Below The Headlines — 03
Welcome to this week’s slightly abridged and delayed newsletter coming to you from a very rainy Lagos.
Inside Nigeria
Nigeria either has too many onions (during harvesting when prices drop as low as N4,000) or too few (off-season when prices go as high as N75,000). Farmers are, of course, mainly involved in the low-price part of the chain so they barely make any money. This is the bane of a country where agriculture is still largely determined by the weather — Daily Trust
A Dutch Disease Illustration: A remapping exercise removed some oil producing communities from one local government and put them in others (one of them being the outgoing Governor’s LG). Youths from the losing LG then went and destroyed a million dollar coconut plantation the governor had set up— Premium Times
A 4yr old boy was found naked wandering on the expressway in the middle of the night by hunters (it was also raining) in Osun state. He seems to have simply wandered very far away from his home, somehow. All’s well that ends well, perhaps — The Punch
Nigerian Police claim they’re looking for one policeman for questioning and sanctions because he was seen in a video opening doors for Spyro, the musician. Who is your guy, eh? — Guardian
Daily Trust reports 47 parents have been killed by their children since 2020 (29 fathers and 18 mothers). The rest of the article speculates that the numbers are rising and what the causes might be — Daily Trust
In Akure, 14yr old Marvelous stabbed 17yr old Sunday to death with a scissors over a girlfriend. Both boys are related and Sunday’s father has opted for ‘settlement’ out of court — Vanguard
After enjoying foreign medical care for 8 years, Aisha Buhari claims the government has now spent N21bn on the State House clinic so the next President no longer needs to go abroad. Unfair — ThisDay
“Seun Kuti […] has been crowned the ‘General Overseer’ of his cell by the inmates. A copy of the Holy Bible was said to have been handed over to him as an instrument of his office. His appointment as the GO was however not without some drama after the inmates initially rejected him” — Vanguard
Outside Nigeria
The United States announced some new visa bans on Nigerians for ‘undermining the democratic process’ in this year’s elections. The way these bans work is that no one — not even the banned people — will get to know they’re on the list. They’ll simply have their visa requests turned down when they apply (one high ranking official on a previous list only got to know because they’re a dual citizen and the US informed their second country as part of the standing agreement between them) — Reuters
I despair at the sight of styrofoam littered drainage ducts in Nigeria. They are an environmental nuisance as they don’t degrade anywhere fast enough. But are green leaves as food containers the solution? This article argues so — The Conversation
Philips Michael, an Ijaw man from Ondo who grew up around a lot of water and learnt how to swim from there, moved to Dubai in 2013 to look for work. With no formal swimming training, he managed to get a job as a lifeguard and today he is a Marine Officer with DP World, the Emirati logistics giant with operations in more than 40 countries — Gulf News
Airlines across the world have $2.2bn trapped in countries they can’t repatriate them from. Of that total, Nigeria alone accounts for $800m: it has doubled since just September last year. The risk of not getting your money out in time is now added to the cost of tickets and many are threatening to leave (Emirates already did). Vicious cycle — The Economist
Another Nigerian found playing basketball in Lagos who is now on the path to the NFL. This time Emmanuel Okoye — ESPN
Nigeria becoming a place where US government officials and citizens are randomly attacked is the worst kind of new problem to add to existing problems. Two of the kidnapped embassy staff have now been rescued. Small mercies — BBC
It is hard not to observe the increasing number of Italian-Nigerians in sports these days, football in particular. Paolo Odogwu has now been called up to Italy’s preliminary squad for the upcoming rugby world cup — The Times
Emeka Ekezie, who had been a gymnastics coach in Nigeria since 2015, is now a coach in Australia after getting a job through a Facebook post on a gymnastics forum — ABC News Australia
Throwback: An article from 2011 about the Nigerian community in Tokyo
J.J. arrived in Japan in 1995, at the height of Nigerian immigration to Japan, to take a job cleaning oil drums at a recycling plant. His job was typical — it required a month of probationary employment and was not with a company that actively sought immigrant labor.
He made money on the side selling clothes at weekend flea markets. Before long he’d saved enough to quit the factory and start selling hip hop apparel to retailers full time. After a year he opened his own store, adding a second location two years later. Many of his countrymen had gone into the same business and have fond memories of that time, when it seemed they’d achieved the prosperity they came to Japan to build.
It didn’t last. Customs agents started seizing apparel shipments that belonged to Nigerian clothing store owners. Some contained brand name counterfeits. The cultural backlash that resulted put most hip hop stores out of business. The Japanese public had already been displaying unease over the sudden proliferation of foreign-owned businesses perceived as peddling the American ghetto lifestyle. At the heart of the affair was a fundamental culture clash.
Thank you for reading and welcome to new subscribers. In the past week on 1914 Reader, Tobi Lawson fleshed out his definition of State Capacity as O-ring and then followed up with how realists should attempt to boost Nigeria’s state capacity. I wrote about the emerging debt crisis in Africa and how it’s a bit different from previous ones, piggybacking off an Economist article. And a similar piece on the shifts in how oil is being drilled in Nigeria.
By a very happy coincidence, Tobi and I were in the audience for Sam Altman’s talk in Lagos on Friday 19th and we took notes. We will share our thoughts on what he said about AI in general and relating to Nigeria in particular.
See you in a week.