Category: Nigeria

Four dead in NE Nigeria suicide bombing: police

World

AFP 10 hours ago

Borno state police spokesman Victor Isuku said the incident occurred when three bombers — a man and two women — tried to enter Umarari village just outside Maiduguri.

“They detonated the IEDs (improvised explosive devices) strapped to their bodies while running to different directions,” Isuku said.

Among the dead was a local vigilante and a woman and her two children, he said. Another eight people were wounded.

Ibrahim Abdulkadir, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said the vigilante had tried to prevent the bombers from entering the village.

“The vigilante was trying to stop them and that was when he was engulfed by the bomb and the woman was nearby,” Abdulkadir explained.

The three bombers also died in the blasts, he said.

The Borno state capital of Maiduguri is the birthplace of Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group that has killed over 20,000 people and forced 2.6 million from their homes since taking up arms against the Nigerian government in 2009.

The violence has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis in northeast Nigeria and the wider Lake Chad region, which has also been hit by the conflict.

Nigerian troops, with the help of regional forces from Cameroon, Chad and Niger, as well as Benin, have since early 2015 managed to claw back most of the territory lost to Boko Haram in 2014.

But despite claims from the Nigerian military that the group is on the verge of defeat, suicide bomb attacks remain a threat to civilians, particularly in Maiduguri.

Boko Haram’s elusive leader Abubakar Shekau made his first appearance in months last week, claiming responsibility for a spate of suicide bombings.

Maiduguri (Nigeria) (AFP) – Four people were killed on Saturday evening when suicide bombers blew themselves up in a village on the outskirts of Maiduguri city in northeastern Nigeria, police said.

Governor El-Rufai sends an explosive memo to President Buhari

Author: Oluwatobi Bolashodun

UPDATED: 2 HOURS AGO

VIEWS: 36257

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state has sent a powerful memo to President Muhammadu Buhari arguing that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has made the situation in Nigeria worse than it met it by failing to be proactive in taking key decisions in a timely manner.

El-Rufai sends an explosive memo to President Buhari

El-Rufai sends an explosive 30-page memo to President Muhammadu Buhari

According to Sahara Reporters the governor in a 30-page memo sent in September 2016, said “in very blunt terms, Mr. President, our APC administration has not only failed to manage expectations of a populace that expected overnight ‘change’ but has failed to deliver even mundane matters of governance outside of our successes in fighting BH insurgency and corruption.”

Among many others, the governor also noted that “The Chief of Staff is totally clueless about the APC and its internal politics at best as he was neither part of its formation nor a participant in the primaries, campaign, and elections.”

 See snapshots of the memo below:
El-Rufai sends an explosive memo to President Buhari
El-Rufai sends an explosive memo to President Buhari
El-Rufai sends an explosive memo to President Buhari
El-Rufai sends an explosive memo to President Buhari
El-Rufai sends an explosive memo to President Buhari
El-Rufai sends an explosive memo to President Buhari
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UN urges action to avert world’s ‘largest humanitarian crisis’

Over 20 million are facing famine and starvation in four countries, the UN humanitarian chief has warned. He has urged the Security Council to provide funds and aid access to prevent “these looming human catastrophes.”

Watch video00:53

UN’s Stephen O’Brien warns of ‘largest humanitarian crisis’

Billions of dollars in funding is needed to help millions of people facing largely man-made disasters in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria, the United Nations humanitarian chief said on Friday

“We are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations,” UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien warned the U.N. Security Council as he detailed the situation in the conflict-hit countries.

Stephen O’Brien

✔@UNReliefChief

We are facing largest human. crisis since creation of @UN. 20M+ face starvation, famine. W/out global efforts, people will starve to death.

9:20 PM – 10 Mar 2017

“To be precise we need 4.4 billion dollars by July, and that’s a detailed cost, not a negotiating number,” he said. In addition to funds, he urged for aid groups to be guaranteed “safe and unimpeded access” to deliver humanitarian aid.

Yemen hit hardest

O’Brien noted that the largest humanitarian crisis is currently in Yemen where 18.8 million people – two-thirds of the population – need aid. Another seven million people are hungry and do not know where their next meal will come from.

Watch video02:42

A humanitarian crisis in Yemen

The Arab world’s poorest nation has been engulfed in conflict, with over 7,400 people dead and 40,000 wounded since March 2015.

During a recent visit to Yemen, O’Brien said he met with senior leaders of the government and Houthi rebels who both promised access for humanitarian aid.

“Yet all parties to the conflict are arbitrarily denying sustained humanitarian access and politicize aid,” he said, warning if that behavior doesn’t change now “they must be held accountable for the inevitable famine, unnecessary deaths and associated amplification in suffering that will follow.”

Children particularly at risk

In Somalia, over half of the population – 6.2 million people – are in need of aid, including 2.9 million who are at risk of famine and need immediate help to “save or sustain their lives,” the UN humanitarian chief said.

Watch video01:40

Somalia: drought kills 110 in last 2 days

Around one million children under the age of five will be “acutely malnourished” by the end of the year, O’Brien added.

Last month, a UN humanitarian coordinator said that malnutrition in northeast Nigeria was so prevalent that some communities had lost all of their toddlers.

‘It is all preventable’

In South Sudan, a country which has beenravaged by a three-year civil war, aid workers have been killed and supplies have been looted by “armed actors,” O’Brien said. He also noted that the famine threatening the world’s newest nation is “man-made.”

He urged for the Security Council and the international community to quickly intervene.

“It is all preventable,” he said. “It is possible to avert this crisis, to avert these famines, to avert these looming human catastrophes.”

Without the assistance, however, “many people will predictably die from hunger, livelihoods will be lost, and political gains that have been hard-won over the last few years will be reversed.”

rs/ rc (AP, dpa)

Watch video01:55

UN warns of famine in South Sudan

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The UN has said 5 million people are at risk, and thousands have already begun streaming into the capital in search of food. Aid efforts are being hampered by a lack of international response and conflict on the ground. (04.03.2017)

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AUDIOS AND VIDEOS ON THE TOPIC

UN’s Stephen O’Brien warns of ‘largest humanitarian crisis’

UN warns of famine in South Sudan

Somalia: drought kills 110 in last 2 days

A humanitarian crisis in Yemen

BREAKING: EFCC Intercepts N49 Million Cash At Kaduna Airport

Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Kaduna zonal office have intercepted N49 million cash at the Kaduna Airport. The Cash was neatly concealed in five bags.

EFCC said during a routine baggage screening, five sacks were sighted unattended to and without tags.
It said that upon examination, the bags were found to contain fresh crispy naira notes of N200 denomination in 20 bundles totaling forty million naira and N50 denomination in 180 bundles totaling nine million naira with seal purportedly emanating from the Nigeria Security and Minting Plc (NSPM) as seen in the labeled sealed bags. 
The latest development comes barely a month after $9.8 million and 74, 000 pounds sterling were found buried in a house belonging to the former General Manager of the NNPC, Andrew Yakubu.

The money then was kept in an air-conditioned house in a poverty stricken area. That house was also located in Kaduna.

Nigeria’s Buhari officially back to work: presidency

Ola Awoniyi,AFP 8 hours ago
Abuja (AFP) – Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari returned to work on Monday after nearly two months’ medical leave in Britain, the presidency said.

“President Muhammadu Buhari today resumed duties after his vacation,” presidential spokesman Femi Adesina said in a statement.

Buhari, 74, who returned to Nigeria last Friday, hopes to end weeks of uncertainty about his health and fitness to lead.

In line with the constitution, he returned to work by sending a letter to the country’s parliament.

During his absence, his office had repeatedly denied claims the leader was ill and insisted he was “hale and hearty”.

But when he returned to Nigeria’s capital of Abuja on Friday, a gaunt-looking Buhari said he “couldn’t recall being so sick since I was a young man” and described receiving “blood transfusions”.

He also said that despite feeling better, he still required rest and further treatment for his undisclosed sickness in the coming weeks.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said he had an hour-long meeting with Buhari on Monday to “bring the president up to speed” on the state of the nation.

“He has given a few directives on what we should be doing on so many areas, the northeast, budget, the economy, a wide range of issues,” Osinbajo told reporters after the meeting.

“His readiness for work is not in doubt at all. In fact he is over-ready.”

– No ‘dramatic’ return –

Another presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said Buhari would take some time to ease back into his job after so long away, warning that there wouldn’t be a “dramatic” return.

“He is coming out of an ailment and like he himself had said, he needs to start gradually,” Shehu told Nigerian-owned Arise News television in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Shehu said the date of Buhari’s return to London for follow-up treatment was unclear and would only be determined by the president and his doctors.

Buhari had “no knowledge” of his illness before he left for London on January 19, he added.

The health of Nigeria’s president has become a sensitive issue following the 2010 death of president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua from a long-standing, but secret, kidney complaint.

The presidency had been keen to avoid the impression of a political vacuum and Osinbajo has been a visible presence in the months Buhari has been away.

He was formally handed powers as acting president during Buhari’s absence.

Buhari faces a tough task of rehabilitating Nigeria’s sputtering economy, which contracted in 2016 for the first time in two decades, before the next general election due in February 2019.

But observers see his health as a key factor in the coming months, with the potential for it to create a bitter power struggle within his All Progressives Congress party.

Nigerian vice president says he has Buhari’s approval for everything

By Felix Onuah
ReutersMarch 13, 2017
Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari speaks after returning from a medical trip from London to Abuja
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari speaks after returning from a medical trip from London to Abuja, Nigeria March 10, 2017. Presidential Office/Handout via REUTERS
More

By Felix Onuah

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said on Monday he had the approval of President Muhammadu Buhari for “practically everything”, after taking the reins as acting president during Buhari’s absence for medical treatment in Britain.

During the almost two-month absence, acting president Osinbajo drove policy changes, concluding an economic reform plan required for a World bank loan. The central bank devalued the naira for retail customers after a state body chaired by him called for an urgent review.

Top political posts in Nigeria are traditionally shared out to reflect the country’s geographic and religious divisions. Buhari is a northern Muslim, while Osinbajo is a pastor from the mainly Christian south.

Buhari, who returned to Nigeria on Friday, has written to parliament notifying lawmakers that he has resumed his presidential duties, his spokesman said on Monday.

“We just had a very long meeting … basically trying to bring the president up to speed as to some of the things we have done while he was away‎,” Osinbajo told reporters later in the day.

“By and large, practically everything I discuss fully with him and have his endorsement before we are able to go on and do anything at all.”

Buhari did not address the media after the meeting in his office. The president said on Friday he was feeling “much better” but wanted to rest over the weekend.

“His readiness for work is not in doubt at all,” Osinbajo said. “He is very well.”

During Buhari’s absence the acting president traveled several times to the commercial capital Lagos and the Niger Delta oil hub in an effort to calm tensions with militants attacking oil facilities. Buhari had been accused of neglecting the two regions.

Buhari, who first led the country from 1983 to 1985 aftertaking power in a military coup, was elected to power two years ago. Since then he has traveled to Britain several times to consult doctors. His illness has not been disclosed.

(Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Ulf Laessing; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Oshiomhole slams Soludo over alleged misappropriation of forex as CBN governor

Author: Akinyemi Akinrujomu

– Soludo delivered a keynote address titled ‘The hard facts to rescue the Nigerian economy’, in which he highlighted some of the failures of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government

– Speaking for the government, Oshiomhole said the ex-CBN boss reportedly helped some banks to illegal foreign exchange during his tenure

– Soludo denied the allegation and accused Oshiomhole of lying because he had no reply to give for the current government’s failures on the Nigerian economy

Oshiomhole slams Soludo over alleged misappropriation of forex as CBN governor

Soludo says the government is failing abysmally when it comes to the economy and Oshiomhole’s untrue allegations would not change the truth.

Former Edo state governor Adams Oshiomhole and ex-Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor have publicly disagreed over how the Nigerian economy is being managed.

The Punch reports that the ‘fight’ occurred at Vanguard’s Economic Discourse in Lagos on Friday, March 10 after Prof. Charles Soludo delivered a keynote address titled ‘The hard facts to rescue the Nigerian economy’, highlighting some of the failures of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government, particularly in terms of fiscal and monetary policies.

READ ALSO: 4,300 flights cancelled as airlines, passengers shun Kaduna airport

But during the panel session, the minister of solid minerals development Dr. Kayode Fayemi defended the government and Oshiomhole accused Soludo of wrongly allocating millions of dollars to two new generation banks shortly before the naira was devalued.

He said: “I got some intelligence from my comrades who worked in the system and we found out that the CBN under Soludo had just allocated couple of millions of dollars to two, as they were then known, new generation banks.

Oshiomhole slams Soludo over alleged misappropriation of forex as CBN governor

Oshiomhole says Soludo does not have any leg to stand on with his economic arguments because he also failed the system when he was CBN governor.

“And I asked Prof (Soludo), if you were going to devalue by Friday, why did you auction dollar at a lower rate on Thursday? I accused Soludo, I said you have enriched these two young men to the tune of N8bn, courtesy of your internal abuse.

“When the regulator behaved in this manner, then the Nigerian condition is much more serious than we can appreciate it. We need to deal with issues of attitude.”

Soludo fired back to the amazement of the audience, saying some people tend to change the subject when they did not have an answer.

“This debate has only begun. Adams made the point about exchange rate and exchange allocation to two banks. I want to say for the record that Adams Oshiomhole has lied. I didn’t say he misquoted anything; he has lied,” Soludo said.

He added: “Every bid produced a different exchange rate and there were different winners at every bid. We didn’t do devaluation as the case may be; we had the currency depreciating as the market determined day to day. With all due respect, I think if you (Oshiomole) don’t know what to say, sir, just don’t get into this kind of personal allegation.

“Whose plan is it? Ownership will determine whether the plan is just a public relations document or whether it will be implemented. To what extent is the plan consistent with the APC manifesto, which promised a conscious plan for post-oil economy and to restructure the country and devolve power to units with the best practices of federalism? Is this plan that plan?”

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He continued: “The plan envisages to continue the practice of the past government of borrowing to finance recurrent expenditure. Up until 2018, recurrent expenditure will continue to exceed total revenue. The deficit will continue to exceed capital budget, meaning that capital expenditure will continue to be borrowed, as done by the last government. So, what has changed?” he queried.

“The plan as packaged is a good effort, but in terms of our expectations as a plan for transition to a post-oil economy as promised by the APC, it is a missed opportunity.

“I am willing to bet that not much will happen in terms of the structure of the economy or the structure of fiscal and export revenue at the end of the plan.”

Soludo has been a top critic of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration’s economic policies which he says are too simple to save the country from the present recession it is in.