Nigeria head puts forces on alert

Nigeria’s acting President Goodluck Jonathan has ordered security forces to prevent more weapons being brought into the area around the city of Jos.

More than 100 people, many of them women and children, are believed dead after attacks in the area on Sunday.

Witnesses said the mainly Christian villages had been attacked from the surrounding hills by men with machetes.

Jos itself has been under curfew since January when at least 200 died in clashes between Christians and Muslims.

Military deployed

The attack happened before dawn on Sunday morning when gangs of men descended on several communities, centred on the village of Dogo-Nahawa, and attacked people with machetes, reports say.

A resident of Dogo-Nahawa said the attackers had fired guns as they entered the village.

“The shooting was just meant to bring people from their houses and then when people came out they started cutting them with machetes,” Peter Jang told Reuters. Read more

Togo President Faure Gnassingbe wins re-election

The current president of Togo has won re-election in a disputed vote, electoral authorities say.

The election commission said Faure Gnassingbe, son of a late dictator, had beaten opposition challenger Jean-Pierre Fabre.

He won 1.2 million votes of two million cast, officials said, considerably more than his rival’s tally of 692,584.

Mr Fabre had also claimed victory in the election, alleging irregularities in the vote-counting system.

He said that a lack of adequate vote validation meant the count was now “illegal” and that “everything the electoral commission is doing is false”. Read more

Former Nigerian Head of State fears for the country

Nigeria is witnessing an awful institutional collapse similar to the conditions that preceded the failure of Somalia, yet with all the potentials of being worse than the Somali experience.

Former Head of State, Maj-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.), painted this portrait of a troubled nation on Friday in Lagos, at the launch of a book, The Oguntade Legacy, a review of major judgements written by retiring Supreme Court Justice George Oguntade. Read more

EU observer fears over Togo poll

European Union observers at Togo’s presidential election have raised concerns about a lack of transparency in the collation of results.

European Parliament mission leader Michael Gahler said it had not been possible to track results after they were read out at polling stations.

The opposition has already voiced its concerns about irregularities.

The Union of Forces for Change (UFC) says it was cheated of victory by President Faure Gnassingbe in 2005. Read more

US restates concern about Yar’Adua, Nigerian Democracy

The United States State Department Thursday restated its concern about the “uncertain” medical condition of President Umaru Yar’Adua and the future of Nigerian democracy.

It is “essential” for Nigeria’s civilian and military leaders “to avoid any actions that will imperil” Nigerian democracy “as well as the accomplishments that have been achieved under civilian rule,” State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said in an e-mailed statement. Read more

Yar’Adua: Activists set for civil disobedience

The last is yet to be heard about President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s health. The Save Nigeria Group (SNG) yesterday said it would embark on mass action from March 10 to ensure that constitutionality is restored in the country.

The mass action will be followed by a nationwide civil disobedience aimed at protesting the current political situation in the country, the group said.

SNG’s planned action comes a few days after the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF), National Assembly, leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Governors Forum successfully stopped any attempt to debate, start an impeachment process or declare Yar’Adua incapacitated.

The group said it was particularly disappointed by EXCOF for colluding with governors to stop the invocation of Section 144 of the 1999 Constitution, meant to determine the fitness of the President to continue in office.

Speaking on behalf of the group in Abuja, Mallam Salihu Lukman, said SNG would roll out a series of actions to “retrieve the country from the iron fisted clutches of the cabal”.

This is in demonstration of their readiness to put an end to the reign of illegality, he argued.

Lukman disclosed that the first in the series “is a mass movement to convey the feelings of Nigerians to the next meeting of the EXCOF in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Wednesday, March 10, 2010.

“This shall be a prelude to other forms of nationwide civil disobedience measures to put a final closure to the shenanigans of the cabal and enforce electoral reforms to ensure that we are no longer with in the old days”.

The group called on Nigerians to join hands to bring about this desired change. “We are in for a sustained and focused struggle to end the second slavery.
“We do not promise that this road will not be rough; it is just that there is no other way if we are committed to salvaging our country. But one thing we are absolutely sure is that victory is certain,” he said.

The group said that the actions of the Governors’ Forum and EXCOF in the last 72 hours are clear indications to Nigerians that it is dealing with selfish and irrational people who would not follow the path of reason and save the nation from needless crises.

The group warned that Nigerians are running out of patience as there are limits to how far a country can survive on good luck. It called for a constitutional resolution to the “anomaly of an invisible President co-existing with an Acting President constantly undermined by the cabal by the invocation of Section 144 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without further delay.”

It urged the Acting President to constitute a non-partisan transitional cabinet of the brightest and the best from all corners of Nigeria to chart a new course for the country.

Also present at the briefing were the leader of SNG, Pastor Tunde Bakare; President of West Africa Bar Association, Mr. Femi Falana; Mr. Tanko Yinusa; Mr. Jimmy Agbaje; Mr. Tola Ayo-Adeyemi; Mrs. Joe Okei-Odumakin; Mr. Yinka Odumakin; Mr. Willy Ezeugwu; Mr. Osita Okechukwu, Nagatu Mohammed and Shehu Sani.

Source: Thisdayonline.com

Nigeiria police held over death

A “significant number” of Nigerian police officers have been arrested over the alleged extra-judicial killing of members of the Boko Haram sect in 2009.

Police officials told the BBC more arrests would follow. News agency AP reported that 17 officers were held.

Al-Jazeera TV last month showed footage of alleged police killings.

Boko Haram attacked a police station in the northern city of Maiduguri, leading to days of clashes and hundreds of deaths – mostly sect members. Read more

Niger coup leaders name transitional gov’t

The military leadership in Niger has formed a new transitional government of 20 ministers, including five soldiers and five women.

According to state radio, the defence, sport and environment ministries, went to three generals close to the former President, Mamadou Tandja.

On Monday, the new military leader, Major Salou Djibo, promised to return Niger to democracy but set no date.

President Tandja was ousted last month, after he changed the constitution.

He had sought to remain in power beyond the end of his second term in office.

After the coup, the constitution was suspended and the cabinet dissolved. Read more

Chile quake kills over 300, affects over two million

Two million people have been affected by the massive earthquake that struck central Chile on Saturday, President Michelle Bachelet has said.

In a TV address, she said the forces of nature were testing the nation.

So far at least 300 people have been confirmed killed in the earthquake that struck in the early hours of Saturday.

The 8.8 quake – one of the biggest ever – triggered a tsunami that has been sweeping across the Pacific, although waves were not as high as predicted. Read more

Nigeria: Why Yar’Adua changed gear on Jonathan

Fresh facts have emerged as to why President Umaru Yar’Adua conceded the acting presidency to Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, which led to the clarification provided Thursday by the presidential spokesman, Olusegun Adeniyi that Jonathan remains the acting president and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

THISDAY learnt that following Adeniyi’s pronouncement on Wednesday in which he said the “president has directed the vice president should continue to run the affairs of the state” while he (Yar’Adua) is recuperating, the statement was said to have stirred the hornet’s nest and created uncertainty as to who was steering the ship of state. Read more

Next Page »