UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
NIGERIA: IRIN News Briefs [19991007]

NIGERIA: IRIN News Briefs [19991007]


NIGERIA: IRIN News Briefs, 7 October 1999

NIGERIA: World Bank president promises help on debt

World Bank President James Wolfensohn said on Thursday that the bank would help Nigeria renegotiate its debts and promised to support initiatives aimed at alleviating poverty, which affects about 65 percent of its people, a media source told IRIN.

Wolfensohn, who began a four-day visit to Nigeria on Thursday, made the promises at a conference on economic and development issues organised in Abuja for parliamentarians by the Nigerian government and the World Bank.

Northern state issues ultimatum to liquor sellers

The governor of Zamfara, Ahmad Yarimah, on Monday gave liquor vendors until 27 October - when Islamic law will begin to take effect in the northern state - to stop selling alcohol, 'The Guardian' newspaper in Lagos reported on Wednesday.

Yarimah said all licences granted to hotels, beer parlours and off-licence establishments had been revoked with immediate effect and that, after 27 October any Muslim caught breaking the law would be prosecuted in an Islamic court, while non-Muslims would be tried in common law courts.

Army to switch troops in troubled Niger delta

The Nigerian army has decided to bring in new troops from outside the troubled Niger Delta to patrol the area after evidence of bias by soldiers now there, a top official has said.

Army Chief of Staff Major-General Victor Malu told a gathering of army officers on Tuesday in the eastern town of Enugu that units serving in the region were "made up of indigenes who have become part of the problem".

It is "most unacceptable to the Nigerian army for its personnel to show loyalty to local communities," he said, adding that the troops now deployed in the region would be withdrawn and replaced by soldiers from outside the area.

Obasanjo expands human rights commission's brief

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday ordered a commission he set up to probe past human rights abuses to extend its inquiries back to the country's first military takeover in 1966, Reuters reported.

The commission had been appointed to investigate abuses during military regimes from 1983 to May 1999. Its new mandate includes the 1967-1970 Biafra war of secession, during which widespread rights abuses were reportedly committed, and Obasanjo's stint as a military ruler from 1975 to 1979.

Cannabis plantation

Nigeria's drug enforcement authorities announced on Thursday that they had found a huge cannabis plantation in a state forest reserve in the southwest of the country, news organisations said. The plantation, discovered last week in Owo, in the state of Ondo, covers an area of six square kilometres, AFP quoted the head of the Nigeria's anti-drug squad, the NDLEA, as saying.

Teachers strike

Teachers in public primary and secondary schools began an indefinite strike on Wednesday over unpaid salary arrears, AFP reported.

Some states owe their workers, including teachers, at least six months in salary arrears, AFP reported.

According to official statistics, there were more than 46,000 public primary and secondary schools and about 573,000 teachers in 1996, while student enrolment stood at 18.2 million.

[ENDS]

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Item: irin-english-1736

[This item is delivered in the "irin-english" service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999

Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar

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