Below The Headlines - 39
Police ban POS, switch to cash only for bribes and where do frozen mackerels come from?
Welcome to a slightly abridged edition of BTH. Hope you had a good week and if you didn’t, try again next week.
Inside Nigeria
Recycling is the new growth industry in Kano:
Surajo Musa, who is the chairman of the recyclers at Kaloma, a unit within the Dakata axis, said he and some of his colleagues had been in the business for more than 15 years.
He said it had been a wonderful endeavour as more than 1,000 people earned livelihood within the unit he leads.
“There are over 250 shops within Kaloma alone,” he said.
He said there were more than five other units within Dakata, where hundreds of people are also gainfully employed.
“We have all categories of people who do various things here. Young men go to the towns and villages within Kano and beyond to get condemned rubber.
“They bring them here and we use scales to weigh them and pay based on the quality of the rubber.
“But the most important thing is that it is a new dawn for all of us. We (the recyclers) and the small and medium scale industrialists, who would have been sacked out of business because of high cost of imports, are all making fortune, at least by Nigerian standard.
Police have taken drastic measures to fight corruption in their ranks:
Following public outcry on alleged extortion through illegal and illicit transactions through point-of-sale (POS) machine operators and connivance with certain police operatives, the Police headquarters has reiterated the ban on the use of POS machines and other electronic mobile money transaction devices within police stations and other police facilities nationwide.
A statement by Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Muyiwa Adejobi while making this known on Monday warned that violators will face sanctions at police commands and formations including the leadership at such formations.
The FPRO said, “The ban is aimed at preserving the integrity and security of police operations, and forestalling perceived corrupt practices.
“It is also aimed at clearing the Commands/Formations of possible criminal intrusion under such guise, and maintaining discipline within the Force.
Nigeria happened to a tricycle rider a few days ago in Surulere, Lagos:
A yet-to-be-identified tricycle rider has been crushed to death after the compactor of a refuse truck fell from a bridge in the Surulere area of Lagos State.
PUNCH Metro learnt that the incident happened on Tuesday evening.
The truck, owned by the Lagos Waste Management Authority, was said to be plying the Shitta bridge in the community when it developed a mechanical fault while in motion.
As a result, the driver lost control and collided with a Kia Saloon car on the bridge.
A forensic pathologist is looking for Nigerians’ trouble:
Despite the many misconceptions about death, a forensic pathologist, Dr Eze Uwom, has said Nigerians need to discuss the dead and death in a pragmatic manner and plan for it like other functions such as naming ceremonies, because death is a natural evolution of life.
Dr Uwom, at the launch of his book titled ‘The Dead is Not Dead,’ at the Centre for African Newborn Health and Nutrition (CANHENT), University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, said discussing the dead and death will drive away the fear of death as a concept and ensure people see all humans as vulnerable and, therefore, maintain a harmonious society.
A Professor wants ‘paternity fraud’ to be criminalised in Nigeria:
A scholar at the Department of Adult Education, Faculty of Education, University of Ibadan, Dr. Abiola Adiat Omokhabi, has called for the enactment of laws that would criminalise paternity fraud and revisiting of the prescribed punishment for rape offenders in Nigeria.
Omokhabi made the call while delivering the Faculty lecture with the theme: ‘Navigating beyond the Present in a Familiar Terrain: Emergent Phenomena in Social Welfare Discourse’, which took place at the Faculty Lecture Theatre.
She said the need to enact the anti-paternity fraud became imperative because “there is no single Nigerian law that makes paternity fraud illegal, despite the fact that reports of it are available”.
The don said: ‘’There is no single Nigerian law that makes paternity fraud illegal, despite the fact that reports of it are common there. But there ought to be a law making it illegal to misidentify a non-biological father on a birth certificate or other public record.
News from Ikorodu Magistrates Court:
A 33-year-old man, Dominic Kenneth, who allegedly caused grievous harm to his neighbour by removing his scrotum, on Wednesday, appeared in an Ikorodu Magistrates’ Court in Lagos.
EFCC arrested some internet fraudsters recently. They also arrested the fraudsters’ ‘spiritual adviser’:
The commission said the herbalist, believed to be a spiritual godfather of internet fraudsters, was arrested with various charms.
“Mating partners”:
Restiveness and killings in Anambra and the South-east geopolitical zone, in general, will deny women the opportunity of having spouses.
The declaration was made in the report of the Anambra Truth, Justice and Peace Commission (ATJPC), the Executive Summary of which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Awka.
It noted that restiveness and killings had resulted in a structural problem of demographic sustainability because women were finding it challenging to find mating partners.
The report stated that women were some of the worst hit victims as they had suffered and might continue to suffer from killings, rape, loss of husbands, loss of sons and denial of livelihoods.
Farming in Nigeria is not easy:
An unknown pest has destroyed many vegetables farms in Bara, Kirfi LGA and some parts of Tafawa Balewa LGA all in Bauchi State.
According to farmers in Bara, the stubborn pests present different colours and started damaging many vegetables especially green and red pepper, adding that the pests began to damage other vegetables and crops like maize in their areas.
A farmer affected by the pests in Tashar Turmi, Kirfi LGA, Abubakar Ahmadu, told Daily Trust that the pests has defied all pesticides. “The problem started like a common disease attacking the plants after they have sprouted and about to start producing the fruits. The leaves will then begin to shrink and subsequently turn black and then dry off as if fire burnt the vegetation.”
Ahmadu also said, “We later discovered that the problem was caused by unknown pests which present in different colours: some present white colours, others black and some greenish.
“The greenish ones eat the leaves and move down to the body of the plant and damage the fruits, while the black and white pests remain on the ground eating the roots of the plant and damage the entire crop.
Outside Nigeria
PZ is really going through it:
Shares in PZ Cussons have fallen by more than a third since the start of the year and they ended this week by continuing their decline. The cue this time was Barclays’ warning that the FTSE 250 company had too much exposure to the naira, Nigeria’s currency, which has been deteriorating in value since last year.
Only last month PZ Cussons, which has traded in Nigeria since 1899, cut its earnings forecast and dividend after the depreciation of the naira had led to a 17.8 per cent drop in the company’s half-year revenues.
The Economist on Nigeria’s long running currency crisis:
On the wealthy peninsula of Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, no one knows how much their grocery shopping costs. Prices are changing so quickly that shopkeepers have given up on tags altogether. At the till, one might be shocked to discover that a tomato is now 120 naira (8 cents). Last year that could get you four, enough to balance out the hot spice in a pot of jollof rice. That staple dish is made dearer still by the soaring prices of onions and rice, forcing the poorest Nigerians to skip meals. Because Nigeria is dependent on imports, its weaker currency is pushing the annual inflation rate towards a three-decade high at almost 30%.
Last year 23 African currencies hit record lows against the dollar. The naira, which is moving towards being fully floated, has been devalued twice in attempts to close the gap with a parallel market rate. That makes it the second-worst-performing currency in the world, after the Lebanese pound. The decline is also eating into the hard-currency profits of multinational businesses. For example mtn, a South African telecommunications company whose biggest market is Nigeria, this month said its group profit could fall by 60-80% and that its Nigerian unit would make a loss because of the naira’s collapse. The currency volatility is eroding confidence, sparking protests from unions and deterring much-needed investment.
CBN, or someone who works at CBN, has declared victory over Nigeria’s currency crisis:
Foreign investor demand for Nigerian assets and money sent home by citizens living abroad surged last month as reforms instituted by President Bola Tinubu’s administration started paying off.
Foreign portfolio investor asset purchases exceeded $1 billion in February, bringing total receipts so far this year to at least $2.3 billion, Hakama Sidi Ali, a spokeswoman for the central bank, said in an emailed statement. That compared with $3.9 billion for the whole of 2023. Overseas remittances rose more than fourfold to $1.3 billion in February from a month earlier
The inflows were “driven by increased investor interest in short-term sovereign debt following the recent adjustment to benchmark interest rates,” she said. The central bank last month lifted its key rate by 400 basis points to 22.75%.
Foreign media is this week dominated by the news of the latest kidnappings of nearly 300 school children in Nigeria’s north - BBC, Guardian, Sky News, FT, Al Jazeera, ABC News, Daily Mail.
A tragedy beyond what words can describe
Brixton Academy, the venue where 2 people died in December 2022 after a stampede at an Asake concert, will reopen next month. The family of one of the victims are still unhappy with Asake:
The venue lost its licence after Gabrielle Hutchinson and Rebecca Ikumelo were killed in a crowd crush after a concert by the Nigerian singer Asake was cancelled. Lambeth council suspended the licence and the Met police sought unsuccessfully to revoke it permanently. A security guard alleged that other guards regularly took bribes to let in people without tickets.
In December, the family of Hutchinson urged Asake to make an appeal to fans for information about the crush. While the Afrobeats star has paid tribute to the victims, he has not issued any appeal for information.
Mota-Engil, the Portuguese construction company, recently announced that it doubled its 2023 profits:
It saw strong momentum in its engineering and construction business especially in Latin America, where sales jumped 81% to 2.75 billion euros.
Its project order book includes railways in Mexico, oil and gas in Brazil and mining in Peru. It rose 3% to 13 billion euros following large railway projects awarded mainly in Mexico, Nigeria and Angola.
A very tragic story of a Nigerian carer who collapsed and died in Bishop’s Stortford:
Neighbours desperately tried to save the life of a “wonderful” carer who collapsed in the street in Bishop’s Stortford and died two days later, aged just 37.
Despite feeling unwell, Chidimma Susan Ezenyili, known as Suzy, had struggled to work because she was determined not to let down her elderly client in Scott Road. She had been caring for 86-year-old Ian Hale for the past five months.
Ian’s daughter, Catherine Segal, said: “She was driven there by her husband with their three-year-old daughter as she wasn’t feeling well but didn’t want to let my dad down.”
Bishop’s Stortford Independent
African countries are the biggest importers of mackerel from South Korea:
Most of Korea's mackerel exports last year went to countries in Africa, according to the Korea Maritime Institute (KMI), Tuesday.
The countries with the most outstanding mackerel imports were Ghana, Nigeria and Ivory Coast. During the fourth quarter of last year, they accounted for 70.5 percent of Korea's mackerel exports overall. Throughout the year, the three imported more than 60 percent of Korea's entire fish exports.
The African countries contributed to boosting Korea's mackerel exports last year from the previous year. Korea exported $167 million worth of frozen mackerel in 2023, a 63 percent year-on-year increase from 2022, when the figure was $65.5 million.
Pelumi Nubi is on a road trip from London to Lagos:
When she's not driving or exploring, she’s sleeping in her Peugeot 107, parked on camping grounds. From riding on the iron train through the Sahara Desert and walking tours in Chefchaouen to watching the sun rise on the Atlas Mountains, Nubi’s trip has been extraordinary.
Her trip was inspired by Kunle Adeyanju, the Nigerian motorcyclist who cycled from London to Lagos in 2022, and it was his incredible feat that sparked in her the thought that no black woman had ever made a similar journey and she would be the first. Nubi is not just taking in the sights but making history along the way.
Is China flying drones to take photos of Nigeria? Anyway some interesting shots in here. A lot of Lagos is just so ugly, sorry to say:
An aerial drone photo taken on March 3, 2024 shows a city view in Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria's old capital Lagos is the country's economic center with a population of more than 20 million. (Xinhua/Han Xu)
