Gunmen kill six in Gombe church attack

Gunmen opened fire on a church service in Nigeria on Thursday, killing six people and wounding 10, the church's pastor said, the latest in a string of attacks that has raised fears of sectarian conflict in the country.
"The attackers started shooting sporadically. They shot through the window of the church, and many people were killed including my wife," Pastor Johnson Jauro told Reuters by telephone from his Deeper Life church in Gombe State in northern Nigeria.

"Many of my members who attended the church service were also injured," he said.
The gun attack followed a warning from violent Islamist sect Boko Haram published in local newspapers on Tuesday that Christians had three days to leave majority Muslim northern Nigeria or they would be killed.
Analysts say it looks increasingly likely the group - or factions within it - wants to trigger reprisals from Christians against Muslims to bring on a full religious conflict.
Nigeria is evenly split  between the two faiths.

The militant group also claimed responsibility for a series of bomb attacks across Nigeria on Christmas Day, including one at a church near the capital Abuja that killed at least 37 people and wounded 57.

Courtesy The Nation

Abia to revive Golden Guinea breweries

Umuahia—Abia State government has set up a committee to revive the abandoned Golden Guinea Breweries, Umuahia. Governor Theodore Orji, said government set up the committee following its discovery that the company which was earlier said to have been sold to a private company was not actually sold to anybody.

According to Governor Orji, the new committee is already discussing with the management of the breweries, with a view to finding a lasting solution to the problems of the company established by the administration of Dr Michael Okpara as premier of the defunct Eastern Region in 1960.

The breweries was then the toast in the beer industry in the country, offered thousands of employment to the indigenous people of  Abia State  in particular and Nigerians in general, until it was abandoned by previous governments.

Governor Orji had promised to revive the breweries during his first term in office as one of the avenues to provide jobs to the people, but the promise was not fulfilled because, according to him,  government was not told truth about the actual problems of the company.

‘’What happened was that when the company had financial problem, it was bailed out by the people now occupying the place because the management of the brewery was unable to re-repay the loan, warranting the new management to take over the place although they could not move the company forward.

“It has been a problem to us. It is time for me to tell the people the real truth about Golden Guinea Breweries.

’’Golden Guinea has a problem before I came on board, but nobody told me. I was misinformed that the place was bought. I looked for the person who supposedly bought it and encouraged him to revive it.

“He went to Germany and brought investors. But the man was playing some game. However,  General Manager explained to me that the man rescued them when they were in financial crisis, but the man now claims to have bought it.

’’That was why the German investors ran away. We want to sort it out, we have put up a committee to look into the problem and advise the government. That is the problem we have there, otherwise we would have gone far in that project,” the governor explained.