Splash Instablog

OKOKOLO: Blessing Joseph lies on a sofa, her eyes fixed on the butt of a rifle that she says she won't hesitate to use if Fulani herdsmen come back to her remote village in central Nigeria. The 19-year-old student isn't the only one. Teenagers and even young boys carry machetes and daggers in villages in the Agatu area of Benue state. "My father told me not to go out without holding a cutlass with which I can defend myself if attacked," David Inalegwu, a nine-year-old primary school pupil, told AFP. As Blessing watches, youths pass around a jerrycan of local gin, discussing a spate of attacks in February blamed on heavily armed Fulani herdsmen from neighbouring Nasarawa state. Community leader James Ochoche Edoh said more than 20 Agatu villages were affected near the river Benue that forms the border with Nasarawa. "Approximately 500 people or more could have been killed," he claimed, in an unverified figure repeated by the former leader of Niger...

Reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, may arrest former President Goodluck Jonathan upon his return to Nigeria from his overseas tour over allegations of corruption and misappropriation of billions of dollars during his five-year stay in office may have forced the former leader to go into temporary self exile in Cote d’Ivoire. Several sources close to the ex-president, who confirmed to a national daily that Jonathan had sought refuge last week in the West African country, blamed the heightened attacks on oil and gas installations in the Niger Delta by Ijaw militants to what they claimed was “the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to renege on his promise that his predecessor had ‘nothing to fear’ from him (Buhari) after he handed over the reins of power on May 29, 2015”. It would be recalled that immediately after his victory in the 2015 presidential election, Buhari had stated that he would not go after his predecessor, despite allegations ...

The government hopes that removing costly fuel subsidies, causing prices to rise by up to two-thirds at the pumps, will help alleviate a fuel crisis that caused Africa's biggest economy to contract by 0.36 percent in the first quarter of the year. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) decided to go ahead with an indefinite strike, which started on Wednesday, defying an order by the Nigerian Industrial Court to cancel the action due to the risk of civil disorder. Ayuba Wabba, the NLC's president, told journalists in the capital, Abuja, that the union had "resolved to suspend with immediate effect the action". "Congress will resume negotiations with government on the twin issues of the hike in electricity tariff and an increase in the pump price of petroleum products," he said, adding that the union "remains committed to genuine dialogue". The NLC's action had little impact nationwide. A second union, the Trade Union Congress (TUC...

The former running mate of President Muhammadu Buhari in the general election won by former President Goodluck Jonathan, Mr Tunde Bakare, says institutional reforms and constitutional amendments are required if Nigeria must overcome its systemic national challenges The Convener of the Save Nigeria Group and Pastor of the Latter Rain Assembly proffered these solutions as part of the road-map to a new Nigeria. He was speaking at a public policy forum in Lagos to provide solutions to the present challenges facing Nigeria. Mr Bakare believes Nigeria’s problems are not a product of the global economic cycles, but the consequence of counterproductive national standards and self-limiting frameworks. He stressed that three factors contribute to political stability which include the type of constitution, the form of government and the caliber as well as character of the political leaders in and outside of government. “Integrity is not enough to run a nation, Nigeria must be bor...

The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) did not remit $12.9bn to the federation account between 2005 and 2013, an audit report of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has alleged. According to the report which was unveile d on Mond ay in Abuja‎ by Kayode Fayemi, minister solid minerals and chairman of NEITI board, the unremitted funds were the sum of dividends, interest and loan repayment from the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG). “The audit revealed that NLNG paid the sum of $1.289bn as dividend, interest and loan repayment for 2013. NNPC acknowledged receipt of ‎this amount, but did not remit it to either the federal government or the federation. However, it is important to also note that the 2013 figure brings to $12.9 bn the total NLNG payments received by the NNPC between 2005 and 2013, but not remitted by the NNPC to the federal government or the federation,” the report presented by the minister read. ‎The report also revea...

Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has explained why he stood with the Federal Government on the new price of petrol. Oshiomhole said the fundamentals and economic indices are different from what they were a few years ago and it is the difficult pain Nigerians must undergo before reaping the gains.   According to him, it does not make economic sense for the government to spend more than half its earnings just on fuel subsidy to the detriment of other development programmes.   Speaking at a special thanksgiving service organised by Apostle Charles Osazuwa, the Senior Pastor and founder of Rock of Ages Christian Assembly International, Benin City, to round off a seven-day programme of the church on Sunday , Oshiomhole said the former Government of President Goodluck Jonathan spent as much as N1.2 trillion on fuel subsidy.   He said: “l have listened to our chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, and he reminded us that the Hon. Minister of Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachik...

The TV reports said at least one suicide bomber followed by a car-laden with explosives tore through a packed bus station in Tartus, minutes apart. More than 33 were killed and many injured in the bombings. Separately, Syria's SANA news agency reported that four explosions rocked Jableh, south of Latakia city. The attacks included three rockets, and a suicide bomber at the emergency entrance of the Jableh national hospital, the state media said. Jableh News Network, an opposition activist media group, said among those killed at the hospital is a nurse, Huda al-Houshi. Jableh news network: (from where we got some UGC before) is reporting using video that one of the suicide attackers is suspected to be a woman. Video shows a woman, naked, cut in two with the impact around her chest. Footage aired by the state-run Ikhbariya TV showed several cars on fire, thick black smoke billowing in the air. It also showed the charred remains of cars and minivans in what appears to b...

Card. Jean-Louis Tauran receives Sheik Ahmed el-Tayyib, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque , as he arrives for his audience with Pope Francis in the Apostolic Palace, at Vatican, Monday, May 23, 2016. As Sheik Ahmed el-Tayyib arrived for his audience in the Apostolic Palace, Francis said that the fact that they were meeting at all was significant. "The meeting is the message," Francis told the imam.

An employee of Doctors Without Borders, MSF, walks inside the charred remains of the organization's hospital after it was hit by a U.S. airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan. TDoctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym, MSF, says that least 100 staff members, patients and caretakers were killed, and at least 130 were injured, in aerial bombing and shelling attacks on at least 80 MSF-supported and run health structures in 2015 and early 2016. The April 27 strike was the latest of thousands of attacks in recent years on medical facilities in conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere that have killed hundreds in brazen violation of humanitarian norms. Facilities have been struck in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and South Sudan.