Latest and Current Articles, Items & News on Sahara Reporters

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Sahararteporters just learned a short while ago that columnist and literature professor, Okey Ndibe was stopped and taken to the offices of the state SSS at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport  as he tried to board a flight tonight back to US.

Ndibe Stopped Again At Lagos Airport; His Name Still On Nigeria's 'Enemy List'

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Folake Oritsejetemenu Olanrewaju - Though a lot of progressives and lovers of Nigeria, especially Western Nigeria have expressed outrage and disgust over the fraud in the primaries of the ACN, I want to confess I expected it.

The Fraud In ACN

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Dr. Anthony Fernandez - It is difficult not to be concerned about the topsy-turvy alliance talk between Nigeria's main opposition party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

This concern stems from the realization that the 2011 election is the opposition's to lose. But whether the opposition, particularly the ACN, will secure victory will depend on how it approaches the election.

There is a feeling that the ACN is not interested in winning power at the national level. For a party that has made so much inroad in the last six months, you would think that by now, considering the implosion going on in the PDP, that it would have started the process of positioning itself as a national political party and the credible alternative to the PDP.

Source: ACN, CPC-An Unholy Alliance

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Talks of possible merger and adoption of a single presidential candidate by the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) have collapsed, at least for now.

One of the gladiators on the ACN side said in Lagos that the so-called merger was no more than hype by the Muhammadu Buhari side in the first place.

Source: The Inside Story Of The ACN/CPC Alliance Talks Collapse

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This wikileaks cable reveals how powerful Kwara state governor, Bukola Saraki thinks about Yar'adua's health and the startling discovery that the "Governors Forum was trying to put the EFCC back on track". SaharaReporters had revealed earlier that Saraki and some former governors recruited and staffed the EFCC and took total control ever since.

Source: Wikileaks Reveal Governor Saraki's Position On Yar'adua's Health And How Nigerian Governors Took Control Of EFCC

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- Zulfikar Aliyu Adamu

Ha, NIGERIA!

We Nigerians tend to be unique in everything we manage to lay our hands on, be it good or bad. Even in our misfortunes and misadventures, we are quite exceptional. Mathematically, the best way to describe Nigeria now is Yakubu Aiyegbeni, the footballer. The equation is given as follows: If {(Huge) + (Strong) x (Popular) + (Wealthy) + (Talented + Nonchalance)} ÷ {(WorldCup) x (CrucialMatch) + (AverageOpponent) + (SimplePass) x (EmptyNetSquared)} = (MissedGoal) x (KnockOut) + (Y); then find Y.

And if you still don't know why (Y) because the above formula is too complex for you to understand our country; then simply calculate the SquareRoot of (NuhuRibadu ÷ AmosAdamu). Hopefully the denominator is not large enough to nullify the numerator. Meanwhile, I digress, because this essay is not exactly about football so bear with me. I love analogies.

Source: Nigeria's Energy Cry-Seas

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Adetokunbo Mumuni - Following a petition by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Navi Pillay has disclosed that she has asked the Federal Government to ensure full justice to victims by bringing to account those responsible for the persistent violence in Jos, and the associated human rights violations.

Source: UN Human Rights Chief Demands Justice For Victims Of Jos Violence

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Pierre SANE - Mr President, On the 7th of August 2010 in Abidjan, the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire commemorated the 50th anniversary of its independence with the reserve appropriate to a nation destabilized by the crisis born out of the failed coup and armed rebellion of 2002.

President Laurent Gbagbo did reach out to the rebels to initiate a process of reconciliation and engage the country on the road to peace and development. A presidential election organized by the political parties under the supervision of the United Nations was expected to seal this reconciliation, reunite the country and put it back to work. Unfortunately, the meticulously prepared election ended in an impasse, which will have to be one day investigated dispassionately in order to provide unbiased information to the african and international public opinions. But for now the country is threatened with military intervention to "dislodge" Laurent Gbagbo from office. And so, for the first time ever in Africa, one would resort to external forces to "restore democracy" following a polling dispute!

Source: Re: "Surgical Operation" In Cote d'Ivoire: The Worst-case Scenario?- Open Letter To The African Heads Of State

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Gomiluk Otokwala - January 1, 2014 – about three years from today – will mark one hundred years since the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria were amalgamated to form what is today the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Sadly, almost a century after that merger, Nigeria still remains essentially two separate countries welded precariously into one. In this short piece, I argue that unless steps are taken to perfect that amalgamation, the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as currently configured) can hardly make any meaningful progress.

To be sure, there are at least three hundred ethnic nationalities in Nigeria almost evenly spread across the landmass of the country. In the old Northern Region dominated by the Hausa/Fulani, very many ethnic minorities exist, many of whom do not as much as understand the Hausa language. The same is true of the old Eastern and Western regions, both of which constitute the former Southern Protectorate. Across the country, many of these ethnic groups are as similar to each other as the French are to the Chinese. However, as divided as Nigeria is by virtue of its breathtaking plurality, there is no other dimension of division as strong as the North-South dichotomy.

Source: Time To Amalgamate Northern And Southern Nigeria

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Tom Mackey and  Geert Ritsema - Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth International today filed an official complaint against oil giant Shell for breaches of basic standards for responsible business set out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The organisations claim that Shell's use of discredited and misleading information to blame the majority of oil pollution on saboteurs in its Niger Delta operations has breached the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The complaint was filed with UK and Netherlands government contact points for the OECD.

Tomorrow (Wednesday 26 January) Shell will be under scrutiny for its environmental and human rights impacts during a hearing in the Dutch Parliament on the company's activities in Nigeria.

In the mid 1990s Shell accepted that much of the oil pollution in the Niger Delta was due to the company's own failures. However, the company now blames sabotage by communities and criminals for most of the problem, citing misleading figures that purport to show as much as 98% of oil spills being caused by sabotage.

Source: Shell Accused Over Misleading Figures On Nigeria Oil Spills