Nigerian police and military units carried out extrajudicial killings last year in the aftermath of clashes with members of a Muslim group in the north of the country, footage obtained by Al Jazeera appears to confirm. An estimated 1,000 people were killed as Nigerian government forces fought Boko Haram in Borno, Yobe, Kano and Bauchi states in July and August 2009.

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So now we know – a little more. We always knew that in 2001 Britain’s BAE systems sold Tanzania a £28 million air traffic control system. The World Bank and the International Civil Aviation Organisation said it was unnecessarily sophisticated and overpriced. At the time Clare Short, then minister for International Development, claimed that bribery was involved. Some calculated that the BAE system which Tanzania bought cost four times the system that Tanzania actually needed. It was a military system but Tanzania barely has an air force. Nevertheless Tony Blair personally pushed the deal.

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The controversy generated by President Umaru Yar’adua’s ill health/incapacitation and his deliberate or maybe forced refusal to transfer power to his deputy Goodluck Jonathan has before now, been driven by mere emotional outbursts rather than deep meditations on the core crux of the matter which has now become obviously deadlocked. It is a common saying that desperate situation requires desperate measures and nothing can best describe the state of the nation now but to say that it has become desperately dangerous to just sit down and continue to trade blames in court and in the wider political circles.

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Last Saturday, voters in Anambra State came out in impressive numbers to elect a governor. The stakes were extremely high, and the obstacles formidable, but the people of Anambra did themselves great credit. After it was all over, incumbent Governor Peter Obi made history as the first two-term occupant of the Government House. And Anambra put itself forward, in my view, as a pivot for the democratic renewal that Nigeria so sorely needs.

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Controversial British MP, Tony Baldry,  who was recently caught trying to help Nigerian fugitive politician James Ibori escape justice in the UK has been ordered to repay more than £12,000  of the allowances he overclaimed from the British parliament according to the recommendation by Sir Thomas Legg.

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