Radio vop – Fast appointment of the ministers could do much to alleviate uncertainty in Africa’s most populous nation after Jonathan dismissed the entire cabinet on Wednesday, aiming to consolidate his authority a month after assuming executive powers.

“Twenty of the ministers will certainly come back,” one of the presidency sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity, adding that he expected Jonathan to send his list to the Senate for approval by Tuesday.

Former Minister of State for Petroleum Odein Ajumogobia was likely to be the new oil minister in the OPEC member nation while outgoing Defence Minister Godwin Abbe, who has overseen an amnesty programme in the oil-producing Niger Delta, would be re-appointed, the source said.

Choosing a new cabinet which retains a large number of ministers suggests Nigeria’s broad policy direction is unlikely to change and could let Jonathan push ahead more authoritatively with his agenda in the 14 months left of this presidential term.

“The cabinet dissolution is a bid to inject fresh blood and bring in greater vigour to governance,” Jonathan’s spokesman Ima Niboro said, but declined to comment further.

Jonathan assumed executive powers in early February to try to end government paralysis in the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua, who had been in a clinic in Saudi Arabia receiving treatment for a heart condition for more than two months.

Read more – http://news.radiovop.com/index.php/africans-news/3443.html

UNDP – With the help of UNDP, in collaboration with the government, Nigeria is making great strides ahead in becoming green, thanks to a USD 13 million project that will phase out chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) from household equipment like refrigerators and air conditioners.

Nigeria has few firms that produce refrigerators, but the country  is a booming  market for second-hand air conditioners and refrigerators scrapped from Europe. These cooling equipments, which have become a necessity for the majority of Nigerians, use gases that eat away at the ozone layer which protects the Earth from the harmful rays of the sun. 

Managed by UNDP’s Ozone Programme and Management Implementation Unit (OPIAMU), the project will get both refrigerator manufacturers and the various associations  of second hand fridges and air conditioner traders to switch from CFCs to more ozone-friendly substances.

Read more – http://content.undp.org/go/newsroom/2009/october/in-nigeria-cfcs-will-soon-be-a-thing-of-the-past.en

By Segun Owen

WARRI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Thousands of people gathered in the Nigerian oil city of Warri on Sunday to witness the disarmament of militant leader Government Tompolo, the final prominent Niger Delta rebel to accept a presidential amnesty.

Tompolo arrived by presidential jet in Warri, the capital of Delta state, after signing an amnesty agreement with President Umaru Yar’Adua in Abuja late on Saturday. A second jet carrying Defence Minister Godwin Abbe arrived shortly afterwards.

Read more: Reuters Africa – http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE59301220091004?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

An African leader has dismissed the UN’s food agency as a “waste of money” and called for it to be scrapped.

President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal spoke out days after the UN announced an emergency plan to bring soaring world food prices under control. Mr Wade said the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) was itself largely to blame for the price rises. His comments came as bakers in Nigeria began a week-long national strike in protest at the cost of flour and sugar. Full article: BBC News

I was looking at this poll recently on the BBC News website where they used the story of 24-year-old Ugochukwu Nwaokporo who was released on bail earlier this month after spending seven years in a Nigerian prison without being charged. The question that titled the poll was “Does African justice deserve the name?” I want to focus not on the actual question (because I’m not qualified enough to have an opinion as someone who does not live in Africa) but on some of the responses. One person stated: “I don’t see what the big deal is, the justice system in any country or continent only works some of the time. Similar things happen in the US and other Western nations all the time. Why should African nations be any different, especially when their justice systems are merely carbon copies of their former imperial occupiers?” I thought that point was particularly powerful when you consider Amnesty International’s list of countries that use torture and internment is just as likely to include the countries of the so called developed world. The press is filled daily with stories of failed justice in practice and that is from nations where there is supposed to be no corruption. Then this point: “please africa has 53 countries everytime BBC refers to Africa as if its one country. to answer your question i guess it depends on which country in africa you are in. And please only people who have been in that country may know not after watching news on TV. If you guys are one country here is a question is europe supporting America on its Iraqi war.” Imagine how Canadians would feel if instead of citing the USA in news stories the media starting using ‘North America’ as the descriptive catch-all phrase. So why does the media persist in treating Africa as one country rather than an unique mix of different cultures and traditions existing, in the most part, in a state of mutual co-existence. Much of peoples misunderstanding of African issues comes from the way the media portrays the continent with it’s ‘one size fits all’ descriptions and tired old rhetoric based on 1980’s Live Aid style imagery. We have a long way to go! BBC News Poll

Nigeria needs $85bn (£42.7bn) of investment in its power infrastructure in order to produce electricity 24 hours a day, experts say. The sum is 17 times the amount the government announced it would spend on the power sector, and four and a half times the country’s oil savings. Most of Nigeria’s 140m residents live without reliable power. Read more BBC News