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Thus far, 1,000 women have tried to meet mates and some 2,000 men have applied for the program, which covers wedding expenses and provides a way around negotiating with future in-laws.

The first 100 women are to be wed in coming weeks.

Kano is a Muslim city in northern Nigeria.  The matchmaking program, which is spearheaded by the Islamic Sharia police, aims to match widows and divorcees with eligible men and has a two-fold agenda: First, the idea was conjured up to help curb unrest in northern Nigeria. Due to issues, such as unemployment, frustration among the nation’s youth have fueled violent eruptions. This region has also recently been under attack from Boko Haram, a Sunni Muslim militant group.

With Boko Haram meaning “no to western education,” this group is threatened by the West and mostly Christian population in southern Nigeria. Boko Haram members call for the establishment of Islamic Sharia law in Nigeria to change the approximately half-Christian and half-Muslim religious structure. The group, which is not that far off from the Taliban, has targeted police, the government, Christians, and non-extremist Muslims. Many believe that Boko Haram has ties to al-Qaeda.

By providing a home for the children of these single parents that is stable, financially secure, and loving, program organizers hope to reduce some of these social problems.  The program’s officials believe that children without proper parental guidance and structure are easy targets for political extremists and are likely to be easily influenced and led down a wrong path.

Nabahani Usman, deputy head of the Hisbah, the Sharia police, told the Digital Journal,  “It is very important they are saved from these destructive elements through this program, where they can have stable family life with their mothers and step-fathers looking after them.”

What do you think?

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The blast struck Kaduna, the capital of Kaduna state, leaving charred motorcycles and debris strewn across a major road in the city where many gather to eat at informal restaurants. The explosion injured many others, some critically, meaning the toll of the attack could rise as the day goes on, said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.

Shuaib said officials would canvass local hospitals and clinics later in the day.

“There were many motorcycles that were damaged, more than 20,” he said. “What happened to the owners?”

Police and soldiers surrounded the site as fearful residents fled.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, though suspicion immediately fell on a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the Hausa language of Nigeria’s north, is waging an increasingly bloody fight with security agencies and the public. More than 380 people have been killed in violence blamed on the sect this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

The sect, employing suicide bombers and assault-rifle shootouts, has attacked both Christians and Muslims, as well as the United Nations’ headquarters in Nigeria.

The sect has rejected efforts to begin indirect peace talks with Nigeria’s government. Its demands include the introduction of strict Shariah law across the country, even in Christian areas, and the release of all imprisoned followers.

The blast also comes as the United Kingdom and the United States had warned its citizens living in the oil-rich nation that violence was likely over the Easter holiday.

Kaduna, on Nigeria’s dividing line between its largely Christian south and Muslim north, was at the heart of postelection violence in April 2011. Mobs armed with machetes and poison-tipped arrows took over streets of Kaduna and the state’s rural countryside after election officials declared President Goodluck Jonathan the winner. Followers of his main opponent, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim, quickly alleged the vote had been rigged, though observers largely declared the vote fair.

Across the nation, at least 800 people died in that rioting, Human Rights Watch said. In the time since, heavily armed soldiers remain on guard on roadways throughout Kaduna. In December, an explosion at an auto parts market in Kaduna killed at least seven people. Though authorities said it came from a leaking gas cylinder, the Nigerian Red Cross later said in an internal report the blast came from a bomb.

In February, bombs exploded at two major military bases near the city, injuring an unknown number of people.

In his Easter speech at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI mentioned the ongoing violence in Nigeria. Catholic churches have been targeted in previous attacks.

“To Nigeria, which in recent times has experienced savage terrorist attacks, may the joy of Easter grant the strength needed to take up anew the building of a society which is peaceful and respectful of the religious freedom of its citizens,” he said.

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A radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram claimed Monday it killed 12 soldiers and beheaded three government informants in its bloody wave of sectarian violence against Nigeria’s weak central government. While Clinton never named the sect in a speech Monday night in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, he admitted he remained “really worried” about the security challenges in Africa’s most populous nation.

“You can’t just have this level of inequality persist. That’s what’s fueling all this stuff,” said Clinton, who appeared along with Cherie Blair, the wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, at the ThisDay Awards, an annual ceremony hosted by Nigerian newspaper magnate Nduka Obaigbena.

Poverty is endemic in Nigeria, and corruption has siphoned away billions in oil earnings since the country began exporting crude more than 50 years ago. New government statistics released Monday showed that in Nigeria’s northwest and northeast, regions besieged by Islamic insurgents, about 75 percent of the people live in poverty.

Analysts say that poverty, despite decades of military rule by leaders from the north, coupled with a lack of formal education has driven the region’s exploding youth population toward extremism.

In the last year, Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, has carried out increasingly sophisticated attacks in its campaign to implement strict Islamic law and avenge Muslim killings in Nigeria.

Boko Haram is blamed for killing at least 286 people so far this year, according to an Associated Press count. At least 185 people died in the sect’s coordinated assault in January on Kano, the largest city of Nigeria’s north.

Those attacks have strained relations between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. Clinton called for Nigerians to embrace their similarities, while also asking the government to speed public works projects such as providing electricity to a nation whose people are long accustomed to running their own generators for power.

“It is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with” violence, Clinton said. “You also have to give people something to look forward to when they get up in the morning.”

However, Clinton acknowledged Nigeria cannot rule out using military or police force when dealing with the instability. The unease in the country, as well as the threat of possible Boko Haram violence even in Lagos, could be felt as heavily armed soldiers and officers stood guard outside the luxury hotel as he spoke Monday night.

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Soldiers and police officers swarmed over streets Saturday in Kano, a city of more than 9 million people that remains an important political and religious hub in Nigeria’s Muslim north. But their effectiveness remains in question, as the uniformed bodies of many of their colleagues lay in the overflowing mortuary of Murtala Muhammed Specialist Hospital, Kano’s largest hospital.

Hospital records seen by an Associated Press reporter there showed at least 120 people died in the attacks that started Friday afternoon after Muslim prayers and as shops closed for the weekend in the sprawling, dusty city. A mortuary attendant, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak with journalists, said they had 126 bodies there.

Other bodies likely lay at other clinics and hospitals in the city.

In a statement issued late Friday, federal police spokesman Olusola Amore said attackers targeted five police buildings, two immigration offices and the local headquarters of the State Security Service, Nigeria’s secret police.

Nwakpa O. Nwakpa, a spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross, said volunteers offered first aid to the wounded, and evacuated those seriously injured to local hospitals. He said officials continued to collect corpses scattered around sites of the attacks. A survey of two hospitals by the Red Cross showed at least 50 people were injured in Friday’s attack, he said.

State authorities declared a 24-hour curfew late Friday as residents hid inside their homes amid the fighting.

A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in a message to journalists. He said the attack came as the state government refused to release Boko Haram members held by the police.

Boko Haram has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an AP count. So far this year, the group has been blamed for at least 196 killings, according to an AP count.

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Authorities said Kabiru Sokoto planned the bombing that killed 38 people at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, just outside Nigeria’s capital Abuja. But his arrest at the mansion of a state governor in Abuja, and subsequent escape, raised more questions about the government’s ability to stop the radical sect, known as Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for the church attack.

Federal police spokesman Olusola Amore said in statement that a local commissioner ordered Sokoto transferred to another police station in Abaji, just outside of Abuja and that the policemen escorting him were attacked by suspected sect gang members who freed him.

Commanders have suspended the local police commissioner and are investigating his actions, as well as those of the officers guarding Sokoto, Amore said.

Amore did not say whether there were injuries suffered in the attack. He could not be immediately reached for comment.

The statement did not address Sokoto’s arrest occurring at the official compound of the Borno state governor in Abuja as widely reported in the media. Borno state, in Nigeria’s arid and dusty northeast, is Boko Haram’s spiritual home.

The Christmas Day bombing targeted target worshippers at a Catholic church as they were leaving Mass, witnesses said. It was one of several attacks that day that killed at least 42 people, drawing worldwide criticism and new attention to Boko Haram.

The sect has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

So far this year, the group, that has warned it will kill Christians living in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north, has been blamed for at least 74 killings. That has further inflamed religious and ethnic tensions in Nigeria, which has seen ethnic violence kill thousands in recent years.

Boko Haram also claimed responsibility an August suicide car bombing that targeted the U.N. headquarters in the capital, killing 25 people and wounding more than 100.

In a video released last week, Imam Abubakar Shekau a Boko Haram leader, said the government could not handle attacks by the group.

Though President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from southern Nigeria, has declared emergency rule in some regions, the sect is blamed for almost daily attacks.

Jonathan has said he believes the sect has infiltrated security agencies and government offices in the country, though he has offered no evidence to back up the claim.

On Tuesday, authorities blamed Boko Haram gunmen for killing seven people in three separate attacks. Gunmen shot dead two soldiers distributing food to other service members, Borno state police commissioner Simeone Midenda said.

Two others were killed Monday when gunmen invaded their homes, military field operation officer Col. Victor Ebhaleme said. In Damaturu in nearby Yobe state, gunmen from the sect shot and killed three more people from Chad on Monday, Yobe state police chief Tanko Lawan said.

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Pastor Johnson Jauro said the gunfire sprayed the Deeper Life Church in Gombe, the capital of Gombe state, injuring several worshippers and killing his wife and two others. He spoke at a local hospital, where a joint team of soldiers and police officers stood guard. Two other people later died at the hospital from their wounds and an Associated Press reporter saw their bodies.

Local police spokesman Ahmed Muhammad confirmed the attack, but declined to say how many people the gunmen killed and wounded.

The assault occurred as Nigeria remains under attack by the sect known as Boko Haram. The oil-rich nation’s president recently put regions of the country under a state of emergency due to the threat, but that did not include Gombe, which sits about 350 miles (570 kilometers) from Nigeria’s central capital, Abuja.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram. The sect has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is responsible for more than 500 killings this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed at least 39 people in a Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic church near Abuja, as well as a suicide car bombing targeting the U.N. headquarters in the capital that killed 25 people and wounded more than 100.

Nigeria’s weak central government has been slow to respond to the sect.

On Dec. 31, President Goodluck Jonathan declared regions of Borno, Niger, Plateau and Yobe states to be under a state of emergency – meaning authorities can make arrests without proof and conduct searches without warrants. He also ordered international borders near Borno and Yobe state to be closed.

However, it remains unclear what effect that will have on a sect that has adopted hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings to target the country’s military and police, as well as civilians.

Meanwhile, a military spokesman said Thursday that soldiers killed two armed men suspected to be Boko Haram members after “resisting arrest” in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said the army believes the gunmen were responsible for an attack Wednesday evening that left two people dead.

However, human rights activists say security forces have carried out so-called “extra-judicial killings” out of frustration and anger at being unable to stop Boko Haram.

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“The rapper, Rick Ross, has issued a statement cancelling his performance at the Calabar Festival, scheduled for December 28, 2011, for reasons not related to his recent surgery and seizures,” the statement read. “The performer’s cancellation is unexpected and the reasons are unknown to Cross River State since he has confirmed receipt of his entire performance fee many weeks ago.”

The government of Cross River State Government has hired lawyers in the United States to explore other options to sue Rick Ross for breach of contract and to recover the performance fee.

Look, Nigeria is real crazy right now. They just had bombings over the Christmas holiday and religious tension is real high. Even The Pope was shook being out there in the last few days.  I wouldn’t  go to Nigeria for all the waffles at Roscoe’s- straight up .  I used to daydream about taking my family to Africa on vacation. That daydream today is a nightmare. The poverty has made a lot of regions wild. With various governments being unstable or outright corrupt, its hard to want to go. Ghana might work. But it is slim prospects right now on African vacation spots.

If they say Rick was sick, OK. He’s obese and he has the seizure issues, I get it. Yet if I was a betting man, I’d put my money on he’s not trying to get robbed and drug through the streets by some O.G. African gangsters. I do think Rick Ross should give the money back though.  I mean, Noriega owes him a hundred favors. It might be time to call one in. Should he give the loot back?  Will he give the loot back?  Post your thoughts below and check out the full story on Allhiphop.com.

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The rare attack in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta comes just days after radical Islamist militants launched a series of explosions across the country on Christmas, leaving at least 39 dead and dozens wounded.

Analysts say it is too early to speak of retaliation following the attacks by Boko Haram, but worry about what such violence could mean. The school was attacked Tuesday in Sapele, Delta State police spokesman Charles Muka said.

“Sapele just seems like the most unlikely place for a retaliatory attack to take place,” criminologist Innocent Chukwuma said. “But if it is, this would play right into Boko Haram, which has been looking to escalate the conflict to make the country ungovernable.”

Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous nation, is largely divided into a Muslim north and Christian south, though members of the two faiths live everywhere across the country, do business together and intermarry.

Thousands, though, have died in recent years in communal fighting pitting machete-wielding neighbors against each other. Earlier this year, at least 800 were killed across Nigeria’s north in postelection violence after a Christian candidate was elected president.

Tensions are particularly high in the nation’s “middle belt,” where the two regions meet. On Tuesday night, authorities say assailants shot a Christian couple and their 1-year-old child Tuesday night, said Plateau state spokesman Pam Ayuba.

Authorities believe the attack in a village near the city of Jos was carried out by Muslim herdsmen.

Boko Haram has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria. The group, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 504 killings this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

While initially targeting Islamic and Christian clerics, politicians, policemen and soldiers via hit-and-run assassinations from the back of motorbikes after the 2009 riot, violence by Boko Haram now has a new sophistication and apparent planning that includes high-profile attacks with greater casualties.

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Outside St. Theresa Catholic Church, crowds gathered among the burned-out cars in the dirt parking lot, angry over the attack claimed by a radical Muslim sect and fearful that the group will target more churches.

Rev. Father Christopher Jataudarde told The Associated Press that Sunday’s blast happened as church officials gave parishioners white powder as part of a tradition celebrating the birth of Christ.

Some already had left the church at the time of the bombing, causing the massive casualties. In the chaos after the bombing, Jataudarde said one mortally wounded man, cradling his shredded stomach, begged him for religious atonement.

“Father, pray for me, I will not survive,” the man said, according to the priest.

At least 52 people were wounded in the attack, said Slaku Luguard, a coordinator with Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency. Victims filled the cement floors of a nearby government hospital, some crying in pools of their own blood.

On Christmas, attacks by the radical Muslim sect left 39 dead across Africa’s most populous nation. A bomb also exploded amid gunfire in the central Nigeria city of Jos and a suicide car bomber attacked the military in the nation’s northeast.

After the bombings, a Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in an interview with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria’s Muslim north. The sect has used the newspaper in the past to communicate with public.

“There will never be peace until our demands are met,” the newspaper quoted the spokesman as saying. “We want all our brothers who have been incarcerated to be released; we want full implementation of the Sharia system and we want democracy and the constitution to be suspended.”

Boko Haram has carried out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. The group, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is responsible for at least 504 killings this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.

This Christmas attack comes a year after a series of Christmas Eve bombings in Jos claimed by the militants left at least 32 dead and 74 wounded. The group also claimed responsibility for the Aug. 26 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital Abuja that killed 24 people and wounded 116 others.

While initially targeting enemies via hit-and-run assassinations from the back of motorbikes after the 2009 riot, violence by Boko Haram now has a new sophistication and apparent planning that includes high-profile attacks with greater casualties.

That has fueled speculation about the group’s ties as it has splintered into at least three different factions, diplomats and security sources say. They say the more extreme wing of the sect maintains contact with terror groups in North Africa and Somalia.

Targeting Boko Haram has remained difficult, as sect members are scattered throughout northern Nigeria and the nearby countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Analysts say political considerations also likely play a part in the country’s thus-far muted response: President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south, may be hesitant to use force in the nation’s predominantly Muslim north.

Speaking late Sunday at a prayer service, Jonathan described the bombing as an “ugly incident.”

“There is no reason for these kind of dastardly acts,” the president said in a ceremony aired by the state-run Nigerian Television Authority. “It’s one of the burdens as a nation we have to carry. We believe it will not last forever.”

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Authorities say at least 25 people were killed by the explosion at the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, near the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Boko Haram, a radical Muslim sect waging a sectarian fight claimed the attack and another bombing near a church in the restive city of Jos.

The assaults come a year after a series of Christmas Eve bombings in Jos claimed by the militants left at least 32 dead and 74 wounded.

Benedict didn’t refer explicitly to the bombings in his Christmas Day survey of the world’s trouble spots, delivered from the sun-drenched loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. But the Vatican issued a statement denouncing them as a sign of “cruelty and absurd, blind hatred” that shows no respect for human life.

Elsewhere, Christians braved lashing rains and wind to celebrate Christmas Mass in Jesus’ traditional birthplace on Bethlehem’s Manger Square. St. Catherine’s Church is attached to the smaller Church of the Nativity, which is built over a grotto where the faithful believe Jesus was born.

“We wanted to be part of the action,” said Don Moore, 41, a psychology professor from Berkeley, Calif., who came to Bethlehem with his family. “This is the place, this is where it all started. It doesn’t get any more special than that.”

The holy town of Bethlehem is no stranger to violence. Like the rest of the West Bank, it fell on hard times after the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation broke out in late 2000. Although civil affairs in the biblical town on Jerusalem’s southeastern outskirts are run by Palestinian authorities, security control remains in the hands of Israel, which built a barrier around three sides of the town to keep Palestinian attackers out.

Palestinians say the barrier has badly hurt the local economy, which depends heavily on tourism, by severely restricting movement in and out of the town.

But as the violence has subsided, tourists have returned in large numbers. On Saturday, turnout for Christmas Eve festivities in Bethlehem was at its highest since the uprising began driving tourists away. An estimated 100,000 visitors streamed into Manger Square on Christmas Eve, up from 70,000 the previous year, according to the Israeli military’s count.

The Holy Land and the entire Mideast were very much on Benedict’s mind as he delivered his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” speech (Latin for “to the city and to the world”).

Speaking just a few hours after celebrating a late-night Christmas Eve Mass, Benedict said he prayed that the birth of Jesus, which Christmas celebrates, would send a message to all who need to be saved from hardships.

He said he prayed that God would help the Israelis and the Palestinians resume peace talks and “bring an end to the violence in Syria, where so much blood has already been shed.”

He called for international assistance for refugees from the Horn of Africa and flood victims in Thailand, among others, and urged greater political dialogue in Myanmar, and stability in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa’s Great Lakes region, which includes Congo, Uganda and Rwanda.

After his speech, Benedict delivered Christmas greetings in 65 different languages, from Mongolian to Maori, Aramaic to Albanian, Tamil to Thai. He finished the list with Guarani and Latin, as the bells tolled from St. Peter’s enormous bell towers.

In the piazza below, thousands of jubilant tourists and pilgrims, and hundreds of colorful Swiss Guards and Italian military bands mingled around the Vatican’s giant Christmas tree and larger-than-life sized nativity scene.

In the U.K., the leader of the world’s Anglicans, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said the summer riots in Britain and the financial crisis have broken bonds and abused trust in British society.

In his Christmas Day sermon, Rowan Williams appealed to those congregated at Canterbury Cathedral to learn lessons about “mutual obligation” from the events of the past year. He said Sunday that “the most pressing question” now facing Britain is “who and where we are as a society.”

“Bonds have been broken, trust abused and lost,” he said.

Britain’s royal family, meanwhile, celebrated Christmas with one notable absence. Queen Elizabeth II’s husband Prince Philip remained hospitalized after having a coronary stent put in after doctors determined the heart pains that sent him to the hospital on Friday were caused by a blocked artery.

And in the United States, members of the loose-knit hacking movement known as “Anonymous” claimed to have stolen 200 GB of e-mails and credit card data from U.S. security think tank Stratfor, promising a weeklong Christmas-inspired assault on targets including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, Goldman Sachs and MF Global.

The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on companies such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal, as well as others in the music industry and the Church of Scientology.

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LAGOS, Nigeria — A radical Muslim sect responsible for attacks that left more than 100 people dead in northeast Nigeria this week could bomb three luxury hotels frequented by foreigners in the oil-rich nation’s capital, the U.S. Embassy warned Sunday.

The unusually specific warning from U.S. diplomats identified possible targets of the sect known locally as Boko Haram as the Hilton, Nicon Luxury and Sheraton hotels. Those hotels draw diplomats, politicians and Nigeria’s business elite daily in the country’s central capital of Abuja.

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The embassy said the attack may come as Nigeria celebrates the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha and that its diplomats and staff had been instructed to avoid those hotels.

Deb MacLean, an embassy spokeswoman, declined to offer further details about the threat or the source of the information Sunday.

The warning came as a Nigerian Red Cross official said Sunday that more than 100 died in a series of attacks in northeast Nigeria launched by the radical Muslim sect, as sect gunmen shot and killed another police officer.

Ibrahim Bulama told The Associated Press he expected the number of dead to rise as local clinics and hospitals tabulate the casualty figures from the attacks Friday in Damaturu, the capital of rural Yobe state.

While the hard-hit city remained calm and its Muslim inhabitants celebrated a religious holiday Sunday, army and police units manned roadblocks leading into the town and streets remained largely quiet, Bulama said.

Meanwhile, the sect known locally as Boko Haram killed a police inspector Sunday in the city of Maiduguri, the sect’s spiritual home about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Damaturu. Sect gunmen stopped the officer’s car at gunpoint as he neared a mosque to pray with his family, local police commissioner Simeon Midenda said.

Gunmen ordered the family away, then shot the inspector to death, Midenda said. The sect members later allowed his family to drive the car away, he said.

The killing prompted a frank acknowledgment from the police commander, whose men remain under siege from constant assassinations by the radical sect.

“Our men who live in the midst of the Boko Haram are not safe,” Midenda said.

Statements issued late Saturday show the U.N. Security Council called the attacks Friday in the cities of Damaturu and Maiduguri “criminal and unjustifiable” and asked members to help Nigerian authorities bring those responsible to justice.

A statement on behalf of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for “an end to all violence in the area,” while offering sympathy for the victims.

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday appealed for an end to all violence, saying it only increases problems, sowing hatred and division even among the faithful. He told tourists in St. Peter’s Square that he is following with apprehension the news from Nigeria.

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks Friday, which included suicide bombings and shootings.

Boko Haram wants to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, an oil-rich nation of more than 160 million which has a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim north. Its name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, but instead of schooling, it rejects Western ideals like Nigeria’s U.S.-styled democracy that followers believe have destroyed the country with corrupt politicians.

Boko Haram’s attacks occurred ahead of Sunday’s celebration, or the feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son. Police elsewhere in the country had warned of violence ahead of the celebration in Nigeria.

An Associated Press count shows the group has killed at least 361 people this year alone.

The brazen assault in a neighborhood surrounded by heavily fortified diplomatic posts represented the first suicide attack to target foreigners in oil-rich Nigeria, where people already live in fear of the radical Boko Haram sect. The group, which has reported links to al-Qaida, wants to implement a strict version of Shariah law in the nation and is vehemently opposed to Western education and culture.

While police officers and local officials have primarily bore the brunt of Boko Haram’s rage, now everyone seems to be a target in a nation often divided by religion and ethnicity.

“It is an attack on the global community,” said Viola Onwuliri, a junior Nigerian foreign minister, as she looked at the bomb site.

A sedan loaded with explosives crashed through two gates at the exit of the United Nations compound Friday morning as guards tried in vain to stop it, witnesses told The Associated Press. The suicide bomber inside drove the car through the glass front of the main reception area of the building and detonated the explosives, inflicting the most damage possible, a spokesman for the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency said.

“I saw scattered bodies,” said Michael Ofilaje, a UNICEF worker at the four-story building, which he said shook with the explosion. “Many people are dead.”

At least 18 people died in the attack, according to an AP survey of morgues at four major Abuja hospitals. Nigerian Health Minister Mohammad Ali Pate made a public appeal for blood donations, saying there were at least 60 injured people alone at the nearby National Hospital.

The headquarters, known as U.N. House, had offices for about 400 employees working for 26 U.N. humanitarian and development agencies. Authorities worked Friday to account for everyone in the building at the time of the blast.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the car bombing “an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others.”

“We condemn this terrible act, utterly,” Ban told reporters at U.N. headquarters. “We do not yet have precise casualty figures but they are likely to be considerable. A number of people are dead; many more are wounded.”

Said Djinnit, the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for West Africa, told the AP that he expects the casualties are mostly local staff.

The attack was one of the deadliest attacks on the United Nations in a decade. Seventeen U.N. civilian staff members were killed along with dozens of others in two terrorist car bombings that targeted U.N. and other premises in Algiers on Dec. 11, 2007. Friday’s bombing also came just days after the U.N. marked the eighth anniversary of the Aug. 19, 2003 bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 15 U.N. staff including top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and seven others.

The attack was also condemned by leaders around the world and members of the U.N. Security Council who individually deplored the targeting of the U.N. at an open meeting on U.N. peacekeeping.

U.S. President Barack Obama called the attack “horrific and cowardly” and expressed strong support for the U.N.’s work.

“The people who serve the United Nations do so with a simple purpose: to try to improve the lives of their neighbors and promote the values on which the U.N. was founded — dignity, freedom, security, and peace,” Obama said in a statement. “An attack on Nigerian and international public servants demonstrates the bankruptcy of the ideology that led to this heinous action.”

The explosion punched a huge hole in the building, located in the same neighborhood as the U.S. embassy and other diplomatic posts in Abuja. Workers brought three large cranes to the site within hours of the attack, trying to pull away the concrete and rubble to find survivors. Others at the site stood around, stunned, as medical workers began carrying out what appeared to be the dead.

“This is getting out of hand,” said a U.N. staffer who identified himself as Bodunrin. “If they can get into the U.N. House, they can reach anywhere.”

Local police spokesman Jimoh Moshood said detectives had begun an investigation. In a statement, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s office called the attack “barbaric, senseless and cowardly.” The statement also promised to increase security in the nation’s capital.

However, Jonathan’s administration has struggled to improve security in Nigeria, a nation of 150 million largely split between a Christian south and Muslim north. The Christian president’s election in April brought religious and ethnic violence across the north that left 800 people dead.

A spokesman for Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attack later Friday in a communique to the BBC’s Hausa language shortwave radio service, which is widely trusted and listened to throughout Nigeria’s Muslim north. The sect has made such claims before to the service.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sacrilege,” has carried out a series of bombings and assassinations in northern Nigeria in the last year. It claimed a car bombing that struck Nigeria’s federal police headquarters in June that killed at least two people.

The sect came to national prominence in 2009, when its members rioted and burned police stations near its base of Maiduguri, a dusty northeastern city on the cusp of the Sahara Desert. Nigeria’s military violently put down the attack, crushing the sect’s mosque into shards as its leader was arrested and died in police custody. About 700 people died during the violence.

Sect members are scattered throughout northern Nigeria and nearby Cameroon, Chad and Niger. In the last year, they’ve unleashed a series of targeted killings and bombings.

But attacking foreigners is a new, troubling step for the group. Earlier this month, the commander for U.S. military operations in Africa told the AP that Boko Haram may be trying to coordinate attacks with two al-Qaida-linked groups — al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which operates in northwest Africa, and with al-Shabab in Somalia.

“I think it would be the most dangerous thing to happen not only to the Africans, but to us as well,” Gen. Carter Ham said Aug. 17.

The attack Friday shows Boko Haram has aspirations beyond targeting local government officials, said Innocent Chukwuma, a Nigerian criminologist and director of a police reform organization.

“Today’s has taken it to the international level,” Chukwuma said. “The choice of target shows we are perhaps dealing with a group well-connected to international networks.”

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Witnesses told The Associated Press that a sedan broke through the exit at the U.N. compound, ramming through two separate gates as guards tried to stop the vehicle. The suicide bomber inside drove the car just up to the main reception of the building before detonating, inflicting the most damage possible, witnesses said.

“I saw scattered bodies,” said Michael Ofilaje, a UNICEF worker at the building. “Many people are dead.”

He said it felt like “the blast came from the basement and shook the building.”

The building houses about 400 employees of the U.N. in Nigeria, including the majority of its offices. A local U.N. spokesman declined to comment, but a local hospital administrator told the AP it had treated as many as 40 victims so far, with more people coming in.

Alessandra Vellucci, a spokeswoman for the U.N. office in Geneva, confirmed that the global body’s offices in Abuja had been bombed.

She told the AP that there was no word yet on casualties.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq in New York said, “There are some indications of fatalities, but we are trying to get confirmation.”

The building, located in the same neighborhood as the U.S. embassy and other diplomatic posts in Abuja, had a huge hole punched in it. Workers brought three large cranes to the building by midday Friday, trying to pull away the concrete and rubble to try and find survivors. Others at the site stood around, stunned, as medical workers began carrying out what appeared to be the dead.

“This is getting out of hand,” said a U.N. staffer who identified himself as Bodunrin. “If they can get into the U.N. House, they can reach anywhere.”

Ali Tikko, who was in a building 100 yards (meters) from the site of the blast when it occurred said, “I heard one big boom.” Outside his window, he said, he could see a part of the damage.

“I see a number of people lying on the floor, at least four or five. I cannot see if they are dead. There are a lot of security around,” said Tikko who was reached by telephone Friday morning.

Local police spokesman Jimoh Moshood confirmed the blast, but said police were still investigating the cause. Reuben Abati, a spokesman for President Goodluck Jonathan, said the presidency would later issue a statement on the attack.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but oil-rich Nigeria faces terrorism threats on multiple fronts. Last year, a militant group from the country’s crude-producing Niger Delta blew up car bombs in the capital during Nigeria’s 50th independence anniversary ceremony, killing at least 12.

Nigeria, a nation of 150 million, is split between a largely Christian south and Muslim north. In recent months, the country has faced an increasing threat from a radical Muslim sect called Boko Haram, which wants to implement a strict version of Shariah law in the nation. The sect has carried out assassinations and bombings, including the June car bombing of the national headquarters of Nigeria’s federal police that killed at least two people.

Earlier this month, the commander for U.S. military operations in Africa said Boko Haram may be trying to link with two al-Qaida-linked groups in other African countries to mount joint attacks in Nigeria.

Gen. Carter Ham told AP on Aug. 17 during a visit to Nigeria that “multiple sources” indicate Boko Haram made contacts with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which operates in northwest Africa, and with al-Shabab in Somalia.

“I think it would be the most dangerous thing to happen not only to the Africans, but to us as well,” Carter said.

Bello, who arrived in the U.S. from Nigeria in 2004, has been influential in creating a number of programs aimed to make Africans more self-efficient.

The Huffington Post named Bello  “Greatest Person Of The Day.”

The HuffPost Reports:

Bello is also involved in a program that seeks to develop mobile apps for small businesses in Nigeria, and another that enables doctors to do lab tests in malaria-stricken communities without a stable power supply. And the Libraries Across Africa program just won a $10,000 grant from the Dell Social Innovation Competition.

Read More At HuffingtonPost.com

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The Islamic faith healer, now 87, is currently wed to 86 wives ranging in age from 19 through 64. He has buried nine spouses, and divorced another dozen.

Why so many?

“I get a revelation from God telling me any woman I’m going to marry,” he told the newspaper. “If it wasn’t from God, I wouldn’t have gone beyond two.”

Maasaba lives with his family in an 89-room house in the city of Bida. His extended family – in-laws, cousins, nieces, nephews – now numbers about 5,000.

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BAUCHI, Nigeria — At least 500 people died in religious rioting that followed Nigeria’s presidential election, a civil rights group said Sunday, as volatile state gubernatorial elections loom this week.

Meanwhile, police in the northern state of Bauchi said at least 11 recent college graduates who helped run polling stations as part of the country’s national youth service corps have been killed in postelection violence, while other female poll workers have been raped.

The Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria said that the worst hit area was Zonkwa, a town in rural Kaduna state, where more than 300 people died in rioting.

The Civil Rights Congress, led by a Muslim activist, said killings also took place in the towns of Kafanchan and Zangon Kataf, as well as the state capital of Kaduna.

Muslim opposition supporters began riots as results from the April 16 election showed Christian President Goodluck Jonathan had won the vote. Many here in predominantly Muslim north of Africa’s most populous nation felt the next president should have been from their region because a Muslim president died last year before he could complete his term.

Retaliatory violence by Christians soon followed, and officials say more than 40,000 people have now fled their homes. Authorities are fearful that releasing any official death toll will only prompt more fighting, but witnesses believe hundreds have been killed across the north.

The violence also took a toll on Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps. Authorities are trying to assure members they will be safe for them to take part in Tuesday’s gubernatorial elections being held in 29 states, though some have already fled their posts.

In Bauchi state, police have arrested 68 suspects in connection with the deadly riots that were sparked by the presidential election, Police Commissioner Amana John Abakasanga told The Associated Press.

Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps is a mandatory yearlong assignment for all Nigerians who graduate from university before the age of 30. Most serve as teachers, but the April national elections have brought extra responsibilities – and danger – to their work.

The founders of the program created it in 1973 to promote national unity in a country with more than 150 ethnic groups and to help reconcile Nigerians after a 31-month civil war claimed more than 1 million lives. By encouraging young graduates to explore new parts of the country, the goal was to dispel negative stereotypes.

At least four of the young poll workers were killed in Bauchi last week when an angry mob locked them inside their youth hostel and set it ablaze. The vote for governor has been delayed in Bauchi and Kaduna states until Thursday because of security concerns there.

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The Washington Post reports:

“In Brazil, we have all kinds of culture, people, and our inner identity comes from black people,” said Melo, 47, a drug abuse counselor in City of God, a favela Obama is expected to visit on Sunday. “That’s why I think Obama is important for the world, because a poor guy suddenly becomes the most important man in the world.”

Obama’s story — the humble beginnings and the rise to prominence and power — is familiar here. And so is his race, which has struck a chord in a country with the world’s second-largest black population, after Nigeria.

“People identify with the self-made man, with his discourse, with his family,” said Silva, a former secretary of justice in Sao Paulo state. “All this generates hope and feeds the dream of black people in Brazil — that they, too, can access power.”

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Uche Okafor (left)

TEXAS — Uche Okafor, a defender on two World Cup teams for Nigeria who later played for the Kansas City Wizards in the U.S., has been found dead in his Dallas-area home, police said Friday. He was 43.

Okafor’s body was discovered Thursday afternoon by his wife in their house in Little Elm, a town about 30 miles northwest of Dallas, Detective Oscar Hinojosa said. The official cause of death was pending.

Police were not describing it as a homicide or a suicide, “we’re just saying it’s a death,” Hinojosa told The Associated Press. A spokesman for the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office said Okafor’s body would be examined Friday.

Read full article at HuffingtonPost.com

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Halliburton will pay Nigeria $35 Million to settle a bribery dispute with its former CEO, Dick Cheney, the ex-Vice President of The United States Of America. Talking Points Memo reports:

US oil services group Halliburton agreed to pay Nigeria 35 million dollars to settle a bribery dispute which led to charges being filed against former US vice president Dick Cheney, it said Tuesday.

Nigeria had on December 7 filed an indictment against nine people and entities, including Cheney, who was head of Halliburton before becoming vice president after 2000 elections.

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Nigeria — Dick Cheney will be charged by Nigerian authorities in a bribery case involving his former employer, Halliburton according to the Huffington Post:

An arrest warrant “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol,” said Godwin Obla, the prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria.

The charges center on an alleged $180 million bribery payment used to secure a $6 billion liquefied natural gas contract. Prosecutors are also looking into international companies Saipem and Technip. Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, before becoming George W. Bush’s running mate. “As the CEO of Halliburton, he has the responsibility for acts that occurred during that period.

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Worth an estimated $2.1bn, Aliko Dangote is one of the richest men in Africa.

The Dangote Group, which he started in 1977, trading in commodities and building materials, is now a multi-billion dollar conglomerate spanning West Africa.

Today, the business covers flour, sugar, pasta, clothing and cement which made Dangote Nigeria’s first billionaire in 2007, according to Forbes magazine.

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Forbes said Dangote, 53, began his business at the age of 21 with a loan from his uncle. He studied business studies at Al-Azahar University, Cairo, Egypt.

Dangote said one of his cement factories, 30 minutes from Lagos, is already one of the largest in the world, and there are plans to double its capacity.

Read entire article at CNN.com

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The UN has sent an emergency environmental team to Nigeria to investigate the deaths of more than 200 children this year from lead poisoning.

Specialists from several agencies are to take water and soil samples from an area in in the north of the country.

The source of the poisoning has been traced to lead-contaminated waste dumped from illegal gold mining.

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The contamination is thought to have affected as many as 18,000 people, a UN spokeswoman said.

“From the latest figures we have, more than 200 children reportedly died from this poisoning,” said Elisabeth Byrs, the spokeswoman for the UN’s Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Five specialists from the World Health Organisation and Unicef are to spend almost two weeks in Nigeria. They will analyse the soil and drinking water in an area around seven villages in Zamfara state to assess the scale of the poisoning.

Read entire article at BBC.uk

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Authorities were searching for more than 700 inmates Wednesday who escaped after gunmen attacked a prison in northern Nigeria, police said.

A radical Muslim sect used assault rifles to launch a coordinated sunset raid on a prison in northern Nigeria, freeing more than 100 followers and raising new fears about violence in the oil-rich nation just months before elections.

The attack Tuesday night by the Boko Haram sect left the prison in ruins and showed the group had access to the sophisticated weapons it needed to overpower prison guards. Now the group seeking to impose strict Islamic law on Nigeria may want to take on the government directly, potentially bring a new wave of violence to Africa’s most populous nation.

The Nigerian government is “standing flat-footed. They’re on the defensive,” said Mark Schroeder, the director of sub-Saharan Africa analysis for STRATFOR, a private security think tank based in Austin, Texas.

The attackers went cell by cell at the prison in Bauchi, breaking open locks and setting fire to part of the prison before escaping during the confusion with more than 750 inmates, said Bauchi state police commissioner Danlami Yar’Adua.

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Five people – a soldier, a police officer, two prison guards and a civilian – died in the attack and six others remain in critical condition.

Members of Boko Haram – which means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language – rioted and attacked police stations and private homes in July 2009, triggering a violent police and military crackdown during which more than 700 people died. More than 120 followers arrested in the wake of the attacks last year were being held at the Bauchi prison pending trial.

Read entire article at HuffingtonPost.com

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FROM CNN.com:

In a dark room, the High Priestess used her ceremonial knife to cut two teardrop scars beneath her baby grandson’s eyes.

As baby Enitan cried out, the marks ran red with blood. It took only a few moments, but scarred him for life.

In her small mud-brick home in southwest Nigeria, priestess Ifaponle Ogunjinmi performed the Yoruba tradition of giving tribal marks to the youngest member of her family.

“The tribal mark is to identify the family,” Ifaponle said. “Everyone in the family must have it.”

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Nigerian Man Arrested Carrying Bags Of 70 Dead Babies

From the BBC:

A man carrying bags containing more than 70 dead babies has been arrested in Nigeria.

He was employed by the Lagos University Teaching Hospital to take the corpses to a cemetery.

The worker was allegedly trying to dump the corpses as he could not afford burial fees.

A hospital spokesman said it was co-operating with police investigations into the incident.

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A BBC correspondent in Lagos says many families are too devastated to deal with the dead babies and others cannot afford morgue fees, so abandon them outside hospitals. Hospitals hire contractors to bury the corpses.

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From the NY Times:

BODO, Nigeria — Big oil spills are no longer news in this vast, tropical land. The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless.

Perhaps no place on earth has been as battered by oil, experts say, leaving residents here astonished at the nonstop attention paid to the gusher half a world away in the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a few weeks ago, they say, that a burst pipe belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the mangroves was finally shut after flowing for two months: now nothing living moves in a black-and-brown world once teeming with shrimp and crab.

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Not far away, there is still black crude on Gio Creek from an April spill, and just across the state line in Akwa Ibom the fishermen curse their oil-blackened nets, doubly useless in a barren sea buffeted by a spill from an offshore Exxon Mobil pipe in May that lasted for weeks.

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LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s acting leader Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in Thursday as president of Africa’s most populous country, as the body of his predecessor was flown north for a traditional Muslim burial hours after he died following a lengthy illness.

Jonathan put on a sash bearing the green, yellow and white colors of Nigeria, signifying he had formally taken over for President Umaru Yar’Adua though Jonathan had served as acting president for months.

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Late Thursday morning, soldiers escorted a stretcher bearing the body of Yar’Adua, wrapped in a Nigerian flag, onto a military cargo plane bound for his native Katsina state. There, a local imam prayed over his corpse before he was buried at a cemetery near his home.

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Yar’Adua, who long had suffered from kidney ailments and was recently hospitalized in Saudi Arabia because of heart inflammation, died Wednesday night after apparently succumbing to his ill health. Officials said he would be buried before sundown Thursday.

Jonathan now will serve as president through next year’s vote, likely to be held by April 2011. He also will be able to select a vice president to serve underneath him, subject to Senate approval.

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In a brief address, Jonathan promised that his administration would focus on good governance during its short tenure, focusing especially on electoral reform and the fight against corruption.

“One of the true tests will be that all votes count and are counted in our upcoming presidential election,” Jonathan said.

An unwritten power-sharing agreement within Nigeria’s ruling party calls for the presidency to alternate between Nigeria’s Christians and Muslims. Yar’Adua, a Muslim, was still in his first four-year term though — meaning there could be a political fight brewing in the ruling People’s Democratic Party over allowing Jonathan to contest the presidency.

“Jonathan must be interested in contesting for the presidency, but he still has not revealed his hand and he’s still pretty hesitant about signaling what his intentions are,” said Mark Schroeder, the director of sub-Saharan Africa analysis for STRATFOR, a private security think tank based in Austin, Texas.

“Jonathan will certainly keep his hat in the ring and that will ensure he remains an influence within Nigeria’s political system,” he said. “Whether he has enough support (to run for president) … that’s another big question.”

Yar’Adua’s death came almost three months after Jonathan had assumed control of Nigeria as acting president and less than a year away from the next presidential elections in a country once plagued by military coups. Some Nigerians who awoke to the news of Yar’Adua’s death were initially skeptical, as the masses remained uncertain about the ailing leader’s condition for months.

Yet the streets in Lagos, the country’s spiraling megacity in the south, remained quiet as Jonathan declared the day a public holiday and the start of a seven-day mourning period in the nation of 150 million people.

The oil-rich Niger Delta, which has seen militant attacks throughout the impoverished region since 2006, remained quiet as well, allowing foreign oil companies to pump out crude oil in relative security.

Schroeder said Nigeria’s political leaders knew they needed to quickly swear Jonathan in as president to show the world there was no power vacuum. When Yar’Adua went to a Saudi Arabian hospital on Nov. 24 to receive treatment, he failed to formally transfer his powers to Jonathan, sparking a constitutional crisis.

Jonathan assumed the presidency Feb. 9 after a vote by the National Assembly while Yar’Adua was still in Saudi Arabia.

“The U.S. wants political stability in Nigeria so that’s there’s stability in the oil sector,” Schroeder said.

Nigeria was the No. 4 oil exporter to the U.S. in February, sending about 896,000 barrels of crude a day to the U.S., outstripping even Saudi Arabia.

Jonathan said Thursday that peace in the Niger Delta, home to the country’s oil industry, remains a priority. Attacks by militants there last year crippled oil production. Yar’Adua had tried to peacefully end the insurgency but those efforts frayed due to his increasing illness.

Jonathan said Yar’Adua left a “profound legacy” for him to follow.

“He was not just a boss, but a good friend and a brother,” Jonathan said.

LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua, whose election marked the country’s first peaceful transition of power from one civilian to another, has died following a debilitating illness that sparked a leadership crisis in Africa’s most populous country. He was 58.

Yar’Adua’s death Wednesday comes almost three months after his vice president assumed control of Africa’s most populous nation and less than a year away from the next presidential elections in a nation once plagued by military coups.

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Spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi said Yar’Adua died at the Aso Rock presidential villa with his wife Turai at his side. Adeniyi and other officials did not give a cause of death.

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Yar’Adua had a long history of kidney ailments and recently suffered from an inflamed heart.

Yar’Adua will be buried before sundown Thursday afternoon in his home state of Katsina in accordance with his Muslim faith, said Ima Niboro, a spokesman for Goodluck Jonathan, the country’s acting president.

“Nigeria has lost the jewel on its crown and even the heavens mourn with our nation tonight,” Jonathan said in a statement. Jonathan added that the country should stay home from work Thursday as part of seven days of mourning for Yar’Adua.

Top government ministers flooded into the presidential villa late Wednesday night to meet with Jonathan, who offered condolences to Yar’Adua’s wife before beginning work as the country’s head of state, Niboro said.

Under Nigeria’s constitution, Jonathan now becomes president until the next elections scheduled to be held by April 2011 — less than a year away. He also will nominate a vice president, subject to Senate approval.

U.S. President Barack Obama called Yar’Adua a man of “profound personal decency and integrity.”

“President Yar’Adua worked to promote peace and stability in Africa through his support of Nigerian peacekeeping efforts as well as his strong criticism of undemocratic actions in the region,” Obama said in a statement.

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Born into one of Nigeria’s best-known political families in 1951, Yar’Adua got his start as the governor of Katsina state. The soft-spoken former chemistry professor later emerged as the consensus pick among the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party, run by then-President Olusegun Obasanjo, a former military dictator.

Yar’Adua’s election as president in 2007 was meant to end a cycle of military takeovers and cement democratic rule. However, international observers said the vote was rigged even though Yar’Adua wasn’t widely considered responsible.

“We acknowledge that our elections were not perfect and had lapses and shortcomings,” Yar’Adua said in his inaugural address. “I also believe that our experiences represent an opportunity to learn from our mistakes.”

That admission alone offered a break from the bluster that characterized Yar’Adua’s predecessors, including some of Africa’s most famous “Big Men.”

Yar’Adua took office in a country notorious for corruption and gained accolades for being the first leader to publicly declare his personal assets when taking office. But enthusiasm for his presidency waned as time passed and he made no headway in fighting entrenched corruption.

He had tried to peacefully end an insurgency in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta that had attacked the petroleum infrastructure, allowing Angola to overtake Nigeria as Africa’s leading oil exporter but those efforts frayed due to his increasing illness.

He flew away on long overseas trips to Germany and Saudi Arabia, where he availed himself of first-class medical treatment for his chronic kidney ailments. Meanwhile Nigerians saw little improvement in their own country’s hospitals and health care system.

Yar’Adua also was unable to stem religious violence in a country split between the Christian-dominated south and its Muslim north.

Yar’Adua went to a Saudi Arabian hospital on Nov. 24 to receive treatment for what officials described as a severe case of pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart that can cause a fatal complication. He failed to formally transfer his powers to Jonathan, sparking a constitutional crisis in Nigeria, home to 150 million people.

Jonathan assumed the presidency Feb. 9 after a vote by the National Assembly while Yar’Adua was still in Saudi Arabia.

Lawmakers left open the possibility for Yar’Adua to regain power if he returned to the country in good health. He returned on Feb. 24 but never reappeared in public and did not assume power again.

Yar’Adua leaves behind his wife, Turai, and nine children.

ABUJA (AFP) – Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan swore-in his new cabinet Tuesday, handing the powerful oil ministry to a woman for the first time and putting a Goldman Sachs banker in charge of finance.

Jonathan sacked the entire cabinet on March 17 as he moved to assert his authority in the African oil giant after replacing ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua, but nevertheless said the new team will continue the policies of the ex-government.

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“Permit me to emphasise the policy continuum of governance and to insist on the imperative of this team to roll up its sleeves, and to redouble the effort so as to meet the expectation of our people who are yearning for good governance,” he said.

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Jonathan, who has slightly over a year before the next elections, told the new cabinet members “you must hit the ground running.”

“Time is of fundamental essence and no distraction in our mission will be tolerated,” he said.

The new oil minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke from Jonathan’s Bayelsa state in the southern oil-producingNiger Delta, was in charge of the mines and steel ministry in the cabinet dissolved last month.

A graduate of Howard and Cambridge universities, she was an external affairs director for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell before joining the government in 2007.

Shortly after appointing his cabinet, Jonathan sacked, with no explanation, the boss of the loss-making and corruption-ridden state oil firm Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

Jonathan, who replaced Yar’Adua two months ago through a parliamentary vote, retained less than half of the former cabinet in his new line-up.

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He also appointed a top banker from Goldman Sachs in London, Olusegun Aganga, as finance minister and gave the foreign affairs portfolio to Odein Ajumogobia, the erstwhile junior oil minister.

Godsday Orubebe, the former junior minister for the oil-rich but violence-plagued Niger Delta, now becomes the head of the ministry.

Jonathan picked Yar’Adua’s nephew, Murtala Yar’Adua, as deputy defence minister.

The acting president said zero tolerance of corruption remained the administration’s policy.

Yar’Adua only recently returned to Nigeria after three months in Saudi Arabia for heart condition treatment and has not been seen in public since falling ill in November.

He has met with separate groups of Muslim and Christian leaders in recent days.

Jonathan said he was eyeing economic transformation for Africa’s most populous nation, where much of the population of 150 million lives in poverty without basics such as water and electricity despite its oil wealth.

Revamping Nigeria’s decaying infrastructure, with the aim of providing steady power supplies, good roads and better health services, were among the top priorities, he said.

Jonathan will directly supervise the power ministry for the time being, working with a team of experts and a deputy energy minister, his office said.

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Nigeria is woefully short of electricity with many of its people going for weeks, even months without power.

He also spoke of a “commitment to free and fair elections.”

Jonathan had earlier announced the names of the new cabinet, but portfolios were not assigned. Local daily the Guardian said in an editorial that the new cabinet “doesn’t look as technocratic as it ought to be”.

“Instead, it is more political in appearance, which creates the impression that the cabinet is intended to be populated more by loyalists, rather than those who are needed to do the thorough and hard work that the times demand,” said the paper.

University of Ibadan’s Bayo Okunade said expectations were that the cabinet “will be made up of mostly technocrats, who can make things happen”, but many are from the “old clan”.

JOS, Nigeria (AFP) – Nigeria’s government sent in troops to the flashpoint Jos region on Monday after machete-wielding gangs attacked Christian villages, killing at least 500 people, officials say.

Police arrested scores of people in the wake of the attacks which came just weeks after another outburst of Muslim-Christian violence, which left hundreds dead.

Newspapers said Muslim residents of the villages had been warned by phone text message to escape two days before the attacks.

Witnesses meanwhile described how the victims of Sunday’s three-hour orgy of violence, mainly women and children, were caught in animal traps and fishing nets as they tried to flee their attackers, who hacked them to death.

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The official death toll was initially put at a little over 100 but Dan Manjang, an advisor to the Plateau state government, said it had shot up.

“We have been able to make 95 arrests but at the same time over 500 people have been killed in this heinous act,” Dan Manjang told AFP.

Government-run radio also reported that 500 people had been slaughtered in a raid on three villages on the fringes of Jos, capital of Plateau state.

Witnesses and local rights activists put the figure at between 200 and 250.

Much of the violence was centred around the village of Dogo Nahawa where gangs from the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group set fire to straw-thatched mud huts before embarking on the killing rampage in the early hours of Sunday.

Frank Tatgun, a resident of Dogo Nahawa, said that he had seen two armoured vehicles and three military trucks arrive in the village and scores of troops were now on patrol.

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The explosion of violence is the latest between rival ethic and religious groups in the region. In January, 326 people died in clashes in Jos, according to police although rights activists put the overall toll at more than 550.

A curfew which was imposed after January’s unrest is supposed to be still in place but Christian leaders said the authorities had done nothing to prevent the bloodshed.

“Shortly after the militants beseiged Dogo Nahawa …we contacted the soldiers at exactly 1:30am. But we were shocked to find out that the soldiers did not react until about 3:30am after the attackers had finished their job and left,” Plateau State Christian Elders Consulatative Forum (PSCEF) said in a statement.

“The attack is yet another jihad and provocation,” said it added.

Witnesses said armed gangs had scared the victims out of their homes by firing into the air but most of the killings were as a result of machete attacks.

Survivors said the attackers were able to separate the Fulanis from the Beroms by chanting ‘nage’, the Fulaniword for cattle. Those who failed to respond in the same language were hacked to death. One local paper said the gangs chanted “Allah Akhbar” — Arabic for “Allah is the greatest”, before breaking into homes.

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Other residents said the few Muslims in the villages received SMS messages warning them to leave the area before the attack.

Many of the victims in Sunday’s attacks were hacked to death as they tried to flee into woodland.

Rights activists said the attack appeared to be in revenge for the January clashe in which mostly Muslims were killed.

“I think it’s a reprisal from the Fulanis for the earlier attacks,” said activist Shehu Sani.

Locals said the attacks were the result of a spiralling feud between the Fulani and the rival Berom clan which started out with the theft of cattle, then worsened after a deadly revenge attack.

The office of Acting President Goodluck Jonathan said the security services in Plateau and neighbouring states had been placed on red alert to ensure the violence did not spread.