<div style="max-width: 700px;"><video-js data-account="1571595826001" data-player="default" data-embed="default" controls="" data-video-id="6092172146001" data-playlist-id="" data-application-id="" class="vjs-fluid"></video-js></div>
<script src="https://players.brightcove.net/1571595826001/default_default/index.min.js"></script>
Some gunmen have kidnapped six girls and two staffs of Engravers College in Kaduna State of Northern Nigeria. Meanwhile, Saturday marks 2000 days since the abduction of 276 female students from a Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Nigeria’s Borno State. To discuss these stories, Oby Ezekwesili, Richard Weizsäcker fellow at Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin joins CNBC Africa for more.

How Nigeria is confronting girl-child violence and abductions

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) &#8211; A Tanzanian businessman and former member of parliament for the ruling CCM party was seized by unidentified men in Dar es Salaam on Thursday, the regional commissioner said.
Mohammed Dewji, the owner and president of the multi-billion dollar revenue Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Ltd (METL Group), was seized as he arrived for a morning workout at a luxury hotel in the country’s commercial capital.
Dar es Salaam regional commissioner Paul Makonda said the businessman was kidnapped by two men as he entered the hotel.
“They fired a gun and then they opened the gate,” Makonda said, adding that security personnel had started a search for Dewji.
Witnesses, including the guards manning the gate at the hotel, were being questioned, he said.
Dewji was elected to parliament on the CCM ticket but did not seek re-election to his seat in the 2015 election.
The METL Group has more than 30 factories making consumer products ranging from bicycles and detergents to edible oil and beverages. Other investments cover the agriculture, infrastructure, energy and mobile phone sectors.
The company operates in 11 African nations, mostly in East Africa. Dewji said in 2015 that it had revenues of $2 billion and employed 24,000 people.
Reporting by Nuzulack Dausen; Writing by Clement Uwiringiyimana and Duncan Miriri

Mohammed Dewji, Africa’s youngest billionaire, kidnapped in Tanzania

Felix Onuah | ABUJA
Another Nigerian schoolgirl from the kidnapped group known as the &#8220;Chibok girls&#8221; has escaped from her captivity by Islamist insurgency Boko Haram, a presidential spokesman said on Wednesday.
The escape makes her the latest to return of the roughly 270 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in April 2014 from the northeastern town of Chibok. Earlier this month, the militants swapped 82 of the girls in exchange for prisoners.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at a cabinet meeting in the capital Abuja on Wednesday &#8220;announced that another Chibok schoolgirl had been found after she escaped from her captors,&#8221; said the spokesman.
&#8220;I learnt she is already being brought to Abuja,&#8221; he said, giving no further details.
Of the 270 girls originally kidnapped, around 60 have escaped and more than 100 have been released. About 100 more are still believed to be in captivity.
Boko Haram&#8217;s insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced more than two million since 2009 in an attempt to create an Islamic caliphate in northeastern Nigeria.
Three years ago, the abduction of the girls from their secondary school by Boko Haram sparked global outrage and a celebrity-backed campaign #bringbackourgirls.
For more than two years there was no sign of the girls. But the discovery of one of them with a baby last May raised hopes for their safety, with a further two girls found in later months and a group of 21 released by the Islamist militants in October.
Although the Chibok girls are the most high-profile case, Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of adults and children, many of whose cases are neglected, say aid organisations.
The group often uses those captives, especially young girls and women, as suicide bombers.
(Reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Chibok girl escapes Boko Haram, says Nigeria’s presidency

Two German archaeologists who were kidnapped in central Nigeria have been freed, a police official said on Sunday.
No ransom was paid when they were freed late on Saturday, the official said, without giving details. The two Germans had been abducted on Wednesday during excavation work at Jajela village in Kaduna state.
The kidnapping took place near a road running between Abuja and Kaduna, which will serve as a temporary entry point for air travellers coming to the capital next month, when Abuja&#8217;s main airport will be closed from March 8 for six weeks for repairs.
Abuja-bound travellers will have to make the 100 mile (160 km) journey from Kaduna to Abuja by bus. Several kidnappings have occurred along the road in recent years &#8211; one victim, last July, was Sierra Leone&#8217;s deputy high commissioner.
Most international carriers have said they will not fly to Kaduna, and some embassies in Abuja intend to minimize staff travel while the airport is being repaired.
 
(Reporting by Garba Mohammad; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Dominic Evans)﻿
<div></div>

German archaeologists kidnapped in Nigeria have been freed

Gunmen kidnapped five students and two staff, including a Turkish national, from an international school in Nigeria&#8217;s southern state of Ogun, police said on Saturday.
The kidnappers, who abducted the six Nigerians and Turkish staff member late on Friday, have not made contact with police or school authorities and no arrest has been made, Ogun police spokesman Abimbola Oyeyemi said.
&#8220;We have deployed police operatives and are making serious efforts to release the victims unhurt and bring the culprits to book,&#8221; he said.
In September, Ogun state police rescued two kidnapped Chinese nationals who were working for a quarry company.﻿

Gunmen kidnap five students, two staff from Nigerian school-police

Boko Haram fighters fleeing an attack on their base last week may have used some of the girls kidnapped in 2014 from northeast Nigeria&#8217;s Chibok as human shields to prevent being fired upon by fighter jets, a military commander said on Wednesday.
Major General Lucky Irabor, theatre commander of Nigeria&#8217;s military campaign against the group, showed a news conference aerial footage he said was filmed during the operation in the Sambisa forest that showed Boko Haram fighters moving with women and children.
&#8220;The haggard fighters were just using them as a shield,&#8221; Irabor told reporters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. &#8220;That is why we did not engage them from the air.&#8221;
<div class="teads-inread">
<div>
<div class="teads-player" id="teads2"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="teads-inread">
<div>
<div class="teads-player" id="teads1"></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="teads-inread">
<div>
<div class="teads-player" id="teads0"></div>
</div>
</div>
&#8220;We had always believed and hoped that going into the Sambisa would afford us the opportunity to get the remaining Chibok girls. What we can&#8217;t tell is whether those women we can see were the Chibok girls,&#8221; he said.
Boko Haram militants kidnapped more than 200 girls from their school dormitories in the town of Chibok in April 2014. The first of the girls to be found said most of them were being held in the Sambisa forest, where she was discovered in May.
The group has kidnapped hundreds of men, women and children during its seven-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria, some of whom may also be held in the forest.
The abduction of the Chibok girls, 21 of whom were released in October, brought worldwide notoriety.
President Muhammadu Buhari said on Saturday the Islamist militants&#8217; last enclave in the forest, the vast former game reserve in northeast Nigeria that was their stronghold, had been captured.
Reuters has been unable to independently verify that the area has been captured, but the comments from the general were the first reference by a military official to the suspected whereabouts of the girls since Buhari&#8217;s announcement.
The president said the capture of Camp Zero in the forest marked the &#8220;final crushing of Boko Haram&#8221; but security analysts say the group&#8217;s ability to carry out attacks in neighbouring Niger, Cameroon and Chad suggests it has multiple bases.
They also say the group split this year with one faction led by Abubakar Shekau operating from the Sambisa forest and the other, allied to Islamic State and led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, based in the Lake Chad region.
Irabor said the military was pursuing those who fled, adding that 1,240 people suspected of being militants, their relatives or sympathisers had been arrested between Dec. 21 and 28.
Boko Haram has killed 15,000 people and displaced more than 2 million during its insurgency. It controlled an area the size of Belgium in early 2015 but has been pushed back by troops from Nigeria and neighbouring countries since then.
Separately, dozens of Boko Haram fighters have given themselves up to authorities in southern Niger, the interior minister there said.﻿

Boko Haram may have used Chibok girls as shields during attack

Thomson Reuters Foundation
﻿The Islamic State-allied faction of Boko Haram which last week freed 21 of more than 200 Chibok girls kidnapped in April 2014 in northeast Nigeria is willing to negotiate the release of 83 more of the girls, the president&#8217;s spokesman said on Sunday.
Around 220 girls were taken from their school in 2014 in Chibok in northeastern Borno state, where Boko Haram has waged a seven-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic state, killing thousands and displacing more than 2 million people.
A faction of the militant group released 21 of the girls on Thursday after the Red Cross and the Swiss government brokered a deal. They were brought from the northeastern city of Maiduguri to the capital Abuja to meet state officials.
&#8220;These 21 released girls are supposed to be tale bearers to tell the Nigerian government that this faction of Boko Haram has 83 more Chibok girls,&#8221; Garba Shehu, spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
&#8220;The faction said it is ready to negotiate if the government is willing to sit down with them,&#8221; said Shehu, adding that the state is prepared to negotiate with the branch of Boko Haram.
The Islamic State-allied splinter group said the rest of the kidnapped Chibok girls were with the part of Boko Haram under the control of figurehead Abubakar Shekau, according to Shehu.
Boko Haram has apparently split with a big group moving away from Shekau over his failure to adhere to guidance from the Iraq- and Syria-based Islamic State, which in August named Musab al-Barnawi as its new leader for West Africa.
But that appointment was later dismissed in a 10-minute audio clip on social media by a man purporting to be Shekau, exposing divisions within the jihadist group that has plagued Nigeria and neighbours Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
Information Minister Lai Mohammed on Thursday denied reports that the state had swapped captured Boko Haram fighters for their release and said he was not aware if any ransom had been paid. He said a Nigerian army operation against Boko Haram would continue.
In recent days, the Nigerian army has been carrying out an offensive in the Sambisa forest, a stronghold of Boko Haram.
The militants controlled a swathe of land around the size of Belgium at the start of 2015, but Nigeria&#8217;s army has recaptured most of the territory. The group still stages suicide bombings in the northeast, as well as in neighbouring Niger and Cameroon.﻿

kidnapped

How Nigeria is confronting girl-child violence and abductions

Mohammed Dewji, Africa’s youngest billionaire, kidnapped in Tanzania

Chibok girl escapes Boko Haram, says Nigeria’s presidency

German archaeologists kidnapped in Nigeria have been freed

Gunmen kidnap five students, two staff from Nigerian school-police

Boko Haram may have used Chibok girls as shields during attack

Boko Haram faction ready to negotiate release of 83 more Chibok girls

News Tips

Advertise With Us

kidnapped

How Nigeria is confronting girl-child violence and abductions

Mohammed Dewji, Africa’s youngest billionaire, kidnapped in Tanzania

Chibok girl escapes Boko Haram, says Nigeria’s presidency

German archaeologists kidnapped in Nigeria have been freed

Gunmen kidnap five students, two staff from Nigerian school-police

Boko Haram may have used Chibok girls as shields during attack

Boko Haram faction ready to negotiate release of 83 more Chibok girls

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Newsletters