Nigeria

LAGOS, Nov 1 (Reuters) - A high-rise building under construction in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos collapsed on Monday, trapping several workers under a pile of concrete rubble, witnesses said.

Two workers at the site in the affluent neighbourhood of Ikoyi, where many blocks of flats are under construction, told Reuters that possibly 100 people were at work when the building came crashing down.

Building collapses are frequent in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials are often substandard.

ABUJA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Nigeria's army said on Thursday it had killed the new leader of insurgent group Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in a military operation this month, two weeks after announcing the death of the group's former head Abu Musab al-Barnawi.

ISWAP is an offshoot of the Boko Haram insurgent group that has been fighting against the Nigerian armed forces for over a decade. The two militant groups later turned on each other.

ABUJA, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Gunmen attacked a jail in Nigeria's Oyo State late on Friday and freed over 800 inmates by force, the third such major attack this year, prison service said in a statement on Saturday.

The prison service said the attackers were heavily armed and after an exchange of gunfire with prison officers, gained entry to the prison yard by blasting the walls with dynamite.

Some 575 inmates, who were all awaiting trial, were missing while 262 escapees had since been recaptured, it said, adding that the jail housed only 64 convicts, who did not escape.

20 Oct 2021; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was today welcomed by his Nigerian counterpart Muhammadu Buhari with an official ceremony at the Presidential Palace in the capital Abuja.

KANO (Nigeria), Oct 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Six women and nine children kidnapped by jihadists from Christian communities in Nigeria’s northeast have escaped their captors, walking for six days through the bush to freedom, an
official said Monday.

  The 15 hostages were seized separately from the farming villages of Takulashi in Borno state’s Chibok district and Kufre in neighbouring Adamawa’s Hong district several months ago.

  Chibok was the scene of the 2014 abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram which earned the jihadist group global notoriety.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has condemned the killing by unknown gunmen of a nurse it employed in Zamfara in northwest Nigeria, an area at the epicentre of a surge in violent crime in which thousands have been abducted.

MSF said nurse Mohammad Hassan, 37, was killed on Oct. 2 when armed men opened fire on the public transport vehicle in which he was travelling.

ABUJA, Oct 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari has directed a conditional lifting of the ban placed on the operations of the micro-blogging site, Twitter, in Nigeria in June.

Buhari disclosed this in his nationwide broadcast to Nigerians to mark the nation’s 61st independence.

He described the social media as a very useful platform but regretted that some users have misused the platform to organise, coordinate, and execute criminal activities, propagate fake news, and promote ethnic and religious sentiments.

ABUJA, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Gunmen killed at least 22 security personnel at a remote army base in a northwestern Nigerian state plagued by bandits and kidnappers, a lawmaker said.

Aminu Gobir and another security source said bandits attacked the base in Sokoto State close to the border with Niger on Sunday, killing 14 soldiers, five police officers and three members of a civil defence force.

ABUJA, Sept 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The Nigerian army on Friday said a high-profile member of the Boko Haram terrorist group was arrested during a raid.

The soldiers raided a market where terrorists buy materials to manufacture improvised explosive devices and seized Yawi Modu.

The army also arrested traders selling urea fertilizers to the terrorists.

Modu, a commander who had been on the lists of wanted terrorists, was arrested in Damboa, North East Borno State.

ABUJA, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari sacked the ministers for power and agriculture on Wednesday in a rare cabinet reshuffle, citing the need to improve economic management and the delivery of public services.

Saleh Mamman was replaced as power minister by Abubakar Aliyu, the minister of state for works and housing, while Mohammed Sabo Nanono was replaced as agriculture minister by Mohammad Abubakar, his counterpart at the environment ministry.