Below The Headlines - 54
Below The Headlines - 54
President Tinubu is built different and monkey tail is the drug of choice in Nigeria
Enjoy the latest selection of Nigerian activities across the internet in the last week. And I hope you’re all keeping well.
See you again next week.
Inside Nigeria
President Tinubu has been working so hard on behalf of Nigerians that, in just one year in office, he has produced 4 different budgets. He is built different:
It would be recalled that the National Assembly, in December 2023, extended the implementation period of capital component of the budget for that fiscal year from December 31, 2023, to March 31, 2024. It similarly extended the lifespan of the N2.17 trillion 2023 Supplementary Budget, which was passed in November, 2023, following a request by President Tinubu.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives further extended the implementation period for the budgetary appropriations from March 31, 2024, to June 30, 2024, on the 19th and the 20th March, this year, respectively, following another similar request from the president.
The request for another extension of the implementation of the capital component of the budget is coming a few days to the June 30 implementation deadline earlier approved by the National Assembly.
Again, the president is about to submit another supplementary budget to the parliament by next week.
Daily Trust Saturday reports that with the extension of the three other appropriation acts, Nigeria will have four budgets running concurrently.
I was curious about this story of a guy defrauding a businessman of N120m in Bauchi. That is a very large sum of money:
“Samuel disclosed that a friend he had met at the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi in 2011, before dropping out of Computer Science, convinced him that he could make money by accessing a wealthy individual’s phone. Exploiting the complainant’s trust, Samuel deceitfully borrowed the phone, allowing his accomplice to install financial applications such as Opay and MoneyPoint.
“This access enabled them to transfer the funds to different bank accounts on various occasions.”
According to the press statement, after investigation, items such as eight tricycles, N35,000,000 in cash, two uncompleted buildings, 60 bags of cooking charcoal, 30 bags of fertilizer, two motorcycles, and two industrial sewing machines were recovered from the suspect.
It added that the suspect, whose lifestyle had dramatically changed, assured his uncle and girlfriend that he was earning money through an online business when they inquired about his newfound income.
A ‘prank’ cost a young university student her life in Anambra:
According to the CSO, the deceased Ifunanya and the other lady with her at the time of the incident, were all living off-campus, adding that what led to her death was not robbery as was earlier insinuated.
Chief Chukwurah said: “All the parties concerned are students. The two ladies went together and were already doing their clearance preparatory for their graduation.
“The boy, also a student, played a prank on the girls and this incident happened at 8.20 pm on that fateful day. The boy, who was sitting with them in the Keke, cracked a joke with them in the tricycle by saying ‘what if I collect your phones as you are moving about at this late hour’?.
“Out of fear, the girls jumped out of the tricycle and one of them, Miracle, hit her head on the tarred road. Her colleague was lucky as she sustained injuries and she is still being treated. By the time they got to the hospital, Miracle’s case was serious and after battling all night, she unfortunately gave up, while her colleague is yet to be discharged”.
Chukwurah said that to show that it was not a robbery case, it was the boy who took them to the University Medical Center first, from where they were taken to Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Amaku where Miracle eventually died.
The CSO said the boy, whose name was not given, stayed in the hospital with them till the following day, adding that his action confirmed that it was not robbery, but an expensive joke he played on the girls.
“Ownership of a girlfriend”:
A violent clash between two rival groups of hoodlums over the ownership of a girlfriend has resulted in the gruesome murder of 21-year-old Rabiu Shehu, popularly known as Rambo, and another person killed in Gwallameji within a few days.
[…]
Similarly, on Tuesday, June 25th, 2024, there was a reprisal attack by a rival group of hoodlums known as ‘Yan Tokara’. This case of criminal conspiracy and culpable homicide led to the death of Rabiu Shehu, also known as Rambo, a 21-year-old resident of Muda Lawal, Bauchi. He was attacked and fatally stabbed in the stomach and neck by an unknown person suspected to be a member of the rival group in the Bakin Kura area.
Despite being taken to the Specialists Hospital, Bauchi for medical examination, he was confirmed dead by a medical doctor.
Investigations revealed that the root cause of the conflict between the two rival groups was the ownership dispute over a girl who was double dating leaders of both groups, leading to confrontations between them.
Further investigation revealed that during the altercation, a member of one group had his left hand severed, which escalated tensions between the groups.
Once again, Nigerian farmers have followed the money to a new crop. This is an understated driver of food insecurity in Nigeria:
More farmers are now going into cash crop production across Taraba State farming communities despite the high cost of foodstuffs, Daily Trust on Sunday gathered.
Three key cash crops, sesame, groundnut, and melon have taken over more farms where food crops such as maize, guinea corn, millet and cassava are grown.
Findings revealed that a 100kg bag of sesame was sold during harvest last year at N100,000 while a 100kg bag of melon seed sold at N75,000.
Fake Senator is a new one:
A Federal Capital Territory, FCT High Court sitting in Gwagwalada, on Wednesday sentenced a fake senator, Tom Makwe to two years imprisonment.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC had arraigned the convict for swindling a Spaniard of 47, 082 Euros.
He was arraigned on two counts of intent to defraud over the internet.
The convict pleaded guilty to the charge and begged the court for leniency.
Delivering judgment, Justice Aliyu Shafa, also gave him an option of a fine of N5 million.
Shafa ordered that the N30 million, and 1,300 dollars recovered from the convict be forfeited to the victim, Maria Del Rosario san Jose Garces through the Spanish embassy in Nigeria and evidence of forfeiture be filed through the registrar of the court within two weeks.
Professor Aisha Sani Maikudi (nice name) has been appointed at the acting Vice Chancellor of University of Abuja at the age of 41:
Born in January 1983, Maikudi hails from Katsina State. She had her secondary education at Queens College, Lagos, where she obtained her West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
She graduated from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom with her Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 2004, and in 2005, she obtained her Master of Laws degree (LLM) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
She served as a corps member under the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in 2007 at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Headquarters in Abuja.
Maikudi joined UNIABUJA in 2008 as Lecturer II and acquired her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 2015 from the same institution.
Outside Nigeria
A feature on Caleb Kunle, the soul musician who will be playing Glastonbury this year:
When we meet in a clattering café in Brighton on the south coast of England, the soul musician Caleb Kunle has just finished a run along the shore. I comment how it’s a shame that the offshore wind farms punctuate an otherwise limitless horizon, but he disagrees. Growing up in the coastal city of Lagos, Nigeria, his view was dotted with oil tankers, industrial trawlers and cargo ships.
“If all I see is wind farms when I look out to the sea, that’s really fine with me. There are worse ways to obscure the horizon,” he says. Perspective is everything and Kunle’s journey to the UK from Nigeria via Ireland, the US and South Africa has given him a positive outlook on life. Someone bottle it and sell it, please.
Kunle is in Brighton for the Great Escape Festival, at which London music executives gather to judge the year’s next big things. He’s earned his slot in the line-up thanks to a steady stream of singles and EPs, including the EP Eden in 2017 and the single All in Your Head in 2022. Now, with more singles to come and a slot booked at the Glastonbury Festival, there’s a growing consensus that this year is his time to shine.
On the people and efforts being made to restore some of Nigeria’s mangrove forests in the Niger Delta:
The team members plunge their shovels into the mud and slot in saplings at the site in Bundu, a shanty town on the outskirts of the southern oil city Port Harcourt.
In recent years, human activity has destroyed swathes of the world's mangrove forests, which form a vital barrier against the tides and a sanctuary for wildlife.
But in this part of the Delta -- plagued by leaks from multinational oil company pipelines and a host of other threats -- a local community leader is pushing ahead with a project to restore the spoiled forests.
"We're going to bring our mangroves back to life," said fisherman David Oba, 53, who represents around 10,000 people in the town.
’New’ drugs are being increasingly used by people across Africa and Nigeria is not left out:
The United Nations on Wednesday flagged harmful new drug concoctions, named kush, Khadafi, and Monkey Tail, as posing particular health risks across Africa because of their varying and often unknown ingredients.
The drugs are believed to contain dangerous mixtures of pharmaceuticals, alcohol and solvents, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its annual World Drug Report.
Reports this week have documented the problems associated with drug abuse.
Sierra Leone in April declared a national emergency over the rising use of kush, a synthetic mixture of marijuana, tentanyl and tramadol.
Ivory Coast, in response to the high use of Khadafi - a mixture of tramadol and energising alcoholic beverages - last year banned the import and export of such beverages.
Monkey Tail is mostly used in Nigeria, according to the UNODC, which said it comprises homemade gin and cannabis seeds, leaves, stems and roots.
An Australian grandmother who was arrested in January 2023 at a Japanese international airport trying to smuggle meth into Japan has been kept in detention since then. Now she has introduced a new twist into her defence:
The prominent Indigenous community leader has not spoken directly to her family since her arrest at Narita International Airport in January 2023 with methamphetamine allegedly hidden in a tampered suitcase.
The family believe Ms Nelson, who is also chair of a West Australian Aboriginal health service, was either forced or tricked into carrying the suitcase, which was not part of her luggage when she left Australia.
They said Ms Nelson had been talking with a Nigerian man online for two years before she was arrested.
Ms Nelson had travelled to Japan to meet the Nigerian man, known as 'Kelly', who she met two years earlier through an online dating site called AfroIntroductions.
According to Nelson's lawyers, her suitcase was fitted with a false outer lining to create a hidden cavity in which around two kilograms of methamphetamine was found.
'Kelly' claimed to be the owner of a high-end fashion brand.
Ms Nelson's daughters told The Sydney Morning Herald the pair had messaged back and forth for months and had discussed talking a trip to Brazil.
The daughters also said the pair had planned to marry in Nigeria, donning traditional African attire.
A piece in London’s Evening Standard appealing for help with malnutrition and hunger in Nigeria and linking it to the growing popularity of Nigerian food in London:
If I were to tell you that 2024 has already been a hugely significant year for West African food, then where would your mind immediately turn? Might it be Chishuru? The whirling firecracker of a West End restaurant where brilliant, Nigerian-born autodidact Adejoké Bakare (recently named Chef of the Year at the National Restaurant Awards) has already won a Michelin star for her expressive, palate-jolting adaptations of traditional recipes? Would you skip towards its near-neighbour, Akoko, which was also awarded a first star in February for its elegantly crafted yet uncompromising plates of smoked goat, pepper soup and jollof rice?
Well, to take my deliberately opaque phrasing at face value, what if I was to tell you that there was a hugely important, very different West African food story, one about scarcity and strife rather than abundance and acclaim, playing out in rural areas almost 4,000 miles away?
The self confident superstar that is Ayra Starr gets a feature in The Guardian:
It’s a moniker Starr isn’t exactly scared of embracing. “One thing you’ll notice about me is I’m very audacious,” she says. “I like to shock people and I always show temerity in any way possible.” The audaciousness is what grips you – while you’re taken in by the beautiful, rhythmic fújì melodies, you’re then hit with Starr’s bold vocals, and lines like “I run up blocks, I run ’em myself” and “I don’t watch my tone cause I like how I sound, bitch”.
This swagger is well earned. After her discovery by record producer Don Jazzy via Instagram in 2019, Starr’s distinctively luxurious alto has carried her to greater and greater heights. Her 2022 breakout single Rush has earned Starr more than 370m Spotify streams and a Grammy nomination, while her new album was the first by a female Nigerian artist to debut on the Billboard 200 when it was released last month. Now, Starr is about to make her Glastonbury debut, taking the Pyramid stage slot that was last year occupied by Brit awards record-breaker Raye. “Oh my God, the pressure!” she laughs.
Feature piece on the deeply controversial coastal highway from Lagos to Calabar, including the road in California it is supposedly modelled after:
Last month, Nigeria started work on the 700-kilometer Calabar-Lagos coastal highway project, an undertaking that quickly saw the demolition of 70% of a $200 million beach resort, the dissolution of businesses, and the loss of jobs. According to CNN, Paul Onwuanibe, the owner of the razed resort, didn’t get any advance notice about the demolition until late March when he was told he had seven days to evacuate the property. It didn’t take long after the notice period for the area to become rubble.
The Calabar-Lagos highway is Nigeria’s biggest road project ever, aiming to connect the country’s six geopolitical regions through seven states across more than 435 miles. It’s modeled after roads like California’s Pacific Coast Highway and is estimated to cost between 14 trillion and 15.6 trillion Nigerian nairas ($11 billion to $12.5 billion) over its eight years of construction. But it’s already mired in a slew of controversies.
Why do Nigerian states keep building airports? A Guardian piece tries for find out with quotes from yours truly:
For some observers the rush to build airports is less about economics and more about political prestige.
“The simplest answer is that [politicians] have run away from roads the way they ran away from the railways … because roads are harder to fix and need more coordination,” said Feyi Fawehinmi, an author and political commentator. “[Airports] are also shiny and building them allows politicians to say they’ve ‘connected’ their state to the rest of the country and the world.”
Another batch of Nigerians deported from Libya:
Libya announced on Tuesday (June 25) the repatriation of 174 irregular migrants to Nigeria, including 39 women and six children, with additional repatriations planned in the coming weeks.
Mohammed Baredaa, the head of Libya's Interior Ministry's department tasked with combating irregular migration, made the announcement.
"We have initiated the repatriation of 174 irregular migrants of Nigerian origin, including 39 women and six children," he stated.
The repatriation efforts, which are carried out by either plane or road depending on the migrants' nationality, are set to continue in the coming weeks.
An APC chieftain died during the recent hajj:
A renowned veteran politician and member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party in Nigeria, was among over 1,000 pilgrims who died in extreme heat during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
The death of Alhaja Ramota Bankole, the former Welfare Secretary of APC’s Lagos chapter, was confirmed dead by local officials on Thursday.
The death toll from this year's Hajj has exceeded 1,000, an AFP tally said on Thursday, with over half of those who died being unregistered worshippers who joined the pilgrimage through irregular channels.
Madonna has a new boyfriend who is just 30 years younger than her. But who is he?
Madonna has come out of a year-long relationship swinging. Having officially ended her relationship with Josh Popper – the 30 year-old boxer who once coached her son David Banda – last month, the pop icon has already been seen on social media getting cosy with Richard Riakporhe, a British-Nigerian professional boxer.
The pair were snapped together last October at a star-studded party in London whose attendees included Kate Moss and fashion designer Guram Gvasalia. In an Instagram post since deleted from her account, Madonna cheekily captioned the photo, which shows her sitting on Riakporhe’s lap, “I had to sit somewhere.”