A group seeking a separate homeland for the ethnic Igbo people of Nigeria’s southeast demanded ‘justice and fair hearing’ on Wednesday after their leader Nnamdi Kanu was detained. The head of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was arrested and brought back to Nigeria to face trial, the authorities announced Tuesday. The 53-year-old had jumped […]
Nigeria
Nigeria to get nearly 4 mn vaccine doses by August
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, will receive another batch of nearly four million doses of coronavirus vaccines under the Covax scheme by August, a senior health official said Monday. Covax was set up to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, particularly to low-income countries, and has already delivered more than 80 million doses to 129 territories. […]
Nigeria gunmen kill one, abduct at least 12
Gunmen have killed one person and kidnapped 12 in northwestern Nigeria, police said Friday, while residents said many more were taken. A village head told AFP that 33 people were abducted in the attack late on Wednesday in a village in the Kachia district of Kaduna state. Northwestern and central Nigeria are a hotbed of […]
Nigerian school kidnap victims escape sleeping guards
Fifteen Nigerian hostages have escaped from their abductors as they slept, weeks after they were among more than 130 pupils and teachers snatched by gunmen from an Islamic seminary, the school’s headteacher told AFP Tuesday. On May 30 around 200 motorcycle-riding gunmen from one of the gangs known locally as bandits stormed Tegina town in […]
Nigerian police inspector shoots five dead in rampage
A Nigerian police inspector has killed five civilians and injured four in a shooting rampage, police said Monday, in the latest violence in the country’s restive southeast. The incident happened on Sunday when the inspector stormed a residential estate in Enugu and opened fire on people there, state police spokesman Daniel Ndukwe said in a […]
Champagne and sequins as Nigeria models look to rock the runways
Champagne corks popped and sequins sparkled like a thousand tiny stars in Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos, where an international model casting was on the hunt for the face of the future. Elizabeth Elohor is sure that it will be an African one. The former top model created the first modelling agency in Nigeria back in […]
High Nigeria food costs push 7 million into poverty: World Bank
High inflation driven by soaring food prices has pushed seven million Nigerians into poverty, the World Bank said. In a new report, it commended Nigeria for buttressing its economy from fallout from the coronavirus pandemic but called for urgent measures to brake inflation and protect livelihoods. A major crude exporter, Africa’s largest and most populous […]
Jihadists free 10 hostages in Nigeria: sources
Nigerian jihadists have freed 10 hostages including seven local aid workers, two of them employed by the United Nations, after weeks of mediation, a UN source and a mediation official told AFP Wednesday. The hostages, abducted between last December and April in the northeast by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) were released on […]
Central Nigeria gun attacks kill 12: police
At least 12 people were killed at the weekend in two gun attacks in central Nigeria, an area where tensions have been rising between nomadic herders and local farming communities, police and officials said. In the first attack, gunmen opened fire from a car on a bar in Kuru in Jos in Plateau state, […]
Police fire tear gas to break up Nigeria protests
Nigerian police on Saturday fired tear gas to disperse anti-government protests in the commercial city of Lagos and the capital Abuja, injuring some people and arresting others, AFP reporters said. Nigerian activists had called for nationwide protests over what they criticise as bad governance and insecurity, as well as the recent ban of US social […]