I was shocked at the blackmail and the bashing that I received from people. Even some went to the extent of saying that they had gone to put curses in different shrines against me

An encounter with one of the elders in Ijebu-Imusin revealed some other issues surrounding the crisis. Some people were still shocked and reluctant to talk but a middle-aged man said it was unreasonable to hide anything. He opened up: “If people refused to talk, how would they expect others to know what is happening here?

Take for example, the state Cultural Centre. It was built in the central part of Port Harcourt . When he demolished it I thought he was going to replace it with something more beautiful. Instead he gave the site to Silverbird Cinemas! Who goes to cinemas these days? It does not make any sense. It is not even Rivers State cinema but a private man from Bayelsa.

Anybody who has any structure on the land without lawful government certification is an illegal squatter. What the state government offered to pay was technically not compensation but simply a commercial bonus to encourage the squatters to go and live a normal human life among normal human beings.

By Ochereome Nnanna, George Onah & Jimitota Onoyume PORT HARCOURT—If you visit any of the Waterfront settlements  in Port Harcourt, you are unlikely to want to come back unless something or someone dear to you is one of the victims trapped in their bowels. Ajegunle in Lagos is touted as Nigeria’s foremost slum settlement. Compared […]

APPARENTLY looking for a more practicable way of giving succor to the disabled, MTN Nigeria, last week, at the 2009 International Day for persons with disability commemoration put about 470 disabled persons on wheels.

Surprisingly, the case in Nigeria was a bit different because aside of having the conventional landmines, which were made by the English, we also had the problem of the locally manufactured landmines, which are more harmful, more deadly than the conventional land mines.

The civil war ended close to 40 years ago and it is sad to realize that we still have landmines, explosives, and all manner of bombs still littering the landscapes in the whole of the South East. The matter is made worse now, not just for the fact that these explosives are there but the fact that even the ones that have been recovered have not been moved out and destroyed

Poverty is hitting harder and people are having more children than they can cater adequately for. Some people take advantage of this, and children are therefore being trafficked for prostitution, etc. You find nine, eight year old children in brothels. You have many trafficked and used as maids in houses and shops.

What we have seen so far is that if gas supply improves, and we expect more to be available before the end of the year with the Niger Delta issue then, most of the gas supply pipeline was badly affected and one of the major plants, that is the one operated by Chevron was out for a long time but they are fixing that now and that alone accounts for about 2000 mmscf per day or 800 MW of electricity generation per day.