Video - President Buhari orders all Super Falcons' fees and bonuses paid within 24 hours

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered an immediate settlement of the money owed to the women's national football team -- the Super Falcons. The directive follows a protest by the team over the non-payment of stipends and match fees. CCTV's Kelechi Emekalam has more.

40% of men in Nigeria have prostate cancer

Forty per cent of men aged about 40 years are living with prostate cancer and many are unaware of their status, an expert has said.

Dr Ovunda Omudu, Head, Department of Surgery at the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital, disclosed this on Thursday while delivering a lecture on cancer to officers and ratings of the Nigeria Navy Ship Pathfinder in Port Harcourt.

Omudu, a trained Urologist, said the disease had killed many due to several factors including poor awareness, knowledge, ignorance and manpower.

According to him, treatment for the disease is equally very expensive as it cost between N90,000 to N110,000 per one injection administered to a patient every three months.

“Prostate cancer is one of the leading killer diseases in men in Nigeria and the second cause of cancer deaths in men worldwide.

“Here in Nigeria, we do not have a national budget designated for prostate cancer as obtainable in some western nations which meant that treatment lies solely on the sufferer.

“Due to exchange rate, a 10.8 milligram of prostate cancer injection goes for N90,000 to N110,000 which a patient takes once every three months.

“Similarly, 3.6 milligram of the same injection which is taken every month is sold for N45,000 combined with drug which cost N27,000 per dosage.

“So, you can imagine that every month a retiree or pensioner with prostate cancer will spend roughly N120,000 to treat the disease.

“So, it is very important that we do our best to prevent the disease and stop paying salary to prostate cancer via drugs and medication,” he said.

Omudu said that surgery to remove prostate cancer abroad cost about 10,000 U.S. dollars (N4.85 million) while cost of travelling, hospital and hotel accommodation increased the figure to N7 million.

Omudu, however, said that a foundation based in the country had intervened by reducing cost for laser surgery to N600,000.

He said the disease could be prevented by eating consumables like red tomato; Green tea, sea foods, such as periwinkles and snails, and regular exercise.

“Green tea contained anti-oxidant and anti-free radicals while the sea foods have magnesium, manganese, selenium and vitamin E and D which are nutrients for prevention of the disease,” he said.

Omudu said that efforts were currently being made to reduce the number by creating more awareness and training of additional Urologist doctors to provide needed expertise.

The medical doctor advised officers and ratings to take measures to prevent the diseases, especially going by the nature of their jobs which demanded physical fitness.

Speaking, Commodore Obi Egbuchulam, the Commander of Nigeria Navy Ship (NNS), said the base organised the lecture to expose troops to dangers posed by the disease.

He said that some serving and retired naval officers and ratings were currently suffering from prostate cancer which could affect their ability to provide optimal service to the country.

“I think it is our responsibility to educate and enlighten our personnel on dangers of prostate cancer, so that they can live a happy and healthy life serving and after retirement.

“Some people developed this disease due to ignorance and so, this lecture is taking place together with a free Prostate Specific Antigen screening to enable our personnel know their cancer status,” he said.

Egbuchulam assured that the exercise would be a regular and urged personnel from other units and formations to always get tested.

Guardian

Video - Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote committed to investment in Tanzania, if gas prices are cut

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote says he's committed to investing in Tanzania -- despite halting production at his cement factory over energy costs. President John Magufuli has invited him to Dar es Salaam to broker a solution, saying Dangote could buy gas directly from the state supplier. But as Dan Ashby reports, there may be more problems ahead.

Video - Nigeria's government audit uncovers $7.2 billion concealed debt

Nigeria's government has stumbled over a debt amounting to $7.22 billion that was not recorded by the previous administration. Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun says the whooping amount emerged during an audit aimed at improving transparency. The debt owed to contractors, oil marketers, exporters and electricity distribution companies amounts to 2.3 percent of the gross domestic product. The government has now issued a 10-year promissory note to settle the amount due to creditors. President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to present the 2017 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly later on Wednesday. Nigeria is facing its worst economic crisis in 25 years, brought on by low oil prices, which have slashed government revenue, hammered its currency and caused chronic dollar shortages, frustrating businesses.

Millions of Nigerians at risk of losing money to a Ponzi scheme

After a strong run which saw it garner more than two million users, Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox (MMM), a Russian Ponzi scheme, has suspended its operations in Nigeria. The scheme, described as a “mutual aid fund where ordinary people help each other”, guaranteed returns of 30% per month on payments and has grown popular across Africa’s largest economy.

Depending on its users to pay each other without running a central bank account or physical address, MMM sees registered participants pledge and donate money to other participants when directed to do so by the scheme’s operators. After a month, donors are entitled to receive the donated sum, plus 30% interest, paid by another user.

In a message to its users, MMM says the suspension of operations is because “the system is experiencing heavy workload.” It also blames its disruption on “the constant frenzy provoked by the authorities in the mass media.” Over the past year, as the scheme’s popularity has grown, Nigerian authorities have stepped up campaigns to dissuade Nigerians from taking part in the scheme.

Central Bank of Nigeria warned against committing funds to “fraudsters”. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria’s chief anti-corruption agency, also launched an investigation of the scheme’s operations.

The government’s tactics appear to have had the desired effect as reports suggest that, given heightened risk warnings by the government’s agencies, MMM participants have become hesitant to make payments as directed by the system causing a hiccup in operations. As a result, MMM says its operations “will be frozen for a month.” By extension, participants due to receive returns having paid out money over the past month will be unable to do so.

“The reason for this measure is evident,” MMM’s message to its users read. “We need to prevent any problems during the New Year season, and then, when everything calms down, this measure will be cancelled.” It refers to paying out by users as PH (Provide Help).

But the promise of a return has proven scant assurance for Nigerians with money trapped in the scheme. Taking to social media, MMM participants have requested clarity and complained about the suspension of operations in the typically busy festive season.

MMM’s suspensions of operations in Nigeria is similar to events in South Africa where the scheme collapsed and was forced to start over. In that instance, MMM also blamed the collapse on “persecution” which it claimed was “organized by the mass media” to provoke panic. Similarly, in Zimbabwe, the scheme temporarily suspended operations and slashed withdrawal exchange rates upon resumption causing participants to lose 80% of their investment. It remains to be seen whether the scheme will make a January return as promised, but if it does, there’s a good chance, having faced the prospect of losing their money, participants are likely to be only interested in getting out their cash.

Quartz

Video - Malaria infections on the rise in Nigeria

The World Health Organization says more women and children in Sub-Saharan Africa are being tested for malaria.

It says there's been a 20-percent rise in testing, but despite the progress, a large number of infections are still being reported.

Girls aged between 7-8 used as suicide bombers attacked market in Gombe, Nigeria

A pair of girls, believed to be aged between 7 and 8, blew themselves up in a bustling northeastern Nigerian market in Maiduguri, killing themselves and injuring at least 17 others, according to a local official and a militia member.

The attack carried out by the two suicide bombers killed at least three people, according to state emergency agency NEMA spokesman, Sani Datti, who spoke to Reuters. The locals told the news agency that up to nine people died.

A local militia member, Abdulkarim Jabo, told AFP he saw the girls seconds before the explosion.

“They got out of a rickshaw and walked right in front of me without showing the slightest sign of emotion,” he said. “I tried to speak with one of them, in Hausa and in English, but she didn't answer. I thought they were looking for their mother.”

One of the girls “headed toward the poultry sellers, and then detonated her explosives belt.”

The suicide bombers were as young as “seven or eight,” Jabo said.

The attack was not immediately claimed by IS-affiliated Boko Haram, notorious for its signature strategy of kidnapping girls, but bore all the hallmarks of the terrorists.

Maiduguri, the capital and largest city of Borno State, is the epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgency. One of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world, they are responsible for 5,478 deaths in 2015, surpassed only by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), according to the new Global Terrorism Index.

On Friday, two women carried out suicide bombings at a crowded market in Madagali, killing at least 30 people and injuring 67, AP reported.

More than “1.3 million children have been uprooted by Boko Haram-related violence,” according to the UN children's agency (UNICEF).

A Finn Church Aid report, based on interviews with 119 former Boko Haram members, recently found that female members of the terrorist group are almost as likely as men to be deployed as fighters.

“This large role of women in Boko Haram was one of the most surprising results we got,” Mahdi Abdile, director of research at Finn Church Aid and co-author of the study, said in the report. “For example, in [Al-Qaeda-linked] Al Shabab, women basically do not have an active role at all,” he added.

Boko Haram has killed about 20,000 people and displaced more than 2.5 million in Nigeria in a seven-year insurgency, according to AP.

RT

Video - Nigeria Treasury targets $24 billion as economy verges on depressio

This week the Nigerian government will table a budget of nearly 24 billion dollars for 2017. That's a 20 percent increase in expenditure from 2016 estimates. Businesses have been weighed down by the recession.

Video - Rescue and recovery operations continue, death toll likely to rise in Nigeria church tragedy

In southern Nigeria, rescue and recovery operations after still under way after the roof of a church caved in, trapping hundreds of worshippers. The death toll is estimated at 160, however it's expected to rise as more bodies are pulled from the rubble. Hundreds of people were inside Reigners Bible Church in the city of Uyo on Saturday, when the metal girders broke and the corrugated iron roof caved in. Building collapses are not uncommon in Nigeria. In 2014, 116 people died when a multi-storey guest-house collapsed in Lagos.

Related story: 41 dead in Church collapse in Lagos, Nigeria

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Video - Buhari hails progress by regional multinational force

At a peace and security forum in Senegal this week, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari assured the international community that the end of Boko Haram is in sight. He's also hailed the increased cooperation between Nigeria and its neighbours in the fight against terrorism. Buhari says that the formation of the multinational joint task force comprising Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Benin troops had greatly enhanced the fight against Boko Haram. However, Buhari has appealed for more international assistance in addressing piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, and unemployment in Nigeria.

Thousands of Nigerian women forced to work as prostitutes in Italy

A steep rise in the number of Nigerian prostitutes working in Italy is being linked to the arrival in the country of well-organized Nigerian mafias, which are using violence and religious rites to terrify trafficked women into submission, police say.

Police say their operations this year have revealed the presence in Italy of a host of Nigerian gangs with names such as the Black Axe, the Vikings, the Buccaneers, the Eiye and the Maphites.

The gangs have arrived in Italy as the number of Nigerian women sailing to the country from Libya has risen from 1,454 in 2014 to 10,624 between January and the end of November.

Of those, as many as 80% are forced to work as prostitutes, according to the International Organization for Migration.

With prices for sex with girls as young as 14 starting at around $10, 1 in 2 street prostitutes in Italy today is Nigerian.

Seventeen members of the Black Axe mafia were arrested last month, including the group’s “head of zone” for Italy, taken into custody in Verona, and the “minister of defense” in Palermo. The latter was said to be responsible for singling out errant members for machete attacks.

“Our probe showed how gangs like the Black Axe are running the whole prostitution pipeline, which brings trafficked women from Nigeria to Italy,” said an investigator in Palermo who declined to be named because he was not allowed to speak on the record.

Women are usually fooled into believing they will be given regular jobs in Europe by traffickers who stage voodoo rites in which the women promise to pay back the cost of their travel, authorities said.

Upon arrival, police said, the women are told they must work as prostitutes until they pay off debts of about $30,000.

The police official said former prostitutes often manage the women, but mafia members are on hand to punish them if they try to escape.

“If women rebel, it won’t be their madams who punish them, but Black Axe,” he said.

Anna, 40, who declined to give her last name because of the sensitivity of the topic, said she was forced into prostitution for three years after being told by traffickers she would pick fruit in Italy. She said she was warned that her mother in Nigeria would be hurt if she fled.

“I stayed on the street, pressured by my madam, to save my mother,” she said in an interview. “My message to girls back in Nigeria is, ‘Don’t come.’”

Fabio Sorgoni, an official with the charity On the Road, which helps prostitutes in Italy, said Italian men are attracted by the youth and low price of the women. “They think these girls come from a culture where it is normal to be a prostitute,” he said. “Ironically, that is what Germans used to say about Italian women who immigrated to Germany.”

Sorgoni said Nigerian women lodged applications for asylum in Italy when they arrived and then worked as prostitutes while their paperwork wound through Italy’s overwhelmed immigration bureaucracy. “They are also put to work inside migration centers in Italy,” he said.

Police in Palermo first learned about the Black Axe mafia in 2014, when member Austine Johnbull was arrested after inflicting serious face wounds with an axe on a rival from another Nigerian gang.

Investigators applied their experience in chasing the Sicilian mafia, setting up microphones in meeting places, tailing suspects, trawling Facebook accounts, and, most important, finding a member ready to give evidence.

From the historic Palermo neighborhood of Ballaro, the Black Axe was building a drug and vice empire with 100 affiliates in the Palermo “forum” — its name for areas of operation in Italy, authorities said. All members took on gang nicknames and greeted each other by crossing raised forearms.

New recruits, or “ignorants,” were held in apartments and beaten to test their courage, police said.

Authorities identified the head of the Palermo gang as Evans Sylvester, who was arrested. His sister ran a brothel, police said.

“The turncoat we used was a modern-day Buscetta,” said the police official, referring to Tommaso Buscetta, the first major Cosa Nostra turncoat in the 1980s.

He also said there were parallel Black Axe operations in Germany, France and Holland.

The official said the Black Axe had learned to coexist with Sicily’s traditional mafia clans. “The mafia here has no interest in the Nigerian community, but they do trade drugs with the Nigerian mafias, so it’s mutually beneficial,” he said.

In September, police in Turin, Bologna and Rome arrested 44 members of other Nigerian mafia clans, including the Eiye and the Maphites.

Investigators discovered mobsters were stabbing victims in the face or dousing them in acid to keep control over the Italian suburbs where they placed prostitutes and sold drugs.

During clan initiation ceremonies, new members were forced to drink a mixture of blood, gin and tapioca as they swore allegiance.

Unlike most mafia groups, which recruit on the streets, Nigeria’s mafias are often formed on the country’s university campuses, where they offer protection to rich students, nongovernmental organization officials have said.

Police said that members of the Eiye mafia would whistle like birds to identify themselves. They said the Maphites favored sharp suits and called bosses “Dons” in deference to the Italian mafia.

“The Maphites would hold meetings in smart hotels and pose as local community leaders, but wiretaps showed they were receiving orders from Nigeria and sending cash back there,” said Marco Sgarbi, a police official in Turin. “They are involved in the trafficking of the women from start to finish.”

To solve a dispute over control of the Maphites in 2013, a boss arrived from London for a summit, Sgarbi said. “He was likely the deputy head of the group at European level, responding to an overall boss in Nigeria — their structure is like a pyramid,” he added.

The boss was recorded stating that anyone disobeying the group would have a relative in Nigeria killed and that a senior Nigerian police official “is our best friend,” Sgarbi said.

The police official in Palermo said the round-up of Black Axe leaders would help “slow down” the Nigerian prostitution trade. “They will be disorientated, but we now need to see how capable the madams are at keeping order,” he said.

Vivian Wiwoloku, a Nigerian aid official in Palermo who helps trafficked women and has had his car firebombed twice, said he was not optimistic.

“As long as there is a recession in Nigeria, more girls will come,” he said.

Sorgoni, the official with On the Road, issued an appeal to Italian men who pay Nigerians for sex. “If you go to a prostitute, try to understand if they are a minor and whether they are doing this work of their own free will,” he said.

LA Times

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Nigeria's navy has been carrying out sea drills to better prepare sailors to tackle piracy. The sea exercises are also intended to sharpen the navy's skills in the fight against pipeline vandalism in the oil-rich Delta region. Militants' attacks on oil installations have significantly cut Nigeria's production, affecting revenue. The navy says it's determined to end the attacks, as CCTV's Deji Badmus reports.

President Buhari claims Boko Haram is finished as a fighting force

Almost exactly a year after he proclaimed that the Nigerian military had “technically defeated” Boko Haram, President Muhammadu Buhari has again insisted that the end is coming for the Islamist militant group.

At a security conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar on Tuesday, the Nigerian president said that members of the militant group—which has fractured into a faction loyal to long-time leader Abubakar Shekau and another affiliated to the Islamic State (ISIS) militant group—had been surrendering “en masse” in Chad, and that regional military forces were preparing a final onslaught on the group’s hideout in the remote Sambisa forest. “As far as Boko Haram is concerned in the Lake Chad Basin area, I think they are done for,” said Buhari.

The comments echoed a similar pronouncement Buhari made in December 2015, when he told the BBC that “technically, we have won the war” against the militant group. Buhari’s logic was that Boko Haram had reverted to guerrilla tactics—using young girls as suicide bombers, for example—and no longer resembled an “organized fighting force” capable of “conventional attacks on centers of

Deaths in Boko Haram-affected states

Boko Haram’s armed insurgency, which began in 2009, has been heavily concentrated in northeast Nigeria. The group was founded in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, and previously held territory also in the neighboring states of Yobe and Adamawa.

From January to December 2015, a total of 7,309 deaths were recorded in these three states, according to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker. While this tool does not identify the perpetrators of the deaths, it is safe to assume that Boko Haram is the main contributor: no other group has been as active or deadly as the Islamist militants, who were named as the world’s deadliest militant group in 2014, ahead of ISIS, by the Institute of Economics and Peace.

So far in 2016, the number of casualties attributable to the group in those three states has dropped by a third. Boko Haram has killed 2,306 people in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. While Boko Haram has regularly used suicide bombing as a tactic, the group has also shown it still has the capacity to attack settled communities, contrary to Buhari’s December 2015 comments: in January, suspected Boko Haram militants attacked the village of Dalori, burning homes and livestock and killing more than 80 people.

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria

As well as causing thousands of deaths, the militant group has displaced millions of Nigerians during the course of its conflict. There were 2.15 million IDPs in Nigeria as of December 31, 2015, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, which is run by the Norwegian Refugee Council. Of these, an estimated 85 percent were displaced as a result of Boko Haram’s insurgency, and more than 1.4 million IDPs were located Borno state.

Over the past year, the number of IDPs in Nigeria has fallen: the United Nations Refugee Agency estimated around 1.82 million people remain displaced inside the West African country as of December 2. But as Boko Haram has been squeezed within Nigeria, it has spawned out into neighboring countries in the Lake Chad Basin. A total of 2.25 million people are displaced in the region, including substantial populations in Niger, Chad and Cameroon. And the needs of these IDPs continues to grow: the U.N. on Friday launched a $1bn humanitarian appeal to cope with the crisis in northeast Nigeria, saying that 5.1 million people could face serious food shortages over the next year. The appeal led President Buhari to accuse the U.N. and others of exaggerating the situation’s severity with “hyperbolic claims.”

Territory held by Boko Haram

At the peak of its insurgency in early 2015, Boko Haram was estimated to control more than 11,000 square miles of territory—an area the size of Belgium. But Nigerian military advances and the establishment of a regional task force in 2015 gradually reclaimed ground from the group. During his December 2015 interview with the BBC, Buhari claimed that Boko Haram controlled a maximum of four local government areas (LGAs) in Borno state, and none within Yobe or Adamawa. Nigeria has a total of almost 800 LGAs.

In his speech in Dakar on Tuesday, Buhari asserted that Boko Haram is no longer in control of a single LGA in Nigeria, nor of any meaningful territory. The Nigerian military has said that the militants are pinned back into the Sambisa forest and that soldiers are increasingly advancing upon their positions.

Conclusion

President Buhari again appears to have acted prematurely in declaring Boko Haram finished as a fighting force. Nigeria and its allies have substantially limited the number of deaths perpetrated by the militants and rolled back their territorial gains.

The Buhari administration has also made important symbolic gains against Boko Haram, chiefly the freeing of 23 of the 276 girls abducted from their school in Chibok, northeast Nigeria, in April 2014. Prior to 2016, none of the Chibok girls had been freed, excluding the 57 girls who escaped from the group on the night of the abduction.

But Boko Haram remains a potent paramilitary force: scores of Nigerian soldiers have been killed or gone missing in recent clashes with the militants in Borno, suggesting that the group retains the capacity to battle the military. Boko Haram is still displacing people in Nigeria and beyond, and while it allegedly no longer holds any territory, the group appears well-suited to asymmetric warfare. It may be some time yet before Nigeria can truly say that Boko Haram’s insurgency is over.

Newsweek

Video - Nigerian athlete raises awareness about traditional cloth

A 47-year-old Nigerian is using sports to preserve the culture of his community's ethnic wraps. Adjarho David Obaro -- nicknamed "World Wrapper Man" -- has run long distance races in a wrap that's 34 metres long and weighs four kilograms. Over the weekend, he ran 15 kilometres in Lagos as part of a fundraiser for his former school.

Nigeria women's football team launch sit-in protest for not receiving payment after winning Africa Cup of Nations

Nigeria's women's team have launched a sit-in protest in an Abuja hotel as they seek allowances and bonuses for winning the Women's Africa Cup of Nations from the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

The Super Falcons players clinched their eighth African title on Saturday with a 1-0 win over hosts Cameroon.

They say the NFF promised them that their outstanding allowances for qualifying and their win bonuses would be sorted before the start of the competition.

The players are now holding out for both in their hotel.

"We are tired of the lies and false promises from the NFF," one player, who insisted on anonymity, told BBC Sport.

"They told us we would be paid before the tournament in Cameroon, but that never happened.

"We continued playing and now we are owed additional allowances and bonuses for winning the competition itself.

"We have made it clear to the NFF president and general secretary that we are going nowhere until all our monies from the qualifying and the competition in Cameroon have been paid."

The NFF, which receives direct funding from government, is in dire straits after Nigeria slipped into recession in August for the first time in more than a decade.

Since March, Super Falcons coach Florence Omagbemi and her assistants have only received a month's salary.

The NFF has said in a statement that its general secretary Mohammed Sanusi met with the players and officials at the Agura Hotel on Tuesday.

"The NFF is not happy owing players and coaches, but present severe economic challenges inform that it can only continue to seek the understanding of these persons, as well as hoteliers, travel agents, management and staff until the situation improves," Sanusi said in a statement.

"All organisations, whether government or private, are feeling the pinch.

"We know we have financial commitment to you (players and officials of Super Falcons) and we have not at any time stated otherwise. But the money is not readily available.

"I have come to appeal to you, to understand the situation of the federation, to understand the situation of the country at the present and exercise patience.

"We will pay you all monies you are being owed as soon as we receive same from the government."

Despite this latest appeal by the NFF, the Super Falcons insist that they do not trust the federation's promises and will not be calling off their sit-in protest as requested.

"Contrary to what was said in that statement, Mr Sanusi used some strong words during our meeting," another player told the BBC.

"Our coach (Omagbemi) has gone unpaid for months, she lost her father yet she went to the tournament and won it for Nigeria.

"They can't treat the Super Eagles (the men's national team) like this. The only thing we understand right now is for them to pay and stop making promises."

It is not the first time the Super Falcons and the NFF have clashed over unpaid bonuses and allowances.

Twelve years ago, the team remained in their hotel in South Africa for three days after the Nigeria FA (NFA) failed to pay their bonuses for winning the 2004 African Women's Championship.

Pay rows have often surrounded Nigerian teams, with coaches not paid regularly, while players have boycotted training during important qualifiers or at major tournaments over unpaid bonus.

The poor financial position of the NFF has already forced the country to cut their backroom staff and slashed the salaries and allowances of the various national team coaches, excluding new Super Eagles manager Gernot Rohr.

BBC

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Video - President Buhari criticises UN for blowing crisis out of proportion

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Video - 47% of Nigerians in the country still shun banks

Nigeria has 22 banks with several branches across the country. Before they consolidated in 2005, there were 89 banks in operation. Twenty-two is still a significant number. Despite this, millions of Nigerians are unbanked. Some reports put the figure at 47 percent of the populations; Others claim it's even higher.

Wole Soyinka to hold funeral to mourn death of common sense in Nigeria

Nigerian Nobel prize-winning author, Wole Soyinka says he will hold a private funeral on January 20 when United States President-elect, Donald Trump, is inaugurated as President.

Soyinka revealed this on Monday December 5, while speaking to journalists at the Freedom Park in Lagos.

He explained that the funeral is not to mourn with the citizens of the US over their choice of Trump as president but to mourn the death of Nigeria’s common sense.

“On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, I will have a private funeral keep to mourn the death of Nigeria’s common sense. If the board agrees (because I do not like to be authoritarian) I will move the residency of my foundation out of the country,"

“Our common sense is totally lost. I am embarrassed sometimes that I occupy the same nation space with some people,” he said.

He added that Nigerians do not have the right to query his personal decision to tear his US green card.

Recall that the revered playwright and Nobel laureate fulfilled his pledge to throw away his US residency green card and leave the country if Donald Trump won the presidential election.

Shortly before the vote, Soyinka had vowed to give up his permanent US residency over a Trump victory to protest against the Republican billionaire’s campaign promises to get tough on immigration.

“I have already done it; I have disengaged (from the United States). I have done what I said I would do,” the 82-year-old told AFP on the sidelines of an education conference at the University of Johannesburg, days ago.

Daily Trust

Related story:Video - Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka gives up US residency after Trump's victory

Bayo Ogunlesi appointed in Donald Trump's economic advisory team

The Nigerian community in U.S. has lauded the appointment of Bayo Ogunlesi by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump into his Economic Advisory Team, saying it could signal a positive trend for Africa.

The Nigerians told the Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York, that Ogunlesi has been an excellent ambassador for Africa and Nigeria in particular.

Mr Michael Adeniyi, former President of a Nigerian U.S.-based group, the Organisation for the Advancement of Nigerians Inc. (OAN Inc), told NAN that "Bayo Ogunlesi is an excellent and extraordinary Nigerian.

"He is very humble, brilliant and outstanding in every way you can think of.

"He has achieved outstanding success in Wall Street and he's a proud ambassador of Africa, which he started in Kings College.

"For him to be appointed into Trump's Economic Advisory Team is a honour to Africa and especially to Nigeria. He will add value to the Trump's team and he's worthy of celebrating.

"Prior to his appointment, Bayo Ogunlesi has been a pride of Africa; he reached the pinnacle of his career in Walls Street through his company which he built from the scratch. He is a round peg in a round hole."

Another Nigerian, Prof. Yetunde Odugbesan-Omede, a professor of Global Affairs and Political Science, at Rutgers University and Farmingdale State College, said Ogunlesi has all it takes to contribute to a positive American economic outlook

"Mr Ogunlesi has an impressive background and will be able to add his perspective and vast knowledge on how to move America forward that will yield positive economic outcomes."

Odugbesan-Omede, however, said it was too early to say if the appointment would have any impact on Nigeria.

"It is too early to determine or come to a conclusion at this moment on whether Mr Ogunlesi's role will have any impact on Nigeria's foreign and economic policy.

"I hope that Mr Ogunlesi will provide guidance on improving both economic and political U.S.-Nigeria relations," Odugbesan-Omede said.

Spokesperson for the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the UN, Pastor Akinremi Bolaji, said Ogunlesi's appointment was a positive development for Nigeria and Africa.

"I am not speaking for the Nigerian diplomatic community because I am not in the position to do so; it for the Embassy in Washington to do.

"Speaking as a Nigerian, it is a good indication and positive development for Africa and Nigeria that we are among the best brains everywhere.

"It is also to show you that one in every five Blacks is a Nigerian. It is a good indication for our economic and foreign policy.

"It also shows that Africa and Nigeria have good ambassadors everywhere. Ogunlesi has to see himself as a representative of the Black race as the only Black man that made the list by further distinguishing himself.

"I advise him to use his opportunity well and he should bring together people of integrity who will not smear his integrity."

Bolaji said the younger generation has a lot to learn from his distinction, adding "journalists have a lot to do to tell us how he was able to weather the storm and got recognised worldwide.

"It also shows that the best economic brains are scattered everywhere in Nigeria. We have the Dangotes in the North, Jim Ovias and Tony Elumelus in the East and South South and Otedola in the West, and now Ogunlesi.

"If we put our house together, we have people all over the world and at home who have all it takes for us to succeed," Bolaji said.

NAN recalls that Ogunlesi, who is the chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners, a private equity firm and one of Fortune 500 companies, was named a member of an economic advisory forum to Trump.

The 63-year-old Nigerian is the only African face in the 16-man team.

"President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced that he is establishing the President's Strategic and Policy Forum," said a press release from Blackstone published by Business Insider.

The Forum, which is composed of some of America's most highly respected and successful business leaders, will be called upon to meet with the president frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implements his plan to bring back jobs and 'Make America Great Again'.

Daily Trust

Video - Government boosts other sectors to wean the country off oil

The manufacturing sector in Nigeria has suffered years of decline as the oil boom eclipsed other industries. To encourage the private sector, the government is already spending heavily on the country's run-down infrastructure, and promoting the consumption of local goods and services.

Video - Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka gives up US residency after Trump's victory

Nigerian Nobel Laureate, author and playwright Wole Soyinka has thrown away his green card in protest against Donald Trump's presidency. The Nigerian vowed to do so if Trump won the U.S. presidential polls. The 82-year-old scholar was the first African to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. He's been living in America for for more than 20 years. Soyinka maintains Trump's presidency is a sign it's the right time for him to leave.

400,000 children in Nigeria at risk of starvation

Fati Adamu has not seen three of her six children nor her husband since Boko Haram fighters attacked her hometown in northeast Nigeria in a hail of gunfire.

Two years on, she is among thousands of refugees at the Bakassi camp in Maiduguri, the city worst hit by a seven-year-old conflict that has forced more than two million people to flee their homes.

The United Nations says 400,000 children are now at risk from a famine in the northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe - 75,000 of whom could die from hunger within the next few months.

A push against the fighters by the Nigerian army and soldiers from neighbouring countries has enabled troops to enter remote parts of the northeast in the last few months, revealing tens of thousands on the brink of starvation - and countless families torn apart.

"I don't know if they are dead or alive," Adamu, 35, said of her missing relatives.

There is a renewed threat of Boko Haram attacks. The start of the dry season has seen a surge in suicide bombings, some of which have targeted refugee camps, including one at Bakassi in October that killed five people.

The World Food Programme said it provides food aid to 450,000 people in Borno and Yobe. About 200,000 of them receive $54 each month to buy food, soon to rise to $73.

At least 15 camps, mostly on the outskirts of Maiduguru, the Borno state capital, are home to thousands of people unable to return home and surviving on food rations.

At one known as New Prison, women and children visibly outnumber men, many of whom were killed by Boko Haram or are missing.

One man - Bukaralhaji Bukar, 45, who has eight children from his two wives - said the food he buys with the monthly stipend finishes within two weeks.

"We are suffering. It is not enough," said Bukar, who begs on the street to make money.

In the centre of Maiduguri, life seems to be returning to normal. Food markets are bustling but soldiers in pick-up trucks clutching rifles are reminders of the need for vigilance.

Malnourished children

In a ward in Molai district near the Bakassi camp, the air is filled with the sound of crying babies and the gurgle of those who lack the energy to cry. Some, whose skin clings tightly to their bones, are silent - too weary to even raise their heads.

"Many of them are malnourished, which is already bad enough, but they also develop things like malaria which further worsens their illnesses because they cannot eat and start vomiting," said Dr Iasac Bot, who works at the unit overseen by the charity Save the Children.

Children have conditions ranging from diarrhoea and pneumonia to bacterial infections and skin infections.

Hauwa Malu, 20, fled with her husband and their two-week-old daughter, Miriam, from her village in Jere after Boko Haram fighters burned the farming community to the ground and took their cattle.

Miriam, now aged 10 months, has suffered from fevers, a persistent cough, and is malnourished. Her mother said they have been left without a home or livelihood.

Tim Vaessen of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said a failure to restore their ability to farm would in the long term mean displaced people would depend on expensive food aid.

"They would remain in these camps, they would become easy targets for other armed groups and they might have to migrate again - even up to Europe," he said.

Al Jazeera

Video - Nigeria's Declining Power Supply

Video - 39 million people living with hypertension in Nigeria

According to Nigeria’s census numbers, rapid population growth from 160-million people in 2010 to 180-million people in 2016 has also seen prevalence in cases of hypertension - a cardiovascular disease. According to the World Health Organization, 75- percent of the world's hypertensive population will be in developing countries.

Nigeria to start exporting rice in 2017

The Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN) on Tuesday said it’s Anchor Borrowers Programme for the promotion of Agriculture had set the country to begin exportation of rice by 2017. The Anchor Borrowers Programme of the CBN and the Presidential Committee on Rice Production launched in July had jointly set the target.

The Acting Director of Corporate Communications of the apex bank, Mr Isaac Okorafor, said this in Yenagoa at a sensitisation workshop for farmers. The theme of the workshop is entitled: “Promoting Stability and Economic Development’’. 

According to him, farmers in Kebbi, Jigawa, Ebonyi, Sokoto and Cross River states, among others, have already keyed into the programme, resulting in massive rice cultivation. He said the country would achieve self-sustenance in rice production if the momentum was sustained, adding that the country should commence exportation of locally produced rice by 2017. 

Okorafor said Kebbi State had already harvested one million tons of rice, adding that Ebonyi’s harvest had outstripped the earmarked production for the year. “The development is encouraging and by the end of 2017, we will not only meet our national demand which is between six and seven million tons but have surplus to export. 

“We must rid ourselves of eating foreign rice that has been stored for over nine years in Thailand, Vietnam and India. Nigerian rice is fresh and healthier. “We should eat Nigerian rice provided for by the CBN Anchor Programme; 50 Kg of local rice is now N8, 000 in Ebonyi.

Already, the Abia Government has ordered rice from Ebonyi for Christmas,’’ he said. He further said: “What we have done with this programme so far is to create jobs through farming, especially for the unemployed youths. “Nigerian youths must wake up, dust themselves up and join this worthy campaign. “Remember that the status of our farmers is now better due to the support they are receiving as a result of government’s policy. 

“Our currency is weak because we engaged in needless importation of all kinds of food stuffs, including tooth picks; the government is determined to stop this.’’ 

The Branch Controller, CBN, Yenagoa, Mr. Oke Nwajah, said the state was blessed with rich wet soil that supported rice cultivation. He therefore, urged the farmers to take pride in farming, adding that the Anchor Borrowers Programme was an intervention to reduce their burden.

Vanguard

Price increase in mobile services in Nigeria due to government policies

Around a year ago, Nigeria’s mobile internet subscriber base had nearly hit at a landmark figure: 100 million. But, due to unfavorable government policies, that trend is likely to be reversed.

Last year, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the country’s telecoms regulator earned praise for deregulating data prices. The removal of a data floor price allowed local telcos to set lower mobile data prices making them cheaper than ever before and enabling more Nigerians access to the internet.

But, in a surprising move, the NCC has reinstated its data floor price, forcing telcos to jack prices back up. In a letter sent to telcos, the NCC claims the price increase is necessary “in order to provide a level playing field for all operators in the industry.” The prices will take effect from Dec. 1.

The NCC cited the need to allow “small operators and new entrants” who hold “less than 7.5% market share” and have operated “less than three years in the market” to operate profitably. Put another way: the NCC thinks that, by charging lower prices for data, large telcos, like MTN, could kill off smaller internet service providers who’d be unable to compete profitably. Reports suggest the new regulation is due to lobbying by smaller operators.

More expensive mobile internet access costs will particularly stifle internet usage growth given Nigeria’s low fixed line broadband internet penetration. The move is being widely criticized by players in Nigeria’s fast-growing tech sector. Iyin ‘E’ Aboyeji, who made his name as a co-founder of Andela, one of the country’s high-profile young tech companies, called the decision the “biggest threat” to the Nigerian government’s own stated ambitions for the local tech sector. Aboyeji who now runs a payments startup called Flutterwave, addressed president Buhari directly in a series of tweets.

The decision also comes at a time when Nigeria’s mobile internet usage has been steadily regressing.

While the NCC’s decision to make telcos hike data prices is surprising, there was a chance the price of internet access was going to increase. As Quartz has reported, in a bid to increase government revenue, Nigerian lawmakers have discussed a bill to levy a 9% communications tax on various services including internet data. But with service providers unlikely to bear the extra expense, the costs was likely to be passed down to end users.

Quartz

Video - Lagos hosts West Africa's first international art fair

Artists from West Africa have had the chance to showcase their work at the region's first international art fair. Art X drew over 5,000 guests to the Nigerian city of Lagos. The event highlighted Nigeria's vibrant connection to the contemporary art scene.

Nigeria's crackdown on begging possibly violating human rights

With Nigeria’s parliament poised to extend a controversial law banning the “menace of street begging” throughout the country, campaigners are warning the policy has already resulted in the persecution of tens of thousands of disabled and mentally ill citizens.

Street begging is illegal in Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous city, and carries fines of around N15,000 (£38) and up to three months’ imprisonment. Those who fail to pay the fine are incarcerated until they are able to pay up.

But due to poor medical support, the people begging on Lagos’s street are disproportionately made up of mentally ill and disabled citizens, and human rights activists say tens of thousands of vulnerable people have been detained over the past five years as a result of the ban.

Megan Chapman, a human rights lawyer and director of the local NGO Justice and Empowerment Initiatives (JEI), said the “scale of human rights violations is massive and extremely concerning”, and added the treatment may be illegal under the country’s constitution.

Though campaigners from JEI acknowledged that begging is also banned in other cities across the world, they claim the ban is policed brutally and without transparency in Lagos. “It’s hard to find a city enforcing the ban in as inhumane a way as Lagos is,” Chapman said.

Despite widespread calls from NGOs and activists for the state to reconsider its policy, the Nigerian senate is now considering a bill to ban begging nationwide.

The bill, proposed by Senator Isah Misau, has substantial backing in the senate, with lawmakers claiming the increase in begging is caused by criminal exploitation rather than poor economic conditions in Nigeria, which is now officially in recession.

Speaking in support of the proposed legislation, Misau said: “Street begging affects not only the geographical and social structure of urban areas; it also portrays the country in a bad light to tourists and foreign visitors.”

Lagos state’s governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, has backed the crackdown on street begging. “We’ve had security reports on the activities of persons who pose as beggars, especially in traffic, but their sole aim is to perpetrate evil,” he said in July.

The state government said in April that 1,340 beggars, destitute and “mentally challenged persons” had been “rescued” from the streets of Lagos in the past year. During this period, it said 590 “rehabilitees” had been released and reunited with their relatives for re-integration, while 1,228 people were rehabilitated at what it referred to as a “rehabilitation and training centre” in Majidun, on mainland Lagos.

In addition, according to a leaked memo cited on the Nigerian site PM News, 413 beggars and “lunatics” were reportedly evacuated from Lagos’s streets by government officials between March and July this year.

Most of those detained for begging are taken to the holding facility by the so-called “rescue team” from the Lagos State Youth and Development Ministry, which enforces the ban.

The centre was opened as part of a drive to clean up the city in the 1970s. State officials claim it is used to help and treat beggars and people who are physically or mentally ill, yet reports from former detainees paint a different picture.

Men and women held there have described torturous conditions, claiming to have been denied basic rights and medical attention, held in confined spaces, often for years, without a fair hearing.

“We have met dozens of people arrested for begging who have been made to pay a hefty bribe, who have been deprived of their liberty for months or even years. Not one of them has ever been taken before a court of law. It is a serious violation of their rights under the Nigerian constitution,” she said.

“What we’ve been pressing the state government to do is to have a root and branch overhaul of the system; stop the mass incarcerations that impact on the health and well-being of the beggars.”

Workers from JEI, along with the Physically Challenged Empowerment Initiative (PCEI), a grassroots organisation campaigning against the detentions, have looked after several people after their release from the centre.

Among them was 25-year-old Yakubu Idris. After his arrest and 20-month detention at the Majidun facility, his health deteriorated. Interviewed hours after his release, he said: “Now I cannot walk – I cannot even stand up from the floor.”

Despite suffering from extensive infections and a respiratory problem, Idris said he was denied medical treatment by officials at the facility. “In the cell I totally forgot how long I was there because I was never let out. Then one day theoga [boss] took two of us and released us,” he said.

A week later, tests for tuberculosis came back positive, but Idris died before he could receive treatment.

Chapman said calls for change by local NGOs were slowly being heeded, but the proposed bill threatened to undermine years of work to change attitudes towards beggars.

“We have pointed out that current practices are completely unconstitutional and fail to address the social problems of destitution and street begging. The focus should be on helping the poor and people living with disabilities to find alternative livelihoods,” she said.

Under the previous Lagos state governor, scores of beggars were routinely deported to their states of origin. In 2011, 3,029 people were deported from Lagos. Dolapo Badru, a state government spokesman at the time, defended the measures, arguing that “beggars and destitutes constitute a social nuisance towards the development of Lagos as a mega-city”.

Muhammed Zanna, one of the founders of the PCEI in Lagos said negative perceptions of the poor had led to widespread apathy about the way they are treated by the state.

“Governor Ambode wants to create a modern city and the poor don’t fit into that vision,” said Zanna.

“The state doesn’t see beggars as real people, just as people to hide or to send away. People who have no interaction with the poor or disabled have this idea that they are really criminals and drug dealers, so even when the state services maltreats them people don’t show any concern,” Zanna said.

State officials at the youth ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Officials at the facility in Majidun denied detainees were kept in harsh conditions indefinitely or denied basic rights, and claimed a doctor was available to provide treatment. They also say it is merely “a temporary holding site” until fines are paid or a hearing takes place.

Forty-year-old Binta Muhammadu was arrested in February with her two children, aged two and four. When she couldn’t pay the fine, she was detained at Majidun for nine months, with her children held elsewhere. “In that time I only saw my children three times,” she said.

According to Binta, “there were about 50 of us in the same room, where we bathed, ate and slept. We were never let out,” she said.

“I don’t know what I will do now that I am free,” she added. “I don’t have anything and I can’t walk well any more. This has just made things worse for me than it was before.”

Guardian

Video - Nigeria transit centre a sanctuary to former Boko Haram hostages

The United Nations says at least 20,000 children in north-eastern Nigeria have been separated from their families due to the ongoing fighting between Boko Haram and the military. Some have become victims of sexual assault. Security challenges make it difficult to identify all the children who need help. But as Katerina Vittozzi discovers, a new transit centre in Maiduguri is able to offer a semblance of normalcy for some of the youngsters.

Video - Local Nigerian hunters help free kidnapped women and children

More hostages have been rescued from Boko Haram militants in Nigeria. Reports indicate local hunters in the Sambisa Forest helped to secure the release of five women and three children.

Video - Nigerian soldiers missing after militants' attack presumed dead

Nigeria military says the soldiers missing after clashing with Boko Haram in October are presumed dead. Authorities have already asked relatives to provide bank details so that the army can start paying out the soldiers' beneficiaries.

Nigeria military denies killing 150 Pro-Biafra demonstrators

Nigerian authorities have denied claims by Amnesty International that security forces killed at least 150 activists and demonstrators who supported the secession of Biafra, an area in the south-east of the country.

An army spokesman told Reuters that Amnesty’s allegation, the latest in a series of charges levelled by the campaign group against Nigeria’s military in the last year, aimed to tarnish the security forces’ reputation.

The police said they did not attack people holding demonstrations.

Amnesty said the military fired live ammunition with little or no warning to disperse members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group between August 2015 and August the following year.

The unrest in the region is another challenge for the country’s president,Muhammadu Buhari, who is grappling with a sharp slowdown in Africa’s biggest economy, as well as the bloody Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east, and militancy elsewhere in the oil-rich southern Delta region.

Amnesty’s 60-page report based on interviews with 193 people, 87 videos and 122 photographs, said troops and the police used “arbitrary, abusive and excessive force to disrupt gatherings”.

Local media had previously reported “massive extra judicial killings” of pro-Biafra activists in Nigeria’s south-east.


Amnesty corroborated many of these claims, saying that at least 60 people were killed and 70 injured in two days in May after campaigners gathered for a rally in Onitsha , Anambra state.

Secessionist feeling has simmered since the separatist rebellion by the eastern Igbo people, one of Nigeria’s largest ethnic groups, led to a three-year civil war that ended 46 years ago. An estimated million people died, mostly from starvation and illness, in the conflict, which left deep scars and deep resentment.

Analysts say many of the same factors which prompted earlier anger still exist, and describe “a cocktail of longstanding and recent economic and political grievances”.

Now, like then, Igbos say they have been marginalised by being excluded from key government posts and denied vital funding for infrastructure development, schools and hospitals.


Anger in Biafra flared last year after the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, who was based in the UK, was detained on a visit to Nigeria and charged with criminal conspiracy and with belonging to an illegal society.

The arrest of Kanu, who set up an underground radio station in London, which authorities say called for violent attacks on Nigerian security forces, prompted supporters to hold protests. These were dispersed with live ammunition, according to Amnesty.

Don Awunah, a Nigeria police force spokesman, said that officers “always abide by the law” and adhere to best practices. “We don’t attack people who are demonstrating, which every Nigerian has a right to do,” he said.

Sani Usman, an army spokesman, said Biafra separatists had behaved violently, killing five policeman at a protest in May and attacking both military and police vehicles. “The military and other security agencies exercised maximum restraints despite the flurry of provocative and unjustifiable violence,” said Usman.

Witnesses told Amnesty that some protesters had thrown stones, burned tyres and, in one incident, shot at the police, but added that “these acts of violence did not justify the level of force used against the whole assembly”.

Makmid Kamara, interim director of Amnesty International Nigeria, said: “This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths.”

The campaign group said their research showed a disturbing pattern of hundreds of arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment by soldiers during and after IPOB events, including arrests of wounded victims in hospital, and torture and other ill treatment of detainees.

One interviewee said he was shot during a protest meeting and hid in a gutter. When soldiers found him they poured acid on him, he said.

Last year Amnesty said that more than 8,000 people had died in detention during a crackdown on Boko Haram. The group also said soldiers killed hundreds of Shia Muslims in the northern city of Zaria in December 2015. A judicial inquiry in August concluded that 347 people were killed and buried in mass graves after those clashes.

Nigeria has at least 170 million inhabitants, split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims across about 250 ethnic groups, who mostly co-exist peacefully.

Buhari, a former military dictator in the 1980s, was a brigade major who commanded troops in Biafra during the war in which soldiers were accused of mass atrocities. Last year Buhari said he would not let any secessionist campaign in Biafra succeed. “We will not let that happen. For Nigeria to divide now, it is better for all of us to jump into the sea and get drowned,” he said.

One grievance among some who support Biafran independence is that Nigeria’s presidents have tended to come from the north or south-west – areas dominated by Hausa and Yoruba people – which, they say, has led to Igbos not being appointed to influential government positions.

In 2012 a surge in protests led to the arrest on treason charges of more than a 100 supporters of a secessionist group after an independence rally in Enugu, the capital of Nigeria’s south-east region. The protesters included many elderly war veterans from the bloody 1967 conflict.

The arrests came shortly after the renowned Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe wrote in the Guardian that persecution of Igbos still persisted in Nigeria. Achebe’s memoirs prompted renewed debate about the 1960s conflict. Most of those involved in the current campaign for independence for Biafra are too young to remember the earlier war.

Analysts do not believe those campaigning for Biafra will make common cause with other militants in the Niger delta.

“Most groups in the delta are demanding regional autonomy and the right to control their petroleum resources within Nigeria. They are fiercely opposed to any suggestion of joining the Igbos in a breakaway Biafra,” wrote the International Crisis Group last year.

Guardian

Video - Nigeria's Nollywood recognised on an international platform

The Africa International Film Festival has wrapped up in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos. Celebrities like Nollywood stars Rita Dominic and Ramsey Noah graced the red carpet, much to the delight of fans.

Nigeria military killed 150 pro-Biafra protesters since 2015

Nigeria's security forces have killed more than 150 peaceful protesters since August 2015, a human rights group has claimed.

Amnesty International said the military used live ammunition and deadly force against pro-Biafra protesters who were campaigning for an independent state in the south-east.

Nigeria's police denies allegations that it used unnecessary force.

The country's army said Amnesty was trying to tarnish its reputation.

Amnesty's report is based on interviews with almost 200 people, alongside more than 100 photographs and 87 videos.

Among the allegations contained in the report are what Amnesty called "extrajudicial executions", when 60 people were shot and killed in south-eastern Onitsha city, in the two days surrounding Biafra Remembrance Day in May 2016.

"This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths, and we fear the actual total might be far higher" said Makmid Kamara, Amnesty's interim director for Nigeria.

Other victims detailed in the report include a 26-year-old man who was shot in Nkpor, but hid in a gutter, still alive. He said when soldiers found him, they poured acid over him, and told him he would die slowly.

Another woman said she had been speaking to her husband on a mobile phone when he told her he had been shot in the abdomen. He was calling from a military vehicle, she said, and she heard gunshots. She later found his body in a morgue with two more wounds in his chest, leading her to believe he had been executed after the call.

'Unimaginable atrocities'

The human rights organisation said pro-Biafra protests had been "largely peaceful" despite occasional incidents of protesters throwing stones and burning tyres - and one occasion when someone shot at police.

"Regardless, these acts of violence and disorder did not justify the level of force used against the whole assembly."

But army spokesman Sani Usman that "the military and other security agencies exercised maximum restraints despite the flurry of provocative and unjustifiable violence".

The two main secessionist groups in the south-east, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, had committed "unimaginable atrocities", he said.

This included burning and killing people from other parts of Nigeria and forcing them to flee, Col Usman added.

In the past year there has been a series of protests to demand the creation of the state of Biafra in the south-east, home to the Igbo people.

Prominent IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu has been detained without trial since October 2015, with the government defying a court order to release him.

The mention of Biafra continues to trigger powerful emotions in Nigeria - and memories of the country's darkest chapter.

In 1967, nationalists attempted to create the independent state of Biafra in the south-east. It was to be a homeland for the Igbo people, one of the country's largest ethnic groups.

But the bid for independence plunged the nation into a three-year civil war that killed at least a million people.

Almost 50 years on and the bitterness of that period still lingers. Many Igbos claim they are still being punished for the conflict.

In the past year that anger has manifested itself in a younger generation who have staged a wave of protests, fuelled, in part, by high unemployment and anger about official corruption - issues that are hardly unique to the Igbos.

But IPOB appears to have gained momentum after the Nigerian authorities detained Mr Kanu, accusing him of treason.

It is this heavy-handed approach, say human rights groups, that is inflaming the tensions.

BBC

Video - Nigeria's Central Bank Governor approves crackdown on currency dealers

The Central Bank of Nigeria approved a recent crackdown of currency hawkers by the country's secret police, the Department of State Security. CBN governor Godwin Emefiele says it is illegal to traffic in foreign currency and commended the Security agents for the raid. Officials of the DSS last week raided currency black markets in Lagos, Abuja and other major cities over alleged arbitrary sale of foreign exchange.

Shell sued for decades of oil spills in Nigeria

Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, leader of Nigeria's Ogale people, unpacked four bottles of water from his homeland and lined them up on a table to show why his subjects are suing Royal Dutch Shell in a London court.

The Nigerian water is contaminated with oil and cancer-causing compounds such as benzene. It is what his people drink every day.

Lawyers for more than 40,000 Nigerians are demanding action from Shell to clean up oil spills.

Britain's High Court began hearing lawsuits on Tuesday filed by the Ogale and Bille people alleging that decades of oil spills have fouled the water and destroyed the lives of thousands of fishermen and farmers in the Niger River Delta, where a Shell subsidiary has operated since the 1950s.

They brought their fight to Shell's home base because they say the Nigerian courts are too corrupt.

"Let the shareholders of Shell who are residents of the advanced world, like Britain, let them see a representative of a kingdom that is being destroyed for them to have money," he told The Associated Press news agency on the eve the hearing. "That's blood money."

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant argues the case should be heard in Nigeria, pointing out it involves its Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the government, and Nigerian plaintiffs.

London law firm Leigh Day is handling the cases after it won a landmark agreement from Shell to pay $83.5m in compensation to the Bodo community for damage caused by oil spills in 2008 and 2009.

Shell originally offered $50,000 before the Bodo took their case to the same UK court.

The new lawsuits were brought by two communities located in Ogoniland, part of the oil-rich southern Niger River Delta.

They want to hold Shell, incorporated in the UK, responsible for the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd, or SPDC.

The subsidiary said it has produced no oil or gas in the region since 1993.

The area is heavily affected by crude oil theft, pipeline sabotage and illegal refining.

It is arguing in court that the legal challenge is speculative and full of "legal and evidential weaknesses".

SPDC said it will challenge the jurisdiction of the UK courts in this case - arguing it concerns Nigerian plaintiffs in dispute with a Nigerian company over issues in Nigeria.

"If the Claimants' lawyers are correct as to the existence of this novel duty of care, [Shell] and many other parents of multinational groups will be liable to the many hundreds of millions of people around the world with whom their subsidiaries come into contact in the ordinary course of their various operations," the company said in its court argument.

"That would constitute a radical if not historic expansion of the law and open the floodgates to litigation on an unprecedented scale."

The Ogale and Bille communities account for only a small portion of the millions of Nigerians that human rights activists say have been injured by contamination they say would never have been allowed in the home countries of the multinational oil companies that operate in partnership with the Nigerian government.

Shell was the first oil company to operate in Nigeria, starting production in 1958.

In the 1990s, the military government sent armed troops to put down protests by the Ogoni people, turning the oil-producing south into a war zone.

One of the leaders of those protests was Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and environmental activist whose opposition helped stop Shell's production in Ogoniland.

He and eight others were hanged by the government of military dictator Sani Abacha in November 1995 in a case the US condemned.

President Muhammadu Buhari has promised a clean-up of Ogoniland, which was supposed to start in June but has been delayed.

The new lawsuits come at a time when Shell is pivoting towards other areas, such as Brazil.

It recently bought BG Group Plc for $52.4bn, increasing its proven reserves of oil and gas by 25 percent. And like other oil companies, it is also slashing jobs and postponing investments to adjust to lower oil prices.

But Shell is still seen as having deep pockets, said David Elmes, course director of the Warwick Business School's Global Energy Research Network.

While Shell would argue its settlement with the Bodo community shows its willingness to provide compensation for problems it caused, the new cases involve damage arising from what Shell says is sabotage and theft, Elmes said.

And as Shell looks to move to other countries, "people who feel they have a case against the company are looking to take action now", he said.

In a 2011 report, the UN said in at least 10 communities in Ogoniland, public health was "seriously threatened" by drinking water contaminated with hydrocarbons.

In one area, the water contained the carcinogen benzene at levels 900 times higher than what the World Health Organisation says is safe.

While the report recognised that oil production in the region had ceased, it criticised Shell's oversight of the remaining facilities.

The report recommended emergency measures to provide adequate drinking water. But so far nothing has been done, said Okpabi who describes himself as the paramount ruler of the Ogale people.

He brought the bottles of water to his lawyer's office in London just to make the point.

Removing his hat and leaning forward, he argues his people have been made poorer by the destruction of an ecosystem.

He is angry at Shell, arguing it called the shots for its Nigerian subsidiary and so should be held accountable in Britain.

"My system cannot give me justice," Okpabi said. "There is only one place that can give me justice. That is why I am here."

Al Jazeera

Jordon Ibe wants to play for Nigeria after England snub

FC Bournemouth winger, Jordon Ibe is willing to rescind his initial decision and pledge football allegiance to Nigeria.

Former Liverpool ace Ibe initially turned down pleas to play for the Super Eagles when approached by former Eagles gaffer, Sunday Oliseh, but is now ready to make a U-turn.

A source close to the Nigerian Football Federation said: “Jordon is willing to listen to what we have to offer.

“We are hoping he finds the project enticing enough to dump England where he is a youth international and play for Nigeria at senior level.”

Ibe has played for England at all levels from u-18s and has four u-21 caps.

The Cherries star was reportedly a victim of a £25,000 robbery earlier this month.

The ex-Liverpool winger was understood to have been hit by a vehicle containing four men, who threatened Ibe with a knife before taking off with his watch on November 6.

Vanguard