Nigeria

OGUN, Nigeria, Nov 10 (NNN-XINHUA) – Chinese construction giant, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), will build a rolling stock assembly plant in Nigeria, to promote the country’s railway modernisation project.

At a groundbreaking ceremony for the plant at Kajola, a town in the southwestern state of Ogun, Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, said, it is a “historic turning point” in Nigeria’s railway modernisation plan.

ABUJA, Nov 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nigeria’s top court has dismissed an appeal by main opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar to overturn the result of February’s presidential vote in which President Muhammadu Buhari won re-election.

“We have examined all the briefs and the exhibits for over two weeks and we agree that there is no merit in this appeal,” Chief Justice Tanko Muhammad said following the Supreme Court’s judgement.

“The appeal is dismissed,” he concluded in a decision made unanimously with six court justices.

MAIDUGURI (Nigeria), Oct 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Thousands of Nigerian hunters, armed with charmed amulets and intimate knowledge of harsh terrain, are preparing an offensive against the Boko Haram extremists who have ravaged the northeast for a decade, calling it “high time” they help soldiers end the deadly insurgency.

Nigeria’s government discouraged a similar offensive five years ago, calling it a suicide mission. This time it has the backing of the governor of Borno state, which has suffered the worst of the Boko Haram attacks.

ABUJA, Oct 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Unknown gunmen are now asking for a ransom after at least nine people were kidnapped in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

They abducted the victims from an area on the outskirts of the city. Reports say the victims include a 12-year-old boy.

Eyewitnesses say the gunmen were dressed in military uniform and turned up in large numbers.

They laid an ambush along a main road and fired shots at moving vehicles, forcing them to stop.

The vehicles’ occupants were then shepherded at gunpoint into the bush.

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian activist and former presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore pleaded not guilty at a court in Abuja on Monday to charges of treason, money laundering and harassing the president.

State Security Service agents arrested Sowore in early August after he called for a revolution after a February election which he said was not credible. He ran for president in that election, in which former military ruler President Muhammadu Buhari secured a second term in office.

KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - When Jibril had tried to escape as a boy from an institution in Nigeria that called itself a place of Islamic teachings, he said he was hung up by his arms until bones in his shoulders broke.

Another teenager, one of about 400 men and boys freed in Thursday’s police raid, said boys were often kept in chains and those caught stealing food were whipped until they bled.

KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - More than 300 boys and men, some as young as five and many in chains and bearing scars from beatings, have been rescued in a raid on a building that purported to be an Islamic school in northern Nigeria, police said on Friday.

Most of the freed captives seen by a Reuters reporter in the city of Kaduna were children, aged up to their late teens. Some shuffled with their ankles manacled and others were chained by their legs to large metal wheels to prevent escape.

MAIDUGURI (Nigeria), Sept 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nigeria’s army has stopped the work of international NGO Action Against Hunger accusing it of supplying militant group Boko Haram with food and drugs.

The army said it had warned the NGO against “aiding and abetting” Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria.

Action Against Hunger, which denies the accusations, says its “life-saving assistance” to vulnerable people has now been put “into jeopardy”.

More than two million people have also been displaced.

LAGOS (Nigeria), Sept 5 (NNN-BERNAMA) — Nigeria announced plans to evacuate its nationals in South Africa on Wednesday following a wave of xenophobic attacks, signaling worsening diplomatic relations between the two African countries, Anadolu Agency reported, quoting a statement by Nigerian foreign ministry.

The Nigerian Foreign Ministry said a commercial airline offered to send an aircraft Friday to evacuate nationals “free or charge” who were willing to return.

4 September 2019; AFP: South Africa and Nigeria stepped security on Wednesday after deadly attacks on foreign-owned stores in Johannesburg triggered reprisal assaults on South African businesses in Nigerian cities.

The centre of Johannesburg and the impoverished suburb of Alexandra were calm as police stepped up patrols following two days of looting, AFP reporters saw.