Below The Headlines - 19

Who did Israel support during the Nigerian Civil War? Both sides

Welcome to the Independence Day edition of BTH. Sadly the news this week is all rather bleak. Be that as it may, hope you enjoy your Independence Day celebrations and please stay out of trouble.

This week on 1914 Reader, I wrote about how Nigerian banks are all effectively taking bets against the Naira and making very good profits from it.

Inside Nigeria

A report on how notorious terrorists, responsible for kidnapping and banditry, have been having meetings with government officials: “Mr Yellow is Mr Aleiro’s cousin but controls a group of terrorists independent of Mr Aleiro. He was accused of carrying out a number of kidnap-for-ransom operations, including the abduction of over 80 people, mostly children and women in Tsafe earlier this year. Residents told PREMIUM TIMES that Mr Yellow is as coldblooded as his cousin” - Premium Times

Meanwhile, one of the bandits who was not invited to the meeting, took it personally and decided to kidnap female students from a university in Zamfara: “It was learnt that the kingpin took the decision to abduct the female students in order to vent his anger for being sidelined by the various negotiating teams dispatched by the federal government to find a lasting solution to the spate of kidnapping and killings in Zamfara” - Daily Trust

According to the Police in Gombe, there is a syndicate that specialises in buying and selling dead meat to unsuspecting consumers: “On her part, while pleading for forgiveness, Paul said she bought a full dead cow for between N30,000 and N40,000, adding that she had been in the business for more than two years after the demise of her husband” - Punch

Nigeria has the highest work permit fees in Africa, apparently: “Originally, the visa was about $1,000 and at the time I was in Nigeria, it was increased to $2,000 yearly. Some of the other countries that they may be looking at as a comparison to the fees charged in Nigeria probably do not attract as many experts as Nigeria does because of Nigeria’s type of technical environments such as railways development, construction, shipping, aviation and oil and gas” - Business Day

“My wife and I have a ministry in Lagos with a large congregation. But at present, she is married to Prince Abua Obi, a junior worker in our church where both of us led as shepherds. My lord, Prince Abua Obi is legally married with children. He and his wife are both workers in our ministry. The couple used to revere us, such that they call my wife and I, daddy and mummy” - Vanguard

Minister Wike gave a 2 week deadline for allottees to pay their ground rent at the headquarters of the Abuja Geographic Information Systems (AGIS). The agency is of course unable to handle the surge so a market has opened up for ‘boys’ who charge up to N10,000 to help you pay: “Although Sadiq refused to disclose the amount he paid the boys, he said the boys collected 70 per cent of the agreed amount before going to the AGIS office for the payment. He further said, “The following day, they brought my receipt and I paid them the balance.” - Daily Trust

New Inspector General of Police, tinted glasses. You know the drill: “We need to stop indiscriminate use of tinted glass. To this end, the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun has set up a committee to critically review the use of tinted glass” - Tribune

Another Yahoo case showing the pathetic amounts young men are doing fraud for. Surely a honest living pays better than this: “The judge ordered Omeka to forfeit one iPhone 11 to the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. Mendos also forfeited one iPhone 11, Andrew forfeited one iPhone 12 and restituted the sum of $120 to his victim, while Prince forfeited one iPhone 6s to the government. He was also ordered to restitute the sum of $50 to the victim through the EFCC” - Daily Post

After going missing for 6 days after UNGA in New York, Nigeria’s beloved president is now back home to great cheer and adulation from the citizens who missed him so much - ThisDay

Minister Betta Edu has been appointing people to head agencies which no longer exist. Nice - Daily Trust

Outside Nigeria

Burna Boy’s concert was supposed to take place last weekend in Johannesburg. But after thousands of tickets had been sold, the concert was cancelled because the promoter apparently disappeared with R10 million sales proceeds. He claims the money was stolen by his business partner who is an ex-con and you better not laugh at this sentence: “I initially brought Greg on board for this project because I wanted to give him a second chance at life after he served time in prison for fraud. Had I known he would’ve done this to me, I wouldn’t have agreed to do business with him” - Sowetan Live

James Horncastle, the best writer on Serie A in my opinion, has a good summary of the Victor Osimhen and Napoli drama of the last week. I would summarise that it had been coming as the club finds itself in a lot of turmoil and the Tiktok post was the final straw: “Osimhen’s Instagram, meanwhile, unfollowed Napoli overnight. The account then followed them back but removed almost all the photos associating the player with the club on his profile” - The Athletic

Belgian Police carried out raids in North Brussels to bust human trafficking syndicates: “The security forces made 25 judicial arrests, while 23 other people were deprived of administrative freedom. According to the investigation, three men are suspected of having brought young women from Nigeria to deliver them to prostitution in the Belgian capital” - 7sur7

A story highlighting the problems with the EU’s Single Permit Directive (SPD) work permit and how it leaves foreign migrants open to exploitation, is illustrated with the story of Caleb, a Nigerian: “An overachiever who speaks seven languages fluently, the Nigerian national came to Prague in 2012 for a research project. When he completed that, he had job offers from across Europe, he told POLITICO — but chose to stay in the Czech Republic” - Politico

Newly declassified Foreign Ministry documents in Israel show that the country supported both sides in the Nigerian Civil War. Israel had previously always denied providing help to the Biafran side: “Despite Israel’s repeated denials that it gave Biafra any military assistance – denials that according to the telegrams were reported in the press after the Israeli Embassy bribed newspapers and journalists to get the story out – once war broke out, the president of the Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, one of Israel’s closest allies on the continent, began pressuring it to assist the Biafrans” - Haaretz

“Michael, 38, from Benin City, Nigeria, said: “They pushed me back three times to the desert, the last time at the end of July … The Tunisian border guards beat us, stole our money and cellphones. In the desert we had no water. I had to drink my own urine to survive.” -Guardian

Gay Nigerian man now living in London who says he once organised a Pride march in Abuja responds to Suella Braverman, UK Home Secretary: “More than four years later, I still haven’t been able to go home – if I do, I’m terrified I’ll be killed for being gay” - Metro

Bleaching creams are illegal in the UK but people still find a way to get them anyway: “Ané, 24, an Irish-Nigerian singer, now based in London, lightened her skin from the age of 14 to 15, spending over £200 a month on products. “I wanted to fit in,” she said. After changing her appearance, she received “favourable treatment” from her peers, particularly boys, she said” - The Times

The highest rates of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) - basically when antibiotics no longer work - are in sub-Saharan Africa: “85% of the bacteria isolated from blood and urinary tract infections in six hospitals in Nigeria were resistant to the most commonly used antibiotics. In addition, 65% of the bacteria analysed were resistant to the “antibiotics of last resort”, reserved for treating the most difficult infections” - Guardian

Kehinde Wiley has painted portraits of 11 current and former African leaders. For Nigeria he painted President Obasanjo below: “The portrait, Mr. Sall said, is a reference to Moses crossing the Red Sea, leading the Hebrews to the Promised Land.“I have strived to lead my people to the promised land of ‘emergence,’” he said” - New York Times

As if the mosquito was not already evil enough, a new species - Anopheles stephensi - arrived across Africa some years ago and is proving to be resistant to all insecticides and adaptable to all urban environments: “Dr. Tadesse, the lead scientist overseeing the malaria program at the Armauer Hansen Research Institute in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, believes stephensi mosquitoes may be traveling on maritime shipping routes from Asia, although the ones found in Nigeria were in the deep interior, perhaps transported on trucks” - New York Times

Chinese loans to Africa have dropped off significantly. Policymakers across Nigeria need to think about the implication of this carefully: “In 2021 and 2022, China made 16 new loan commitments worth a combined total of US$2.22 billion to African countries, signifying two consecutive years of lending to Africa below US$2 billion” - South China Morning Post

Not sure 500gms can be said to be the work of a ‘mastermind’ but it is what it is: “A Nigerian national was arrested in Delhi for allegedly couriering 500 grams of cocaine to Mumbai in June this year. According to the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the accused – Samson Okora – is the mastermind behind the operations of several narcotics-trafficking syndicates in the country.” - Hindustan Times

Save The Children is appealing for funds to help fight the diphtheria outbreak in Nigeria. This barely makes the news inside Nigeria: “There have been 453 deaths confirmed since the outbreak started in May 2022, with most cases recorded in the past three months. The vast majority of the confirmed cases (6,185) were recorded in Kano, the second most populous state in Nigeria, located in the north of the country” - Save The Children

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Back next week!