I’ve put together a map of various sights, take a look. Share anything else you discover in the comments.

Here are some of the highlights.

Abuja – National Assembly

Lagos – Eko Hotel

Lagos – National Theatre

This evenings game against Benin was very worrying for Nigeria, I feared they were going to “do an England“, having lost to Ivory Coast and drawn with Mali they not only needed to win this game, but Mali had to Lose to Ivory Cost, in a game played at the same time today.

The results?

Nigeria won 2 – 0

Ivory Coast won 3 – 0.

I Hope Chxta is happy.

Ghana and Guinea are about to kick off, I hope it’s a good tournament for Ghana after the world cup, and of course Nigeria.

If you are in the UK and want to watch the match use the red button on bbc one. or look for channels 301-303 on freeview.

Back later.

It’s 2008 and I have not left the shores of the United Kingdom in the past year. The issues that have prevented me returning to Nigeria are still ongoing and seem just as close to being resolved as they have been for the past 12 months or so.

I have moved on, I’m working self employed as a consultant engineer at a large IT firm. The work is a little boring, and I am starting to detest driving long distances (400 mile round trips sometimes.)

My OU courses finished well, I didn’t get the Distinctions I was after, but had to settle with Grade 2 or ‘B’ for both courses. I don’t know if it was the extra workload with the 90 points instead of 60 that I have done in previous courses, the fact that one of the courses was really difficult for me, or if it is the extra long hours of driving around like a sales rep struggling to hit their target.

I’ve more or less decided to stick to 60 points for this coming year, but I haven’t selected which course yet. I need to choose soon though.

I do plan to update this blog more often with News from Nigeria, but it all depends on the time I have available.

I read “Things Fall Apart” last year and I loved it. It’s definitely one of those books I will read again, very few make it into that category. I am keen to add some of his other work to my reading list.

BBC, Guardian, Independent pay the story attention, and fellow bloggers also make some comments: Naijablog, Ore’s Notes, Blacklooks and Talato-Carmen

Chimamanda gave a very interesting interview to the Guardian which is well worth a read.

The story is set during the time of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) and portrays a vivid and, I’m told accurate, picture of what life was like for those trapped by the war.

Get it from your favourite bookshop: # ISBN-10: 0007200277, ISBN-13: 978-0007200276

Yar’Adua Inaugurated as President of Nigeria

If you remember, I made some comments on the Nigerian Election and Yar’Adua’s successful bid for the presidency. He has since been sworn in and visited the G8 summit in Germany and made promises to improve the election process.

He has declared his personal assets of $5 Million. He has now decided to form a “Government of National Unity” inviting members of the All Nigeria Peoples Party(ANPP), Action Congress (AC), Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) to join with Yar’Aduas Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to form a government… I am sure this will take a lot of effort to sort out.

Meanwhile, there has been a long wait for the government to be formed and it looks like, finally, there will be a government in Nigeria very soon.

I am sure there are plenty of contracts to be signed when they finally get to work.

I haven’t updated since April, mostly because I’ve had little to report, and I’m feeling a bit down that I have been out of 9ja over 6 months now.

I’ve been making notes on some blog posts I’d like to do, and hopefully those will come out over the next few days. I’ve also been working on the new template for this blog. I’ve worked out a colour scheme I love, and now I’m just piecing together the CSS file so that everything will look, great. Should be ready any day, given enough free time.

Personally things are looking better for me, I have some work here in the UK. Nothing particularly challenging to be honest, just lots of driving around and lugging computer bits about, but it pays reasonably well. I’m still on the look out for the perfect job.

I have been continuing my OU studies and I have to say T209 is the most difficult course I have done yet. I am not enjoying it, yet I know I am learning some valuable skills in report writing and reading technical documents. I’m also trying to learn speed reading, because of the vast volumes of material I have had to read, but so far I’m not much better. My other course, M256 is going great.

Sad to see some Nigerian bloggers (Nkem and Chrome) have taken the red pill. Let’s hope they find their way back here soon.

I don’t think we will ever know the full facts of what was going on with all the chaos on Election Day, I just hope that Nigerians can accept this result, and work towards improving things for the next Election in 2011. Jeremy of NaijaBlog has summarised some constructive improvements to the Election procedure which I fully endorse.

From my point of view, The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Yar’Adua are very popular in Nigeria. Whether or not this is for the right reasons I cannot judge. It is the responsibility of the opposing party representatives to show the people why they might be wrong, but Nigerian Politics doesn’t seem to work that way. If the Election had been transparent, free and fair I believe the same winner would be announced and for that reason I don’t believe all of Nigeria is going to take to the streets in protest, but I am ready to be surprised.

It may be Fundamentaly Flawed but Nigeria has Elected a New president and the best thing, in my eyes, is for Nigerians to move forward and embrace this first ever handover of a Civilian Presidency because it is significant progress.