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t instilling confidence in the rest of his countrymen. He must now urgently provide all the necessary resources allocated by our government to help ensure our nation...

Nazi' politics of hate Leading authors including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Jackie Kay have condemned Nigeria's harsh new anti-gay law in the strongest possible terms, with Kay comparing the situation to Nazi Germany and Adichie calling for the "unjust" law to be repealed. Kay, the Scottish-Nigerian poet and winner of the Guardian fiction prize, told the Guardian that "it is dangerous for any country...

bodies were burned to ashes," police commissioner Sanusi Rufai said of the attack on the federal government college of Buni Yadi, a secondary school in Yobe state, near the state's capital city of Damaturu. Bala Ajiya, an official at the Specialist Hospital Damaturu, said the death toll had risen to 59. "Fresh bodies have been brought in. More bodies were discovered in the bush after the students...

s capital. Communications in the area are limited because extremists last year destroyed the local mobile-phone tower. Adamu Garba, a teacher, said the attackers first set ablaze the school's administrative block, then moved to the hostels, where they locked students in and firebombed the buildings. He said: "Students were trying to climb out of the windows and they were slaughtered like sheep by the...

s president remains on the brink of ratifying savage new anti-gay laws, our Africa Correspondent reports on a continent at war with itself Simon Lokodo cannot imagine kissing a man. "I think I shall die," he said last week. "I would not exist. It is inhuman. I would be mad. Just imagine eating your faeces." Lokodo is "ethics and integrity" minister in Uganda and a champion of the country's swingeing...

The UK and Netherlands ranked joint second and Australia ranked fifth in first LGBT Military Index ...

s president, Goodluck Jonathan, has suspended the head of its central bank, removing an increasingly outspoken critic of the government's record on tackling rampant corruption. Lamido Sanusi, who was due to end his term as governor in June, had been presenting evidence to parliament he said showed the state oil company Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) failed to pay $20bn (£12bn) it owed...

Witnesses say at least 90 people are dead after Islamist insurgents target Izge, near border with Cameroon Suspected Islamist fighters have killed at least 90 people in an early-morning attack on a village in remote north-east Nigeria, according to witnesses. Boko Haram gunmen surrounded the village of Izge, near the border with Cameroon, spraying it with bullets, setting off explosions and burning...

s fishing and oil industries. Since 2011, technical and logistics teams have travelled from Senegal's capital, Dakar, to lay down the concrete pillars that form the Cameroon-Nigeria border. The UN support team to the Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission (CNMC), which is charged with physically demarcating the land and sea boundaries, is based in Dakar. The job poses enormous physical, logistical and legal...

s new constitution outlawing discrimination against homosexuals, Thabo Mbeki, then vice-president under Nelson Mandela, declared: "I know that none dare challenge me when I say - I am an African!" But it appears that some on the continent would like to take him up on that. Recently the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, signed into law a bill that outlawed gay marriage, public displays of same-sex...

s white scarf, a symbol of wisdom, was trampled in the dusty ground as he was bundled into a back office for his safety. Among the viewers trapped in the court was John, a gay rights activist, who wondered if he had made a terrible mistake in attending the trial. On the run since a sweeping anti-gay bill was passed this month, John had ignored the advice of everyone he knew by sneaking into his home...

s second novel shines in what looks likely to be a stellar year for African literature The gods in Okey Ndibe's second novel, Foreign Gods Inc. are playthings for the rich and the famous. They undergo the indignity of being stolen or exiled and then bought and sold like common articles of trade. Even Nietzsche, for whom gods were disposal beings, would have been scandalised by the idea of gods-turned-commodity....

s been much criticism of the way the west covers the continent, but are African journalists doing a better job? The Kenyan writer and graduate student at Harvard Law School Nanjala Nyabola recently caused a bit of a stir with her Al Jazeera article asking "Why Do Western Media Get Africa Wrong?" Reading through the piece, which was both interesting and informative, I couldn't help but wonder: Just...

s no easy way to cover a conflict when everyone's version of events is coloured by their own particular experience There has been quite a bit of discussion recently about the Guardian's coverage of the ongoing political crisis in South Sudan . Some local journalists who have been documenting their country's political divisions for years are questioning reports from western journalists, whose stories...

s leading literary figures, outs himself in response to wave of homophobic laws across continent Read the full short story here Binyavanga Wainaina, one of Africa's leading literary figures, has responded to a wave of recent anti-gay laws on the continent by publicly outing himself in a short story. The Kenyan author and founder of the influential Nairobi-based literary journal Kwani said he would...

s oldest press. But could it be so? Hope Waddell, in Calabar, Cross River State, had a functioning printing press from 1903, initially to serve the school but later used to print newspapers. In an interview with Nigeria's Daily Trust, the school's principal, Edet Inyang, was unequivocal: "Our school had the first printing press in Africa." According to Wikipedia a large Wharfedale flat-bed printing...

s performance. And like the World Bank , the UN is worried about the risks associated with a possible bumpy exit from quantitative easing programmes by the US Federal Reserve that have pumped money into the global economy. "Our forecast is made in the context of many uncertainties and risks coming from possible missteps as well as non-economic factors that could stymie growth," Shamshad Akhtar, UN...

t hide any more," recalls John. And so, in one of the most conservative states in Nigeria, he started holding underground meetings with other gay people. They supported each other when neighbours accused them of being "demons". Sometimes money was pooled together to pay bail or buy condoms, handed out to those who couldn't afford them. Mainly, though, they helped each other cross the lonely horizon...

s Department for International Development and the US's President's Malaria Initiative have played a significant role in scaling up malaria prevention in Nigeria. But as Bill Brieger of Johns Hopkins University wrote in his blog Malaria Matters : "Having nets 'in place' and having nets 'used' are two different indicators of success. A major weakness of past public health programming has been providing...

s dolls in a Lagos shopping mall. " It's black, like me ." While multinational companies are flocking to African markets, Okoya's experience suggests that, in some areas at least, there is still an opportunity for domestic businesses to establish themselves by using local knowledge to tap a growing, diverse and increasingly sophisticated middle class. There's no doubt about Nigeria's economic potential...