KeenWinBlog

Protesters have marched in northwestern Nigeria under a banner reading #BringBackOurBoys as pressure has mounted on the government to improve security in the region and secure the release of more than 300 kidnapped schoolboys. Parents fear time is running out to bring the boys home. The armed group Boko Haram, which has said in an unverified audio message that it was behind their abduction from a school on December 11, has a history of turning captives into fighters. In the city of Katsina on Thursday, dozens of people marched through the streets in response to a call from the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), a civil society body that focuses on the welfare of northern Nigerians. Some chanted “Save northern Nigeria”. A video circulating on social media on Thursday purportedly showed Boko Haram members with some of the boys. Featuring Boko Haram’s emblem, the video showed a group of boys in wooded begging security forces to let them leave. Reuters was not able to immediately verify t

Pan-northern socio-political organisation, Arewa Consultative Forum, on Tuesday went hard on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), over the disturbing insecurity across the country, especially in the North. The forum said Nigeria as a country was no longer secure and safe under the Buhari regime. This was the verdict of the ACF’s Board of Trustees, one of the highest organs of the northern body. Rising from its maiden meeting since the inauguration of the new executive of the ACF in March, the body also lamented that the Buhari -led government had failed to heed its advice on how to tackle the spate of insecurity in the land. Speaking with newsmen shortly after the BoT meeting in Kaduna, the forum’s National Publicity Secretary, Emmanuel Yawe, said the group was not happy with the security situation in Nigeria. Yawe noted that the forum was even tired of complaining because the government appeared inactive about the insecurity. According to the ACF spokesman, Nigerian

An audio message from a man identifying himself as the leader of Nigeria’s Boko Haram has claimed that the armed group was responsible for the abduction of hundreds of students from an all boys school in the northwestern state of Katsina. The number of missing students remains unclear. Military spokesman General John Enenche told Channels TV on Monday that 333 pupils were unaccounted for after heavily armed gunmen raided the all-boys Government Science Secondary School in the town of Kankara. “I am Abubakar Shekau and our brothers are behind the kidnapping in Katsina,” said the man in Tuesday’s voice message. Boko Haram and its splinter faction, the Islamic State in West Africa Province, have for years waged a violent armed campaign in the northeast of the country and neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger. In 2014, Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden” in the local Hausa language, abducted hundreds of schoolgirls in the town of Chibok. The man in the audio messa

Nigeria has reported 19,808 coronavirus cases and 506 related deaths Nigerian doctors in state-run hospitals have called off a week-long strike over welfare and inadequate protective equipment as new coronavirus cases spike in the country. The strike by the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), which represents some 40 percent of Nigeria's doctors, began last Monday but had exempted medics treating coronavirus patients. The group's directors decided to suspend the strike action from Monday, June 22, by 08:00am local time (07:00 GMT), the association said in a statement. NARD said the decision, which followed the intervention by state governors and others, was to give the government time to fulfil the outstanding demands. The organisation had called the strike over a range of issues, including the "grossly inadequate" provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) and calls for hazard pay for those workin

by Bernard Dayo An HIV counsellor takes a patient's blood sample during an HIV-testing procedure in Lagos Lagos, Nigeria -  When Andrew* first found out he was HIV-positive in January this year, he suffered a fleeting sense of paralysis, fearing his life was about to change forever.  At 27, it was one of the things he dreaded as a gay man who was still in the closet. Even within the Nigerian LGBT community, HIV discrimination is rife and Andrew noticed no one would reply to him on the dating apps he used when he changed his status. In the weeks after his diagnosis, he developed a routine to deal with the illness: religiously taking his HIV medication and practising celibacy . Andrew is a software developer who views the world through a prism of codes and programs, and as the coronavirus pandemic became very real, with Nigeria comfirming its first case of contagion in February, he felt uneasy. The hysteria on the internet, fe

Women and children gather at the Madinatu IDP camp to listen to members of the Borno Community Coalition speak about the dangers of human trafficking As 16-year-old Miriam* stepped out of her tent to fetch water near the Madinatu Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Nigeria's northeastern Borno state in January last year, a middle-aged woman she knew as "Aunty Kiki" approached her. She asked Miriam if she was interested in moving to the city of Enugu to work as a housemaid for a monthly salary.  Miriam, who is now 17, wasted no time in accepting the offer and began to prepare for her trip to the east the following day. She told her 17-year-old cousin, Roda*, about it and advised her to approach Aunty Kiki. When Roda, who is now 18, met Aunty Kiki the next morning, she asked if there was a job for her, too. The woman quickly agreed, so Roda packed her bags. "We were both very excited to travel to Enugu,"