Ogidi, Nigeria: Writer Chinua Achebe shunned Nigeria's corrupt politicians and twice turned down national honors, never fearing to criticize those he felt ruined his country. On Thursday, however, the lawmakers and the country's elite came to praise him.
Hundreds attended Achebe's funeral among the rolling hills of his eastern Nigeria home, a service that saw President Goodluck Jonathan literally hold up the writer's books. The gold plaque on his coffin simply called him the "eagle atop the Iroko tree" in his native Igbo language.
It was a fitting tribute to the respect Achebe carried among the people here and for many others around the world who knew him through his books, which many say is the first African voice heard in modern literature.Chinua Achebe's funeral. AP.
"Chinua Achebe gave Africa its confidence," said Emeka Anyaoku, an Igbo elder....
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10:56 AM, May 24, 2013
Abuja: At least 14 Islamist insurgents and three soldiers have been killed in Nigerian military crackdown on terrorists, as the restive Maiduguri city in northern state of Borno was placed under a 24-hour curfew. "After a mop up of scenes of battle (since Saturday), 14 terrorists were confirmed dead... Altogether three soldiers died, while seven are wounded and are being treated in a military medical facility," the defence ministry said...
08:07 AM, May 20, 2013
Abuja: At least 55 people, including 13 terrorists of radical Islamic sect Boko Haram, were killed when the latter attacked an army base, a police station and a prison in Nigeria's northern state of Borno, official sources said. The terrorists, who came with Hilux pick-up trucks, launched the attack in Bama, a commercial town about 187 km away from Maiduguri, on Wednesday, military spokesman Lt Col Sagir Musa told reporters...
12:00 PM, May 08, 2013
New Delhi: Delhi Police on Saturday said they have cracked an "international cartel" of drugs and fake currency dealers, arresting seven Nigerians and a Burmese woman. "The arrested include a Nigerian couple and a pastor, along with four other Nigerians and a Myanmarese woman," said Sanjeev Yadav, deputy commissioner of police (Special Cell). The group was also involved in human trafficking using fake passports, Yadav said. Police recovered 1.450 kg...
05:10 AM, Apr 28, 2013
Baga: Fighting between Nigeria's military and Islamic extremists killed at least 185 people in a fishing community in the nation's far northeast, officials said on Sunday, an attack that saw insurgents fire rocket-propelled grenades and soldiers spray machine-gun fire into neighborhoods filled with civilians. The fighting in Baga began on Friday and lasted for hours, sending people fleeing into the arid scrublands surrounding the community on Lake Chad. By Sunday,...
06:40 AM, Apr 22, 2013
In other matches, Tunisia pipped Sierra Leone 2-1 at home while South Africa eased to 2-0 win over Central African Republic. ...
12:43 PM, Mar 24, 2013
The opening sentence was as simple, declarative and revolutionary as a line out of Hemingway: "Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond," Chinua Achebe wrote in 'Things Fall Apart'. ...
08:08 AM, Mar 23, 2013
Seven foreign hostages kidnapped last month by a Nigerian Islamist group from a construction company compound have been killed, the Italian and Greek foreign ministries said on Sunday. The al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansaru announced on Saturday that it had killed the hostages seized on February 7 in the northern state of Bauchi because of attempts by Nigerian and British forces to free them. ...
02:55 PM, Mar 11, 2013
Italy's foreign ministry said Sunday that seven foreign hostages kidnapped in northern Nigeria had been killed as claimed by Islamic extremists, the worst such foreign abduction violence to hit the turbulent West African nation in decades. Greece also confirmed one of its citizens had been killed by Ansaru, the radical group that claimed responsibility for abducting the foreigners from northern Bauchi state in February 16. ...
08:41 PM, Mar 10, 2013
A FIFA spokesman confirmed the letter but emphasised it was a preliminary inquiry. ...
07:23 PM, Mar 07, 2013
Six foreign sailors, including two Indians, kidnapped from an oil service ship off Nigeria were released unharmed by pirates. The sailors had been kidnapped 40 nautical miles away from Nigeria earlier in February. ...
06:19 AM, Feb 27, 2013
Gunmen kidnapped seven foreigners and killed a security guard when they stormed the compound of Lebanese construction company Setraco in northern Nigeria's Bauchi state early on Sunday, police said. ...
04:42 AM, Feb 18, 2013
Referee Ibrahim Chaibou is under the scanner for fixing many exhibition matches in 2010. ...
07:52 PM, Feb 14, 2013
India was the top recipient of migrant remittances in 2012, according to a new report released by the World Bank. According to the report, India received $70 billion as migrant remittances in one year, followed by China with $66 million. ...
01:46 PM, Jan 08, 2013
Gunmen suspected to belong to a radical Islamist sect attacked a village in northeast Nigeria, tying up men, women and children before slitting their throats, killing at least 15 in the troubled region's latest attack, witnesses said on Saturday. ...
02:21 AM, Dec 31, 2012
Two suicide car bombers attacked the offices of two mobile phone operators on Saturday in Nigeria's northern city of Kano, killing themselves but no civilians, police said. ...
01:18 AM, Dec 23, 2012
Abuja: Five Indian sailors aboard a German oil tanker were kidnapped by heavily armed pirates who attacked the ship in waters off Nigeria's southern coast which have become a hotbed of pirate activity. The ship's operators, Medallion Marine said on Thursday the ship SP Brussels was attacked roughly 65 kilometres off the oil-rich Niger Delta by pirates who stormed the vessel and looted it before taking five Indians hostage. "The...
06:55 PM, Dec 19, 2012
Jos Nigeria: Gunmen sprayed bullets from a moving van Monday night, killing 10 people in a predominantly Christian town in a region beset by religious tensions, Nigeria's military said on Tuesday. The attackers were speeding along a road leading to the airport in Plateau state, said Captain Salisu Mustapha, the spokesman for a special military and police force deployed to the area in central Nigeria two years ago to stop...
08:24 AM, Nov 28, 2012
Dakar: Newcastle United striker Demba Ba is among six regulars who have pulled out of Senegal's squad for a friendly international in Niger on Wednesday, the Agence Presse Senegalaise news agency said on Monday. Ba played for Newcastle in their home Premier League defeat to West Ham on Sunday without any visible injury but joins Lamine Sane (Bordeaux), Cheikh Mbengue (Toulouse), Pape Ndiaye Souare (Stade Reims), Idrissa Gana Gueye (Lille)...
09:35 PM, Nov 12, 2012
