Sahara Reports | Nigerian Political and Breaking News

Fresh and hot news from Sahara Reporters is posted here. Be the first to know! Follow the flow of activities in Nigeria and Africa as whole. You can afford to miss this updates...

Four officials of the National Union of Journalists kidnapped near Aba in South East Nigeria last week were freed earlier today. Details of how the journalists regained their freedom are still sketchy. The four men were abducted on their way from a meeting of the executive council of the NUJ in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state last week Sunday.

Four Kidnapped Journalists Freed; Return Home To Lagos

Dear President Goodluck Jonathan: The unfortunate kidnap of four journalists and their driver in Abia State last Sunday has, once again, exposed the high level of insecurity in the country. At a meeting held a few days ago by Mr. Ogbonnaya Onovo, the Inspector-General of Police with selected traditional rulers of the South East zone he accused unidentified police personnel of complicity in the rising wave of kidnapping in the region.

Connivance Of Police Authorities In The Rising Wave Of Kidnapping In Nigeria

According to the 2010 Failed States Index Report recently released by the Fund for Peace, Nigeria is sinking, and therefore needs salvation. Nigeria was ranked by the group to be among 20 States that are most vulnerable to state failures. Sadly, Nigeria was placed in the same category with the troubled or war-ravaged countries like Chad, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, North Korea, Kenya, Niger, etc.

Kidnappings: Nigeria Is A Failed State-Says Intersociety

The four journalists released by kidnappers in Aba yesterday are now the subject of deep controversy following their disclosure that their abductors robbed them of N3 million ($25,000). In their testimonies to their colleagues shortly after they arrived in Lagos yesterday, the group, led by Wahab Oba, the head of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Lagos state and a staff of the federal ministry of information and communication, Adolphus Okonkwo of the Voice of Nigeria, Sylvester Okere of the Champion Newspapers, and Sola Oyeyipo, another Lagos-based freelance journalist, said the kidnappers took away the money from them as soon as they were carjacked and driven into the bush.

Kidnappings:  Freed Journalists Dogged By Bribery And Money-Laundering Allegations

A comprehensive expose on how elections are rigged in the country has been unveiled by one of the insiders in the political process and former Cross River State Governor, Mr. Donald Duke. Last Wednesday at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Duke gave a blow by blow account to a gathering of pro-democracy advocates, including the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), of the modus operandi of State Chief Executives and Resident Electoral Commissioners to thwart the mandate of the electorate, not just in states controlled by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but all the others.

A MUST READ:  How Governors Rig Elections, By Donald Duke-Guardian

Last Tuesday was the 76th birthday of Wole Soyinka, extraordinary dramatist, poet, professor of literature, renaissance man, and one of the world’s greatest humanists. I had intended to mark the occasion with a column celebrating Soyinka’s record of unstinting commitment to a Nigeria founded on justice and humane values. Sadly, I was unable to write last week. Still, given my debt to the man, I thought it would be meet to say a few words, even if belatedly, both about an aspect of his meaning as well as the cruel paradox that Nigeria, in its current state, poses to Soyinka’s longstanding work.

An Apology To Wole Soyinka

Donald Duke - a former state governor in Nigeria used to intrigue me. Intrigue in the context that I know so little of him not having visited Cross Rivers, or in fact anywhere in the East beyond Benin City, yet he comes across as a pretty privileged model, compared to the rest of his crew - political gangsters that run - or used to run the show in Nigeria.

Nigeria: Donald Duke. An Eureka moment? (S)elections And Smoking Guns…

Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, the former Attorney-General of Nigeria and Minister of Justice who was recently prohibited from holding public office in Nigeria and banned from entering the United States, may soon lose his prized professional title as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

Michael Aondoakaa “Unfit” To Remain SAN, Says CDHR In High-Powered Petition

It is surprising, one may say, how a chain of innocent and apparently well-intentioned acts and rules, may amount to a consummate oppression of a section of the populace. Usually this happens in such a subtle, gradual and nearly imperceptible manner that neither the oppressed nor the oppressors seem to harbour any resentment against or even consciousness of it. This appears to be the case of the poor in the Nigerian society in their treatment by the law of the land. How valid this assertion is, will be determined by a few illustrations below.

Is Nigerian Law Oppressive To The Poor?