Arrest, outrage over videotaped lynching of UNIPORT students undergraduates

FOLLOWING the lynching of four students of the University of Port Harcourt, River State, the police have arrested Aluu community leader, Alhaji Hassan Walewa.
The police on Sunday morning stormed Aluu in Ikwerre Local Government Area, where the students were beaten to death and set ablaze by a mob. Our correspodents report that both the beating and the burning were videotaped and the film clip has gone viral on the Internet.
Also arrested by security agents were members of Walewa’s family and some students of the institution, who lived off campus.
PUNCH Metro gathered that the community was deserted when security agents and soldiers stormed the area in search of those who killed the students on Friday.                The lynched students were identified as Lloyd, Tekena, Ugonna and Chidiaka. Those who lynched the students reportedly accused  them of stealing laptops and phones.
 Speaking with our correspondent on Sunday, the immediate past President of UNIPORT’s Students’ Union, Mr. Rhino Owhorkire, expressed regrets that some students living within the community had also been arrested by the police.
Owhorkire explained that though the arrest of some members of the community was a welcome development, the arrest of “innocent” students living in the community was unnecessary.
He condemned the gruesome murder of the students, maintaining that the crowd should have handed them over to the police.
Owhorkire said, “We totally condemn the act that was perpetrated by the Omokiri Allu community. We ought to have gone beyond meting out jungle justice to anybody. They claimed the students were robbers, but nobody came out to say his property was stolen.
“We also heard that the students were cult members, who went to collect dues from other members. But the aggrieved colleagues decided to brand them thieves and this attracted some members of the community who killed them. We have been hearing a lot of rumours since the incident.”
He said that the UNIPORT SU had dissuaded students planning from embarking on a protest in Aluu community to shelve the idea in order to allow security agencies to carry out their investigation.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Ben Ugwuegbulam, confirmed that some arrests were made in Aluu, adding that any person found not culpable would be released.
According to him, the police are making progress on their investigation based on the information at their disposal.
A source also said the video of how the students were killed was being investigated.
Also, the Public Relations Officer of UNIPORT, Dr. William Wodi, told PUNCH Metro that the university had yet to ascertain if the deceased were students of the university or not.
Wodi said the institution would make its position on the matter known to the public on Monday (today).

Conflicting acounts
Meanwhile, there were conflicting accounts on Sunday on how the students met their deaths. While some insisted that they were robbers, others claimed they were members of a cult. Yet, their friends said they were innocent.  Most of these disclosures were made on the Internet, especially the social media, where the  deceased students’ friends and loved ones also gave vent to their sorrow.
  On Nairaland, a popular  online discussion forum, some of the posters who claimed to be residents of the community where the incident took place insisted that the students were robbers. They claimed that the students were members of a cult group, that had terrorised the community for a long time.
These residents insisted that the students were found with laptops and phones in an uncompleted building, smoking Indian hemp. Villagers who sighted them reportedly informed the vigilance group in the area that some robbers had invaded the community.  According to these posters, the villagers, on getting the information, combed the area, found the students and lynched them.
But other contributors, who appeared to be students of UNIPORT, insisted that the students were not robbers but members of a secret cult.  One of the contributors wrote, “On that fateful day, they went to Aluu village to ‘‘ruffle’’ a particular person who happened to be a rival cult member.
“On getting there, they didn’t meet him at home. So, they decided to relax in a nearby bush.”
He added that it was the rival cult member that went to the vigilance group to allege that the students were armed robbers.
The anonymous contributor added, “Their rivals reported to the vigilante guys that the thieves terrorising the neighbourhood had been spotted.
“Knowing that  if they (the lynched students) were spared, they would retaliate, these rival members, posing as ordinary students, called for the heads of the boys and accused them of orchestrating several robberies in the area. They even arranged for some girls to claim they had been raped.”

Outrage on social media
There have been outrage on social media since the killings broke out  on Friday.  The majority of contributors on different fora insisted that the students shouldn’t have been lynched but handed over to the law enforcement agents.
Jennifer Okafor, a contributor on a blog, Information Nigeria, said, “God will judge those that did that to them. Why didn’t they take them to the police?  Ask those that killed those boys whether they have not stolen anything in their lives.  The sins of those boys will be on the heads of those that killed them.”
Francis Obiagwu, a student of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, also on the blog, wrote, “People should have just beaten them and let them go or got them arrested by the police, rather than killing them. The people that killed them should be punished for taking the law into their hands.”
On his part, Alfred O’keke wrote, “What in the world is going on in this country?  Have we lost our sense of humanity? That such a gruesome thing could happen to teenagers and there is no anger from the public. What is the difference between this and the killing of 42 students in Mubi in Adamawa State?  Jungle justice! Where are we headed in this place called Nigeria?
“Politicians are busy looting our common wealth and confining our generations to perpetual poverty and these are the ones we hail, idolise and make kings.”
Dejo Olowu said, “We see all these extreme outbursts of mob justice, jungle justice, anger and venom in Nigeria, yet, some of us will still argue this has nothing to do with government or with leadership. It is a trickle-down effect, a consequence of our collective psychosis.”

Where’s Cecilia Ibru’s loot?

A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, southwest Nigeria yesterday morning ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), to declare the total cash and properties recovered from the former Chief Executive Officer of Oceanic Bank, Mrs.Cecilia Ibru, within 72 hours. The court also ordered that the apex bank should declare the location of the properties and the money recovered.
The apex Nigeria’s banking sector regulatory institution was also ordered to make public what part of the cash and property had been returned to Oceanic Bank and its shareholders. The order of the court was sequel to a suit filed by a Lagos lawyer, Chuks Nwachukwu, on behalf of Mr. Boniface Okezie, President of Progressive Shareholders Association. Okezie had urged the CBN to disclose among other things the amount of legal fees paid to professionals and lawyers including Olanihun Ajayi and Kola Awodein Chambers in respect of the prosecution of Cecilia Ibru.
The plaintiff claimed he wrote a letter to the CBN demanding to know these facts but the CBN refused to respond. In a counter-affidavit filed by Prof. Gabriel Olawonyi on behalf of CBN, the apex bank said it was advised against releasing the information as it will violate the legal practitioner/client privileges principal. In his judgment delivered yesterday, the presiding judge, Justice Mohammed Idris, while not acceding to the request of the plaintiff that the amount paid to the lawyers involved should be disclosed, ordered that the total cash and property recovered from Cecilia Ibru should be made public by the CBN within 72 hours.
He also ordered that the whereabouts of the properties and monies recovered should be made public too. It would be recalled that a Federal High Court in Lagos in October 2010 sentenced a former Chief Executive Officer of Oceanic Bank International Plc, Mrs. Cecilia Ibru, to 18 months imprisonment without an option of fine for granting $20 million and N2billion credit facilities above the approved limit by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had prosecuted the former bank chief on a 25-count charge of financial crimes before she entered into a plea bargaining with the anti-graft agency and pleaded guilty to a reduced three-count charge. The Chief Judge of the FHC, Justice Dan Abutu, thereafter convicted Ibru on the said three-count charge and ordered the forfeiture of her N191billion assets comprising 49 properties in Nigeria, United States and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to a Federal Government agency, the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).
The forfeited properties include shares in over 100 firms that are listed and not listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The Chief Judge added that

Boko Haram kills 43 students in 4 higher institutions

It was a bloody 52nd Independence Day gift for four higher institutions when gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram massacred 43 students on Monday. Many people were injured, fueling fears that the death toll may rise. The schools attacked were Federal Polythecnic, Mubi, Adamawa State University and the School of Health Technology, Mubi.
The killings took place at a private hostel This is even as gunmen killed three students of the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), also on Independence Day, as residents of the Borno State capital witnessed shootings and bomb explosions. The city witnessed a war-like situation as the military Joint Task Force (JTF) engaged the militants. While the Federal Polythechnic, Mubi lost 26 students, 14 were killed at the other two higher institutions.
The remaining students hurriedly left the hostel. In the Adamawa attack, a church and some buildings were also burnt by the gunmen who shot indiscriminately. Although the attack on the students’ hostel took place outside the campus, the management of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi has shut down the institution whose examinations expected to start yesterday, had to be postponed. According to a senior staff of the institution, who doesn’t want tobe named, there was exodus of students from the campus while security had been beefed up at the hostels and the main campus.
A student who narrowly escaped the attack but lost two course mates, said that the gunmen stormed the area at 10.00pm and started shooting indiscriminately, killing many students who fled the private hostel for safety but were cut short by the bullets. The Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP), Dr. Stanley Stephen, told our correspondent that though he was not on campus, but that the gunmen opened fire on the students, set ablaze a church and other buildings.
Dr. Stephen, however disclosed that no lecturer was affected, but confirmed that the polytechnic had been closed as a result of the attack even though the students were to start their exams this morning. The National President of ASUP, Mr. Asomugha Chibuzor, described the killings of the over 26 students at Federal Polytechnic, Mubi as unfortunate and that information available to him indicates that there was exodus of students. The ASUP boss appealed to the Federal Government to tighten security around all the tertiary institutions in the country to avert similar attacks.
He said the nation cannot continue to waste its youth through such killings and urged the government to stop the menace. At the Adamawa state University, Mubi, undisclosed number of students were reportedly killed by the gunmen, while staff and students fled the campusdespite the dusk-to dawn 24-hour curfew imposed on Mubi by the state government. As at Press time, heads of security agencies in the state were said to be heading for Mubi, and its environs.
The state government had imposed curfew about three weeks ago. The JTF was able to arrest about 158 Boko Haram suspects who had volunteered statements that facilitated apprehension of top shots. The JTF has also recovered over 600 weapons, Including Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), arrows, daggers and other sophisticated weapons in Mubi and its environs. Similarly, in the course of house-to-house search, JTF discovered a number of factories, where bombs and other sophisticated weapons were manufactured in Mubi.
In Maiduguri, the first explosion occurred at about 7am around Bayan Quarters area, headquarters of the Boko Haram sect where a lone bomber was blown off on Monday. Sources said the suspect who was on a mission to attack telecom facilities around the area suddenly ran out of luck as his car which was highly wired with explosive devices went in flame, leading to his death.    While residents were still grappling with sporadic gunshots by JTF soldiers which trailed the explosion, another bomb targeted at the troops around a popular hotel along Lagos Street also went off, killing a soldier, three people were wounded.
A military source said the explosion occurred when a JTF patrol vehicle ran on IEDs suspected to have been planted by Boko Haram at about 7.50am on Monday. Hell was let loose as soldiers shot sporadically into the air till midday while residents around the area ran for safety. The popular Lagos Road which leads to two federal institutions; the University of Maiduguri and its teaching hospital (UMTH) was also cordoned off for most part of the day.
“We saw the body of a soldier being put in an ambulance with three other soldiers critically injured. But I cannot ascertain the condition of the other three soldiers when they evacuated them from the scene because soldiers were shooting and scaring everybody away from the area” a resident claimed. The JTF is yet to react to the incident even as its spokesman, Lt-Col Sagir Musa, who had earlier promised to furnish journalists some information on the incident did not do so as at Press time. Meanwhile, there were reports of killings in various parts of the metropolis since last weekend.
Two men were reportedly killed around the State Low Cost on Monday. Four people were killed at Forestry Quarters opposite former CBN Quarters along Damboa road in the city on Sunday night while three undergraduates of UNIMAID were slaughtered by unknown assassins in their rented apartments at 202 Housing Estate. Residents of the estate said the assailants sneaked into the area and slaughtered two of the students; a lady and a man while the third undergraduate was said to have escaped through the back door but was shot. “He later died in the hospital.
“He was a friend from southern Borno but his father is in Abuja,” one of his colleagues who identified himself as Ezekiel said. “We suspect ritual killing because we learnt some sensitive parts of one of the ladies, a part four law students were removed,” he added. The bodies of two of the slain students were discovered at an isolated area near the Maiduguri Water Treatment Plant. The killing of the students has heightened tension among parents and residents. However, UNIMAID said it cannot comment on the incident for now. “I’m sorry, we can’t comment on the incident now,” Chief Information Officer, Ahmed Tanko Mohammed, told Daily Sun.

Flood sacks 1,000 in Rivers

No fewer than 1,000 persons had been displaced by flood in Rivers State. This is even, as members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, led by its Chairman and former governor of Kwara State, Senator Bukola Saraki were on fact-finding mission in the state. The state Commissioner for Environment, Dr Nyema E. Weli, who was in the Committee’s entourage, was shocked at the magnitude of the havoc caused by the flood, which according to him, was not brought to the notice of his Ministry. The flood was as a result of the over-flow of River Niger which affected Orashi River.
Badly hit by the disaster were indigenes of Mbiama, Akinima, and four communities that made up Joinkrama in Ahoada-West Local Government Area. Not spared by the natural disaster were people living in Ndoni in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of the state. Most of the houses affected by the flood had been vacated, while those who had nowhere to run to, were seen floating on the water, probably, hoping that help could come their way someday.
A visit to the affected communities in Ahoada-West Local Government Area yesterday morning, revealed that many residents were making frantic efforts, to save their property and to evacuate displaced persons. Many buildings, including those under construction, were sub-merged by the ravaging flood. Also affected were, streets where residents used canoes to transport stranded victims to various points and safe areas. Farm lands were also covered by flood, while farmers were seen hurriedly harvested their crops prematurely, especially, cassava and yams, to avoid losing them to the flood. Daily Sun gathered that residents of the area usually witness flood in every month of November, due to the overflow of Orashi River, but this year’s disaster was described as exceptional.
This was also confirmed by an indigene of Edageberi-Betterland, in Joinkrama community, MrBonny Otatie Ulolo who described this year’s flood as unprecedented in the history of the communities. Expressing surprise at the ugly development, Dr. Weli said the state government was not informed of the flood by the authorities of Ahoada-East Local Government. The Commissioner, who inquired from the Permanent Secretary, why the flood incident had not been brought to his notice said: “ I was wondering where people are now staying, since water had taken over their houses.
I am not aware of this situation before now.” He, however, promised to bring the matter before the State Executive Council and the State House of Assembly. Reacting to the flood incident, Senator Saraki, who was deeply touched by the plight of the indigenes of the state, due to environmental degradation, regretted the displacement of people in the area, and assured that the Committee would make a formal request to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to come to their aid.
The Committee members, which included, Senator Oluwaje Kunlere, from Ondo-South and Senator Sadiq Yar’Adua, from Katsina –Central, had earlier visited Egita in Egiland, where there was gas eruption in April this year. Members of the Committee, who also visited the site of the gas eruption, said they were in Egita to see things for themselves.

BRIEF HISTORY OF NIGERIA - 1960 - 2002

                                    

 1960    October 1.  National Independence.  Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa  becomes

first Nigerian  Prime Minister.  Nigeria join the UN as the 99^th member.

Commonwealth membership is also attained.

1963    October l.  Nigeria  becomes a Republic. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe becomes the first

President.

1966    January 14-15.  First military coup. Balewa and other prominent leaders are

killed.  Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi becomes Head of State on  January. 

1966    July 29.   Second military coup. Ironsi is killed. Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon becomes

Head of State.             Many Easterners in the North are massacred.  Exodus begins to 

the Eastern Region.

1967    May 27  Gowon creates 12 states from the four regions. 

1967    May 30  Ojukwu, military governor of the Eastern Region,  declares the Eastern

Region to be the Independent Republic of Biafra.

1967    July 6.  Civil War begins.

1970    January 15.  Biafra surrenders and rejoins  Nigeria.   1.5 million live lost, mainly

to starvation.

1970    December 31   Public Education Edict 1970, published in East Central State of Nigeria, calling for the take over of schools. This was made retroactive to 26 May

            1970.  The  take over, management and ownership of all primary and secondary

            schools.

1972    April 2. Nigeria changes from ‘left-hand-drive’  to ‘right-hand-drive.’ 

The National Stadium is opened.

1973    January l.  Money changes from  the Pound to the Naira. 

1973    May 22.  National Youth Service Corps  is  introduced.

1975    July 29.  Third military Coup. Bloodless coup.   Brig. Murtala Muhammed

replaces Gowon.  Obasanjo becomes Chief of Staff.

1975    October.  A Commission set up to draft a new Constitition and to return Nigeria to

civil rule.

1976   February 3.  Seven states are created, thus  there is a total  of 19.  Announcement

is made that Abuja is proposed as the new Federal Capital.

1976   February 13.  Fourth military coup, led by Col. Dimka.  Murtala  Muhammed is

killed.  Lt. General  Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Head of State on the following

day.

1976   Universal Primary Education, and Operation Feed the Nation are launched.

1977.  January 15 to  February 12. The Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) is held in

Lagos and Kaduna.  

            .

1978   September 12. Ban on political parties is lifted.  The 12 year old state of

emergency is lifted.

1979.   Elections are held for federal representatives and senators.

1979    August 11. Presidential elections.  Shehu Shagari wins.  He will be the first civil

            ruler since  1966.

1979    October 1.  Shehu Shagari  becomes President.  The end of military rule and the

beginning of the Second  Republic.

1980    May.   Religious violence in Zaria. Much  property is destroyed.

1980    December 18-20   Riots in  Kano.  The  Maitatsine sect,  4,177 are killed.

1982    September 29 – October 3. Disturbances in  Kaduna,  Kaduna State.   53 killed

and many churches  are burned.

1982    October 29-30. Further trouble in  Maiduguri,  Borno State,  Maitatsine sects.

118 die.

           

1983   August.  Shehu Shagari re-elected President for second four year term.

1983   December 31,  New Year’s Eve.  Fifth Military Coup,  Major-General Muhammad Buhari becomes Head of State.  Babangida and Abacha are among the coup plotters.

1984    February 27 – March 5.  Disturbance in Yola,  Gongola State.  Maitatsine sect, 

568 die.

1985    April 26-28   Riot in Gombe,  Bauchi State.    Maitatsine sect.   105  die.

1985    August 27.   6^th Military Coup, Chief of Army Staff, Major General

Ibrahim B.Babangida becomes Military President.

1986    7^th Coup, Coup attempt  by General Mamman Vatsa  fails.  Coup plotters are

            executed in March.

1986    March,   Palm Sunday.    Christians and Muslims clash during processions in

Ilorin,  Kwara State.

1986    May.  At the University of Ibadan,  Muslims burn the figure of the Risen Christ at

the Catholic Chapel of the Resurrection.

1986    October 16.    Wole Soyinka is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first

African  writer so honored.

1987    March  5^th and following days.  In Kafanchan, Kaduna State,  Christians and

Muslims clash at the College of Education.  100 Churches and Mosques burned.

1987    March.   Katsina,  Funtua, Zaria, Gussau and Kaduna (Kaduna State). A wave of

religious riots,  many churches are burned and property destroyed,  and many

lives are lost.

1987    June.  An Advisory   Council on Religious Affairs is established,  as a forum for

            improving Christian-Muslim relations.

1987    September.  A Transition to civil rule begins, under Babangida,  as local elections

are scheduled.  Originally intended for 1990, then put off to 1992, and then 1993.

Two more states (Katsina and Akwa-Ibom) are created,  thus 21 total.

1987    December 12.  Local elections are held, but many are declared invalid.

1988.   March 26.  New local elections are held.

1989    The ban on political parties is lifted.  Thirteen parties register, but are rejected.

So two are created by the government for the elections  scheduled for December

8, 1990.

1989    February 6-11,   2^nd Art Fair

1990    April 22. Coup Attempt by Major Gideon Orkah.  42 coup plotters will be

executed on July 27.

1990    November.   Rev.  Reinhard  Bonnke, German evangelist,   speaks in Kaduna,  

500,000 attend.

1991    April     In  Katsina, several lives are lost.  Sh’ite sect  in Katsina led by  Malam

Yahaya Yakubu  stirs up trouble.

            At the end of  April,  in Tafawa Balewa  (Bauchi State)  over 200  lives are

            lost, and property and 20 churches are destroyed.

1991   October   14- 15.  In   Kano, the attempt of the Izala sect to stop Rev. Bonnke

from preaching  becomes violent  Thousands of lives are lost and property destroyed.

1991    Number of States is increased to 30.  

            November 27-29.  Census shows the population to be 88.6. million, less than

expected. 

1991    December 12   President Babangida moves his Presidential office and residence to

Abuja, which now officially becomes the Capital of Nigeria.

1991    December,  elections are held for governors and  state legislatures.

1992    February  6^th  and then  May  15-16     Zango Kataf,   Zaria,  Kaduna State    

Communal clash  becomes a religious clash,  with lives and property destroyed.

1992    July 4.  Elections for National Assembly are held.

            August 7.  Presidential primaries are held, but the government disallows the

results.  New primaries in September are also disallowed.

1993    Funtua  (Katsina State).    Kalakato religious sect assaults a village head.

50 lives are lost and property destroyed.

1993    June 12 Election.  Abiola would win over Tofa.

1993    June 23.  President Babangida nullifies the elections of June 12.

1993    August 26.  President Babangida, on the day before he had promised to hand over

to civilian rule,  steps down and hand power over to the Interim National

Government of  Chief  Ernest Shonekan.

1993    November 17.  Palace coup,  9^th Coup for Nigeria,  as Minister of Defence, Sani 

Abacha becomes  Head of State.  He dissolves all parties and  government

legislatures,  all democratic institutions.

1994   May 21.  A mob kills four men in Ogoniland. Eventually Ken Saro-Wiwa  is

hanged for  allegedly being behind this.

1994   June 12.  M.K.O. Abiola declares himself President but he is arrested one week

later.

1994   June 27.  The Constitutional Conference Committee begins its work. It submits

a report one year later.

1995    Alleged abortive coup attempt.  Forty persons are convicted. Among them,

Obasanjo and  Yar’adua  are imprisoned.  (10^th Coup)

1995    November  10    Ken Saro-Wiwa  and eight others are executed.   He was a writer, 

            and leader of the Ogoni people.

1996    May 11.  Nnamdi Azikwe dies, age 92.  He was the first President of Nigeria.

1996    June 4.   Kudirat Abiola,  age 44,  wife of  Chief Abiola who is in prison,   is

assassinated in Lagos.

1996   October 1   Six more States are created, so there are now  36.

1996   November 7.   ADC plane crashes on way from Port Harcourt to Lagos, near

Lagos.  143 die, including  Claude Ake.

1997.  December 21.   Alleged 11^th attempted coup. Second in Command, Chief of Staff 

Lt. General Oladipo Diya  is arrested.

1998    June    Sani Abacha dies of a  heart attack.   General Abdusalami Abubakar

becomes Head of  State.   He frees Obasanjo from prison, and promises

democracy by  May 29,  1999.

1998.   July 7.  Abiola  dies in prison, while being visited by a delegation from the

            U.S.A. government.

1999   February 27.   Presidential Elections are held, and  Obasanjo is the winner.

1999.   May 20.   Muslim-Christian riots  in Kaduna, for three days,  several hundred

are feared dead.

1999.   May 29.  Obasanjo becomes President.

            Ijaw and Itsekiri fight in Delta Region, over 200 are killed

1999.   July 18    Hausa and Yoruba riot in Shagamu,  over 60 are killed. This leads to 

trouble in Kano  where over 70 are killed.

           August  11.  About 200 are killed as the army intervenes in Taraba State

           October.  Sharia Law in is introduced in Zamfara  State.

           November 25. Yoruba and Hausa clash in Lagos,  about 100 are killed.

2000   February. Riots in  Kaduna over the introduction of  Sharia. Over 400

are killed.

2001   September 7.    Christian-Muslim conflicts  in Jos. Over 500 are killed.

2001   October  12-14   In Kano, there are anti-American riots, because of USA

intervention in Afghanistan.   At least 350 are killed.

            October 12.     19 soldiers are killed  after feuds near Benue and Taraba States.

October  21-22   The massacre of 200 civilians in Benue State by soldiers, in

retaliation for  19 soldiers  who were killed.   No one is held accountable for the

massacre.  President Obasanjo  defends it.

          

2001   December 23.   Attorney General of Nigeria, Bola Ige  is assassinated.

           

2002    January 27.  Army Munitions depot in Lagos explodes, over 1000 die in panic.

2002    May 28.  The findings of the Human Rights Violation Investigation Commission

(Oputa  Panel)  are released.

2002    June 23    Three new political parties are  approved by  INEC.

History of Nigeria

Introduction

Nigeria, with an estimated population of 126,635,626 is the largest black nation in the world.  The Federal Republic of Nigeria, as it is officially known, covers an area of 356,669 square miles on the coast of West Africa.  Its borders are contiguous with the Federal Republic of Cameroon to the east, Niger Republic to the north and Benin Republic to the east.  In the northeast, Nigeria has a 54-mile long border with the Republic of Chad, while its Gulf of Guinea coastline stretches for more than 500 miles from Badagry in the west to Calabar in the east, and includes the Bights of Benin and Biafra.  Today, Nigeria is divided administratively into thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja (CIA World Factbook, 2001).

Like Africa as a whole, Nigeria is physically, ethnically, and culturally diverse.  This is partly due to the fact that Nigeria is today inhabited by a large number of tribal groups, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, an estimated 250 of them speaking over four hundred languages, many with dialects.  Muslims and Christians comprise more than 80 percent of the population while the rest are identified with indigenous religions.  However, Nigeria’s greatest diversity is in its people.  These peoples have so much culture and history that it is imperative to chronicle this history as it relates to their current economic and political struggles.  Dating back to the kingdoms and empires of the early seventeenth century, from their involvements in the Atlantic slave trade to its entire merger, this extensive history has blended down to what is currently Nigeria and is thus necessary in order to understand what has become of this once fruitful and promising state.

 History & Evolution

Nigeria only came into being in its present form in the year 1914 when Sir Frederick Lugard, the Royal governor of the protectorates, amalgamated the two protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria.  Sixteen years earlier, Flora Shaw, who later married Lugard, first suggested in an article for The Times that the several British Protectorates on the Niger be known collectively as Nigeria (Crowder, 21).  Basically, the entire Niger-area under British control became Nigeria.

 It was in 1861 that the British first annexed any part of Nigeria as a colony, and attached it successively to West African Settlements, including Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast colony.  The annexing of Lagos, a coastal town and now the largest city in Africa, led to the establishment of a Southern protectorate in Nigeria, and by 1906 both regions were united and designated a British colony.  However, as Michael Crowder in his Story of Nigeria states, “it would be an error to assume that the people of Nigeria had little history before its final boundaries were negotiated by Britain, France and Germany at the turn of the twentieth century.”

In fact, the story of Nigeria as it is known today goes back more than two thousand years.  Within Nigeria’s frontiers were a number of great kingdoms that had evolved complex systems of government independent of contact with Europe.  These included the kingdoms of Ife and Benin, whose art had become recognized as amongst the most accomplished in the world; the Yoruba Empire of Oyo, which had once been the most powerful of the states of the Guinea coast.  In the north, there were the great kingdoms of Kanem-Borno, with a known history of more than a thousand years; the Fulani empire which for the hundred years before its conquest by Britain had ruled most of the savannah of Northern Nigeria.[2]  And finally, there were the city states of the Niger Delta, which had grown in response to European demands for slaves and later palm-oil; as well as the politically decentralized but culturally homogenous Ibo peoples of the Eastern region and the small tribes of the Plateau.  All these state structures grew tremendously through some form of trade, either internally or externally with foreigners.  One of the most profitable of such trades being the trade with Europeans in humans, popularly known as the Atlantic slave trade.

Post-independence

On 1 October 1960, Nigeria gained its independence from the United Kingdom. Nigeria's government was a coalition of conservative parties: the Nigerian People's Congress (NPC), a party dominated by Northerners,  and also the Southern dominated National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) led by Nnamdi Azikiwe, who became Nigeria's maiden Governor-General in 1960. Forming the opposition was the comparatively liberal Action Group (AG), which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. The cultural and political differences among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa ('Northerners'), Igbo ('Easterners') and Yoruba ('Westerners'), were sharp.

An imbalance was created in the polity by the result of the 1961 plebiscite. Southern Cameroon opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while northern Cameroon chose to remain in Nigeria. The northern part of the country was now far larger than the southern part. The nation parted with its British legacy in 1963 by declaring itself a Federal Republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. When elections were held in 1965, the Nigerian National Democratic Party came to power in Nigeria's Western Region.

For detailed information about the History of Nigeria visit the Press Club blog site on www.pispressclub.blogspot.com

President / Head Of State       Duration Of Term

Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa      1960 - 1966

Chief Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe      October 1, 1963 - January 16, 1966

Major General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi  January 16, 1966 - July 29, 1966

General Yakubu Gowon          August 1, 1966 - July 29, 1975

General Murtala Ramat Mohammed July 29, 1975 - February 13, 1976

General Olusegun Aremu Okikiola Matthew Obasanjo February 13, 1976 - October 1, 1979

Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari   October 1, 1979 - December 31, 1983

Major-General Muhammadu Buhari December 31, 1983 - August 27, 1985

General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida       August 27, 1985 - August 27, 1993

Chief Ernest Adegunle Oladeinde Shonekan        August 26, 1993 - November 17, 1993

General Sani Abacha     November 17, 1993 - June 8, 1998

General Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar (rtd.)       June 9, 1998 - May 29, 1999

General (rtd.) Olusegun Aremu Okikiola Matthew Obasanjo  May 29, 1999 - May 29, 2007

Umaru Musa Yar'Adua 29 May 2007 - 5 May 2010

Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan ( Acting President)  9 February 2010 - 6 May 2010

Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan   6 May 2010 - Present

Premier Cultural Day Comes up on the 28th of September

The cultural day of Premier International School will be coming up on friday the 28th of September. Both teachers and students are to dress in their native attires on that day to represent their diverse cultures.


Nigerian culture is as multi-ethnic as the people in Nigeria. The people of Nigeria still cherish their traditional languages, music, dance and literature. Nigeria comprises of three large ethnic groups, which are Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani and Igbo. However there are other ethnic groups as well. Thus culture in Nigeria is most positively multi-ethnic.

Culture of Nigeria gives a lot of value to different types of arts, which primarily include ivory carving, grass weaving, wood carving, leather and calabash. Pottery, painting, cloth weaving and glass and metal works.

There are more than 250 languages spoken in Nigeria. English is considered to be the official language. However, it is notable that not more than about 50% of the population are able to speak in English.
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