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NIGERIA: Govt hits tobacco companies with whopping law suit

The Nigerian federal government filed a suit in the High Court of Abuja on Tuesday against tobacco companies British-American Tobacco, Philip Morris International, and International Tobacco Ltd., seeking US$42.4 billion in reparations for damage they have caused to Nigerians’ health. The number of Nigerians who smoke exceeds 30 million, according to a recent study by the Nigerian non-governmental organization Environmental Rights Action. There are no comprehensive studies on the effects...

NIGERIA: Biafra separatist leader free and defiant

The jailed leader of a separatist movement in the south-east of Nigeria known formerly as Biafra was released from detention at the end of October in a move analysts hailed as a helpful and diplomatic approach to the region’s problems by the government, but the secessionist leader says he will continue his struggle for independence. “Nigeria must be Balkanized,” Ralph Uwazuruike, the leader of the secessionist Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), told...

NIGERIA: Plan to demolish waterfront villages suspended

Residents of waterfront villages around Nigeria’s oil capital Port Harcourt are relieved as a plan to demolish their homes has been shelved following the removal of the state governor on 26 October. “The former governor did not have the interest of poor people at heart," said Peters Ibinabo, a resident of Bundu, one of 25 waterside villages slated for demolition. “The [new] governor has started well," he told IRIN by telephone. In his first address to the people of Rivers State,...

NIGERIA: Food shortages on the horizon with northern farmers declaring bad crop

Harvests will be poor in the north of Nigeria because of inadequate rains, according to the Kano State chapter of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN). “The implication of this is that there is likely to be shortage of food items in the coming season,” said the state chairman of the association, Alhaji Sabo Nanono, speaking on state radio, as reported by BBC Monitoring on 18 October. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told IRIN its “optimistic” mid-September crop...

NIGERIA: Violence, corruption institutionalised - HRW report

Nigerian leaders are so violent and corrupt that their conduct “more resembles criminal activity than democratic governance”, according to a scathing report issued by Human Rights Watch on 9 October. “Violence, corruption and impunity are not just problems that government has failed to tackle; they are systemic abuses that flow from the heart of the very same government institutions that should be working to combat them,” the report, titled Criminal Politics: Violence, “Godfathers” and...

NIGERIA: Polio vaccine back in the headlines

A report in an American medical journal that children in northern Nigeria have been infected with polio by the vaccine designed to prevent it have raised fears that Nigeria’s already lagging polio prevention efforts could be further delayed. Such vaccine-derived outbreaks have occurred previously in other parts of the world, usually in regions where there is low polio immunisation coverage, but the 69 cases recorded in Nigeria are the largest on record, the scientists said in the study. ...

NIGERIA: President halts privatisation of Unity Schools

President Umaru Yar'Adua's administration has halted an initiative of his predecessor to privatise 102 elite public secondary schools across Nigeria. “The manner and rush in which the pubic-private partnership arrangement was put in place did not give room for consideration of wider views and ideas on how best the schools could be effectively and efficiently managed,” said Education Minister Igwe Aja-Nwachukwu in a 27 September statement. He said the Yar’Adua administration’s move...

NIGERIA: What has Yar'Adua done for basic services?

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua recently declared the energy crisis a national emergency, but aid groups say he should also declare a state of emergency in the health service. "So far there is no evidence the government will act quickly to bring succour to the poor," said Osita Ezechukwu, a volunteer at the anti-poverty group Social Rights Initiative. In his inauguration speech on 29 May Yar'Adua included in his seven-point agenda a goal to alleviate widespread poverty. Yet four...

Missing Gambian Journalist’s Case Resumes Today

The Community Court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria, will today, September 26, 2007 resume hearing of the case against the Gambia government over the “disappearance” of Chief Ebrima Manneh, a reporter for the “Daily Observer,” a Banjul-based pro-government newspaper. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) instituted legal action at the Community Court demanding an order to compel the government of President Yahya Jammeh to immediately release...

Nigerian "free puppy" scam revealed on the internet

A Nigerian "free puppy" scam has been circling the internet for months without any reports on television or on radio. Just yesterday the Toronto Star reported about a Mississauga, Ontario, Canada woman, on September 10 who was scammed by a Nigerian man (Paul) claiming to be a Christian missionary who could no longer take care of his puppy. In April, the CBC reported that the Toronto Humane Society issued a warning to not be scammed by the advertisements. Humane Society communications...