Agricultural Degree Takes MSU Student To Nigeria

By Bonnie Coblentz
MSU AG Communications

MISSISSIPPI STATE – A career interest developed in Mississippi State University’s School of Human Sciences led one student to Nigeria, where she spent a week teaching agriculture.

Alyssa Barrett, a senior agricultural science major from Wiggins, spent spring break in the West African nation teaching Nigerians how to plant and use moringa trees. Her team used Extension Service techniques to share practical information designed to improve lives.
“It was very different for me to try to tell people from another country what they needed to do with what they had, especially when I had just learned some of the information the night before,” Barrett said. “This was my first experience ever dealing with Extension-type work overseas.”

Barrett travelled to Nigeria with a team from Christian World Missions of Starkville. The team’s goal was to start churches in the country and to offer agricultural training.
“I had to learn something very quickly, and then use an interpreter to be able to explain information that will make their lives better,” Barrett said. “It was a challenge, and I loved it.”
Susan Seal, director of outreach for Christian World Missions, said the group worked with Mike Oye, a Nigerian with a doctorate in agriculture and a background in the Extension Service. Oye, a staff member of Christian World Missions, developed the curriculum the team used. Seal has a background in the Extension Service and earned her doctorate in agriculture and Extension education from MSU.

“We used indigenous plants and resources that the people would have in their villages,” Seal said. “Dr. Oye took us on an ag tour where we collected samples of the plants that we could take to the villages where we taught.

“We focused on crop production and human health. Our goal was to teach the people how to increase their crop production with the resources they already had,” she said.

Oye developed a list of natural farm inputs easily available in the tropics to poor and rural farmers. The team collected samples of each input and then taught farmers in the villages how to use these items alone or in combination to increase the productivity of their crops.
Among these local inputs were plants that fix nitrogen in the soil, supply phosphorus and trace minerals, or act as a natural pesticide.

“Alyssa participated in all the activities that we did,” Seal said. “She had an opportunity to see in an international setting some of the similarities and differences in agriculture, and from a cultural standpoint, she learned the importance of meeting with the chief and getting his blessing before she could do any work in the village.”

Barrett earned class credit for the work she did in Nigeria through a directed individual study she completed with Ned Browning, an Extension professor in MSU’s School of Human Sciences. Browning teaches an international agricultural education class that has a strong emphasis on using Extension Service methods in developing countries.

“During the last half of Alyssa’s undergraduate experience, she really developed a strong interest in international affairs,” Browning said. “When we found that Dr. Oye has credentials in Extension education and rural society, this seemed like a great orientation for her to understand Extension in another culture in an international setting.”

Browning said he urges all students to study or work abroad while completing their education.

“Any international experience makes people see that the world is varied. It’s not everything you perceive it to be,” Browning said. “For college students in their formative years, international experiences gives them a better perspective on the realities of the world.”

Four days after Barrett returned from Nigeria, she put together a poster presentation of the work she did in Nigeria for the directed individual study. She submitted this poster to MSU’s undergraduate research symposium and won first place in the community engagement portion of the competition.

Barrett graduated May 10 from MSU with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science. This summer, she will continue her international agricultural experiences as a Cochran Fellowship Intern in Washington, D.C. She will work with the Foreign Agricultural Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Barrett will return to MSU in the fall to work on a master’s degree in agricultural and Extension education.
 
Released: May 16, 2013

    Contact: Dr. Ned Browning, (662) 325-1718

Four Nigerians Among 5 Shortlisted For African Writing Prize

AFP - Four of the five writers shortlisted for this year's Caine Prize for African Writing are from Nigeria, a first for the prestigious award, organisers revealed Wednesday.

The fifth contestant is from Sierra Leone, according to a list released on the Caine Prize website.

The five were chosen from 96 entries from 16 African countries.

"The five contrasting titles interrogate aspects of things that we might feel we know of Africa - violence, religion, corruption, family, community - but these are subjects that are deconstructed and beautifully remade," said the chief judge and historian Gus Casely-Hayford.

"These are challenging, arresting, provocative stories of a continent and its descendants captured at a time of burgeoning change."

The winner of the 10,000 pound ($15,200) prize will be announced in July in Oxford, England.

The four Nigerians whose 2012 titles made it to the final list are Elnathan John for his "Bayan Layi"; Tope Folarin for "Miracle"; Abubakar Adam Ibrahim for "The Whispering Trees" and Chinelo Okparanta for "America".

The Sierra Leonean entry is "Foreign Aid" by Pede Hollist.

The Caine Prize counts the African Nobel winners Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee among its patrons.

Nigeria steps up fight against Islamist extremists

President declares state of emergency in north-east and promises more troops to tackle rebellion

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

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Nigeria's president has declared a state of emergency across the country's troubled north-east, promising to send more troops to fight what he said is now an open Islamist rebellion.

Goodluck Jonathan, speaking live on state radio and television networks, also warned that any building suspected to house Islamic extremists would be taken over in what he described as the "war" now facingAfrica's most populous nation. However, it's unclear what the emergency powers will do to halt the violence, as a similar past effort failed to stop the bloodshed.

"It would appear that there is a systematic effort by insurgents and terrorists to destabilise the Nigerian state and test our collective resolve," Jonathan said.

Jonathan said the order will be in force in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. He said the states would receive more troops, though he will not remove state politicians from their posts. Under Nigerian law, the president has the power to remove politicians from their posts and install a caretaker government in emergency circumstances.

The president's speech offered the starkest vision yet of the ongoing violence, often downplayed by security forces and government officials due to political considerations. Jonathan described the attacks as a "rebellion", at one point describing how fighters had destroyed government buildings and "had taken women and children as hostages".

"Already, some northern parts of Borno state have been taken over by groups whose allegiance are to different flags than Nigeria's," Jonathan said.

The president later added: "These actions amount to a declaration of war and a deliberate attempt to undermine the authority of the Nigerian state and threaten (its) territorial integrity. As a responsible government, we will not tolerate this."

Since 2010, more than 1,600 people have been killed in attacks by Islamic insurgents. Recently, Nigeria's military has said Islamic fighters now use anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks to fight the nation's soldiers, likely outgunning the country's already overstretched security forces.

Meanwhile, violence pitting different ethnic groups against each other continues, with clashes that kill dozens at a time. In addition, dozens of police officers and agents of the country's domestic spy agency were recently killed by a militia.

One of the main Islamic extremist groups fighting Nigeria's weak central government is Boko Haram.

The group has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and strict Islamic law adopted across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. It has produced several splinter groups, and analysts say its members have contact with two other al-Qaida-linked groups in Africa.

The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed 700 people.

The group's leader died in police custody, in an apparent killing. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings. Recently, however, they've begun to use military-grade weapons, some of which they apparently seized from Nigerian military stockpiles.

It remains unclear how much effect Jonathan's announcement will have. In late December 2011, he declared a similar state of emergency over parts of four states, including Borno and Yobe. The extremist attacks continued despite that.

Nigeria's military and police also have been repeatedly accused by human rights activists and others of torturing and summarily killing suspects, as well as burning down civilian homes and killing civilians in retaliation for militant attacks.

The latest incident, in a fishing village in Borno state along the shores of Lake Chad, saw at least 187 people killed and there are allegations that soldiers are responsible. While the military has denied repeatedly that it attacks and kills civilians, the country's armed forces have a history of committing such assaults.

Separately on Tuesday, an official in the central Nigerian state of Kaduna said gunmen armed with assault rifles and suspected to be Hausa-Fulani cattle herders killed 11 people in a village there. And in Benue state, a government spokesman said an attack blamed on Hausa-Fulani cattle herders there killed at least 12 people.

Feds charge 89 people, including doctors, nurses, with Medicare fraud

By Jeff Black, Staff writer, NBC News

Attorney General Eric Holder speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington on Tuesday.

In a major crackdown on healthcare fraud across the country, 89 people, including 14 doctors and nurses, were charged for their roles in various Medicare scams that bilked taxpayers of some $223 million through bogus charges, federal officials said Tuesday.

Some people allegedly posed as doctors and wrote bogus prescriptions for drugs and psychotherapy therapy and then billed the government $12 million.

Others are accused of bribing Medicare patients for their ID numbers, then using those numbers to bill $20 million in home health care never performed or not medically necessary.

The lead suspect in that case used the money to buy luxury cars, including two Lamborghinis and a Ferrari, officials said.

About 400 federal agents were involved in Tuesday's arrests, raiding businesses, seizing documents and charging suspects in Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Tampa, Fla., and Baton Rouge, La.

The dragnet was announced by Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as the latest in a series of busts over the past four years to crack down on fraud that is believed to annually cost Medicare billions of  dollars.

In all the schemes, profit was a driving force, officials said.

“Today's takedown is the latest sign we are beginning to turn the tide on Medicare fraud,” Sebelius said in a news conference.

Holder said during the four-year crackdown by a federal strike force that 1,500 people have been arrested in connection to schemes involving nearly $2 billion in fraudulent billings.

He claimed that $8 dollars are returned to the U.S. Treasury for every dollar spent on the investigations.

Still, he said the battle against health care fraud is being affected by the across-the-board budget cuts called sequestration, which have trimmed $1.6 billion in funding from the Justice Department in the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

"Unless Congress adopts a balanced deficit reduction plan and stops the reductions currently slated for 2014, I fear our capacity to protect the American people from healthcare fraud ... will be further reduced," Holder said.

Sebelius said the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, gives the government more tools to combat fraud.

“By expanding our authority to suspend Medicare payments and reimbursements when fraud is suspected, the law allows us to better preserve the system and save taxpayer dollars.” Sebelius said. “Today we’re sending a strong, clear message to anyone seeking to defraud Medicare: You will get caught and you will pay the price. We will protect a sacred trust and an earned guarantee.”

In Miami, where 25 people were charged for their role in various fraudulent schemes totaling $44 million, federal officials allege that in one scheme three suspects bribed Medicare patients for their identification numbers, then used the information to bill the government $20 million for medically unnecessary home health care services.

“The lead defendant spent much of the money from the scheme and purchased multiple luxury vehicles including two Lamborhinis, a Ferrari and a Bentley,” according to a statement from Health and Human Services and the Justice Department.

In Detroit, 18 people, including two doctors, a physician's assistant and two therapists, were charged in various scams totaling some $49 million in false claims for medically unnecessary services, including home health, psychotherapy and infusion therapy.

In one Detroit case, three people allegedly posed as licensed physicians and wrote bogus prescriptions for drugs and psychotherapy services totaling $12 million, according to the HHS-DOJ statement. 

Tuesday’s announcement on the Medicare-fraud sweep was overshadowed by reporters inquiring about two other scandals involving Holder’s Justice Department: That the attorney general’s office seized Associated Press phone records in a probe of a national security leak and a DOJ probe into reports that the IRS gave extra scrutiny to some conservative groups when auditing nonprofit organizations.

Nigeria: Inside Boko Haram Bama Massacre

Bodies of prison officers killed by Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram are seen in Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. May 7, 2013. Suspected members of Boko Haram armed with machineguns laid siege on the northeastern town of Bama on Tuesday, freeing over 100 prison inmates and leaving 55 people dead, the military said. Image: Stringer/Reuters

Soldiers enter into the gate of Bama Prison, Maiduguri, Borno State, May 7, 2013.

Military vehicles approach the entrance of the Shehu's Palace of Bama, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. May 7, 2013. Suspected members of Boko Haram armed with machineguns laid siege on the northeastern town of Bama on Tuesday, freeing over 100 prison inmates and leaving 55 people dead, the military said.

Injured policemen are seen outside Shehu's Palace of Bama, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria. May 7, 2013. 

Nigerian relatives of the slain policemen react next to ambulances carrying the bodies to a mortuary in Lafia, Nigeria, 09 May 2013. At least 28 policemen were killed in central Nigeria by an ethnic militia, an official said late 08 May. The clash occurred on 07 May 2013 in Lakwio, near Lafia, the capital of Nasarawa State, said Alhaji Sani Mairiga, the state governor's spokesman. Members of the tribal group Ombatse, meaning 'the time has come' in the Eggon language, reportedly ambushed the police as they approached the village, Police Commissioner Abayomi Akinrimale was quoted as saying by local media. Image: EPA

A policeman inspects the site of the Bama Massacre to clollect evidence May 7, 2013 in Maiduguri, Borno State. Image: Stringer/Reuters

NIGERIA: State of Emergency Declared in 3 States

President Goodluck Jonathan has declared state of emergency in three states - Adamawa, Yobe and Borno - ordering more troops to be sent to the areas. In his address to the nation Tuesday, May 14, 2013, the president said: "What we are facing is not just militancy or criminality, but a rebellion and insurgency by terrorist groups which pose a very serious threat to national unity and territorial integrity." "We will hunt them down, we will fish them out, and we will bring them to justice," Egbon Jonathan continued.

Adichie's Love Tales And The Push Factor

Ambrose Ehirim/The Ambrose Ehirim Files

Americanah

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Random House, 477 pages; $26.95

Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie poses for a photograph after a reading of her new book 'Americanah' in Lagos April 27, 2013. Image: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters

Around October 2011, on the course of my ongoing interviews series, I had called Charles "Young Dick Tiger" Nwokolo at his Hollywood business office, Tiger's Boxing Gym, for chit-chats on what had persuaded him to choose boxing as a career and why he had decided to live in Los Angeles after the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in which he was a contingent representing Nigeria alongside his teammates - Jerry "Loud-mouth" Okorodudu and Peter Konyegwachi who won a silver medal at the games.

After a couple of meets and interviews, Young Dick Tiger consulted with his fiance, Elizabeth Wilson, told her about my trips to the gym and questions I had asked during sessions of the interview. On my third stop to continue and wrap up with the interview, Wilson and Young Dick Tiger were waiting, and, upon my arrival, Wilson raised a bunch of issues after having gone through my Facebook pages, my blogs and related websites and, having taken bit of lessons regarding the pogrom and the Civil War in Nigeria, in which I have presented in a variety of ways, and her acknowledging reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel "Half of a Yellow Sun," admiring the flavor of the novel, admitting Adichie was her first African read and, sharing a resemblance of the Holocaust of her Jewish heritage, Wilson recollects knowing about the Biafran story when she was little. Adichie's "Half of a Yellow Sun," the stories of the war had been the most blood soaked event in the history of Africa;  a novel by way of normal scholarship, and a work of fiction adapted from real life events - the Nigeria-Biafra war.

We talked in detail about Adichie and what had inspired the book. We talked about what had also gotten me into writing about Igbo people and Biafra which she read from my blogs, related syndicated columns, Facebook and elsewhere on the web. And, of course, we had talked about the welcome home party for the boxing team at Festival Town (FESTAC) hosted by then Minister of Sports, the late Emeka Omeruah and, Konyegwachi's future engagements. Konyegwachi had declared to pursue academics on government sponsored programs rather than going pro., like his colleagues - Young Dick Tiger and Loud-mouth Okorodudu who pursued the American dream when boxing had standards and stood out - ending any prospects of becoming one of boxing greats in an era boxing was a finest sport; when folks fought for passion of the sport with dignity and respect, and not the commercial preferences and purposes it had become.

Wilson and I, spent time digesting Adichie's Yelow Sun from her perspective and mine; mine on the grounds of personally being my tribe that was talked about and the ugly engagement involved. When "Half of a Yellow Sun" arrived the bookshelves with prospects of breakthrough in 2006, I was not wholly sure until it occurred to me the love tales were fictional characters of the Biafran conflict, which she adapted. Lecturers, their households and the goings on in campus at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, was the location of the characters and shots that now has been developed into film.

Adichie's "Half of a Yellow Sun" stands out in all her stables as the biggest score in marketing and popularity, including positioning in literature which most prizes had gone to, giving her the brand name to sell any novel with her signature attached to it, whether the book was well written and made sense or not, which seems to be the case in her newest entry "Americanah."

Americanah"  is not a great tale considering the expectations and the following that shot her second novel to the top. Nigerian authors - home and Diaspora - always have the pleasure to begin the enterprise of their books on the home turf where the turnouts in book launchings are huge, graced by festivities and merry-making, big volume sales and sometimes, ridiculously bankrolled when details of the book has not been known or reviewed.

Reuters photo-journalist Akintunde Akinleye, Associated Press' Sunday Alamba, host of related international press and local Nigerian journalists were handy during Adichie's book launch and signing ceremony Saturday, April 27, 2013, in Lagos. The lukewarm photogenic author sat and stood in front of the cameras posing with her new book, signing autographs along the novel and answering questions from curious readers and the press on the thoughts and writing of "Americanah." Adichie had a new hair do and fascinated about it all drawing from the book's Ifemelu character, multicolored dress and classically figured, except for the not needed heavy make-ups she was wearing obviously displaying she wasn't much comfortable with the excessiveness of the painting on her face.

Most folks who explored the United States and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere during the push factor years, the economic, social, religious and reasons of things like that to why one was compelled to relocate and the aspirations for further academic pursuits is what Adichie is now telling us in the "Americanah" saga, from around which some lost hope but kept sticking around, keeping body and soul one, for opportunities that may knock on their doors as sighs of relief in what had been a stretch, to survive, doing whatever it took out of the very worst situations to overcome their predicaments.

When you browse the book before going into details, you will get a glimpse of tales of the set up of a situation where empire and anarchy instituted by the military juntas made life miserable which leaves one with the option to seek life elsewhere in an environment only the fittest survives in a dictatorship, in a country run by tyrants and full of injustice, cruelty and sufferings with an end never in sight, and a hopeless situation continuing apace.

And while the escape eventually took place, the struggle to continue to fulfill a purpose, the need to accomplish what one had desired and the time and pain it had to take in order to reach said anticipated goal which Adichie recollects writing about her personal experiences on arrival  to the shores of America and what she had earlier gone through by way of people from all walks of life she had encountered, differing significantly when stationed in her native land, and what had identified her in a multitude of races she had to deal with. The culture shock, normal of any new comer to a strange land was her first run in, but the hope and purpose it gave her was what encouraged her to hold on. In the London Guardian, Adichie writes;

I lived in Philadelphia when I first went to the US to attend university. I was fresh from Nigeria. I did not consciously think of myself as black because race was not a way of self-identification. I remember clearly when I began to think of myself as black, in a gathering of friends, in an apartment, sitting around a wooden table, listening to a joke-filled conversation about race, with my Nigerian friend and her Chinese friend and her Jewish friend and her African-American friend and her Irish-American friend. I realised that I had taken on this new, odd identity in America. It has stayed with me ever since, that scene.

It was common. But, though, some had no difficulties from the goodwill that came from either generated government welfare programs or their respective families who had adequate cash possessions.

Stories so similar and told over and over the years, Adichie goes on to tell us the uncertainties that had clouded the survival instincts and the determination to fulfill what had been ambitiously waited for before departure only to be confronted with what had been totally strange, taking culture into account, and the social aspect of the new world they had come to adopt and call home. The similarities of the long hurdle to adapt to the situations and, be normal, and being used to what goes, surviving all odds, fulfilling what had been the dream and, realizing what it had taken and the time spent to be accomplished, which had been desired through diligence, patience, commitment and, eventually, hard work in which there was no substitute, ultimately becoming the pursued ideal, is nothing new to the push factor most Nigerians encountered over the years in their quest for a better life Adichie had brought up in her new entry.

And the adventure had popped up with the zeal not to fail when caught up in crossroads in between having to make decisions on two choices as option; the consequences of having made the wrong choice which could turn out disastrous by its nature and what the future might hold; the pains after all attempts with nothing seemingly working out; the high expectations from native-land where all eyes watched for prospects of a promising future, and, what the consequences could be for a life time, if all had failed, including the expectations from a relationship elsewhere on the globe, in the United Kingdom; had not been clear and in limbo  with immigration problems which surely wasn't promising until that stroke of luck unshackled what had been a barrier and an emerged breakthrough that changed everything, and fortune coming his way though not what had been planned and anticipated.

Adichie, born in Enugu in 1977, studied medicine at the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, and while exploring America, becoming a theme to the framework of her ongoing stories of love and the drama that comes along with it, received the McArthur Grant for $500,000 in 2008 which enabled her to write full time and a book of short stories "The Things Around Your Neck" published after the grant which also gave her adequate time to complete her MA in Africana Studies at Yale University. Graduating from Eastern Connecticut State University in Communications and Political Science, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for "You In America" in 2002.

No question, Adichie has catapulted herself to the top, in the ranks of respected Nigerian novelists and inventing "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie" as a public intellectual on the parallel with most, and somewhere in between Flora Nwapa, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe. In her apparent tribute to the latter who passed March 21, 2013 in Boston, Adichie showed appreciation and acknowledgement to the man who had driven the force and how she trooped on from a mark that is now defining her, and owing much to the man's work, and also, much to her own efforts as to how far she came even though in reviewing the man's "There Was A Country", and despite giving credits to the points made in the book as far as the story goes on the said war, she derided the publication as carelessly done with repetitions, wordiness and avoidable mistakes.

"Americanah" is unnecessarily wordy, too. The events that unfolded from the native-land in preparedness to relocate from an unstable country that was full of uncertainties was retold in many instances. The cities - New Haven, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Princeton and Trenton; the Gothic structures; the motorists while she poked around; the niteclubs; visit to her aunt Uju at the Flatlands and several other encounters with people of race, culture - and what that meant to Ifemelu, describing them the way she thought desirable for each like the cities with its distinct kind of smell except Princeton being smell free is pretty much close Adichie was telling her own story and life experiences in a typical relationship with partners attached to each other and denied access to be together in the United States by the unfortunate events of 9/11 and the restrictions on immigration.

There are no expectations of something significantly different from the "Americanah" adventure begun by Ifemelu, from the usual concept of bad regimes typical of Nigeria's dominance by military juntas and situations in that regard which compels one to seek decent life elsewhere that we haven't known or seen practically like the case of Ifemelu who had moved to the shores of the United States commencing an entirely new life with aspirations in a world totally different from where she had escaped.

Enter Obinze, Ifemelu's sweetheart originally established as first lovers from what the story tells us, back in Nigeria as students in a military regime that is not encouraging for one to keep staying in the country which had both lovers become desperate to leave the country. Obinze had problems with the restrictions imposed by the United States on the effects of 9/11 which denied him access, leaving him with an option to go elsewhere besides America. He founds himself in the United Kingdom where the going got tougher, unlike Ifemelu in the US, though tough but better overall, Obinze did what he had to do.  He had cash while Ifemelu blogged successfully. Both made it back home missing each other for 15 years and unsure of how to continue and get along.

"Americanah"  is a typical story told from an immigrant's perspective coupled by the encounters and revelations and the blogging of events as it unfolded in contrast to Obinze's unfavorable engagements in the United Kingdom, though eventually wealthy and all in all, in a journey that had taken 15 years to decide if both were still meant for each other remains a puzzle the author intends to unveil elsewhere, or probably bent on tales of love, distant relationship, misfortunes and both finally accomplished on different platforms and, now hard to reach decisions on whether to continue with a relationship that had been marred by circumstances beyond their control.

Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sits in a salon for her hair-do in Victoria Island district in Lagos May 2, 2013. Image: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters

Southeast Govs Meet Over 2015

GOVERNORS of the Southeast geo-political zone met in Enugu Saturday to articulate the position of the zone on the Southern Nigeria political leaders meeting holding today in Asaba, the Delta State capital.

Although there was no official confirmation to the positions reached by the governors, sources said the Enugu meeting, which lasted for over four hours, deliberated extensively on the role of Ndigbo in 2015 dispensation, stressing that such position would be presented today, when the leaders of the 17 southern states meet in Asaba.

At the meeting were Governors Peter Obi (Anambra), Martin Elechi (Ebonyi), Theordore Orji (Abia), Sullivan Chime (Enugu) and Deputy Governor of Imo state, Eze Mmadumere.

There were also others in the meeting including, Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha Senator Ayogu Eze,Senator Uche Chukwumerije, Minister of Power,Professor Chinedu Nebo, a representative of the traditional institution of the zone, the clergy led by Dr Amos Madu, the archbishop of Enugu Ecclesiastical Province, Anglican communion, among others.

But Governor Obi, who is also the chairman of South East governors forum, who emerged after the closed door meeting told Journalists that the meeting discussed about the visit of President Goodluck Jonathan as well as the burial plans of literary icon, Late Professor Chinua Achebe.

Achebe, he restated would be buried on May 23, this year at his family compound in Ogidi, Anambra state, stressing that the meeting was basically the review plans already made by the burial committee and the governors.

President Goodluck Jonathan will be embarking on a working visit to the Southeast zone of the country within the week. Obi added that the visit formed the reason for the emergency meeting.

The governor, who failed to give the exact date of the President’s visit to the zone, also failed to entertain questions from newsmen on other discussions at the meeting.

--------Lawrence Njoku, Guardian, May 11, 2013

FG not using force on insurgents--- Presidency

The Presidency on Friday refuted a statement credited to the U.S. Embassy that Government was adopting force-based approach in addressing the current security problem in Nigeria.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr Reuben Abati, refuted the claim of the U.S. Embassy in an interview with State House correspondents in Abuja on Friday.

``It is not true that the administration is adopting a force-based approach. The approach to the insurgencies by the government has many dimensions.

``One of those dimensions is the consideration of the option of dialogue and what has become known as amnesty.

``Beyond that also, the government is working with State Governments in the affected areas to ensure the security of lives and property, protection of the civilian population, human capital development and stability,’’ he said.

Abati said that investigations were going on, regarding the incidents in Baga and Bama in Borno, Nassarawa State and other places as directed by the president.

He said the president had also openly declared that he would encourage independent investigations by the National Human Rights Commission into the incidents.

Abati reminded the embassy that as a concerned leader, the president had to cut short his trip to South Africa and cancel his planned state visit to Namibia to personally oversee the security situation in the country.

``Today, President Jonathan has hosted an emergency meeting of the National Security Council where he received further briefings from security chiefs.

``He has also made it clear that apart from the investigations, where there has been any case of misconduct, the persons involved will be brought to justice.

``There is no issue, therefore, as to the fact that the government will ensure accountability and the protection of the civilian population from terrorist attacks.’’

Abati reiterated the determination of the government to reducing the population of persons who could be recruited for evil purposes, through human capital development initiatives.

----------Augustine Aminu, Daily Times Nigeria, May 10, 2013

Nine men docked for being MASSOB members in Ebonyi

Nine members of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, were on Friday arraigned before a Magistrates’ Court in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State.

The Chief Prosecutor, Ransom Egenkonye, told the court that the accused persons were allegedly caught, planning to commit felony by “managing” an unlawful society called MASSOB.

Mr. Egenkonye, a police inspector, said that the group had also caused panic among members of the public with their uniforms.

He said that the offence was punishable under the Criminal Code Cap 33 Vol.1 Laws of Ebonyi State of Nigeria, 2009.

The prosecutor said that the offence also violated the Ebonyi State Internal Security Enforcement and Related Matters Laws Cap 55 Vol.2.

Jerry Ezenyi, counsel to the accused persons, told the court that the accused were innocent persons who were being prosecuted unjustly.

He pleaded that the accused persons should be released on bail.

The Magistrate, Lazarus Nwokah, said that the court could not grant bail to the accused because it lacked the jurisdiction to handle the case.

Mr. Nwokah, subsequently, transferred the case to the State High Court for further adjudication and adjourned it sine die.

The accused persons are Peter Nwodom, 31, Benedict Nworie, 39, John Enyi, 42, and Patrick Onyibe, 35.

Others are Ikechukwu Nweke, 32, James Ovu, 49, Pius Nwagwu, 49, Moses Oke, 30, and Clement Igwe, 29.

(NAN)

Nigeria's War With Boko Haram Gets A New Ground Zero

Monica Mark is the first western newspaper reporter to reach the village of Baga, a smouldering wreck where the deaths of up to 185 civilians threatens to fuel the conflict

Monica Mark in Baga

The Guardian UK, May 9, 2013

A soldier stands beside a house burnt during the clash between Islamist insurgents and soldiers in Baga. Photograph: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images

The road to Baga is littered with burned-out cars, winding through terrain that has proved fertile ground for radical ideologies to take root. On the cusp of the Sahara, it traces a route through the former ancient Islamic kingdom of Bornu, a thriving sultanate that grew rich on trans-desert trade. Now known as Borno state, today it is home to some of Africa's most impoverished communities.

Boko Haram, Islamist insurgents whose bombs are responsible for the carcasses of cars on the roadside, have thrived by tapping into a yearning for ancient glory amid crippling poverty.

Now the residents of Baga, a remote fishing settlement on the shores of Lake Chad, have a new reason to be angry. Last month the village was the scene of one of Nigeria's most deadly incidents since the Islamist insurgency began in 2009, with locals saying 185 of their kin died, most of them civilians and most of them burned to death. That figure has been disputed by the military, who told the Guardian that only 37 people were killed, most of whom were Boko Haram fighters. The Guardian was the first international newspaper to gain access to Baga since the killings.

The afternoon before it happened, Ali, a white-haired village chief, overheard a conversation that turned his stomach. Just outside his mud-walled home, two men in military uniforms were talking heatedly: one wanted to set fire to Ali's neighbour's house; the other was trying to stop him. That morning a Nigerian corporal, known as Kia, had been killed after being ambushed by fighters from Boko Haram.

"One of the men said, 'we must avenge his death, we must set a house on fire'; the other one said no, he wanted no part of this," Ali said, sitting on an orange raffia straw mat at a meeting convened by village elders.

"After that," he continued "I don't know what happened." Ali looked nervously at the dozens of men in flowing robes packed under the thatched-roof shelter for the meeting, many of them young and unemployed, a key source of support for Boko Haram.

When the morning of 17 April dawned, much of this fishing village was a smouldering wreck. Black carcasses of houses and skeletal trees stood out starkly against the expanse of fine pale sand. The devastation wrought here highlights how Boko Haram is turning to cross-border raids with deadly consequences.

Members of the violent jihadist movement have infiltrated this town along the dozens of sandy footpaths leading to their hideouts across the Sahara desert. Their attack on the Nigerian corporal, using a sophisticated rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), was so violent that Kia's head had to be sewn back on before his body could be returned to his family for burial, officials said.

After the decapitation, the insurgents fled deep into the desert, another Baga village elder said, leaving the civilian population to face the wrath of the army. The military denies that, saying the militants were hiding in Baga and were extremely well armed.

"There was a firefight, which lasted four hours after reinforcements were brought in. The terrorists used IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and rocket-propelled grenades, which caused the thatch-roof houses to catch fire," Brigadier General Austin Edokpaye, head of the Joint Task Force stationed in Baga, told a delegation of senators investigating the incident this week.

Tellingly, the mission stationed in Baga includes soldiers from Niger and Chad, as west African forces increasingly share concerns about growing links between jihadist groups.

Outside the bleak Baga military outpost, Edokpaye showed an array of weapons, including sophisticated machine guns and RPGs, which he said had been captured from the fighters. "When you hear the sound of some of these weapons – these were not any weapons from Nigeria," he said.

Amid the swirling accusations and counter-accusations, the incident has thrown the spotlight on to the Nigerian military's often brutal tactics in its fight to root out an enemy that easily dissolves into the civilian population, many of whom support Boko Haram out of fear as much as out of hatred of the security forces.

Bolstered by arms from Libya and Mali, Boko Haram appears to be able to penetrate vulnerable outposts along Nigeria's porous borders before retreating into the vast Sahara. Officials and residents in both Nigeria and Mali said members of the group had trained in Mali after a coup threw the country into disarray last year.

"The last Boko Haram member we captured here was about two weeks ago. He had boarded a bus to [Mali's capital] Bamako, he was carrying a lot of cash, a lot of weapons," a Malian security official in the town of Gao said.

With hundreds of unguarded footpaths leading to neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon, parts of Nigeria's remote Borno and Yobe states have been all but taken over by the shadowy sect. A French family taken hostage in Cameroon were held undetected for two months in a town less than 20 miles from Baga, Cameroonian and Nigerian security officials said.

On Tuesday, Boko Haram members staged an audacious raid in Borno state, mounting a co-ordinated attack against a prison and army barracks in the town of Bama that left 47 dead and freed more than 100 prisoners. "They used lorries mounted with anti-aircraft guns," a senior security official said. "These are weapons from Libya." The attack prompted Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, to cut short a trip to Namibia.

Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno state, said poverty was at the root of the problem. "Unless, and until, we address some of these fundamental issues [of poverty], believe me, the future is very bleak for all of us," he said.

Mohammed, an unemployed youth languishing on his bike, explained the militants' appeal. "If a man gives me 20,000 naira [£80] today, then I will work with him for life. That is what I hear Boko Haram are doing. What else is there for us to earn money here?"

Beyond the remains of camels half-sunk into the sandy roadside, turbaned men on horses ride past children sitting under neem trees with chalkboards. Almajiri, or Qur'anic schools, flourish here, in stark contrast to weed-covered signposts marking the entrance to abandoned government schools.

In Baga, every government school has been shut since August 2012, when leaflets appeared on school walls threatening to kill anyone attending, residents said.

But in trying to root out Boko Haram, which means "western education is forbidden", from a population trapped in the middle, the human cost has been unbearably high to many. In Usman's mud home, jewel-coloured cloths had been bought and mounds of fish smoked to prepare for his daughter's wedding.

Instead, on the big day, his household was muted with grief as they mourned the loss of 13 family members killed in the town. "I wonder what we have done wrong in Allah's eyes for this to happen," the grandfather said, crying softly.

Senator Abdul Ahmed Ningi, speaking during the government delegation's visit to the town, said: "Not every soldier is an enemy to the people here. That's exactly why the person responsible [for the Baga killings] must be bought to book. Unless the Nigerian military can start winning hearts and minds, the situation is going to become even worse."

Civilians caught in the crossfire can only hope for better days. "Imagine it is night, we are inside our homes, then suddenly our homes were on fire," said one villager in Baga, standing in front of his charred mud home. Looking over to the bright green grasses on the shores of Lake Chad in the distance, he added: "We are simple fishermen here. We just want peace."