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Former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on Monday lambasted some state governors in Nigeria for living like emperors while demanding sacrifice from the citizens for Nigeria to survive the hard times. Obasanjo chided the governors while speaking as the chairman at the inaugural conference of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, held at the University of Ibadan. Obasanjo said when he became Nigerian president in 1999; he recognised corruption as a major impediment to the Nigerian state, setting up structures like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to fight the rot. However, he said that after he left, corruption returned to Nigeria with a vengeance, draining billions of dollars from the nation’s economy that could hardly afford to lose even a million dollars. He said, “Leaders who call for sacrifice from the citizenry cannot be living in obscene opulence. We must

The Presidency on Monday said the foreign trips by President Muhammadu Buhari were necessitated by his desire to block and recover funds looted from Nigeria. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said this in an interview with State House correspondents. Buhari will on Tuesday travel to France and Britain. He had visited Kenya and Ethiopia last week. But Shehu said it would be wrong to describe the President’s foreign trips as jamboree. He said so far, Buhari had during his trips secured agreements with various countries on recovery and repatriation of stolen funds. He also disclosed that some top security officials in the country would, in the next one week, travel to the United Arab Emirates to further actualise an agreement on recovery and repatriation of stolen funds. Shehu said, “You also see gradually the strategic efforts to go after the stolen funds abroad. The UAE is very important to the country. “Don’t be su

A survivor hidden in a tree says he watched Boko Haram extremists firebomb huts and heard the screams of children burning to death, among 86 people officials say died in the latest attack by Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremists. Some other estimates said over 100 people were killed. Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night’s attack on Dalori village and two nearby camps housing 25,000 refugees, according to survivors and soldiers at the scene just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in Nigeria’s northeast. The shooting, burning and explosions from three suicide bombers continued for nearly four hours in the unprotected area, survivor Alamin Bakura said, weeping on a telephone call to The Associated Press. He said several of his family members were killed or wounded. The violence continued as three female suicide bombers blew up among people who managed to flee to

r State-owned television in Equatorial Guinea has been banned from broadcasting the crimes against humanity trial of Ivory Coast's former President Laurent Gbagbo, at the International Criminal Court, the AFP news agency reports.  The ban had been imposed because of Mr Gbagbo's "friendship" with Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema, and because of the principle of "non-intervention in another country's internal affairs", an unnamed state media official is quoted as saying.   The RTNGE network in Spanish is watched by around 85% of the population, AFP reports. Critics accuse Mr Obiang, who has been in power since 1979, of being one of Africa's most repressive rulers.    Mr Gbagbo is the first former head of state to be tried by the ICC.  The charges against him are linked to post-election violence in Ivory Coast  in 2010-2011.