Below The Headlines - 41
Area Boy entrepreneurship stopped in Lagos and Sheffield United got a free gift of £9m from our man Dozy
Here’s to another weekend. We’ve been quiet here but it’s not because we have lost our passwords. We hope to write some pieces for you again soon.
Enjoy the usual Nigerian stories from Nigeria and around the world.
Inside Nigeria
Another day another self kidnap story:
Police operatives of the FCT Command have arrested a pregnant woman after she faked her kidnap, with the husband paying the sum of N2 million ransom for her release.
However, since the husband already reported the kidnap to the Police, investigation later revealed that the pregnant woman connived with her boyfriend to perpetrate the act. She later gave N800,000 to the boyfriend as his share, while she took N1.2 million.
The cattle market in Yobe is going through it:
“As a result of this inflation, a normal cow which we used to buy at the cost of N300,000 now goes for N750,000 or N800,000.
“Bulls which we used to buy at the cost of N600,000 or N750,000 each, is now N1.8m or N2m.
“Few years ago, more than 100 cows were slaughtered daily in Yobe State. Here in Damaturu, we slaughter at least 50 cows daily for public consumption but now, it is only on Sundays that we slaughter 10 or sometimes eight cows.”
“Before, when the price of livestock or cattle increases, the price of animal feed will definitely go down because the prices of these two things will never be the same but now, the prices of both cattle and animal feed have skyrocketed. I have never seen a situation like this before,” he said.
The Area Boy Economy in action: a group of ‘miscreants’ have been sentenced to prison for charging a ‘toll’ on a pedestrian bridge in Lagos:
The Magistrate Court sitting in Oshodi axis of Lagos State has sentenced six miscreants to one-month imprisonment for imposing N100 levy on traders and other residents using the pedestrian bridge.
The six thugs, who were apprehended by officials of the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps (LAGESC), were found guilty for extorting traders and residents using a pedestrian bridge in the Yaba area of the state.
Nigerian Customs have launched a promo for duties on imported vehicles. Hurry while stocks last:
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has announced the suspension of the 25 per cent import duty penalty on improperly imported vehicles.
The directive for the suspension came from the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, and is said to be part of strategies to help rejuvenate the economy and ensure compliance.
The National Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Customs Service, Abdullahi Maiwada, made this known in a statement on Friday.
“The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), under the directives of the Honourable Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, has initiated a 90-day window, effective from 4th March 2024 to 5th July 2024, for the regularisation of import duties on specific categories of vehicles.
It was alleged that Saleem, of the Department of Biochemistry, had for some time tried to force Hauwa to accept his love advances.
However, Hauwa, who had no feelings for Saleem, reportedly did her best to break free from all his pranks and mischief against her.
Saleem reportedly told her point-blank that she either love him or suffer the most-gruesome consequences.
“I can even kill you, and nothing will happen,” he reportedly warned her.
On Monday, February 26, 2024, around 8:30 pm., Saleem allegedly violently physically assaulted Hauwa, hitting her hard twice with a club until she fainted, for her refusal to love him.
No matter how many die or get injured while trying to obtain free or cheap rice, someone is going to do it again the exact same way tomorrow and get more people killed. That’s just life:
Two female students of the Nasarawa State University (NSUK) on Friday morning met their untimely death in a stampede while struggling to force their way to partake in the distribution of palliative rice by Governor Abdullahi Sule.
An eyewitness report revealed that some students invaded the school Convocation square before the arrival
A story of how Nigerians are being trafficked to work in Egypt under slave like conditions:
Sometime in 2020, Ariyo’s husband started having affairs and stopped sleeping at home regularly. Whenever he did show up, his visits were often agonising, as he never talked about the children’s wellbeing. Despite Ariyo’s efforts to keep the marriage, things fell apart in 2022 when she caught him sleeping with a neighbour in their matrimonial bedroom. She protested and accused him of disrespecting their marriage.
“He packed my things out on that very day. So, I travelled to Ile-Ife with my three children to meet my mom,” she recounted. In Ile-Ife, an ancient city in Nigeria’s Southwest, she got a job as a manager in a hotel where she earned an average of ₦80,000 ($49) monthly. According to her, it was enough to keep her children in school and to provide them with other basic needs at the time. “Aside from her children, she took care of me and was always supporting me. We were so close that she never made me feel any pain,” Ariyo’s mother said when HumAngle visited her in February.
The problems started when various clergymen told her that to succeed and achieve greatness in life, she would have to travel abroad. They told her she was destined to leave Nigeria for greener pastures and that would be her only means of becoming a millionaire with a lot of people serving her. Before then, she had also dreamt about relocating abroad.
“Following the prophecies, I decided to apply for an international passport and discussed it with a cousin who told me about an agent that helps people get a sponsorship to Cairo.”
She would later meet the agent whose major business is to link prospective travellers to sponsors and trade-off trafficked girls to Cairo, the capital of Egypt. The agent spoke glowingly about how Ariyo could earn enough money to take care of her children and end poverty in her family within a short period. Upon hearing the stories of good fortune waiting for her in Cairo, where she would work as a housemaid, she resigned from the hotel to embark on a journey she would later regret.
Outside Nigeria
The end of oil is near and Nigeria is going to face a reckoning, on ongoing series:
In theory, getting a barrel of Nigerian oil out of the ground should cost about $15 on average, according to Rystad Energy, a consultancy. But that is not the case. Insecurity in the Delta has driven up costs and pushed investment into offshore waters, where production costs are higher. As a result, it costs $25-40 to pump a barrel of oil in Nigeria. That will make it hard to keep up with producers such as Saudi Arabia, where costs are below $5 a barrel, when global demand and prices fall.
The pace of Nigeria’s decline will depend partly on how rapidly the world moves away from oil. If it does so quickly with the aim of limiting global warming to 1.9°C, Nigeria’s oil production could fall by a further 70% by 2040, reckons Pranav Joshi, an analyst at Rystad.
Nice feature on Omah-Lay:
His sound so far has been uncharacteristically dark and brooding for Afrobeats. Since breaking through in 2020 with "Bad Influence," where he reflects on substance abuse and heartbreak with gut-wrenching groans, he's continued to make music from this tortured space. His fans have even coined the term "Afro-depression" to describe it. His recent single "Holy Ghost" is a bit different -- still severe, but empowered. It's a pulsing prayer to his God; it's worship on the dance floor. He says it's a step in his new direction. "'Holy Ghost' is a symbol of my love for God," says Omah Lay. "It's a symbol of my respect for his creations, whether the ones people call good or bad."
A claim that more than half of poultry farms in Nigeria have been forced to close:
A year ago, Toheeb Balogun’s two-pen poultry farm was filled with birds, but not anymore.
His farm can hold up to 4,000 chickens but now has less than 1,000. The number continues to drop as he faces the effects of Nigeria’s economic crisis.
“The economic situation and inflation has really affected us,” he told The National. “We don’t operate like before anymore. Sometimes we get demands but due to our low capacity, we are not able to satisfy the customer and they have to just go somewhere else."
Mr Balogun is not alone. Nigeria’s poultry sector is going through a paralysing crisis caused by issues including inflation, a shortage of grain, the effects of Covid-19 pandemic and the floating of the naira, which has forced the cost of goods and services to increase sharply.
Last month, the Poultry Association of Nigeria said more than half of its members had to shut their poultry farms. This could hit the economy hard and affect millions of Nigerians who depend on the meat for a cheap source of protein.
Joke Bakara continues to earn rave reviews. And she should: I had another excellent meal at Chishuru this past week. Getting a booking involved a lot of work though - they are now fully booked for weeks ahead:
However, until just five years ago, cooking remained just a hobby. When Bakare moved to Britain 20 years ago, she studied microbiology at university before holding jobs in health and safety and at a London property company. Being a high-end restaurateur was not on the agenda, but her innate talent inevitably levitated her in that direction. The journey began when she held her first supper club for friends and family at Well Street Kitchen in Hackney. Events like these went down so well that Bakare began entertaining thoughts of a career in food, but she was initially reticent. On a friend’s recommendation, she entered the amateur section of the Brixton Kitchen competition in 2019 where the judges, impressed by her fusion of West African flavours, declared her the winner. Fusion is the key word here: Bakare is what you might call ‘all-Nigerian’ – raised in the northern city of Kaduna by a Yoruba mother from the south west and an Igbo father from the east of the country. This exposure to three distinct cultures and cuisines informs the cosmopolitanism she brings to her food, which is also inspired by broader West African recipes outside of Nigeria. That’s why she labels her dishes as ‘West African’ rather than anything location-specific.
Everyone should visit Benin City:
Lagos has long been Nigeria’s creative pulse, an electrifying, sprawling city home to some of the most exciting and well-regarded fashion, music and artistic talents of recent years. But an hour’s flight away is Benin City, the capital of Edo State in southern Nigeria, which, if whispers in the art world are anything to go by, is hot on Lagos’s heels.
Today, Benin City is known for being the centre of the country’s rubber industry, but come November and the opening of the much-anticipated Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) – an ambitious multimillion-dollar “creative district” that promises to push the boundaries of what a world-class museum looks like – Benin City will need to rewrite the top of its resume as the destination for the culturally curious.
The birthplace of the Benin Bronzes – artefacts considered some of Africa’s greatest treasures, which in the 19th century were controversially looted from Benin’s royal palaces – the city’s connection to art has long preceded the current hype. “If you go back a few hundred years,” explains Phillip Ihenacho, director at MOWAA, “Benin was West Africa’s equivalent to, say, Florence or Venice. That was down to the Oba of the Kingdom of Benin, who was a great patron of artisans.”
Movie collabo between Idris Elba and Mo Abudu brought to you by Afreximbank (not a typo):
Luther and Hijack star Idris Elba is set to direct singer Seal, Nollywood stars Nse Ikpe-Etim (Shanty Town), Eku Edewor (Breath Of Life) and Atlanta Bridget Johnson (Man Of God), and former Nigerian Idol contestant Constance Olatunde in short film Dust To Dreams.
The film is a collaboration between Mo Abudu's EbonyLife Films and African Export Import Bank (Afreximbank) through its Creative Africa Nexus (Canex).
Set against the backdrop of Lagos, Nigeria, the film follows the relationship between a mother and her teenage daughter as she meets her father for the first time.
Who is Aliko Dangote?
Shortly after graduating from college at 21, Dangote borrowed $3,000 from his uncle to import and sell agricultural commodities in Nigeria, his native country. His business venture quickly became a success, and as a result, he managed to repay the entire loan within three months of starting operations. Ultimately, Dangote was able to turn a local commodities trading business into a multibillion-dollar corporation.
Today, he is one of Africa's leading industrialists and philanthropists.
Profile of the breakthrough British-Nigerian fashion designer, Tolu Coker:
Tolu Coker is a storyteller first and foremost, and this collection was titled Irapada, “which means redemption in Yoruba, the native tongue of my parents,” she tells us. Yoruba is a language that derives from Nigeria, and is a form of spirituality. “The collection was really a celebration of the diversity of spirituality across the African diaspora, and redemption in the sense of reclaiming something which has been in some ways lost, but is also being revived,” adds Tolu.
Sheffield United made £9m from Dozy Mmobuosi’s wild goose chase takeover attempt. Finders keepers it turns out:
Sheffield United’s annual accounts show the club had a £8.85 million windfall from their flirtation with the Nigerian businessman Dozy Mmobuosi in the form of a non-refundable deposit that he made before a potential takeover.
Fortunately for United, the takeover collapsed well before Mmobuosi was indicted in the United States on fraud charges for having “orchestrated a massive scheme to inflate [his company] Tingo Group’s financial statements”.
The wife of one of the crypto ‘hostages’ being held in Nigeria has spoken to the media:
Nadeem Anjarwalla took only overnight luggage when he flew to Nigeria late last month, leaving his wife and 11-month-old son at home. The British citizen, who works for the world’s biggest digital currencies exchange, was planning to return home after a day of business meetings.
Three weeks later, he is still there and his family is growing concerned. Anjarwalla, 37, and an American colleague, Tigran Gambaryan, 39, are under detention in a guarded house. They have not been charged with any crime. But the Nigerian government accuses their company, Binance, of sending Africa’s biggest economy into a tailspin.
“We’re waiting with bated breath to see what will happen,” Elahe, 34, Anjarwalla’s wife, said at their home in Nairobi, Kenya. “I’m no expert on the Nigerian economy but Nadeem and Tigran have nothing to do with the freefall of the currency.”
And a WSJ podcast on how both men ended up being detained in Nigeria, including interviews with their family members
Two Binance employees, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, are being held by Nigerian authorities in a guarded house. According to their families, they haven’t been charged with any crimes. WSJ’s Caitlin Ostroff explains how the two men ended up there and why crypto is being blamed for a country’s currency collapse.
The Children’s Art Gallery (TCAG) in Lagos is helping kids from low income families earn money from their art work:
Based across two floors on Victoria Island, with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean, the gallery’s walls are covered in paintings and drawings by children aged between four and 17.
Any child can submit their work with permission from a parent or guardian, but the gallery also does outreach work in the city and scouts for aspiring artists. Last month, TCAG launched an arts programme for children in the city’s hospitals. So far, 1,400 children have submitted artwork or attended its classes.
Last year TCAG, named art gallery of the year at the 2023 African Fashion and Arts awards, generated $40,000 from the sale of the children’s art to buyers from around the world. At least 80% of the proceeds go to the artist.