Some Nigerians on Friday converged in front of the Nigerian High Commission in London, to rally in support of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The President is resetting the country on the part of growth and development, Mr. Stephen Kifordu, from Delta State who is the leader of the group, said on Friday.

He said there is no credible alternative to Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in the 2019 election noting that the group represents the aspiration of many Nigerians who want progress for Nigeria.

Kifordu said Nigeria is attractive to investors because of Buharis fight against corruption in the country.

He claimed that the previous administration gave room for rot and corrupt activities.

We have a President in Nigeria that people can look at and trust that If I invest in Nigeria, my investment will not be stolen.

When we talk of security, he has done security in terms of Boko Haram and in terms of the Niger Delta, he said.

Explaining further how President Buhari is resetting the country, Kifordu said it is the primary role of the police and not the military to protect Nigerian citizens and President Buhari is enforcing this.

The Police is the number one organisation that takes care of our security. It is only when we are under attack that the military comes in.

In past years, we have seen the issue when the military jumps on board without paying regard to the police. Then suddenly when something happens in Nigeria, Mr President says deploy the police, people are saying dont deploy the police.

President Buhari is re-ordering up, he is resetting our country. He is bringing us back to the way things should be.

This support rally came exactly a day after a group of people bearing Biafran flags staged a protest in front of the Commonwealth House in Westminister, London.

The demonstration took place as President Buhari and other leaders of the Commonwealth nations meet on Thursday.

Some of the protesters were seen carrying banners bear inscriptions of Biafra while others are calling for a referendum.

President Buhari on Thursday attended the Executive Session of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in the United Kingdom.

The meeting, which held at the Lancaster House in London, was declared open by Queen Elizabeth II.

Source: NAN

Dozens of children cheer at the Baptist Nursery and Primary School compound in Bode-Ijaiye suburb of Abeokuta city, the capital of Ogun state, as their friends try to outpace each other on a 100-metre dash in a dusty field.

Ogun state inter-school football and track-and-field competitions are just around the corner, and teachers want to prepare the children physically and mentally for the task ahead.

Away from the laughter and shouts of encouragement on the field, four female cooks with aprons on top of traditional indigo-dyed adire gowns ladle porridge mixed with vegetables and fish into hundreds of stainless steel bowls with lids.

As the cooks ambled into a nearby classroom and began to place bowls on wooden desks, the 64 pupils remained quiet. After the dish was served, the students stood and began to sing Bless this food O Lord for Christ sake Amen. Then they sat down and began to eat.

I want to say a big thank you to the federal government of Nigeria and the Ogun state government for providing food for us, 10-year-old Ramon Samuel told Al Jazeera before opening the lid on his bowl.

Samuel and his classmates receive free meals every school day thanks to a national programme, which aims to provide nutritious meals to young schoolchildren in order to increase enrolment, help them stay in school, and reduce malnutrition, particularly among children from low-income families.

The Home Grown School Feeding initiative, a movement launched in 2003, is driven by national governments to improve the lives of schoolchildren and farmers alike. It is practised across the continent, including in Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Ethiopia, Namibia, Botswana, Ivory Coast, and South Africa.

The concept is not confined just to the continent as Brazil, Japan, and Italy have similar programmes aimed at keeping children fed while promoting local agriculture.

Though the scheme began in December 2016 in Nigeria, it is not entirely new here. Nigerias former President Olusegun Obasanjo launched a pilot programme in 13 states in September 2005, but after a few years, only southwestern Osun state maintained it.

The school programme operates in 20 out of Nigerias 36 states and has fed nearly seven million pupils in about 40,000 public schools, the programmes manager Abimbola Adesanmi told Al Jazeera. She said more than 68,800 jobs have also been created through the initiative.

The plan was reintroduced by President Muhammadu Buhari in December 2016 as part of his administrations multi-million dollar National Social Investment Programmes to address poverty, hunger and unemployment in Nigeria.

The school programme operates in 20 out of Nigerias 36 states and has fed nearly seven million pupils in about 40,000 public schools, the programmes manager Abimbola Adesanmi told Al Jazeera. She said more than 68,800 jobs have also been created through the initiative.

Adeleke Adewolu is the commissioner of special duties and inter-governmental affairs in Ogun state. He said the meals are not only nutritious but also serve as a social safety net for low-income households.

If children eat nutritious food it will enhance their learning ability and this will have a knock-on effect on their cognitive development and help to encourage enrolment and retention, Adewolu said.

The programme provides income for thousands of people, including farmers, cooks recruited from local communities, and those involved in the processing and transportation of food, he said.

In Ogun, the coordinating team collaborated with the ministries of education, health, agriculture, womens affairs and community development to divide farmers into cooperative groups and link them to about 3,000 cooks who were trained and deployed to more than 1,500 schools. Farmers received training in seed quality and fertilisers to grow enough food to meet demand.

The cooks who are responsible for procuring ingredients for the daily meals are given a budget of 70 naira ($0.23) per child each day. With help from the state government, they received 57,000 naira ($188) in loans to purchase water drums, pots, bowls, uniforms, and cooking utensils.

It gives me great joy to help in feeding the children in Baptist Primary School, said Omole Imoleayo, who left a career in banking to join the programme. We receive our payment without delays and I have more time for my family now.

Sourcing foods locally helps millions of small farmers who produce up to 90 percent of Nigerias food but are mired in grinding poverty.

This has created a well-structured market for the farmers since they now know how much to produce and when it is needed, said Tinuola Shopeju, Oguns programme manager.

Shopeju said the initiative is a perfect model for addressing food insecurity and improving local agricultural production in Nigeria, which imports about $20bn worth of food annually.

The menu differs daily and every state adopts its own meal schedule. In Ogun, schoolchildren get rice, stewed fish, and beans but also delicacies such as Ikokore a dish made from water yam.

Deworming
Nigerias programme also offers health services including deworming children in public primary schools across 17 states. Adesanmi said worms affect the health of schoolchildren, potentially causing anaemia, malnourishment, and the impairment of mental and physical development.

In the short term, children with worms may be too sick or tired to attend school or to concentrate. Basically, we do not want to feed worms, rather children, she said.

Teachers in Ogun say the programme is not only helping young students stay in school, but also attracting those from private schools. Ogunkola Adefunke Deborah, headteacher of Baptist Nursery and Primary School, said her pupils now come to classes regularly and are very punctual.

We have over 80 new pupils, most of them came from private schools, she said. Before you hardly see parents coming here, but now they come to ask us why their kids beg to be brought to school early and why they always return home with their pocket money.

Deborah shared an anecdote of a boy who refused to go home even when he was sick because he didnt want to miss a meal.

Rebecca Faronbi, 72, was devastated when her son died and left her with four grandchildren to take care of. Her three-year-old granddaughter now receives the free meals at school.

Until the feeding programme started I was struggling to feed the children. My granddaughter wakes me up before 7am and tells me she wants to go to school because she will get free food there, Faronbi said in the Yoruba language, which is widely spoken in southwestern Nigeria.

Rampant malnutrition
Research has shown that 42 percent of schoolchildren in Nigeria suffer malnutrition, and this has caused a high rate of absenteeism.

UNICEF estimates about 2.5 million Nigerian children under the age of five suffer from severe malnutrition each year, with about half a million children dying from it.

With a quality assurance tracking system known as #TrackWithUs, the programme handlers have urged Nigerians to visit nearby schools to check if meals meet the required standards and report any cooks who arent serving proper food.

Several cooks were fired in southern Cross River state last November for serving biscuits in lieu of meals.

The campaign has helped us track activities in schools and strengthened our existing monitoring and supervision mechanism, Adesanmi said. Since there is a reward and sanction system in place we have been able to name and shame cooks who do not comply with our standards.

A major barrier to the programmes success is the inability of state governments to scale up the meals to senior classes in elementary schools. The federal government caters to pupils from Grades 1 to 3, but with many states struggling to pay salaries, pupils in higher grades are not being fed.

Experts hope the government will not repeat the same mistakes made a decade ago when a combination of inadequate funding, poor logistics, and corruption crippled the scheme.

We need to promote community participation, community ownership, community implementation, community monitoring, strong institutional arrangements and multi-sector partnerships, Adesanmi said.

Source: NAN

Emmanuel Afonne

Amaju Pinnick, the President, Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), has said that the Super Eagles stand the chance of pocketing $24 million if they play in the final of the 2018 World Cup.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the World Cup will hold from June 14 to July 15 in Russia.

Pinnick told newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday at a parley that the money was part of the agreement reached with the players to share 50-50, whatever would accrue to the country if they get to the final and lift the trophy.

I dont put players under pressure. Pressure can be put on them unconsciously because we are creating enabling environment for them.

If for example we dont have money to prepare them, they can now relax but now, we have given them everything upfront and now, they should deliver.

If today they get to the final, the World Cup money will be shared 50-50 between the team and the NFF.

Winning the final is 48 million dollars, it means the team will get 24 million dollars and the football house will take the remaining 24 million dollars, Pinnick said.

He also said that adequate preparation including grade A friendly matches have been secured with England and Czech Republic to ensure the team do well at the World Cup.

The NFF boss further said that the glass house had already secured $2.8 million to pay the players allowances and bonuses during the mundial.

We are ready to play against England on June 2 in London in an international friendly; we had a conclusive meeting with the English FA.

After the England match, we will play Czech Republic and from there we move to Russia. As it is, everything is going on very well.

For the World Cup, I dont think we have any problem, I am in touch with the technical committee. It is the desire of every Nigerian to see the Super Eagles do well at the World Cup.

We had a meeting with the team; we signed a contract with them and ready to pay them 20 per cent of eight million which is what accrued to us for qualifying for the World Cup.

At the end of the day it amounts to 2.8million dollars which will go to the players. The money is almost 100 per cent ready, Pinnick added.

Pinnick also explained that the football house met with some state governors who were ready to assist the NFF financially to achieve the countrys World Cup dream.

He commended President Muhammadu Buhari for his support for the NFF and the Super Eagles, and assured that they would not let him down in Russia.

Source: NAN

Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong has agreed to pay $5 million in order to settle his looming federal fraud case stemming from his use of performance-enhancing drugs during the Tour de France, his lawyers confirmed Thursday.

The former superstar was due to face a trial next month over claims that he defrauded the US government when he doped while racing for his United States Postal Service-sponsored team.

Lance Armstrong today announced that he has settled the long-running False Claims Act case brought against him by former cyclist Floyd Landis and the U. S. Postal Service, a statement from Armstrong lawyer Elliot Peters said.

This ends all litigation against Armstrong related to his 2013 admission that during his career as a professional cyclist he had used performance enhancing substances.

The Washington Post reported Armstrong will also pay $1.65 million to cover the legal costs of former team-mate and whistleblower Landis.

The Postal Service and Landis had sought around $100 million in damages from Armstrong in the trial which was due to get under way on May 7.

I am glad to resolve this case and move forward with my life, Armstrong said in a statement.

I am particularly glad to have made peace with the Postal Service. While I believe that their lawsuit against me was without merit and unfair, I have since 2013 tried to take full responsibility for my mistakes, and make amends wherever possible.

I rode my heart out for the Postal cycling team, and was always especially proud to wear the red, white and blue eagle on my chest when competing in the Tour de France. Those memories are very real and mean a lot to me.

The fallen US cycling star had battled back from cancer to win cyclings most prestigious race, the Tour de France, a record seven consecutive times between 1999 and 2005.

Although rumours of drug use swirled around Armstrong throughout his career, he never failed a test.

However his reputation imploded when the United States Anti-Doping Agency wrapped up an investigation which concluded he had been at the heart of a sophisticated doping program throughout his career.

Armstrong later confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs and was banned from all competitions for life and stripped of his seven Tour titles

Source: NAN

Arsne Wenger has finally agreed to quit London club Arsenal at the end of this season after years of uncertainty.

The Frenchman will depart the club a year ahead of the expiration of the two year contract he signed last year despite many calling for his sack.

With the clubs performance in the Premier League becoming increasingly disappointing, this season marked the first time in 20 years that they failed to qualify for the Champions League.

Despite having one less competition to worry about they are currently sixth in the Premier League and look certain not to achieve a top four finish, hanging their only hopes on winning the Europa League.

I am grateful for having had the privilege to serve the club for so many memorable years, Wenger said. I managed the club with full commitment and integrity.

To all the Arsenal lovers, take care of the values of the club.

Wenger played supervised 1228 games and won 704 in his 22-year-reign as Arsenals manager, winning seven FA Cups and seven Community Shields.

He won three Premier League titles and also three times Premier League Manager of the Year.

Wenger also has World Manager of the Year in his kitty.

Meanwhile, Gary Neville has paid tribute to departing Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger and urged supporters of all club to celebrate his reign in the clubs final five games of the season.

Neville was part of the Manchester United team which regularly battled with Wengers Arsenal during the 1990s and 2000s and has regularly commentated on his teams after becoming a pundit.

He said the Frenchmans 22-year reign should be remembered in fond terms, having led Arsenal to three of their 13 top-flight titles, an unbeaten league season in 2003/4 and seven FA Cup successes.

Arsene Wenger built the best teams that I played against in English Football.

The 98 team was Amazing.

The biggest compliment is that he played football that made us change the way we played against them.

He now deserves the most incredible send off from all in the coming weeks.

Source: NAN

Arsene Wengers decision to finally step aside as Arsenal manager after 22 years in charge has sparked fevered speculation over who the Gunners will turn to next to succeed the Frenchman.

Arsenal are struggling to qualify for next seasons Champions League with victory in the Europa League their only realistic route back into Europes premier club competition.

However, with one of the biggest budgets in world football and a squad boasting the talents of Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the Arsenal job remains highly sought after.

Here are five contenders to take over at the Emirates:

The inspirational captain of Arsenals Invincibles that went an entire league season unbeaten in 2003-04, Vieira is a symbol of the glory years under Wenger.

Vieira won three league titles and three FA Cups during his playing days at Arsenal but has taken his first steps in management with another of his former clubs, Manchester City.

The Frenchman took charge of Citys elite development squad for 18 months before joining New York City, part of a network of clubs around the world owned by the City Football Group.

He led NYCFC to the MLS playoffs in each of his two full seasons in charge but lost out in the Eastern Conference semi-finals on both occasions.

While popular with the fans, Vieiras lack of top-level managerial experience would pose a huge risk in Arsenals attempts to re-establish themselves as a Premier League contender.

Rodgers has restored his reputation in just under two years at Celtic with the Glasgow giants on the brink of sweeping a treble of domestic trophies under the Northern Irishman for a second consecutive season.

The 45-year-olds three-and-a-half year spell at Liverpool ended on a sour note in October 2015 but he came as close as anyone to ending their 28-year wait for a Premier League title in 2013-14.

Celtics major shareholder Dermot Desmond said on Friday he would not stand in Rodgers way.

I dont think you can put handcuffs on anybody if they want to go to a club as good as Arsenal, he said. It will be Brendans decision and Brendans decision only.

A World Cup winner, Loew has resisted the temptation to swap international football for the rigours of day-to-day club management and is under contract with the German federation until 2020.

Despite being one of the favourites for the job with the bookies, Loews chances are harmed by the fact he will lead Germany at the World Cup this summer.

Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis conceded the club are likely to favour a quick appointment with an early end to the transfer window in August leaving just three weeks between the World Cup final in Moscow on July 15 and the closing of the window for Premier League clubs on August 9.

Source: NAN

Miss Monica Osagie, the student at the centre of a sex-for-mark scandal rocking the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, has denied shunning an invitation by the panel probing her audio tapes of her conversation with disgraced Professor Richard Akindele, who demanded five rounds of sex for marks.

She made the denial via proxy, and said she was awaiting an invitation by the panel, the Saturday Sun newspaper reported.

Her proxy, Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, Founder, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, a non-profit organisation, said that the university did not at any point invite Miss Osagie to face the panel.

She challenged the university to bring evidence that she was formally invited by any means to appear before the panel.

Before the matter went viral, the university was aware of it and they did not do anything. If the case did not go viral, the university probably would have not done anything and it would have been swept under the carpet.

I think that we should focus more on whether the act of that professor amounts to sexual harassment, whether it was a breach of the schools code of conduct, whether it was a breach of terms of contract for lecturers or whether he abused the relationship that should exist between lecturers and students.

Afolabi stated that the university should be responsible and responsive in addressing issues of sexual harassment because Miss Osagie is ready to come out whenever the university extends a proper invitation to her, adding that it appears the school wants to protect its reputation at the expense of the young lady.

Let the university do what they are supposed to do by giving her proper invitation. They have all her records because she is their student. The panel has never invited her, so when the panel invites her today, she would come.

Akiyode-Afolabi further noted that even though Miss Osagie made the recording to serve as evidence against her lecturer, she didnt release the audio. She got the evidence and it was given to one or two people when she was seeking for help. So definitely one of them released the audio, and she cannot be blamed for it.

Akiyode-Afolabi stated that there has not been any threat made against Monica. We are not comfortable with the university saying they invited her when they didnt invite her. Her name is already out, the whole world is aware so we cannot say because of security and safety, we wont allow the truth to prevail.

According to the panel report, only the suspended lecturer honoured its invitation while the lady neither showed up before the panel to defend her case nor wrote a formal complaint to the institution to defend the leaked audio.

We will like to reiterate that OAU will continue to do everything legally and morally acceptable in pursuance of its avowed commitment to zero tolerance for sexual harassment, intimidation and, or coercion, the universitys Vice-Chancellor, Prof Eyitope Ogunbodede, said in a statement.

Akiyode-Afolabi said Monica hasnt done anything wrong and is unapologetic about what she did.

I think society should focus on what really happened, and whether such should happen in higher institutions of learning and not about what she did.

Source: NAN

Dozens of children cheer at the Baptist Nursery and Primary School compound in Bode-Ijaiye suburb of Abeokuta city, the capital of Ogun state, as their friends try to outpace each other on a 100-metre dash in a dusty field.

Ogun state inter-school football and track-and-field competitions are just around the corner, and teachers want to prepare the children physically and mentally for the task ahead.

Away from the laughter and shouts of encouragement on the field, four female cooks with aprons on top of traditional indigo-dyed adire gowns ladle porridge mixed with vegetables and fish into hundreds of stainless steel bowls with lids.

As the cooks ambled into a nearby classroom and began to place bowls on wooden desks, the 64 pupils remained quiet. After the dish was served, the students stood and began to sing Bless this food O Lord for Christ sake Amen. Then they sat down and began to eat.

I want to say a big thank you to the federal government of Nigeria and the Ogun state government for providing food for us, 10-year-old Ramon Samuel told Al Jazeera before opening the lid on his bowl.

Samuel and his classmates receive free meals every school day thanks to a national programme, which aims to provide nutritious meals to young schoolchildren in order to increase enrolment, help them stay in school, and reduce malnutrition, particularly among children from low-income families.

The Home Grown School Feeding initiative, a movement launched in 2003, is driven by national governments to improve the lives of schoolchildren and farmers alike. It is practised across the continent, including in Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Ethiopia, Namibia, Botswana, Ivory Coast, and South Africa.

The concept is not confined just to the continent as Brazil, Japan, and Italy have similar programmes aimed at keeping children fed while promoting local agriculture.

Though the scheme began in December 2016 in Nigeria, it is not entirely new here. Nigerias former President Olusegun Obasanjo launched a pilot programme in 13 states in September 2005, but after a few years, only southwestern Osun state maintained it.

The school programme operates in 20 out of Nigerias 36 states and has fed nearly seven million pupils in about 40,000 public schools, the programmes manager Abimbola Adesanmi told Al Jazeera. She said more than 68,800 jobs have also been created through the initiative.

The plan was reintroduced by President Muhammadu Buhari in December 2016 as part of his administrations multi-million dollar National Social Investment Programmes to address poverty, hunger and unemployment in Nigeria.

The school programme operates in 20 out of Nigerias 36 states and has fed nearly seven million pupils in about 40,000 public schools, the programmes manager Abimbola Adesanmi told Al Jazeera. She said more than 68,800 jobs have also been created through the initiative.

Adeleke Adewolu is the commissioner of special duties and inter-governmental affairs in Ogun state. He said the meals are not only nutritious but also serve as a social safety net for low-income households.

If children eat nutritious food it will enhance their learning ability and this will have a knock-on effect on their cognitive development and help to encourage enrolment and retention, Adewolu said.

The programme provides income for thousands of people, including farmers, cooks recruited from local communities, and those involved in the processing and transportation of food, he said.

In Ogun, the coordinating team collaborated with the ministries of education, health, agriculture, womens affairs and community development to divide farmers into cooperative groups and link them to about 3,000 cooks who were trained and deployed to more than 1,500 schools. Farmers received training in seed quality and fertilisers to grow enough food to meet demand.

The cooks who are responsible for procuring ingredients for the daily meals are given a budget of 70 naira ($0.23) per child each day. With help from the state government, they received 57,000 naira ($188) in loans to purchase water drums, pots, bowls, uniforms, and cooking utensils.

It gives me great joy to help in feeding the children in Baptist Primary School, said Omole Imoleayo, who left a career in banking to join the programme. We receive our payment without delays and I have more time for my family now.

Sourcing foods locally helps millions of small farmers who produce up to 90 percent of Nigerias food but are mired in grinding poverty.

This has created a well-structured market for the farmers since they now know how much to produce and when it is needed, said Tinuola Shopeju, Oguns programme manager.

Shopeju said the initiative is a perfect model for addressing food insecurity and improving local agricultural production in Nigeria, which imports about $20bn worth of food annually.

The menu differs daily and every state adopts its own meal schedule. In Ogun, schoolchildren get rice, stewed fish, and beans but also delicacies such as Ikokore a dish made from water yam.

Deworming
Nigerias programme also offers health services including deworming children in public primary schools across 17 states. Adesanmi said worms affect the health of schoolchildren, potentially causing anaemia, malnourishment, and the impairment of mental and physical development.

In the short term, children with worms may be too sick or tired to attend school or to concentrate. Basically, we do not want to feed worms, rather children, she said.

Teachers in Ogun say the programme is not only helping young students stay in school, but also attracting those from private schools. Ogunkola Adefunke Deborah, headteacher of Baptist Nursery and Primary School, said her pupils now come to classes regularly and are very punctual.

We have over 80 new pupils, most of them came from private schools, she said. Before you hardly see parents coming here, but now they come to ask us why their kids beg to be brought to school early and why they always return home with their pocket money.

Deborah shared an anecdote of a boy who refused to go home even when he was sick because he didnt want to miss a meal.

Rebecca Faronbi, 72, was devastated when her son died and left her with four grandchildren to take care of. Her three-year-old granddaughter now receives the free meals at school.

Until the feeding programme started I was struggling to feed the children. My granddaughter wakes me up before 7am and tells me she wants to go to school because she will get free food there, Faronbi said in the Yoruba language, which is widely spoken in southwestern Nigeria.

Rampant malnutrition
Research has shown that 42 percent of schoolchildren in Nigeria suffer malnutrition, and this has caused a high rate of absenteeism.

UNICEF estimates about 2.5 million Nigerian children under the age of five suffer from severe malnutrition each year, with about half a million children dying from it.

With a quality assurance tracking system known as #TrackWithUs, the programme handlers have urged Nigerians to visit nearby schools to check if meals meet the required standards and report any cooks who arent serving proper food.

Several cooks were fired in southern Cross River state last November for serving biscuits in lieu of meals.

The campaign has helped us track activities in schools and strengthened our existing monitoring and supervision mechanism, Adesanmi said. Since there is a reward and sanction system in place we have been able to name and shame cooks who do not comply with our standards.

A major barrier to the programmes success is the inability of state governments to scale up the meals to senior classes in elementary schools. The federal government caters to pupils from Grades 1 to 3, but with many states struggling to pay salaries, pupils in higher grades are not being fed.

Experts hope the government will not repeat the same mistakes made a decade ago when a combination of inadequate funding, poor logistics, and corruption crippled the scheme.

We need to promote community participation, community ownership, community implementation, community monitoring, strong institutional arrangements and multi-sector partnerships, Adesanmi said.

Source: NAN

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has deplored Cameroons forced return of Nigerian refugees to the Boko Haram violence areas.

It said: The forced returns are in violation of the principle of no forced returns or non-refoulement.

They are also a significant setback to progress previously achieved by Cameroon in granting asylum to Nigerian civilians fleeing Boko Haram violence.

Despite such counselling, Nigerian refugees and asylum-seekers who fled Boko Haram violence continue to be returned from Cameroon, UNHCR said.

It said the action underscored the need to accord international protection to those in need.

We appeal once again to the authorities in Cameroon to refrain from further forced returns and to ensure protection to those fleeing insecurity and persecution in Nigeria.

This is in accordance with Cameroons national and international obligations, UNHCR said.

Since the beginning of 2018, 385 Nigerians refugees and asylum-seekers had been forcibly returned from Cameroon, the majority of them in March, including 160 on April 10 and a further 118 a week later.

In total, the UN agency has registered some 87,600 Nigerian refugees in the country.

Properly functioning screening, registration and asylum systems help safeguard host country security, it said.

UNHCR reiterated its support to the Government of Cameroon to ensure that all those seeking international protection have access to efficient screening and registration procedures, as well as appropriate reception arrangements.

It had earlier appealed to the Government of Cameroon to respect human rights of all citizens for the sake of peace.

The commissions representative in Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr Antonio Canhandula, made the appeal while speaking with newsmen on Monday in Makurdi.

Canhandula said the instability in Anglophone Cameroon had forced thousands of citizens to seek asylum in Nigeria.

He said Cameroonian Government should explore alternative ways of engaging with those who feel aggrieved for the sake of peace and that both parties should respect human rights.

UNHCR urges the Government of Cameroon to explore ways of engaging with those who feel aggrieved, for the sake of peace.

We also reiterate the need for respect of human rights by all parties involved, Canhandula said.

He said the refugees complained of exclusion from the national life by the Cameroonian Government, political processes and important positions in the government.

Longstanding grievances against the central government in Cameroon took a new turn in 2016 when a group of Anglophone Cameroonians triggered civil society-led demonstrations.

This was based on allegations of marginalisation by the authorities, particularly in the education and justice system.

Initially, the protesters called for the return to a federal system of government and greater autonomy.

However, on Oct. 1, 2017, the separatist movement, Ambazonia Governing Council, declared unilaterally the independence of Cameroons Northwest and Southwest Regions.

Tensions ensued with government security forces clashing with movement, resulting in injuries and deaths and leading to an influx of English-speaking Cameroonians into Nigeria.

Critics accused government forces of killing dozens of civilians while the administration is also alleging that suspected separatists have killed more than 10 security personnel since the crisis intensified in October.

(NAN)

Source: NAN

Bandits have again killed about 30 people in Kabaro and Danmani villages in Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State.

A witness, Mr Shuaibu Kabaro, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maru that the suspected gunmen attacked the two communities and the incident was immediately reported to the security agents.

He said three of the bandits were arrested by security agents following the prompt report of the incident to the security personnel.

Shuaibu said, the gunmen in turn went and mobilized more gangs and returned in multitudes to carry out the attack which left about 30 dead and many others injured in the two communities.

The Maru Local Government Council Chairman, Alhaji Salisu Dangulbi and the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Mohammed Shehu both confirmed the killings.

According to them, many of the villagers deserted their homes for fear of further attacks which now characterized the mode of operations of the gunmen.

With the presence of security personnel now in the area, many of the villagers had returned home, the two officials confirmed in separate interviews.

The PPRO further explained that units of mobile police working with the military and other security agents were immediately mobilised to the affected areas and that peace and normalcy have been restored.

The police spokesman said that the actual number of those killed was still being ascertained and until this is done, l cannot give you actual figure at the moment.

Source: NAN