Nigeria may soon start having illiterate lawmakers – Okorocha

The attack on a remote village in the northwest of the country comes days after bandits released 90 pupils they had held captive. Police are searching for the perpetrators of the latest crime.

Nigerian army has announced that around 6000 extremists have defected in recent weeks, AP is reporting an increasing number of allegations of atrocities against Tigrayan forces, and we meet the Chadian artist turning bullets into brushstrokes.

Seventy-five children who were kidnapped from their school in Nigeria's northwestern state of Zamfara were freed after their abductors came under pressure from a military crackdown, a state official said on Sunday (September 12). Gunmen took the students from the village of Kaya on Sept. 1, the latest in a spate of mass kidnappings from schools across the region. More than 1,100 children have been abducted since December last year. Authorities say heavily armed gangs of bandits, seeking ransom payments, are behind the abductions.

Officials in Nigeria have said the students were freed with the help of several of their captors who had been pressured by a military crackdown to work with authorities.

The European Union should intensify efforts to phase out the use of animals in scientific research, lawmakers have said in a resolution.

On tonight's show: lawmakers in Namibia are debating whether to accept a compensation deal from Germany. Berlin has offered to fund €1.1 billion worth of projects to atone for a four-year-long genocide that began in 1904. In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni sets the Covid-19 vaccination goal at 10 percent of the population by the end of the year. Finally, films return to the big screen in Somalia as the National Theatre in Mogadishu hosts its first public screening in three decades.

Nigerian security forces have arrested three men accused of taking part in a mass abduction on Bethel Baptist High School in July. Gunmen kidnapped 121 students who were asleep in their dorm rooms. The attack took place just outside the city of Kaduna in the north-west of the country. One hundred teens have since managed to escape or were freed, but twenty-one are still unaccounted for.

The fundamentalist group, which now rules Afghanistan, put the bodies on display to deter others. The move comes after a Taliban founder said executions and amputations will return.

Gunmen have killed dozens of people in two separate attacks in Nigeria. Villagers in Kaduna and security forces in Sokoto state have fallen victim to suspected islamists and criminal gangs. Also on the show: In an industry dominated by men, we bring you a report on the women workers changing the landscape of the Central African Republic. Finally, we take a look at one of Libya's cultural jewels: Leptis Magna. An archeological site shunned by tourists due to the country's insecurity.

In recent days, two former African presidents have been the targets of fake news. In DR Congo, a photo of Joseph Kabila has been circulating with the claim he stood alongside the former head of the rebel group ADF, which has links with the Islamic State group. Another video, meanwhile, purports to show a crowd of supporters of Alpha Condé gathering in Paris... although the man they are shouting in support of is not the ousted Guinean president and it wasn't filmed in Paris at all.

Following revelations by whistleblower Frances Haugen and a global outage, the US company faces renewed scrutiny. It could mark a tipping point and prompt lawmakers to get tough on the tech giant.

Heavily armed gangs have been stepping up raids on schools and villages in northwestern Nigeria, often taking hostages for ransom.