Below The Headlines — 12
Below The Headlines — 12
Welcome to another week (and month) of Nigerian news in Nigeria and across the world. The war vibes are strong with this one.
Inside Nigeria
Digital payments are doing well in Nigeria. Nigerians have done more than 800 million digital transfers, each month, on average so far this year — TechCabal
After more than 50 years making drugs in Nigeria, GSK threw in the towel and announced it was leaving the country. The reasons are a mix of foreign exchange difficulties and a broader ongoing strategic review which began when Emma Walmsley became CEO in 2017. In the meantime, Nigerians may have to pay more for some very popular drugs — ICIR Nigeria
Tinubu goes to war. 50 million youths, get ready — ThisDay
Huge Breaking News That No One Asked For: “Patrick Uchenna Attah, veteran Nollywood actor, popularly known by his stage name, Pat Attah, has revealed that he once dated actress Genevieve Nnaji” — Daily Trust
Every other year there is a story like this: “To test the efficacy of the charms, Tunde asked his friend (Bode) to shoot him first. After Tunde’s friend picked up the gun and shot him (Tunde), suddenly, he fell down and died on the spot.” — Punch
“A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on Wednesday sentenced a Tiktoker, Nwakaego Okoye, to three years imprisonment for social media bullying of a popular Nollywood actress, Eniola Badmus.” — There was however the option of a N150,000 fine — Punch
What actually happens when the government releases grains to farmers and the public? Unsurprisingly, things don’t quite go as planned. Also: “Meanwhile, he pointed out that they would not know if the maize they received was that of Buhari or the Tinubu administration although they received it during the Tinubu government” — Daily Trust
“The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has suspended with immediate effect airport car hire services at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. The suspension is a result of an unresolved factional dispute amongst the car hire operators which has been affecting airport car hire service operations.” — Guardian
Long-ish read on the state of judicial infrastructure in Nigeria: “On Wednesday July 12, 2023, the Chief Judge of Ekiti State, Justice Oyewole Adeyeye escaped death when a section of the state high court complex collapsed on him while in office” — Vanguard
Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) says most crimes in Nigeria are committed by illegal immigrants. But rest assured, they are working hard on the matter: “These people think Nigeria is a paradise and, truly, we are the mother of Africa. They always struggle to be part of us and are ready to spend huge sums of money to obtain a Nigerian passport. They also get married to Nigerians in their bid to naturalise, which is why we painstakingly check every immigrant. Through our training, we can easily ascertain if someone is a Nigerian or not” — Daily Post
Tribune asking the tough questions others are too scared to ask. This time they ask women if the thought of marrying more than one man has crossed their minds. The responses are full of gems: “If the only way a man can show he is rich is by marrying many wives, why can rich women not marry and cater to as many men as they could afford? I give my support to this.” — Tribune
Outside Nigeria
A passenger on a British Airways flight was stuck in their seat and took 3 hours to hoist them out because they were so overweight: “The passenger flew in to Heathrow from Nigeria in seat 1A, which is usually the most desirable seat on the aircraft and costs £7,000, but comes with gourmet food and wine.” — Daily Mail
The Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson double-act has a good report on the military coup in next door Niger Republic. It is a familiar story of how destabilising having and maintaining standing armies have been to African countries. It also illustrates how the US took its eye off the ball: “Washington also has no ambassador at the African Union or in neighboring Nigeria — or anybody in a special envoy post that it had created to deal with the region’s deterioration” — WSJ
Father Dermot Doran, the Irish Priest who helped to coordinate humanitarian relief for Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War, has died at the age of 88 — NYT
Diageo says it can’t find dollars in Nigeria. If you have some lying unused, get in touch with them — Bloomberg
What are the 7 best beaches in Nigeria? The first is one I had never heard about — Lonely Planet
A really good interview with Andrew Dunn, Nigeria country director for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS): “Dunn noted that one of the biggest conservation issues in Nigeria today is insecurity and that three of Nigeria’s seven valuable national parks — Kainji Lake National Park, Kamuku National Park and Chad Basin National Park — have been taken over by bandits and insurgents.” — Mongabay
The Davido music video brouhaha is another example of the tyranny of the minority — a small group of people can generate a controversy almost out of nothing. It is also sending a subtle message to people like Asake i.e. censorship — The Conversation
The story of the 4 Nigerian stowaways on a ship across the Atlantic is amazing: “The four stowaways said they had hoped to reach Europe and were shocked to learn they had in fact landed on the other side of the Atlantic, in Brazil.” — Evening Standard
What Niger’s coup means for Nigeria — Politico
Feature on Abraham Okusanya, founder of Timeline, a financial planning and modelling software that has raised £8.3m in funding and now employs 45 people with £2.7bn being managed through the platform — The Times
Not really about Nigeria but there are plans to outlaw dog eating in South Korea and, as you can imagine, the dog eating industry is barking loudly against the plan. One line of defence they seem to be employing is that dogs are also eaten in Nigeria (whatever rumours you may have heard, I can confirm that we do not eat dogs in Ondo and that’s that) — Korea Times
Quite a few new novels about Nigeria. One of them is The Nigerwife: “Nicole Oruwari moves from London to Lagos, where she joins a glamorous social group known as the Nigerwives, foreign women married to Nigerian men” — Washington Post
This week on 1914 Reader, I wrote about cement and how the policy the country has chosen has left is stuck in a technological rut. I also wrote about why the Nigerian elite seem to really hate the idea of giving poor people N8,000 per month as a palliative.
See you in a week