High court hearing comes ahead of case due to be brought next year by Bodo community in fight for compensation Britain's High Court will on Tuesday hold a pre-trial hearing ahead of a court case due to be held next year brought by around 15,000 members of Nigeria's Bodo community against oil giant Shell. The residents are seeking compensation from the British-Dutch company over two oil spills in 2008,...
The government seems to have renounced all responsibility for the dozens of schoolgirls abducted last week. Nigerians have grown used to such treatment but by accepting it, they feed the monster that terrorises them, says Okey Ndibe Theres something quite peculiar and absurd about being a Nigerian. Its a country of so to speak unspecified data and dimensions. Nigeria is not simply plagued by inexactitude;...
As a major funder of vaccine delivery programmes, we ask Melinda Gates to share the people, products and organisations working to make immunisation in the poorest countries possible His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi The Crown Prince is a leading champion in the Middle East for improving child health. He is making sure children in Afghanistan...
Under attack in South Africa for exposing abuse of public funds, Madonsela is named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people. Profile by Daily Maverick South Africas public protector Thuli Madonsela, who took on the country's president over the use of taxpayer's money to upgrade his residence, has been named as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people . The citation was written...
Two-year-old Rashidat was born in the UK after her mother fled a forced marriage to an older man. Now the Home Office wants to send her to Nigeria How much can we risk the safety of a small child? What if that risk was of female genital mutilation? And what if the child was born in Britain but is being sent to a country where FGM is prevalent? Continue reading... ...
President calls emergency security council meeting over teenagers rounded up at gunpoint despite guard's presence The families of more than 230 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by Islamist insurgents more than 10 days ago say they are fast losing hope of seeing their daughters again despite government assurances they will be found. The mass abduction of the girls watched over by government soldiers is...
21 - 25 April: Catch up with the highs, the lows and the hot topics in development this week Pagan Amum, Oyai Deng Ajak, Majak D'Agoot and Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth , the South Sudanese senior politicians were freed from prison after the government dropped treason charges against them . Continue reading... ...
Half of a Yellow Sun starring Thandie Newton and Chiwetel Ejiofor, based on a novel, depicts 19671970 tribal conflict The screening of the film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's bestselling civil war novel Half of a Yellow Sun has been postponed by censors in Nigeria amid suggestions it could whip up tribal sentiment in Africa's most populous country. Continue reading... ...
MP's last-minute intervention pauses Afusat Saliu's deportation to Nigeria where she says her children would face mutilation A woman has won a temporary reprieve in her fight against being deported to her native Nigeria where she says her children face being subjected to female genital mutilation. Continue reading... ...
Afusat Saliu, 31, and her two children aged one and three, face deportation to Nigeria on Friday. Saliu, who was a victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) as a child, has appealed to the Home Office on the grounds that her daughters could face FGM if sent back to their home country. But her appeal was rejected on Thursday. Nigeria has the highest number of genitally mutilated women in the world Continue...
From Tiwa Savage to WizKid, Afritorial pick the brightest stars emerging from Nigeria's afrobeat scene, known locally as Naija beats The first things that hit you when you touch down in Lagos are the humidity, the heat and the sound of Nigerian music bumping in the cars and shops. While youre in long traffic queues, you cant help but notice the big billboards with local artists on them all over the...
Top lawyer takes up case to stop deportation to Nigeria of Afusat Saliu, herself a victim of FGM, and her daughters An eleventh hour legal challenge is being mounted in an attempt to halt the imminent deportation from the UK of a Nigerian woman who is seeking asylum to protect her two daughters from being subjected to female genital mutilation in her native country. More than 100,000 people have signed...
Boko Haram's attempts to tear the country apart have succeeded in showing just how much Nigerians can care about one another 200 girls are missing so why doesn't anybody care? The mood in Nigeria at present reminds me of one of those adventure-horror films where an unseen fiend is let loose upon a community and survivors keep glancing backwards in dread, not knowing when or whom it might strike next....
Unlike the Sewol tragedy, the fate of these schoolchildren has gone unreported, vanished into a dangerous world Where are they? Every morning for a week the news has been dominated by the South Korean ferry tragedy . The terrible grief of the parents, the shocking response of the crew to the unfolding disaster, and the inexorably rising body count. Continue reading... ...
Unesco study reports huge growth in adults and children reading books on phones in Africa and the Indian subcontinent Unesco is pointing to a "mobile reading revolution" in developing countries after a year-long study found that adults and children are increasingly reading multiple books and stories on their phones. Nearly 5,000 people in seven countries Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria,...
Are you involved in World Book Night? Or are you in one of the countries that celebrate World Book Day today? We want to see and read how you're experiencing it and what book you would share with your loved ones Not only is April 23 Shakespeare's birthday his 450th this year but it's a day when books are the centre of festivals and events around the world. In the UK and Ireland, today marks the celebration...
State governor given list of 234 students still missing a week after Islamists stormed remote boarding school in Chibok A week after Islamist extremists stormed a remote boarding school in north-east Nigeria, more than 200 girls and young women remain missing despite pursuit by security forces and an independent search by fathers who headed into dense forest to find their daughters. Parents in Chibok...
Nigeria's new 'soft approach' to counter-terrorism is a much-needed step, even if protecting citizens remains an immediate concern The devastating April terrorist attack on a bus station in Abuja will once again stir fears among Nigerians of the power and reach of Boko Haram , and further erode already dwindling confidence in the ability of the federal government to contain and address the crisis....
As Boko Haram kidnaps and kills, the military lies, the president prays and nothing is done As a young girl in the 80s, I was a boarder at a federal government college for six years. Before going to FGGC Bwari Abuja, I had only ever lived in Enugu in the south-east of Nigeria and had never been to the northern part of the country. I had hardly met any non-Igbo Nigerian. The only Muslim I knew was a...
Islamic extremists post video admitting they carried out rush-hour bombing that killed 75 in Nigeria's capital Islamic extremists on Saturday claimed responsibility for the massive rush-hour explosion earlier this week that ripped through a busy bus station in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, killing at least 75 people and wounding 141. "Yes, we are the ones who carried out the attack in Abuja,"...