Some Facts about Nigeria

Nigeria – Some Facts

• One fifth of Africans live in Nigeria.
• It has 250 ethnic groups speaking over 350 languages or dialects.
• Nigeria is the 13^th largest oil producer in the world.
• Of 135 million Nigerians, 75% live in poverty.
• One in twenty are living with HIV/AIDs.
• More than 7 million children (mostly girls) do not go to Primary School.
• The health system is rated as one of the poorest in the world.
• Half the population depend on agriculture for its living.
• Nigeria has one of the fastest rates of urbanisation – 53% - in the world.
• Lagos will be the largest city in the world by 2015.

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Legal Bid Fails to Stop Nigerian Family's Deportation

Dublin Ireland August 14th: A last-minute legal challenge to stop the deportation of a Nigerian mother and her two children has failed. Lawyers acting for Olivia Agbonlahor, her autistic son Great (6) and his twin sister Melissa failed in their application to the High Court for an injunction to defer their removal from the State. The family are expecting to be deported later today. Campaigners for the family argue that Great, who has been receiving one-to-one treatment for his condition, will be treated like an outcast in Nigeria.

Last Tuesday the family - who have lived in Ireland for five years - were escorted from their home in Co Kerry to Dublin in preparation for deportation to Nigeria. Ms Agbonlahor and her children had lived in Clonakilty before moving to Killarney last year. Supporters staged demonstrations at the Immigration Bureau this morning and appealed to the Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan, to reverse the decision. The supporters said if Great is deported, he will face a life without treatment, in a society where autism is not understood. But at 1.30 today, their lawyer, Kevin Brophy, told waiting media the family were being deported. "I feel embarrassed and ashamed for what this Government have done to this family and this child," Mr Brophy said. Ms Agbonlahor and her children were expected to arrive back in Lagos later today, he said.

Mr Brophy said other Nigerian nationals due to be deported today had their deportations put back until September but that the Government had decided the Agbonlahor family were such an embarrassment they must go immediately. "We always knew we had difficulties from a legal point of view," he said. "She [Ms Agbonlahor] was hoping the Minister would be drawn into the discussion on humanitarian grounds," Mr Brophy said. He said it was outrageous the Minister had not stepped in and that the pressure had shown in Great who was demonstrating behavioural problems from the stress. Ms Agbonlahor had no support in Nigeria Mr Brophy said, adding she had one night's accommodation organised for her arrival and did not know where she would go from there.

Ms Agbonlahor's husband, Martins, was still in Italy he said. Ms Agbonlahor and her children fled Italy because they say her husband, who is an author, received death threats. Mr Brophy said although Mr Agbonlahor would become an Italian resident within two years, because his wife and children had now been deported, they would never be eligible under European Union law.
From ireland.com
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No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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Nigeria - Prison Conditions Appaling

NEW YORK, August 17, 2007 (CISA) - Amnesty International researchers, recently returned from Nigeria, have expressed shock at the prison conditions they witnessed and the protracted delays in the justice system. "The circumstances under which the Nigerian government locks up its inmates are appalling. Many inmates are left for years awaiting trial in filthy overcrowded cells with children and adults often held together," said Aster van Kregten, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International. "Some prisoners are called 'forgotten inmates' as they never go to court and nobody knows how much longer their detention will last, simply because their case files are lost." Of Nigeria’s 40,000 or so prisoners, 25,000 have never been convicted of a crime, and remain in prison up to 14 years without going to court, according to the United Nations humanitarian news agency IRIN.

The Amnesty International delegation spent two weeks in Nigeria, visiting 10 prisons in the states of Enugu, Kano and Lagos, and in the Federal Capital Territory. In the wake of its findings, the organisation called on the Nigerian government to properly fund urgent prison improvements and ensure all inmates are tried within reasonable time. Inmates in many prisons routinely sleep two to a bed or on the floor in squalid cells. Toilets, often little more than holes in the floor, are generally overflowing by the end of each day. Disease is rampant in the filth and close quarters. Three out of every five people in Nigeria’s prisons are awaiting trial, often for years. Amnesty International researchers spoke to several detainees who reported that they had each spent eight years or more waiting for their cases to conclude. Protracted pre-trial detention is so commonplace in Nigeria that periodic presidential and gubernatorial amnesties are routinely extended to those who have spent more time in prison awaiting trial than the maximum sentence they could receive if eventually convicted.

Children under the age of eighteen were held together with adults in four of the largest prisons Amnesty International visited. In Kuje Prison, located in the Federal Capital Territory, 30 boys­some as young as 11 and 12­shared a dormitory with over 175 adult men. By law, Nigeria’s prisons are tasked with inmate’s rehabilitation. Some facilities visited by Amnesty International offered schooling or work opportunities to a limited number of prisoners, but even these centers lacked sufficient books, instructional supplies and vocational training materials. All facilities had medical staff and welfare officers, personnel charged with safeguarding the well-being of inmates, but prisoners commonly reported that access to staff or medication was available only to those who could afford bribes.
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Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
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