their apartment. 

In the judgment of ECOWAS Court delivered by presiding Justice, FridayChijioke Nwoke, Nigeria was found liable of brutal killing of defenseless citizens, contrary to the provision of local and international law on the fundamental rights of citizens to life. The panel of three justices, headed by Justice Nwoke, condemned the killing as barbaric, illegal and unconstitutional and a breach of the fundamental rights of the deceased to life.

Vanguard

Niger Delta Avengers don't want to negotiate with government

A militant group in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta region says it will not negotiate with the government and has continued to blow up oil pipelines.

Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu said on Monday that the government was ready to begin a dialogue with stakeholders in the Niger Delta, a region which suffered an insurgency during the mid-2000s by militants who claimed that the country’s oil wealth was not being fairly distributed. “I want to call on the militants to sheath their weapons and embrace dialogue with the government,” said Kachikwu, who also indicated that the Nigerian military would suspend its operations in the Niger Delta.

The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), which has carried out a spate of attacks on oil infrastructure since February, announced early on Wednesday that it was not involved in any negotiations. “We’re not negotiating with any committee. If [the federal government] is discussing with any group they’re doing that on their own,” said the group via its Twitter feed.

The group continued its campaign of attacking oil pipelines, claiming to have blown up an oil platform run by U.S. company Chevron early on Wednesday in Warri, Delta state, southern Nigeria. The attack was confirmed to Reuters by a local community chief, although Chevron declined to comment.

A senior officer in the Nigerian Army confirmed on Wednesday that it was observing a two-week ceasefire in the Niger Delta, though warned that military operations could resume if the militants did not respond to requests for dialogue. “The two-week ceasefire was such that all military operations in the region were supposed to stop to enable government to apply the non-kinetic means of reaching out to the militants,” said Ibrahim Attahiru, a major-general in the Nigerian Army, according to Nigeria’s Premium Times. “Now the militants have resorted to continue with the attacks on pipelines, we will tarry for a while and if this does not stop, we will decisively act wherever it is necessary.”

The NDA launched its first attack in February, blowing up an underwater pipeline at the Forcados terminal operated by Shell. The group appears to have links with the pro-Biafran movement, which is campaigning for the secession of Biafra in southeast Nigeria. Biafra existed as an independent republic between 1967 and 1970 before being reintegrated into Nigeria. The NDA has also disavowed links with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), a militant group that led the mid-2000s insurgency in the Niger Delta. The insurgency only came to an end following the introduction of a presidential amnesty program in 2009.

Nigeria’s oil output has dropped from 2.2 million barrels per day (bpd) at the start of 2016 to between 1.5 million and 1.6 million bpd, Kachikwu said. Nigeria’s economy is heavily dependent on the oil and gas sector and the country has now fallen behind Angola as Africa’s biggest oil producer.

Newsweek

Video - Tomato disease leads to factories closing in Nigeria

Nigeria is still battling to control a tomato disease that is ravaging farms. The illness called Tuta Absoluta, has led to severe shortages of the much loved vegetable. Processing plants have been shut down and tomato prices have soared. CCTV's Deji Badmus travelled to the North-western Kaduna state to see how deep the crisis runs.

Video - Nigeria to become a nuclear power

Hadassah Egbedi for Ventures Africa reports The ATOMEXPO 2016 International Forum in Moscow, the largest meeting of world leaders and experts on nuclear power, three African countries, Nigeria, Kenya and Zambia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Russia on nuclear energy.