Below The Headlines - 27
Below The Headlines - 27
Chef Dammy is in police custody and Hisbah is now in dialogue with Tiktokers
This week, Tobi wrote about social capital and its less savoury effects in a country like Nigeria. I read and enjoyed a new book about Patrice Lumumba so I wrote a review about it.
Enjoy your weekend!
Inside Nigeria
Justice Hakeem Oshodi has a message for people attending his courtroom at the Ikeja High Court:
“No one should leave charms in my courtroom. It should not be repeated. A talisman was found after the last adjourned date in the murder case,” he said.
The judge, who referred to the charm as ‘property’, warned the courtroom audience: “Do not leave your property here again. It does not work anymore.”
Agberos in Ogun state revert to the status quo following a peaceful meeting after much violence:
The transport union tax collectors, otherwise known as “agbero,” have bowed to pressure and agreed to revert to the old ticket price of N1000 after a violent clash between the union and the commercial motorcyclists in the Alagbole and Akute areas of Ogun State.
PUNCH Metro gathered on Thursday that the decision to revert to the old price was reached following a stakeholder meeting and engagement after the Wednesday violence.
Dare Ikuenayo has accused his Pastor of snatching his wife:
“I joined the church in Kabba, Kogi State, but one day, the pastor called me and notified me that my wife had a gift of prophecy that I should allow her to stay with him for a month and work for God, which I obliged,” Ikuenayo said.
“Suddenly, I noticed that my wife was unwilling to see or talk to me. While I was trying to raise my eyebrows, the pastor announced in the church that he had taken my wife, and no one could take her from him. I tried my best to no avail until he impregnated her and moved her into his house fully.”
The Fulani community in the Ogunmakin area of Ogun State was thrown into confusion and shock on Monday when two friends identified as Abdullahi Audu and Usman Muhammed nearly hacked each other to death following a misunderstanding over a bottle of soft drink.
Our correspondent learnt on Tuesday that Audu, who was said to have started the trouble, drew out a cutlass and cut off the entire wrist of Muhammad during the heat of the moment.
Seeing that his hand had been cut off, Muhammed was said to have also drawn out a knife and stuck it in Audu’s stomach in what was believed to be a retaliation before people could separate the duo.
However, the incident further became uglier when the knife Muhammed stuck in Audu’s abdomen was said to have brought out his (Audu) intestine, leaving both friends grimacing in pain.
Price fixing in broad daylight as per normal:
Following a meeting between fish farmers and catfish traders in Abuja on Wednesday, November 1, 2023, the price of one kilogram of catfish will now sell for N1,800, up from the initial N1, 300 per kilogram.
A price hike and maintenance of this new regime was agreed upon by the fish stakeholders from Ibadan and Ilorin. Additionally, updated prices showed that 700g–900g of catfish would now cost N1,400, while 500g-600g would cost N1,300.
Report about an ‘engineering restaurant’ that has been the beneficiary of lucrative government contracts:
This story began with FIJ’s November 7 report of how the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs (OSSAP-SDGs) paid N147.1 million into the account of Enseno Global Ventures, an Abuja-based restaurant run by Nkiru Ezekwesili.
What the report exposed was that the OSSAP-SDGs paid the restaurant to construct blocks of classrooms and a skills acquisition centre, a venture the restaurant was not qualified for, and which it executed away from its planned location.
FIJ began digging further into the company’s operations and found a money trail that amounts to N367,461,782.93. The company has collected all this from the government since it began operations. All the contracts were for building and construction, all but one were vague and all were paid for between March 2022 and May 2023. The vagueness would surface later in the story.
I grew up watching the Argungu Fishing Festival on NTA in Nigeria. Climate change and desertification are now putting paid to all that:
When PREMIUM TIMES visited Argungu, fishermen who participated in the festival, bemoaned the “drying nature” of the river, which four of the seven people spoken to by this reporter linked to the expected “end of time” situation.
At the river site, this reporter thought the volume of water was okay for a fishing festival but the Sarkin Ruwa (river custodian), Hussaini Makwashe, explained differently. Mr Makwashe said no reasonable festival could be held there.
“The water is reducing but that’s not the only problem,” Mr Makwashe, who took over the job from his father, said. “We believe that it is the sign of the end of times because the river is also shrinking in size. And it is no longer deep. Nowadays, people go through the river to cross over to the other side; something that was impossible some years back.”
This reporter discovered that the water level was just above waist length. Mr Makwashe said grasses are taking over the surface of the river, which is believed to be due to silting and water scarcity.
All Chef Dammy wanted was to follow in Hilda Baci’s footsteps and set her own Guinness World Record. But she is now in a police cell:
The police on Thursday arrested popular chef, Damilola Adeparusi, better known as Chef Dammy following an alleged petition filed against her by her pastor, Prophet Adegoke Jeremiah, a.k.a Billion Dollars Prophet.
The streetlights on the new Second Niger Bridge have stopped working for a while:
Our correspondent who went around the bridge on Tuesday and Wednesday evening observed that the streetlights, right from the Asaba, Delta State end of the road to Idemili, Anambra State, were not functioning and rendered the full stretch of the 1.7km long bridge very dark, and scary with very scanty vehicles.
Findings by our correspondent also revealed that the streetlights last functioned on the night of May 23, 2023, the day the bridge was inaugurated.
Sources, including drivers, residents and other travellers plying the road, who spoke to our correspondent in separate interviews on Thursday, said the streetlights had remained non-functional since the day after the May 23 inauguration, with no security presence, thereby making the area very vulnerable.
Outside Nigeria
A lot of the news this week was dominated by the latest migration numbers released for the UK. Nigeria featured prominently in those numbers but the understated point is that Nigeria’s numbers are inflated by a large number of dependents:
In the year to June 2023, the top five non-European nationalities for immigration flows into Britain were Indian (253,000), Nigerian (141,000), Chinese (89,000), Pakistani (55,000) and Ukrainian (35,000). That underscored the striking change in the profile of migration since Brexit and the reduction in the flow of people from continental Europe.
Here is The UK Times with more:
Some nationalities, such as Nigerians and Indians, bring significantly more family members with them than others. In the year to June, 35,091 Indian health and care workers brought a total of 47,432 dependants, while 25,027 Nigerians brought 40,726 dependants.
Here is how Miss Nigeria, Mitchel Ihezue, represented the country at the costume event of Miss Universe 2023
Hisbah, the Kano morality police, is trying a different (softer) approach to dealing with online influencers:
Earlier this month, the Hisbah invited Kunya and dozens of influencers for a meeting to "sensitise them on the negative effects of immoral content", Abba Sufi, Hisbah's director-general told AFP.
Kunya, who has one million followers on Tiktok, attended the meeting in the hijab head scarf commonly used by women across the north.
That contrasted sharply with the less modest videos, some replete with obscenities, she posted and that earned her Hisbah's wrath.
HRH Princess Keisha Omilana, Princess of the Arugbabuwo ruling house of the royal dynasty of Ipetu Ijesa is tired of having to prove to people that she’s a real Princess just because she also works as a model and owns a magazine:
"I kind of got tired of screaming, 'Yes, I have a title, yes, I've married well, but I enjoy what I do and I enjoy working,'" Keisha said.
Photos from another Pro-Palestinian protest in Katsina state
Are you feeling overwhelmed with anger? There is now a room for you in Lagos:
Nigerians seeking a safe outlet for their anger can now get an unusual form of therapy, a "rage room" where they can break glass, smash wardrobes, and destroy electronic devices without any consequences.
Located in the crowded megacity of Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, the Shadow Rage Room offers 20-minute sessions for 7,500 naira ($8.93).
Update on Saheed Azeez from last week who went from gay to bisexual and got involved in a £200k fraud along the way. He has now been jailed for more than 5 years:
At Bolton Crown Court, Azeez who is currently said to be identifying as bisexual admitted conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and plotting to possess criminal property and was jailed for five years and two months.
The Home Office is expected to deport him following his release. Nine householders who allowed their addresses to be used as 'drops' in the scam will be sentenced next year. It is feared many others have not been traced.
Sugar prices have surged 55% and Nigeria has been hit hard:
Nigeria, for instance, buys 98% of its raw sugar from other countries. In 2021, it banned imports of refined sugar that ran counter to a plan to build up domestic sugar processing and announced a $73-million project to expand sugar infrastructure. But those are longer-term strategies. Abuja traders like Abba Usman are facing problems now.
The same 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of sugar that Usman bought a week ago for $66 now costs $81. As prices rise, his customers are dwindling.
“The price keeps increasing every day, and we don’t know why,” Usman said.
Fatima Ogunsanya has opened a Nigerian restaurant in Nova Scotia, Canada:
Fatimah Ogunsanya says she believes Efty Dishes Restaurant is the first of its kind in the province
Brazil’s biggest drug gang has gone global. And they have landed in Nigeria apparently:
Another area the gang is expanding in is west Africa, a major transit zone for the white stuff. The pcc has become a central player pumping drugs through the region, according to a recent report by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, a Swiss-based think-tank. It is also probably behind a reverse route, where Moroccan cannabis is smuggled to Brazil.
According to Christian Azevedo, of Brazil’s federal police, in Nigeria pccgangsters brazenly walk the streets of Lagos and Abuja. “They even control neighbourhoods there, the same way they do in São Paulo,” he says, citing intelligence from his Nigerian counterparts. The Nigerian connection has helped the gang push into southern Africa, too. South Africa is a key point for sending coke to emerging markets in India and China.
Ukraine announced it was sending 25,000 tonnes of grain to Nigeria (and 12,000 to Somalia) under its #GrainFromUkraine programme in partnership with the World Food Programme
Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The manual for how to deal with freed Israeli hostages draws from Nigerian experience:
"Each question must be answered along the lines of 'My job is to bring you to Israel, to a safe place, where people you know will be waiting for you and will answer all of your questions.'"
It recommends a "complete ban" on any media engagement with the children immediately after their release.
The manual drew from the experiences of victims in other hostage scenarios including victims of the Islamist group Boko Haram in Nigeria, said Ayelet Noam-Rosenthal, one of the authors.
Militants have taken over most of the nature parks in West Africa:
“We always hear in Niger there’s no peace because of the jihad,” said Wakas Guinguere, who fishes for tilapia in the Alibori River edging W park. “In Burkina Faso it’s the same. In Nigeria it’s the same. We’re frightened. If it can happen to them, it can happen to us.”
The first major attack in Benin took place in December 2021, when militants armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades raided an army position in Pendjari while soldiers slept, killing two and wounding nine.
Although Benin’s army has served in peacekeeping missions, it has never fought a war. “We weren’t prepared to fight terrorism,” said Gomina, the army colonel. “The first attack shocked us.”
Starting in January 2022, Benin flooded the parks with troops. A month later, roadside bombs inside the W National Park blew up two Land Cruisers and killed four African Parks rangers, two drivers and a French law-enforcement instructor. African Parks suspected the al Qaeda umbrella group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin, or JNIM, was behind the attack.
American power company claims it has received a $2.2 billion contract from the Nigerian government for renewable energy. I doubt the Nigerian government has 2 dollars to its name right now so will keep an eye on this one:
Out of the total $2.2 billion order, $1.5 billion - $2 billion could come to Sterling and Wilson Renewable. Sources also add that the award could have double-digit margins and could be executed over the next 1.5-2 years after signing of the agreement.