Tag: Nigeria

Nigerians vote in most unpredictable election in years

LAGOS, Nigeria (AFP) — Nigerians will vote for a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday in an unprecedented race between three frontrunners battling to govern Africa’s most populous democracy. After eight years under Buhari, Nigeria still faces huge challenges, from attacks by jihadists and separatists, a sluggish economy and growing poverty, leaving many Nigerians desperate for change. The February 25 election will be closely watched after coups in Mali and Burkina Faso knocked West […]

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Nigerian president moves to ease cash crisis

  Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Thursday 2/16/2023 Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday defended a currency swap that sparked protests and  cash shortages, but ordered old, small denomination 200 naira notes to remain in circulation to ease scarcities. Nigeria has been struggling with a shortage in physical cash since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) began to swap old bills of the local naira currency for new, re-designed ones, leading to a shortfall in […]

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Gunmen attack Nigeria train station, kidnap more than 30

Lagos, Nigeria (AFP) Gunmen attacked a train station in southern Nigeria, kidnapping around 30 people and wounding others, police and officials said, nearly a year after a bomb assault on a train travelling from the capital. Kidnapping for ransom is a major problem in Nigeria where gunmen have repeatedly attacked and abducted people in large groups, but mostly in the northwestern and central states. The train station attack in Edo state, 360 km (223 miles) […]

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Gunmen kidnap worshippers in Nigeria mosque attack

  Kano, Nigeria (AFP) Gunmen abducted 19 Muslim worshippers after attacking a mosque in the restive northwest of Nigeria, police said Sunday. The attackers stormed the mosque in Maigamji village, in Katsina state, during evening prayers Saturday and carried out the kidnappings after shooting and wounding the imam and another worshipper, said local police spokesman Gambo Isah. “Our men mobilised and went after the bandits and succeeded in rescuing six of the worshippers from their […]

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Displaced by flooding, Nigerians in desperate need of help

Ahoada, Nigeria | AFP | by Alexandre MARTINS LOPES It was pitch black when the waters came, forcing mother Fortune Lawrence and her eight children to jump on a makeshift boat and flee their house. For the past two weeks, they have been living in dire conditions near Ahoada, in Rivers state, in a school now crowded with more than a thousand people displaced by Nigeria’s worst floods in a decade. “I was afraid to die […]

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Insecurity, inflation deepen malnutrition in Nigeria’s northwest

by Patrick Markey Agence France-Presse KATSINA, Nigeria (AFP) — Lariya Abdulkareem’s family used to make a living farming beans and sorghum at a village in Nigeria’s northwest Katsina state. But threats of bandit attacks forced them to abandon their land and farm elsewhere. Today, worsening insecurity has disrupted agriculture and food supplies in the region, and the grandmother says feeding her family has become a challenge. “We cannot access the places we did before,” Abdulkareem […]

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Gunmen kill 17 in northwest Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) — Gunmen have killed 17 people including five policemen in separate attacks in northwest Nigeria’s Katsina state in the latest wave of violence in the region, police and a local official said Thursday. Northwest and central Nigeria are a hub of criminal gangs known locally as bandits who raid villages, killing or abducting residents after looting and burning homes. The criminals, who maintain camps in a vast forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna […]

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Nigeria’s ruling party picks candidate for 2023 presidential poll

  by Emmanuel Anule  Agence France-Presse ABUJA, Nigeria (AFP) — Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party voted on Wednesday in key primaries to choose a candidate for next year’s election to replace President Muhammadu Buhari. No clear favorite emerged among the APC frontrunners vying to lead Africa’s most populous country, including former Lagos governor Bola Tinubu, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former transport minister Rotimi Amaechi and Senate president Ahmad Lawan. The APC convention in […]

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Attack on church in southwest Nigeria kills 21

  LAGOS, Nigeria (AFP) — Gunmen who attacked a Catholic church on Sunday with explosives in southwest Nigeria killed at least 21 worshippers, including some children, local officials said. The violence in St Francis Catholic Church in Owo town during a Sunday service prompted international condemnation after a rare attack in Nigeria’s usually safer southwestern region. Richard Olatunde, spokesman for the Ondo State governor’s office, told AFP that dynamite exploded inside the church before gunmen […]

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Nigeria confirms 21 cases of monkeypox since January

Nigeria has recorded 21 cases of monkeypox since the start of the year, one of which was fatal, the country’s disease control agency said. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said late Sunday 66 suspected cases had been reported in nine out of the country’s 36 states and the administrative capital Abuja. Of these, 21 cases were subsequently confirmed as monkeypox, one of which — a 40-year-old man who also had kidney disease — […]

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Eight dead, 23 rescued in Nigeria building collapse

LAGOS, Nigeria (AFP) — A three-storey mainly residential building has collapsed in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, killing eight people and injuring 23 others who were rescued and taken to hospitals, the emergency services said on Monday. Building collapses are common in Africa’s most populous nation, where millions live in dilapidated structures and construction standards are often flouted. The three-storey building collapsed late Sunday at Ebute-Metta area of the sprawling city of over 20 million people, […]

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Nigerian oil blast kills at least 80

by Joel Olatunde AGOI Agence France Presse LAGOS, Nigeria (AFP) — An explosion at an illegal oil refinery in southern Nigeria has killed at least 80 people, the emergency services said Sunday. The blast occurred late Friday at the illegal site between the southern oil states of Rivers and Imo, police said. “We recovered at least 80 badly burnt bodies at the scene,” Ifeanyi Nnaji of the National Emergency Management Agency in the area, told […]

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