Below The Headlines - 107
The rise and fall of maize prices and Sahel terrorists are on TikTok
This week I wrote about the strange and embarrassing case involving the late Lt. Gen Jerry Useni and Mike Ozekhome, SAN over a London property. The Nigerian elite really do get up to some shameful stuff when they think no one is watching.
The Frontier Matters podcast will return on Wednesday with a special guest talking about culture and money. Stay tuned!
Enjoy the usual selection below
Nigerian Media
A story about why grazing reserves are not usable and why cattle are starving in Nigeria:
Today, both the cattle routes and grazing reserves suffer a lot of challenges such as climate change, which brought about desertification in the northern part of the country and affected rainfall pattern, making the grasses consumed by cattle to give way to the ones that are not edible. Overgrazing is also a challenge.
“Because of hunger, immediately the new grasses begin to shoot out during the rainy season, cattle are forced to feed on it. And by doing that, the grasses are removed from their roots; hence they are not allowed to grow, develop and produce seeds for next season. This has contributed in making the grazing reserves bare.
“What you see in those grazing reserves today are shrubs that are not useful to the animals. This is the effect of climate change that is taking its toll on the grazing reserves,” he noted.
Asked if fixing the reserves would be the solution to the problems that confront the pastoralists in the country, the MACBAN leader said rehabilitating them was a major step.
He said, “This is the only solution we have. We need to develop the grazing reserves. We need to propagate pastures. We need to provide dams for irrigation and train the pastoralists to provide pasture during the rainy season so that they can use it during the dry season. We just have to work to develop all these reserves. We have to work to provide water, construct new dams, de-silt the ones we have and provide enough water within the grazing reserves.”
This story shouldn’t be funny:
The Anambra State Police Command has arrested a 43-year-old man, Patrick Ojele, who pretended to be mentally unstable while secretly running a marijuana farm in Awka, the state capital.
PUNCH Metro gathered that the suspect had been running the farm for over two years.
In a statement released on Thursday, the spokesman for the Anambra State Police Command, SP Tochukwu Ikenga, said the operatives attached to the operations department, Awka, arrested the suspect after a routine patrol on Wednesday.
Ikenga said the suspect was arrested along the Awka–Enugu Expressway near the Ngozika Estate and later led the team to the hidden farm, where large quantities of weeds suspected to be cannabis sativa were recovered.
The statement read in part, “The Anambra State Police Command has arrested a 43-year-old man, Patrick Ojele, who pretended to be mentally unstable while secretly cultivating a marijuana farm in Awka, the state capital.
“The police operatives attached to the Operations Department, Awka, nabbed the suspect on September 17, 2025, during a routine patrol along the Awka–Enugu Expressway near the Ngozika Estate.
“He later led the team to the hidden farm, where large quantities of weeds suspected to be cannabis sativa were recovered.
A very bizarre story I hadn’t heard of before now:
Dr David Love, the husband of the late Special Adviser to the Delta State Governor on Trade and Export, Mrs Shimite Love, says autopsy reports have exonerated him over the allegation that he killed his wife.
Love lamented that he was wrongly accused of assaulting, poisoning and strangulating his wife.
He alleged that some of in-laws assaulted him, saying he was also detained for five days by the Inspector General of Police, IGP, Monitoring Team over the wife’s death.
The husband spoke in Abuja, reading from a statement tagged ‘Concrete Truth about the Death of my Precious Wife, Chief (Mrs) Shimite Winifred Love’.
On how Winifred died, according to him, on April 18, 2025, she complained of chest and stomach pains, a situation that was not strange as she had a similar experience sometime in 2024.
Meanwhile, Love said his wife did not want to be admitted in hospital, saying on April 19, 2024, a pharmacist treated her at home in the course of which he administered drips on her and monitored her condition for two days.
“But, unfortunately, in the early hours of April 21, 2024, her health deteriorated”, the husband said. According to him, Winifred woke up around 2 a.m. asking for water, then became restless and started vomiting. “With the help of security personnel and neighbours, we rushed her to hospital, and around 4 am, the doctor told me my wife had passed on”, the bereaved husband narrated.
He added: “When the pathologist did an autopsy, his report showed the death was a product of high rate of hypertension of a decade plus and the rest. It contributed to her death because this is not a coincidence.
Tales from the despairing world of Nigerian education:
Lagos Police Command has started investigating a viral video showing a group of secondary school students in a wild celebration.
The video reportedly shows graduating students from Excel Secondary School in Ejigbo taking part in behaviour that included smoking, drinking, and dancing without their clothes on.
Abimbola Adebisi, the image maker for Lagos State, said in a statement on Thursday that although the event took place in April, the state Commissioner of Police has instructed the State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID) to handle the investigation.
[…]
The principal of the school, who also serves as the proprietor, was invited for questioning and stated that the students seen in the viral video had already graduated and left the institution.”
“Nonetheless, the school management is cooperating fully with investigators from the SCID to uncover the full circumstances surrounding the incident.”
Abimbola, a Superintendent of Police, emphasized, “Investigation is currently ongoing as mentioned above, and the outcome will be made public.”
Two stories side by side on the Daily Trust website:
The first one says that prices have crashed as they do seasonally when harvests happen. The second one says prices have soared due to flooding in Taraba and Benue. Observation continues
The amount of injustice that goes under the radar in Nigeria on a daily basis is mind numbing:
The death toll from the August 27 police shooting at the Owode Onírin Spare Parts Market in Lagos has climbed to six, as bereaved families intensify their calls for justice.
The incident occurred when four Mobile Policemen, reportedly led by one Abiodun Hakeem Ariori, stormed the market in a violent operation and opened fire indiscriminately, killing four traders instantly.
Following public outrage, the Lagos State Police Command confirmed the arrest of the officers involved, while Ariori, who was declared wanted, later turned himself in.
The tragedy worsened after two additional victims who sustained critical injuries succumbed while receiving treatment in hospital. The latest casualty, Aderemi Adeoye, died on September 1 after undergoing surgery and spending days on life support.
The six traders who lost their lives in the shooting were identified as Seyi Akinboye, Taiwo Adeoye, Dare Mufutau, Abraham Temilola, Wale Adebayo, and Aderemi Adeoye.
At a press conference in Lagos convened by the Centre for Human and Socio-Economic Rights, grief-stricken relatives narrated the painful final moments of their loved ones. Adeoye’s mother, overwhelmed with emotion, described the devastating loss of her first son.
“One of his brothers called to say my son had been shot at his shop. By the time I got to the hospital the next morning, he was on oxygen after surgery. He stayed there until September 1, when he was confirmed dead. He was my first son. His wife had just had a baby less than seven months ago. Now they’ve taken him from me. How do I care for his wife and child?” she lamented.
Chef Dammy denies the rumours, much to everyone’s relief:
Damilola Adeparusi, the Nigerian chef better known as Chef Dammy, has denied rumours that she plans to break the Guinness World Records (GWR) for the largest pot of beans.
Dammy’s clarification comes a few days after Hilda Baci was officially certified by the GWR for cooking the largest serving of Nigerian-style jollof rice.
Recent rumours had suggested that Chef Dammy was preparing her own record attempt for the largest serving of beans.
However, in an Instagram post on Wednesday, Dammy denied the reports, stating that embarking on such a project is “impossible”.
The chef also extended her congratulations to Baci and the sponsors of the jollof rice event, emphasising that “it is a win for all West Africans”.
She explained that she made the video statement because colleagues and followers have been persistently asking her to confirm the beans-cooking rumour.
“I want to say a very big congratulations to Miss Hilda for the just concluded project of cooking the biggest pot of jollof rice to feed thousands of people,” she said.
Non-Nigerian Media
News from the Minnesota DOJ:
Eight defendants have been federally charged with wire fraud for their roles in a massive housing stabilization fraud scheme, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson.
[…]
As set forth in the charging documents, the defendants devised and carried out schemes to defraud federally funded health care benefits collected within Minnesota’s Housing Stability Services Program. The HSS Program dates back to July 2022, when Minnesota became the first state in the country to offer Medicaid coverage for Housing Stabilization Services. The Program was designed to help people with disabilities, including seniors and people with mental illnesses and substance use disorders, find and maintain housing. Rather than provide such help, the defendants obtained and misappropriated millions of dollars in program funds that were intended as reimbursements for services provided to those people.
[…]
Christopher Falade and his son, Emmanuel Falade, worked together to run Faladcare Inc. as a provider in the HSS Program.
The Falades, along with their employees at Faladcare, were supposed to provide housing consulting, transitioning, and sustaining services to qualifying people in need.
Instead, over the course of years, the Falades and their conspirators created and submitted Program reimbursement claims that were inflated and fraudulent. By doing so, Faladcare received Program payments far exceeding the HSS services they had actually provided. In all, the Falades claimed to service about 100 different beneficiaries and for such services claimed to be entitled to over $2.2 million. The Falades diverted much of their fraud proceeds to their conspirators, including to their Faladcare employees.
United States Attorney’s Office
A story about a fraud that hit Kentucky from Northern Ireland:
A Northern Ireland man has been arrested in the US where he has been accused of scamming the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts out of $100,000 (€85,000) in 'Wicked' tickets.
Federal authorities arrested Ajibola Oduntan, who had living in Ireland, when he arrived in the US last month.
Oduntan was indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud on September 3.
The musical ‘Wicked’ opened in Louisville to glowing reviews in 2023.
But it has been claimed that between September and October Oduntan, along with other known and unknown co-defendants, fraudulently purchased tickets by using stolen credit card information.
The tickets were then sold to unsuspecting buyers through online platforms such as StubHub.
According to an indictment, money from the fraudulent tickets was deposited into accounts controlled by Oduntan and other co-conspirators.
When people whose credit card info was stolen and used to purchase the tickets later discovered the fraudulent charges they disputed them with their respective credit card companies.
Court records claim that this led to banks issuing “chargebacks” which demand the retailer return funds to the credit card company from a fraudulent transaction.
However, by the time chargebacks were being issued, the Kentucky Center did not have the opportunity to invalidate the duplicitous tickets and lost more than $100,000 in revenue.
[…]
FBI agents connected Oduntan’s phone number on his StubHub account with the one he used to apply for a visa waiver to travel to the US.
Investigators also discovered records that show Oduntan transferred $350,000 from his StubHub account to his PayPal account over 18 months.
Believe it or not, the AFP have done a story about bathroom selfies in Lagos nightclubs:
In Nigeria, bathroom selfies are no joke.
From the buzzing mega-city of Lagos to the stuffy capital Abuja and conservative Kano in the north, bars and lounges are decking out their restrooms -- not just to catch up with times but also to bring in new customers.
AFP sent reporters to women's bathrooms across Africa's most populous country to document the trend.
Renovations have been made, mirrors rearranged and lighting adjusted. More is more: Marble and gold, sometimes of the faux variety, are popular design choices.
At Zaza, a nightlife staple, pressing a button on the bathroom wall will summon a complimentary glass of champagne that pops through a small window. It's all part of a campaign to ease nerves -- and draw smiles -- among those in front of the mirror.
"The decor plays a huge role, especially for Nigerian ladies. And we try to attract as much as we can," Johnny Franjeh, assistant general manager of Zaza, told AFP.
Inside, women adjusted the necklines of their brightly coloured dresses, swayed their hips and batted their fake eyelashes, phones in hand.
The walls are adorned with floral wallpaper and multiple mirrors, allowing for different shooting angles.
Are you in the mood for some Nigerian beef stew? Ozoz has something for you:
Nigerian curry isn't just a comfort food that fills my belly. It also calls up memories of family, travel, and discovery. This hearty and aromatic stew features tender beef, starchy potatoes, sweet peppers, and a generous amount of curry powder, all simmered together to make a vibrant-tasting, satisfying meal. For me, this dish is tied to long vac—the long vacation break in Nigeria that runs from July through September, the equivalent of summer holidays in other parts of the world.
When I was a kid, long vac was all about road trips with my parents across Nigeria. We'd drive up to Jos in the North-Central region to enjoy its cool, temperate weather, or head south to visit family and friends. Some of my most vivid memories are from those trips, and many of them, of course, are wrapped up in food. On one such trip, visiting my aunt, uncle, and cousins at the University of Benin in Benin City, my aunty Ajike made us her version of fragrant Nigerian chicken curry. The dish stopped me in my tracks. I loved it so much I asked her to show me how to make it, and that lesson became a touchstone for me in the kitchen. I've since adapted her Nigerian chicken curry into my beef version, which I'm sharing below.
Nigerian curry sits comfortably in the global family of curry-powder–based stews and sauces. Its warm, deep flavor recalls Japanese karē, Korean curry rice, Jamaican curry chicken, Southern US dishes like country captain, and other curry powder–based sauces.
Terrorists in the lawless Sahel are enjoying Starlink internet:
The spread of Starlink has also been visible in propaganda pushed out by the groups themselves. In June last year, a video released by the al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) during an operation in Mali showed a Starlink kit in use.
Nigerien forces have found the devices during raids in Tillaberi and Tahoua. The Nigerian army’s discovery of kits in IS-supporting Boko Haram camps this year reinforced the pattern of terminals turning up alongside phones and weapons.
The surge of attacks in recent months has marked one of the deadliest periods in the Sahel in years. A string of coups has brought military rulers to power who have spurned western partners — mostly France — in favour of Russia and its mercenaries. The Wagner Group, now rebranded as Russia’s Africa Corps, has a growing presence in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, even as jihadist violence there has intensified.
Powered by Starlink’s broadband, extremists are using TikTok to lure recruits with short videos and WhatsApp chats to direct operations. Previously reliant on clumsy and costly satellite phones, they now have cheap, high-speed internet — a shift that sources highlighted in the GI-TOC report, “The Shadow Constellation: how Starlink devices are shaping crime and conflict in the Sahel”.
Who are the Davies brothers?
“I just remember weeping, maybe for 30 minutes, and then I called him and said, ‘You need to warn me before sending stuff over like that.’” Director and writer Akinola Davies Jr, 40, is sat cross-legged on the floor of his studio at Somerset House, recounting the moment he first read the script for My Father’s Shadow.Beside him, Wale Davies, 42, Akinola’s brother and the film’s writer, interrupts briefly to admire Akinola’s gold welded bracelet, a recent purchase. In turn, Akinola points to Wale’s supple leather clogs, acknowledging his own sartorial sensibility. Much of this exchange takes place in a warm shorthand, where the brothers finish each other’s sentences.
Akinola continues: “I’d never considered the idea of writing something about our dad. Or considered that he was fallible and might feel insecure and unsure of himself.” Their father Akinola Ogunmade-Davies passed away when Wale was four years old and Akinola 20 months. For Wale, the script offered a way of piecing together their fragmented recollections. “Akin and I would have the same memory with the exact same detail, but I wasn’t sure if I actually remembered or had been told.”
Shot as a single day in Lagos, the film is a semi-autobiographical story of a father who travels with his two young sons amid the unrest of the 1993 Nigerian election. Addressing paternal absence, as well as the political and economic fractures that still plague Nigeria, it’s a tonally rich production. Sopé Dìrísù, who has formerly starred in the acclaimed dramas Gangs of London and Slow Horses,stars alongside two real-life brothers, first-time actors Chibuike Marvellous Egbo and Godwin Egbo. The early response has been positive. The film won the Caméra d’Or Special Mention at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, having become the first Nigerian feature in the official selection. The production company Mubi has bought the North American rights, and critics have called the work “heartfelt and rewarding”.
Akinola and Wale, who moved from Nigeria to the UK in their early teens, give the impression that it’s taking a while to realise the scale of their achievement. Wale tells the story of watching his friend Mustafa the Poet perform and wishing he could engender the same level of emotion in an audience. “But then a week later, we get to Cannes for the premiere of the film, and when it finishes, everyone is crying,” he says.
A story, and an education, on schistosomiasis:
For the children of Gwagwalada, the river that runs alongside their town is a choice destination. Never mind that their parents forbid them to play in the water, never mind that the water is infested with tiny flatworms that take up residence in their intestines.
There is nothing much to do, after all, in this area to the west of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, nor a better way to stay cool when the temperature soars.
But on a hot day in November, in the low-slung buildings of a government school in Gwagwalada, dozens of students told aid workers they had fevers, blood in their stool or urine and abdominal and body pains — the symptoms of an illness called schistosomiasis, or bilharzia.
The students who reported symptoms, and those who did not, all received doses of a drug called praziquantel that treats the illness. This strategy — called mass drug administration — is endorsed by the World Health Organization for any region where more than one in five residents has schistosomiasis.
Gwagwalada more than meets the W.H.O. criteria. When children return to the river to swim, and adults turn to it as a water supply, “they cannot really avoid contact and reinfection,” said Amadou Garba Djirmay, who oversees the schistosomiasis program at the W.H.O.
“The main strategy is this treatment to really cure the majority of them,” he said.
Thought to affect 200 million people globally, schistosomiasis is considered one of the most important parasitic infections worldwide, second only to malaria. It has been a pervasive threat in Egypt and throughout the Nile Delta for centuries.
Yet it is still what is called a neglected tropical disease, meaning that it attracts nowhere near the funding or the attention that killers like malaria do.
Global acclaim for Hilda Baci’s scientific breakthrough with jollof rice:
“It took nine hours of fire, passion and teamwork,” Baci said after cooking and serving her massive pot of jollof, per the Associated Press.
Thousands of people flocked to Victoria Island, Lagos, where Baci cooked up the dish in a pot measuring nearly 20 feet across, with the help of her mother and other chefs, per Deutsche Welle. The team used stepladders, giant cooking instruments and 200 bags of rice to make the dish, which also featured fresh goat meat and Baci’s own jollof pepper mix.
The day wasn’t without its challenges. During weighing, the massive pot collapsed under a crane, reports the AP. Thankfully for hungry attendees, the dish survived.
No food was allowed to be wasted, per Guinness stipulations, so the dish was distributed among the thousands of onlookers. A spontaneous chant of “Hilda, we want jollof” broke out among attendees, according to a statement from Guinness.
Nigeria’s sea turtles are in danger but some people are working to save them:
Plastic pollution, discarded fishing nets and coastal development are taking a heavy toll on Nigeria's sea turtles, say conservationists battling to save them.
"We're seeing a drastic decline," said Chinedu Mogbo, founder of the Greenfingers Wildlife Conservation Initiative, which has rescued and released more than 70 turtles over the last five years after treating them at its turtle sanctuary.
At least five endangered or threatened sea turtle species inhabit Nigeria's waters, but exact numbers are not known and resources for monitoring are inadequate, Mogbo said. His team has rescued Olive Ridley, Hawksbill and Leatherback turtles.
Mostly self-funded, Mogbo's group has been working with local fishermen to save the animals.
"Fishers need income. We offer net repair kits in exchange for rescued turtles or protected nests," he told Reuters at the group's turtle sanctuary in the coastal city of Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital.
But with no marine protected areas and shrinking nesting grounds, the coastline has become a trap for turtles, Mogbo said, calling for state authorities to do more to protect them.
Meanwhile in Pennsylvania and the UK:
A Nigerian citizen residing in the United Kingdom has been arrested pursuant to a United States request for extradition following his indictment on charges of wire fraud and computer fraud, Acting United States Attorney Troy Rivetti announced today. Farouk Adekunle Adepoju was arrested by U.K. authorities on September 15, 2025, and is currently awaiting extradition to the United States to face the seven-count Indictment in the Western District of Pennsylvania.
According to the Indictment, which was unsealed today, between March 2023 and April 2023, Adepoju remotely accessed a protected computer belonging to a Western Pennsylvania construction company that was performing work for a university also located in the Western District of Pennsylvania. Adepoju used this unauthorized access to create rule changes within the email account of an employee with the construction company, and then registered a spoofed domain and spoofed email account to assume the identity of another employee of that company. From that spoofed email account, Adepoju sent fraudulent emails to employees of the university, requesting that they update the construction company’s payment information to a fraudulent bank account. Relying upon the emails, the university updated the payment information to the fraudulent bank account that Adepoju provided and sent a payment of approximately $235,266.80 to that account, funds that the university has not recovered.
“Adepoju is charged with using sophisticated cyber means to illegally access accounts belonging to a business in order to victimize one of our region’s universities,” said Acting United States Attorney Rivetti. “Even from halfway across the world, however, Adepoju was not beyond the investigative reach of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His arrest in the United Kingdom underscores our district’s unwavering commitment to aggressively locate and prosecute cybercriminals worldwide with the assistance of our law enforcement partners—both here and abroad.”
United States Attorney’s Office