Ex-Nigerian President Jonathan dissociates self from 2023 bid

Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan will not seek the governing party ticket to contest presidential elections next year, his spokesman has said, ending months of speculation of a planned return to national politics.

A group of supporters from northern Nigeria had bought nomination forms for Jonathan to take part in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party’s primary elections scheduled for later this month.

But in a statement late on Monday, his spokesman Ikechukwu Eze said the former president did not authorise the purchase of the nomination forms, a requirement for candidates to take part in primary elections.

Jonathan was president between 2010 and 2015, under the People’s Democratic Party, now in opposition.

“While we appreciate the overwhelming request by a cross-section of Nigerians, for Dr Jonathan to make himself available for the 2023 presidential election, we wish to state that he has not in any way, committed himself to this request,” Eze said.

“We wish to categorically state that Dr Jonathan was not aware of this bid and did not authorise it.”

It is common for Nigerian politicians to switch sides during elections, but it would have been a surprising about-turn if the APC had decided to embrace a candidate it once derided as incompetent when he was president.

With President Muhammadu Buhari due to step down next year after serving two full terms, the race to succeed him is wide open with more than 20 governing party candidates registering to contest the primary vote.

Registration will end on Tuesday and a party committee will screen the candidates, who include Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Lagos state governor and party heavyweight Bola Tinubu, Minister of Petroleum Timipre Sylva and several ministers and state governors. Central bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, is also making an unprecedented presidential run.

But the field is expected to narrow once political horse-trading starts, which will lead to some candidates dropping out.

Al Jazeera

‘Bandits’ kill 48 in northwest Nigeria attacks: Local officials

Gunmen have killed at least 48 people in attacks on three villages in northwest Nigeria’s Zamfara state, a local official and residents said.

Dozens of gunmen on motorcycles entered the three villages in coordinated attacks, shooting people as they tried to flee, Aminu Suleiman, administrative head of Bakura district where the villages are located, said on Sunday.

“A total of 48 people were killed by the bandits in the three villages [Damri, Kalahe and Sabon Garin] attacked Friday afternoon,” Suleiman said.

The worst hit was Damri, where the gunmen killed 32 people, Suleiman told AFP. The victims included patients at a hospital.

“They burned a police patrol vehicle, killing two security personnel.”

Since 2010, gangs of bandits have run riot in vast swaths of northern Nigeria, but only in the last few years has the crisis ballooned into national prominence in Africa’s most populous country.

The term “bandits” is a catchall for the criminal gangs masterminding frequent bouts of abduction, maiming, sexual violence and killings of citizens across northern parts of the country.

Data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project shows that bandits were responsible for more than 2,600 civilian deaths in 2021 – many more than those attributed to rebel groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province in the same year – and almost three times the number of victims in 2020.

Troops deployed in the three villagers raided on Friday by bandits engaged the attackers in a gun battle, forcing them to withdraw, Suleiman said.

Abubakar Maigoro, a Damri resident, said the gunmen who attacked his village went on a shooting spree before looting livestock and food supplies.

“We buried 48 people killed in the attacks,” Maigoro said.

Nigerian police did not respond to requests for comment.

The criminals have recently stepped up their assaults despite military operations against their hideouts.

The so-called bandits maintain camps in a vast forest, straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states.

In the past two months, they have attacked a train travelling between the capital Abuja and Kaduna city, kidnapping dozens of passengers; massacred more than 100 villagers; and killed a dozen members of vigilante groups.

In early January, gunmen killed more than 200 people in Zamfara state.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army commander, has been under intense pressure to end bandit violence before he leaves office next year at the end of his two terms in power.

Buhari called on security forces to “do all that can be done to bring an immediate end to the horrific killings”.

“The rural folk in Zamfara and elsewhere must be allowed to have peace,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

Officials in Zamfara say more than 700,000 people have been displaced by the violence, prompting the opening of eight camps to accommodate them.


The escalating violence has also forced thousands to flee to neighbouring Niger, with over 11,000 seeking refuge in November, according to the United Nations.

AFP

Video - UN chief asks for safe return conditions for Nigeria’s displaced

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for the safe and “dignified” return of people displaced by conflict in northeast Nigeria, as local authorities close camps and urge people to go back to their communities. More than 40,000 people have been killed and some 2.2 million people displaced by more than a decade of fighting in the region between the military and Boko Haram and its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). During a Tuesday visit to a camp for displaced people in Borno state capital Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram, Guterres praised the local governor’s development efforts.

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A Nigerian woman is leveraging technology to add more impetus in the fight against breast cancer. Kemisola Bolarinwa, a robotics engineer, has invented a wearable smart bra that can help detect breast cancer early. This could be a public health breakthrough as breast cancer is common in Nigeria and it's one of the leading causes of death in women.

Nigerian president says train attackers using hostages as shields

Armed gangs who kidnapped dozens of passengers in an attack on a train in northern Nigeria are using civilians as human shields, making it difficult for the military to carry out a rescue mission, President Muhammadu Buhari said.

More than 150 people are still missing after the March 28 attack, according to the Nigerian Railway Corporation. Families of the abducted say there is no evidence of rescue efforts from the government.

In a statement on Monday, Buhari said the government, which has been criticised for not doing enough to rescue the passengers, was trying to avoid a “tragic outcome” in any rescue operation.

“They [the kidnappers] are using civilians as human shields, thereby making it difficult to confront them directly,” he said.

“It’s a delicate situation … Any rescue operation that results in the death of any hostage cannot be deemed a success.”

Abductions have become a near-daily occurrence in northwest Nigeria, where armed gangs, locally known as bandits, abduct people for ransom.

The brutal nature of the attacks has increased insecurity fears in a country also grappling with the armed group Boko Haram and its factions in the northeast and rising criminality around the country.

Al Jazeera

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