2013 African Cup Of Nations Finalists Emerge

The 2013 African Cup of nations tournament scheduled to take place in South Africa has been made up with the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon out from the scene despite the return of the nation's key striker, Samuel Eto'O. Cameroon was knocked out by Cape Verde. However, cameroon celebrated its lone goal scored by a product of the Samuel Eto'O Foundation, sixteen year old Fabrice Olinga in his national debut, earning him the youngest on his country's senior national team.

On the other scoreboards, Emmanuel Adebayor of Togo lifted his country with the decisive goal in a 3-2 victory against Gabon, while Ethiopia for the first time since 1982, defeated Sudan 2-0 for its formal entry.

The match between Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire at the Stade Leopold Sedar was abandoned fifteen minutes to the final whistle as a result of a severe troubling crowd when the China-based Didier Drogba scored his second goal from the penalty box.

The final qualified countries for the tournament in January and February are: host South Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, defending champions Zambia, Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Mali, Togo, Burkina Faso, Angola, Cape Verde, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

CANADA: Hope, smiles and tears at settlement open house

BY JON WELLS/THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR

Rose MacGowan, lead hand for the City of Hamilton, shoots a photo of Mary Onyia, grandmother to Prince Onyia, 13, and Nation Onyia, 6, from Nigeria, along with Joana Fejzaj from Albania and Mustafa Hashem, 12, from Iraq. Image: Kaz Novak/The Hamilton Spectator.

The woman from Iraq with a tiny Canadian flag sticking out of her purse spoke halting English.

She turned to her interpreter for help. But first he had to finish a mouthful of pizza.

He is 12 years old.

“I like Canada. It is very nice. There is no killing in the streets. I like the rules — the laws,” said the boy, whose name is Mustafa.

He was translating for his mother, Baadi, at City Hall.

They attended an open house Saturday aimed at helping new immigrants and refugees learn of the community services available to support their settlement in Canada.

More than 40 booths were set up representing groups ranging from the Hamilton Police Service to the Y to the Muslim Council of Hamilton and Hamilton Chinese Alliance Association. Organizers said about 150 people attended.

Young Mustafa might want to consider setting up his own booth next year. He is a Grade 7 student at Ryerson Public School. His sister, Zubaida, 13, was also there.

Zubaida wants to be a doctor someday. Mustafa? “A policeman and a soccer player.”

For refugees like their mother, the road to feeling at home in Canada can be a challenging one. But the two kids are proof of the maxim that youth adjust quickly to most anything.

The trio arrived in Hamilton from Iraq two-and-a-half years ago. The kids knew no English but now appear to speak it fluently.

Baadi, too, knows some of the language — she has been studying it in school — but is hesitant to use it when a journalist approaches out of the blue.

She did say on her own that she has enjoyed services offered in the community by the library and the Y.

“Things are very good here.”

The future is more uncertain for another recent refugee who dropped by the open house. Karol Pulgarin picked up some pamphlets while pushing her five-month-old, Bella, in a stroller.

Karol, her husband, Mauricio, and their daughter have been in Hamilton for two years. They hail from Colombia. They have applied to remain in Canada on humanitarian grounds but Canadian immigration officials have not yet approved their request.

She said two of her husband’s family members have been murdered in Colombia. She fears more violence if they are forced to return.

“Canada feels like my home and I’m so proud my daughter was born here. We want to raise her here.”

She held Bella in her arms and started to cry.

“We want to stay. It is a wonderful country.”

Deadly attack hits north Nigeria mosque

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Gunmen armed with rifles and machetes attacked a rural village Sunday in northern Nigeria, killing at least 12 people, including worshippers leaving a mosque after prayers before dawn, officials said.

The attack happened in Dogon Dawa, a village deep in the pasturelands of Kaduna state where police and security forces maintain only a light presence. The number of dead could be higher as emergency responders acknowledged that estimates of those killed in the attacks varied wildly and few eyewitnesses could be directly reached after the attacks. Police and soldiers also cut off access to the region Sunday, limiting the response of aid agencies.

A rescue official in the state who lives near the village told The Associated Press the attacks began in the early morning under the cover of darkness, with as many as 50 gunmen surrounding the village and its surrounding farmlands. The majority of those killed appeared to be leaving the village's main mosque after the early call to prayers, the official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of being targeted by those who carried out the attack. Kaduna state police commissioner Olufemi Adenaike later said 12 people were killed in the attack, though police in Nigeria routinely downplay casualties.

"We cannot ascertain the (total) number of people killed for now, and more over we cannot say what or who was responsible for the attack," Adenaike said. "We couldn't get immediate information from the area because the (mobile phone) network there is very poor."

While police routinely have many officers stationed throughout major cities in Nigeria, police presence in villages can sometimes be a single officer working out of someone's home.

The reasons for the attack remained unclear Sunday. The emergency official said locals already had blamed a gang of robbers who recently arrived from neighboring Zamfara state and had begun attacking villages and robbing people along the road. Dogon Dawa had formed a local vigilante committee to patrol their area and that group and the robbers had been killing each other over the course of the last weeks, the official said.

"This time around they decided to launch a reprisal attack," the official said.

However, activist Shehu Sani, who leads the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress, said it appeared the attack was between Muslim farmers and Muslim nomadic cattlemen who graze in the area. Tensions and violence spring up between the two groups over land rights, though not often with such an intensity.

"The spasm of violence and senseless bloodshed in the northern parts of Nigeria has reached an alarming and unacceptable level," Sani said.

Kaduna state sits on the fault line running between Nigeria's largely Christian south and Muslim north, where mass killings and violence have occurred over the last decade. After the April 2011 presidential election, protests over Christian Goodluck Jonathan winning quickly turned into ethnic and religious violence that saw hundreds killed in that state alone. There also have been church bombings and suicide car bomb attacks in the state as well, some carried out by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, which has killed more than 690 people across the country this year alone, according to an AP count.

In the northeast city of Maiduguri on Sunday, a bomb exploded near a neighborhood where a lieutenant was killed last week. That killing had set off a reprisal attack by soldiers stationed there that saw more than 30 civilians killed, locals said. The blast targeted those trying to go to a church nearby, military spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said. He did not say if anyone was injured in the blast.

Meanwhile, a traditional ruler in the city who helped gather others together in a conference calling for an end to attacks by Boko Haram was shot dead in his home Sunday afternoon, a security official said. The official said he believed Boko Haram gunmen targeted the ruler named Mala Kaka. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

The violence has embittered many living in the region and exposed the inability of Nigeria's weak central government to provide basic security in the nation of more than 160 million people.

Responding to the latest attack in Kaduna state, Sani said: "We have become a nation of unknown gunmen and absentee leaders."

Associated Press writer Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria, and an AP writer in Kaduna, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

Asian American vote could swing tight elections

LOS ANGELES – The Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), determined that more Asian Americans are voting than ever before.

In a paper entitled Asian Americans at the Ballot Box: The 2008 General Elections in Los Angeles County, the APALC said that the number of Asian Americans voting in the elections climbed steadily in the past 10 years. In LA County alone, a record total of 283,000 Asian Americans cast their votes in the 2008 elections.

In an election that might turn out to be a tight race to the finish, different ethnic voter groups, like the Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI), might just swing the tide and win the presidential seat for either President Barack Obama or Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

An increase in efforts to reach out to these AAPI groups could prove to be the shot in the arm that would power either candidate to victory, come November.

AAPI population could turn the tide.

An argument for the AAPI population could be made, in the sense that their growing numbers have reached “tipping-point” population levels in battleground or swing states, according to a report by NBC’s Richard Lui.

In Lui’s report on NBCNews.com, he used Florida as an example, a state where AAPIs are 3 percent of the total population, according to information from the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice. It’s a relatively small number but Obama won Florida in 2008 by only 2.5 percentage points.

Likewise, in Nevada, where AAPIs are only 9 percent; Obama won by 12.4 percentage points. In Virginia, where the Asian Americans number to around 7 percent, Obama won by only 6.3 percentage points.

Lui laid out another perspective with which we could examine the impact of the growing AAPI population in the election. In the nine battleground states covered by NBC News in 2008, Obama won by a popular margin of victory of almost 1.6 million votes.

The Asian American population in those states in 2010, said Lui, was pegged at 2.3 million. Even after taking out from the equation the AAPIs below 18 years old, or roughly 25% of the 2.3 million,that leaves us with 1.73 million voters – a number that is still larger than Obama’s margin of victory in those crucial states.

These numbers, as explained by Lui, emphasize the fact that the growing numbers of AAPIs in America are capable of delivering the deciding votes in a closely-fought election – which is what the November polls are shaping out to be.

Among the existing and emerging Asian American communities in the country, the number of AAPIs in the US continues to grow. Amounting to nearly 15.5 million people nationwide, Asian Americans comprise 5 percent of the total population.

According to the 2008 population estimates of the US Census Bureau, the largest community of Asian Americans can be found right here in Los Angeles County.

In APALC’s Asian Americans at the Ballot Box paper, it was found that the number of AAPIs voting in both the Presidential and Gubernatorial Elections across the Los Angeles County has steadily increased over the past decade. From 211,181 voters in the year 2000 Elections, an increased number of 293,043 Asian Americans cast their votes in the 2008 Elections.

Fil-Ams show significant degree of involvement

APALC noted in their paper that Filipino-Americans, the second largest Asian American electorate in LA County, voted in large numbers in cities across the county -- including Los Angeles, Carson, and Long Beach.

The LA County Voter File from the LA County Registrar of Voters note that of the 293,043 Asian Americans who cast their ballots in the 2008 General Elections, 24 percent of that are Filipinos – second only to the Chinese who made up 29 percent of the voters.

This high degree of voter turnout among Pinoys is pegged at 76 percent, a number that closely matches the turnout of all registered in the county, which is at 78 percent.

Among all Asian American communities, Filipinos were rated as the most politically involved segment of the AAPI population in LA County during the 2008 Elections. Following second are the Asian Indians, with 75 percent of their number casting votes. The turnout rate for the entire Asian community in LA County is rated at 71 percent.

Given these numbers, Mee Moua of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice in Washington, D.C. said in an interview with NBCNews.com that Asian Americans need to be closely considered by the candidates for the upcoming elections.

“As we head toward election day, candidates and political parties will step up their voter engagement efforts,” Moua told NBCNews.com, “Those who want to succeed will recognize the importance of the Asian American voter. Those who ignore us, do so at their own peril.”

.......MICO LETARGO/ASIAN JOURNAL, LA WEEKEND OCTOBER 13-16, 2012

LAGbook Founders Set to Launch Online Game Development Company Naija Arts in 2013

PRESS RELEASE

Lagos, Nigeria, October 13, 2012 -- Founders of prominent African social networking website, Ladies And Gentlemen book, popularly known as LAGbook, today announced they'll be launching Naija Arts, an online game development company after LAGbook hits the 1,000,000 member-mark in 2013.

Naija Arts will be founded with LAGbook's Chief Financial Officer, Josh Osemwegie, and will focus on online game contents (HTML5) that will made available on the LAGbook social discovery platform, and the Naija Arts website using the HTML iframe technology.

"We want Naija Arts to be Africa's equivalent of Miniclip. Initially we registered Naija Arts last year, and started working on Oleku, a 3D computer game for Windows. Oleku was to be a street (crime) life and survival game with features of famous locations in Nigeria. But the piracy issue in Nigeria became too disturbing," said Chidi Nwaogu, Co-founder of LAGbook.

Chidi continued, "We tried our hands on creating free trial versions that will need paid licensing after 15-days of pay, but then we realized the license key(s) could be distributed along with the free trial versions for payment. Which ever way we turned, there was a counter piracy attack. This inhibited the project, and finally the development came to a halt."

"We figured out that online gaming contents was the only way to prevent piracy. We'll make money off the ads placed on the web pages in which the games are embedded on using the HTML iframe technology. But then, we needed a huge traffic, and a ready database of potential gamers. So we decided to pour more energy into the growth of LAGbook, and introduce our online game contents once our user size is robust and impressive," said Chika Nwaogu, CEO and President at LAGbook, Inc.

Chika continued, "LAGbook is now what we have always wanted it to be; a fast growing social networking website, and this has rekindled our dream for Naija Arts. Once LAGbook hits the one million member-mark extrapolated to be in the early months of 2013, we'll be releasing Boko, a 3D adventure game based on the Boko Haram menace in Nigeria."

"We thought Nigerians want to play Boko, more than they would want a survival game like Oleku. So we will be debuting with Boko, and Oleku follows subsequently. Boko will be the first three dimensional computer game born out of Africa, and we'll be blessed to break that record," said Chidi

"I'm glad to be a co-founder of this project. I intend contributing with early investments, and financial planning. I'll be Co-founder and CFO at Naija Arts, and you don't know how much that means to me," said Josh Osemwegie, CFO at LAGbook, Inc.

LAGbook is Africa's largest and fastest growing social networking website with about 500,000 registered users and 6,000 daily signups. LAGbook is most popular in the cities of Yaba in Lagos-Nigeria (where it was incepted and ranks #2), Hirtshals and Sindal in Denmark (where it is ranked #37 and #28 respectively), and Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong (where it is ranked #27).

LAGbook Inc.

Nosa Ilegbinehi

+2348183042794

LAGBOOK

EFCC Traces N1 Billion Property to Former Bayelsa Governor

North — Two choice property said to belong to the former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva, have been uncovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which is currently in court with the suspect over a case of corrupt enrichment while in office.

A competent source in the commission told Saturday Vanguard last night that the property which worth over N1 billion were traced to companies owned by Sylva.

The source said that the property, which are located in choice areas of Abuja, were discovered in the ongoing investigation into how Sylva looted Bayelsa during his tenure as the governor of the state.

The source added that the anti- graft agency had also uncovered a network of fronts through which the former governor acquired choice property in major cities especially Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.

One of the properties linked to the former governor is a duplex valued at N310m situated at Cachez Estate, Mpape, Abuja while the other is a mansion valued at N700m located off Ademola Adetokunbo Crescent in high brow Wuse 2, Abuja.

The Wuse mansion was acquired in the name of Marlin Maritime Limited, a company owned by Timipre Sylva.

The managing Director of the Company, Gbenga Balogun, is said to have fled as EFCC operatives closed in on him in the course of investigation of the Sylva era in Bayelsa, during which billions of naira is said to have been looted by him and his officials.

In spite of the escapee of the fronts, the operatives of the commission are reported to be working round the clock to arrest the culprits and bring them to account for the public funds.

Several accounts have already been traced to the front (name withheld) who allegedly opened many of them in his name using different passport photographs. The front, (name withheld) is currently on the run. Meanwhile, Sylva is already standing trial before a Federal High Court in Abuja on a six-count charge bordering on fraud and money laundering.

But in a swift reaction, the spokesman for Timipre Sylva, Mr. Ola Doife, challenged EFCC to stop trying the former governor in the media but to collate any evidence at its disposal and present it in court since the matter was already pending.

Doife maintained that Sylva remained innocent of the charges until proved otherwise by a competent court of jurisdiction in the land.

..........SONI DANIEL/VANGUARD, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2012

In Imo State, It's Flood of Tears

How to describe the level of devastation caused by flood in no fewer than 15 communities in Oguta and Ohaji/Egbema local council areas of Imo State is no doubt a herculean task. It is also true that the degree of harm caused the harmless and hapless citizens and the environment by the rampaging flood is better imagined than seen.

This is the worst flooding Egbema and Oguta people experienced for a long time. The first in recent memory was in 1947, the year of the eclipse of the sun. There was also that of 1969, during the war but this one surpasses all of them, according to some aged men in the two areas.

In Egbema axis, Opuoma, Obiakpu, Mmahu and Abacheke communities have very sad stories to tell about the flood. A former member of House of Representatives, Chief Tony Okere, who took representatives of Rotary International, District 9140, to the submerged communities, told Saturday Vanguard that the flood did not spare the Independent Power Plant, which is under construction in the area.

"About 25,000 people have been displaced from their homes, including the former Speaker of Imo State House of Assembly, Chief Goodluck Nanah Opiah. Similarly, the road leading to Ndoni, the country home of the former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili, has been taken over by flood", Okere recounted with tears.

Reacting also to the ugly development, the Assistant Governor of Rotary International, District 9140, Chief C. J. Ihemedu, described what the delegation saw in Oguta and Egbema as "traumatic" and even warned that if nothing was done immediately, an epidemic of unimaginable proportion could engulf the disaster zone.

The story is not different in Oguta. Two people reportedly drowned in Oguta axis. All the riverine arreas, including Orsu, Nnebukwu, Orsu Obodo, Opuoma, Ezi Orsu are under water.

Saturday Vanguard gathered that fish ponds, cocoa plantations, farm lands, plantain, cassava, economic trees and crops are presently under water. Over 123 farm settlements and satellite towns are under water. Almost 8,000 persons have no homes now.

Over 1,000 homes have been sacked in Oguta, including the home of the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development Commission, Engr. Ernest Nwapa and the bridge connecting Oguta and Egbuoma, the home of the Secretary to the Government of Imo State, SGI, Professor Anthony Gozie Anwuka, has been swallowed. This bridge also leads to Senator Nzeribe's home.

The multi million Naira Erima Agwuagu Plantation is in water. The pavilion, from where dignitaries watch the fanciful regatta during the Ozurimo festival is under water. The ferry has since ceased to function because the landing ramp is under water now.

REFUGEES

Oguta community has set up well knit machinery to accommodate the displaced persons in individual homes. It is an effort coordinated by the community to alleviate the sufferings of the internally displaced persons to avert chaos.

Answering questions from Saturday Vanguard, the traditional ruler of Oguta, Eze Nnani Nzeribe, said that no fewer than 65 persons live in one farm satellite settlement, adding that 123 of such settlements have been sacked by flood. "Apart from one or two flow stations, all the oil wells and pipelines are under water. Shell has shut down its operations in Umuorodogwom", the royal father said.

IMPACT

Wildlife, as well as fauna and flora have been completely destroyed. Premature harvesting of cassava, yams and other crops is now on for those who were lucky to be around when the flood started.

For the royal father, it is tragic to note that his subjects woke up one morning and lost what took a lifetime to acquire, adding that some people have aged overnight and broken hearted. But for the grace of God more people would have died.

"It is sad that people will start life afresh. Help must come to them as fast as possible. Immediate remedy would be in form clothing, housing, food, healthcare because of the possibility of an epidemic breaking out soon", Eze Nzeribe said.

According to the traditional ruler, the long term measure will be to find a way of preventing such a catastrophe in future and suggested the dredging of the Lake Urashi River so that the depth is increased to contain more volume of water. He also called for the building of proper embankment along the shores of the Lake.

"Medium term approach would be to rehabilitate the displaced families when the flood recedes by providing both materials and cash to enable them return to their farms. They will also need seedlings and seed money to enable them return to their farms", the royal father pleaded.

GERALD IRONA PROVIDES SOME RELIEF MATERIALS

Chief Gerald Irona, representing the area in the National Assembly, have provided relief materials for eight different communities in Oguta and Ohaji/Egbema communities sacked by flood. The materials included bags of rice, garri, beans, bournvita, disinfectants, soap, detergent, tomato paste, cooking oil and yam. He also made promises, including grant and seedlings.

SERIOUS CONCERN

The situation on ground calls for a very serious concern, both immediate and future. It is immediate because the people have lost their means of livelihood. Oguta and Egbema remains the food basket of Imo State and beyond. In view of the flooding, which has occasioned the washing way and submersion of the crops and plants, the farmers have lost their crops and have no hope of getting seedlings.

Again, most people have lost their houses where they live, in addition to losing their ancestral homes. The cumulative effect of this flooding is that in the long term, people will no longer have a place to live and there is the possibility of famine and starvation.

Again, the water has been polluted. It is now stinking. People in the affected communities have now been exposed to epidemic outbreak. The cumulative effect of the above is that the lives of the people are in serious danger.

IRONA REACTS

"It is regrettable that as at the time of this interview, no meaningful assistance has come from r the state, the federal government or its agencies. However, the constituency is very pleased with the visit of the Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Chief Emeka Ihedioha, for his timely visit and intervention", Irona said.

It was the considered opinion of the lawmaker that deliberate effort must be put in place to ensure that the victims of the flood are well taken care of, even as he advised that "people should not politicize the flood issue in his constituency, considering the machinations and scheming of some individual(s), who believe that this is an opportunity to position themselves to hijack whatever succor that might be released by the Federal Government".

All the people that talked to Saturday Vanguard used the medium to urge the local, state and federal government and their interventionist agencies like National Emergency Management Agency, State Emergency Management Agency, Niger Delta Development Commission and Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, to live up to their primary responsibility by ensuring the immediate provision of food and medical relief materials to the flood victims as a stop gap measure to ameliorate their immediate needs.

They also appealed to their lawmakers to use their positions to ensure that whatever relief materials meant for the people gets to the appropriate communities and affected individuals. They expressed disgust that some people have already started some clandestine moves to benefit from the misery and adversity of hapless individuals.

........CHIDI NKWOPARA/VANGUARD, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2012

Nigerian journalist wins landmark court victory

Desmond Utomwen

"If a journalist can't fight for his own right, then he has no responsibility to fight for others," Desmond Utomwen, a senior correspondent with TheNews Magazine/PM News, told me after a High Court judge on October 4 awarded him 100 million naira (US$637,000) in special damages from the Nigeria Police Force and Guarantee Trust Bank Plc.

Utomwen's victory represents the largest award for any journalist in Nigeria's 52-year history as an independent nation and sets a clear precedent for the country's beleaguered press.

Utomwen was cruelly brutalized by several policemen in collaboration with staff of Guarantee Trust Bank on December 11, 2009, for covering a peaceful protest outside the bank's premises in Area 3 of the capital, Abuja. The bank's customers were protesting alleged fraudulent ATM withdrawals said to have been made by the bank's officials, according to local journalists and news reports.

Utomwen had asked the court to declare that his fundamental human rights had been violated when he was obstructed from working; had his equipment forcefully taken; and was attacked and hit with gun butts until he was unconscious, before being bundled into a police vehicle and detained for several hours without access to medical treatment.

For two years and 10 months, Utomwen relentlessly sought justice. The case passed through two judges before reaching Justice Peter Kekemeke, who declared the actions violated the journalist's right to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, right to own moveable and immoveable property, and right to freedom of the press and expression as protected in sections 34, 39, and 44 of the 1999 Constitution.

"My lawyer had to ask the previous judge to disqualify herself and the case be reassigned because it was unnecessarily being stalled. That led to this judgment," Utomwen said.

Lashe Osoba, Guarantee Trust Bank spokesman, told me the bank would appeal the ruling. Police spokesman Frank Mba declined to comment on the case. Ugochukwu Ezekiel of Festus Keyamo Chambers, who took up Utomwen's case on a pro-bono basis, told me that a notice of appeal cannot act as a stay of proceedings. He said a garnishment order against the police and the bank will be filed to enforce the court's judgment.

By coincidence, on the same day Utomwen was drawing a close to his long-fought court battle, Benedict Uwalaka of Leadership Newspapers, a journalist who was assaulted on August 9, 2012, allegedly by mortuary attendants at a government hospital, received a lesson in the value of perseverance. Uwalaka's court case came up for hearing on October 4 but was adjourned until November 13 due to power failure--just the type of frivolous delay characteristic of judicial proceedings, including Utomwen's trial.

"The magistrate said he couldn't see as there was no light in court. So another date was chosen," Uwalaka told me. He said Utomwen's victory had emboldened him in his quest for justice.

The Nigeria Union of Journalists, a party to both lawsuits, has unflinchingly supported Utomwen and Uwalaka and refused all entreaties to settle out of court. Mohammed Garba, the union's president, told me the organization's new strategy of seeking legal redress, as opposed to mere condemnation, is yielding dividends.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel told me he would continue to take cases of journalists assaulted in the line of duty free of charge.

Still nursing pains to his spinal cord since the attack, Utomwen reiterated his fight for justice was not for the money but the profession of journalism.

..............PETER NKANGA/CPJ, West Africa Consultant

Doctor Took HIV-Infected Blood On Flight From Nigeria

A consultant lost his job at an NHS hospital after carrying a sample of HIV-infected blood in his hand luggage while flying from Africa to the UK, a High Court judge has heard.

Tubonye Harry - who was a genito-urinary specialist at the James Paget Hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk - was returning from Nigeria, where he did private work, Mr Justice Burnett was told.

The judge said the sample should have been packed in the aircraft's hold and Dr Harry had breached regulations designed to prevent passengers being exposed to infection.

Dr Harry had also broken rules by opening a package containing the sample at home instead of in a laboratory, the judge added. He was dismissed by James Paget bosses earlier this year.

Details of the case emerged as Mr Justice Burnett ruled on a dispute between Dr Harry and the General Medical Council (GMC) - which registers doctors - at a High Court hearing in London.

Dr Harry, who also faced a number of other allegations relating to his work, has been suspended pending the outcome of GMC disciplinary proceedings, the judge was told. But he argued that the GMC's 18-month interim suspension was unfair and unnecessary - and the judge agreed.

Mr Justice Burnett terminated the suspension, which prevented Harry from seeking alternative work, saying it was "disproportionate".

The judge said Dr Harry had also been accused of failing to "properly insulate" NHS work from private work. He said it was also alleged that, when confronted with a suggestion that he was using NHS resources for private patients, Dr Harry had asked a member of staff to "amend the paperwork".

Mr Justice Burnett said the interim orders panel of the GMC had suspended Dr Harry in April. But he concluded that the suspension was "heavy handed", adding: "In my judgment, there was no real risk to members of the public in Dr Harry's continuing to practise."

Mr Justice Burnett outlined detail of the case in a written ruling handed down on Friday following a hearing in September.

.......THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD

Persecuted Zimbabwe farmers boots Nigerian economy

KWARA — Graham Hatty, who was driven off his land in Zimbabwe a decade ago, is helping Nigeria in its drive to return to food self-sufficiency.

The cassava he grows in central Kwara state was on the first ship exporting the crop to China, in August.

The government is trying to boost production of the starchy root, as well as of rice and sugar, to slash the $10 billion spent every year on food imports. President Goodluck Jonathan plans to increase food production by 20 million metric tonnes by 2015 by providing land, funding and lending via the central bank.

“The potential is tremendous,” Hatty (73) said from the balcony of his farmhouse in Shonga, which overlooks a lawn dividing his house from cassava fields near the bank of the Niger River. “There’s huge demand for cassava flour, especially by biscuit makers.”

Africa’s biggest oil producer is trying to reverse a decline in the agriculture industry that has led to a 16-fold increase in wheat imports since 1970, when the country’s oil boom began. Half of Nigeria’s 160 million people live in rural areas and four-fifths of those are below the poverty line, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The country, which grew enough food to feed itself in the 1960s, is now the world’s largest importer of rice and sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest importer of wheat and sugar.

“We want to be the largest processor of cassava in the world and not export jobs to other countries that are exporting wheat to Nigeria,” Akinwunmi Adesina, the country’s Agriculture minister told reporters in Abuja, the capital, in July. “Why do farmers in Arkansas, in Nebraska, love Nigeria? Because we keep buying wheat we don’t produce.”

Hatty and 12 other white Zimbabwean farmers moved to Nigeria in 2004 after his soya bean, maize and wheat farm was seized by armed men as part of a government programme of land expropriation.

He was recruited to come to Nigeria by the Kwara state government, which sent delegations asking dispossessed farmers to emigrate. Zimbabwe, once Africa’s second-biggest corn exporter, now imports its staple food.

While four of those who came with Hatty have left, the others run poultry and dairy operations, he said.

Nigeria is now taking further steps, including central bank funding for farmers, tax holidays for investors and regulation designed to favour local crops, as it seeks to revive an industry that once exported peanuts, palm oil and cotton. The country is still the world’s fourth-biggest cocoa exporter. Agriculture, including subsistence farming, accounts for more than 40% of gross domestic product, compared with 16% for oil.

Flour millers in Africa’s most populous country are now required to blend cassava into wheat flour. The current ratio of 20% is set to rise to 40% by 2015, according to a regulation passed in October last year.

Wheat imports will fall by 20% initially and by 40% once the set targets are reached, Olalekan Saliu, executive secretary of the Lagos-based Flour Milling Association of Nigeria, said in an interview on July 30. Association members include Flour Mills of Nigeria, Dangote Flour Mills and Honeywell Flour Mills.

In the last crop year, Nigeria produced just 100 000 tonnes of wheat, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). About 650 billion naira ($4,1 billion) of wheat was imported last year, most of it from the US, according to the Agriculture ministry. Nigeria bought 3,25 million tonnes of US wheat in the 2011-2012 marketing year ended May 31 the USDA said.

A 65% levy on imports of wheat flour came into effect on July 1 in addition to the existing 35% import duty, Finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in Abuja on July 11. The proceeds will be used to set up a cassava fund for further research to increase wheat substitution, she said.

The country also consumes about 5,4 million tonnes of rice a year, of which it produces 2,3 million tonnes, according to the Agriculture minister. The government is seeking to end imports, mostly from India and Thailand, in three years by bringing more land under cultivation through incentives to farmers, President Jonathan said in August last year. Those imports cost 350 billion naira a year.

The central bank has made available $800 million for loans, which will be used to set up rice mills across the country, Adesina told reporters in Abuja on March 1. Still, the country has obstacles to remove if it is to foster an agricultural revival.

Aside from the initial funding provided to Hatty by the Kwara state government, he hasn’t been able to secure credit from banks even though the central bank has pledged to make money available and is pushing commercial banks to do the same. That’s hampered plans to introduce irrigation to grow cassava year-round and plant rice on his land by the river bank.

“Banks aren’t interested in agriculture, and if they’re not going to get interested, agriculture can’t grow,” he said. “We’ve been hearing for years that central bank money is coming, but it goes to these big companies; it doesn’t come to us small guys.” - Bloomberg

Gay Nigerian Man Facing 'Threat Of Death' Deported From UK

A gay Nigerian man has been deported from the UK despite being under the threat of death if returned to his home country.

Members of equal rights campaign group AllOut.org flooded the Home Office with telephone calls last week in opposition to the decision to deport Olalekan M. Ayelokun to Nigeria, where homosexuality is illegal.

Ayelokun was placed on a chartered flight at 11.20pm on Wednesday 10 October. ‘I feel terrible, traumatised’, he said from Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre last week, ‘I am very afraid they are going to kill me in Nigeria.’

His application for asylum was rejected after a judge ruled that he did not believe that Ayelokun is gay. Friends and lovers – including a member of the British civil service – were unable to convince the judge that the Nigerian lives as an openly gay man.

‘Ola’s case shows that if you are fleeing persecution, you can never be ‘gay enough’ to be granted asylum in the UK,’ said AllOut.org Executive Director and Co-Founder Andre Banks. ‘The judge in this case has actively rejected evidence provided by Ola’s solicitor that proves he is gay and now he is on his way to a country where who he loves could land him in jail – or worse.’

There are increasing reports of LGBT people claiming asylum in the UK on the grounds that homosexuality is criminalised in their home countries. A lack of specific guidelines has led to many judges rejecting their claims.

In 2010, David Cameron said that LGBT people facing imprisonment, torture and death should not be sent home. ‘If you have a legitimate fear of persecution, then it seems to me that is a perfectly legitimate reason to stay,’ he said.

LGBT people in Nigeria can face up to 14 years in prison for ‘gay acts’

..........SOSO GAY