Nigeria Will Join 20 Most Developed Countries by 2020

[jchima]

President Goodluck Jonathan has reiterated that based on the strategies being deployed by his administration in furtherance of his transformational agenda, that Nigeria would be one of the 20 most developed countries in the world by 2020.

This follows the recent declaration by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga that the Nigeria's new economic status had been attracting a large pool of foreign investors to the country....

Source: Jonathan Nigeria Will Join 20 Most Developed Countries by 2020 - eReporter

 

[waltky]

Nigerian barracks 'a place of death'...

Nigeria Giwa barracks 'a place of death' says Amnesty
Tue, 10 May 2016 - Amnesty International says at least 149 detainees have died "in appalling conditions" at a barracks detention centre in north-east Nigeria this year.

In a report, Amnesty says 11 of those who died at the Giwa barracks were young children, including four babies. It called the centre "a place of death" and said it should be closed. The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar in Abuja says it is latest in a series of damning reports on the Nigerian military's treatment of suspects. The army has not commented on the latest report but has previously said it has set up a human rights department to check claims of abuse. The Giwa barracks detention centre in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, is in an area where the authorities are fighting the Boko Haram militant group.

Nigerian Army prepares to leave Maiduguri in heavily armed convoy on road to Damboa in Borno State​

In its report, Amnesty says evidence gathered through interviews with former detainees and eyewitnesses, and supported by video and photographs, shows that many detainees may have died from disease, hunger, dehydration, and gunshot wounds. "The discovery that babies and young children have died in appalling conditions in military detention is both harrowing and horrifying," said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty's research and advocacy director for Africa. "We have repeatedly sounded the alarm over the high death rate of detainees in Giwa barracks but these findings show that, for both adults and children, it remains a place of death."

'Mass arrests'

The report calls for the barracks to be closed immediately and all detainees released or transferred to civilian authorities. Amnesty says it believes that about 1,200 people are being held at Giwa, many of them arbitrarily rounded up during mass arrests. "Once inside the barracks, they are incarcerated without access to the outside world or trial. At least 120 of those detained are children," it says. Amnesty has previously accused the military of executing more than 640 detainees following a Boko Haram attack on the detention centre in March 2014. It has also said that, since 2011, more than 8,000 young men and boys have been either shot, starved, suffocated or tortured to death in Nigerian military custody and that no-one has been held responsible.

Nigeria Giwa barracks 'a place of death' says Amnesty - BBC News

See also:

Amnesty: Babies dying in Nigerian military detention
May 10,`16 -- Babies and children are among scores of people dying in military detention at a notorious Nigerian barracks where soldiers illegally hold suspected Islamic extremists, Amnesty International reported Wednesday.

Many detainees at the Giwa barracks may have died from disease, hunger, dehydration and gunshot wounds, the London-based human rights organization said, quoting witnesses, including former detainees, supported by video and photographic evidence. The barracks is in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the birthplace of Nigeria's home-grown Boko Haram Islamic extremists. The city is now the headquarters for the Nigerian military's campaign against Boko Haram. "The discovery that babies and young children have died in appalling conditions in military detention is both harrowing and horrifying," and comes despite repeated alarms over the high death rate of detainees in Giwa, said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty's advocacy director for Africa.

Amnesty has previously said that President Muhammadu Buhari has not kept promises he made days after his inauguration in May 2015 to investigate the alleged abuses at Giwa. Military spokesman Brig Gen. Rabe Abubakar called Amnesty's report "a distraction." "Our duty is to protect lives and that is what we have been doing," he told The Associated Press. The Associated Pres reported in 2013 that some 3,000 detainees had died at Giwa in two months, according to mortuary records. Today, detainee bodies are being buried in unmarked mass graves, Amnesty reported. It called for Nigeria's government to shut the facility.

Woman and children detained by Nigeria army who have no links to Boko Haram sit under a canopy before their release at the Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri, Nigeria. Babies and children are among scores of people dying in military detention at a notorious Nigerian barracks where soldiers illegally hold suspected Islamic extremists, Amnesty International charged​

The report said 149 people, including 11 children under the age of 6, have died at Giwa this year. Among them were four babies who apparently died of untreated measles. Detaining children, with or without their parents, is common in Nigeria. The number of people detained is unknown. Amnesty has reported that troops had arbitrarily arrested 20,000 people between 2013 and 2014. A U.S. State Department report last month said Nigerian "security services perpetrated extrajudicial killings, and engaged in torture, rape, arbitrary detention ..." in 2015. Such reports hamper aid to fight Boko Haram. The United States blocked sales of helicopter gunships to Nigeria in 2014 partly because of human rights concerns.

News from The Associated Press

 

[Meathead]

Who can argue? We have the Nigerian president's word and we all know how honest and intelligent they are.