New York [RR] KANO–In a move to “burnish” the anti-Western image in Northern Nigeria, the United States is planning to set up a consular office in Kano State, the Associated Press (AP) reported Thursday.
The militant group, Boko Haram, which declares that “Western education is a taboo”, has been launching several attacks on security formations but has not attacked any American interest so far, although it suicide-bombed the United Nations head office in Abuja last year.
The US Ambassador to Nigeria, Terence P. McCulley, told AP that the US was considering opening a consulate in Kano, the biggest city in the North, to burnish America’s own image among a people still suspicious about Western influence.
However, he was unequivocal when asked whether US troops should be deployed in Nigeria.
“That’s not on the table,” McCulley said. “No, absolutely not”

New York [RR] LAGOS–Dikedioranma Ndigbo goes home leaving behind Nigeria sharply divided the way he saw it in 1966. Dead bodies of kids, pregnant women and breadwinners he received as gifts in 1966 are still being sent to us to bury with Ikemba’s body 46 years after. Now is Ikemba a hero or a villain? I leave you to answer this question.

Please tell it to the East, West ,North and South that the tallest Iroko Tree in the forest of Igboland , Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu goes home in the next couple of days, and the birds have no where to perch again. It is as if night has set in by 12noon for Ndigbo in Nigeria . It is as if parts of 40 million Ndigbo in Nigeria and in diaspora have gone with the passage of Ikemba. To Ndigbo it is as if nothing else matters again in Nigeria . The loss is monumental, colossal, irreplaceable and irreparable. Igboland mourns this sage, colossus, icon, warrior, fighter, orator, commander, facilitator, defender, mobilizer, and father.

New York [RR] ABUJA–The Nigeria Customs Service on Tuesday said what evolved into a monumental fraud in the management of the funds earmarked for fuel subsidy developed its root while former President Olusegun Obasanjo was in power and Adamu Ciroma was finance minister.Testifying before a House of Representatives hearing on the management of funds allocated for fuel subsidy, customs officials said fuel importation procedures turned messy in 2002, a year to the end of Mr. Obasanjo’s first term in office, when Mr. Ciroma’s ministry directed customs to allow importers bring in fuel without documentation.Julius Ndubuisi, a deputy comptroller general of customs, who appeared before the committee, said his service was “warned” sometime in 2002, by the federal ministry of finance, in a letter, not to press for documentations for petroleum imports to “avoid crisis.”Such an arrangement, lawmakers believe, which allowed importation of undocumented petroleum products into Nigeria, triggered the era of manipulations in the payment of government subsidy.The customs boss said the situation had not changed even today.While the directive lasted, Mr. Ndubuisi said, importers had a field day as uninvoiced and undocumented refined petroleum imports were forced through Customs checkpoints at Nigerian ports.The customs official’s revelation has opened a new vista into the elaborate web of complications surrounding the importation and clearance of petroleum products annually, and government’s payment of trillions of naira in subsidy.At the center of it all is the government-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC)

New York [RR] KANO–Multiple explosions and gunfire have rocked the Nigerian city of Kano, with residents reporting an immigration office and several police stations targeted.

A witness told Al Jazeera that he had seen at least seven dead bodies, including five immigration officers and two civilians. Authorities have not confirmed reports of casualties.

New York [RR] NBAISE–IMO-State–A colloquium on Ahiara declaration (January 16-17, 2012 ) formed one of the frontlines of activities to commemorate the life, times, tremendous courage and sacrifice of late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, leader of the then Republic of Biafra which now comprises of South Eastern and South-Southern parts of Nigeria. Ahiara declaration made by Ojukwu on June 1, 1969, two years into the Nigeria-Biafra war of 1967-1970, has been described by analysts as masterpiece political and ideological testament in which a vision of a new society was articulated in the light of the contradictions that led to the civil war and near breakup of Nigeria. It was a moral boost to the Biafran/Igbo struggle.

As Igbo prepares for the burial of her illustrious and brave son and hero, Dim Emeka Ojukwu, it becomes pertinent, not only once, to recount the declaration of unity, focus and bravery which mark the Igbo spirit – declaration made by Eze Igbo Gburugburu himself. Below is a paper presentation by Chief Charles O. Okereke, Publisher – Nigeria Masterweb (www.nigeriamasterweb.com) at the Colloquium On Ahiara Declaration held January 16-17, 2012 in Ahiara, Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria – at the venue of the declaration by Ojukwu in 1969.