Below The Headlines - 57
Below The Headlines - 57
Alhaji DanGongola lost N110m because he's a nice guy and who is Shaboozey?
It’s getting hot in here. Or another way of saying summer is truly upon us. Hope you have enjoyed the week.
Dive in to the latest selection below
Inside Nigeria
People were arrested at an ‘illegal’ gold mine in Kogi. And how long had this ‘illegality’ been going on for?
No fewer than seven persons have been arrested following their involvement in illegal mining operations at a gold site in the Yagba East Local Government Area of Kogi State.
This was revealed in a statement on Friday by Segun Tomori, the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake.
During the operation, mining marshals dislodged the illegal miners whose activities have prevented licenced miners from “accessing the site for 16 years.”
A story about an economic vicious cycle - people essentially being forced to quit their jobs due to weak consumer demand. They then start their own businesses targeting that same weak consumer demand:
Massive resignations are the order of the day. Many people who did so recently, complained that paid employment made no sense anymore when their companies increased prices of products but slashed their wages.
Speaking to Economy&Lifestyle, Mr. Adejumobi Oluwatobiloba, who recently resigned as a sales representative at a beverage company in Lagos, said he immediately floated a logistics businesses, which he is comfortably running at his own pace.
He said: “I was a sales representative in an organisation. It was terrible the way they treated us after increasing the price of their products. We demanded an increase in our salaries. Instead of yielding to our demand, the management rather slashed our salaries and started paying us half of what we used to earn.
“The money we are being paid before, hardly foot our bills let alone now it has been reduced to half. So I immediately know it was time to start my own thing and I ceased the opportunity.
“Now, I have invested my savings in a bus which I am using to run a logistics business. It wasn’t easy at first but because I was determined to start alone, I succeeded.
An interesting piece on an area of Taraba State where Fulfulde - a language with a reputation of inscrutability to outsiders - is spoken by pretty much everyone:
Mr. Onyema Ukwueze is a trader with a shop in Kaka quarters. From Enugu State, he has lived in Gembu for many years, and his entire family of eight persons, is now fluent in Fulfulde.
According to him he spent two months learning Fulfulde in Gembu. A Tiv man who was present in the shop during the meeting with Mr. Ukwueze, also mentions that he too is fluent in Fulfulde.
Zubairu provides a picture of the use of Fulfulde in his house. “Depending on the topic, I sometimes speak to my children in Fulfulde, and they also reply in Fulfulde. Fulani also speak the Mambilla languages,” he adds.
This story shouldn’t be funny but it is:
A Kano State Shari’a court has sentenced a shop attendant, Aminu Sadi, to two years in prison for breaching trust and fraud in connection with a missing property worth N110 million belonging to the shop’s owner, Alhaji DanGongola.
The complainant had entrusted the accused with the safe keeping of roofing zinc valued at N100m which he allegedly sold without the knowledge of the owner.
When the charges were read to him, the accused pleaded guilty.
News from Gombe:
Two young men have been arrested by the Gombe State Command for allegedly engaging in anal sex between themselves.
The suspects were paraded before journalists on Tuesday at the command headquarters by the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Buhari Abdullahi, on behalf of the Commissioner of Police.
He said that the suspected homosexuals are Hassan Abubakar, aged 25, and Jibrin Ibrahim, aged 22, all residents of Kanbariki quarters in Kumo, HeaAkko local government area of the state.
According to him, the command received information from the Ward Head of the area, Abdullahi Sayoji, on July 11, 2024, at 10:40 over the suspected behaviour of the persons.
He added that police personnel at Akko Division immediately rushed to the scene and arrested the suspects.
The PPRO noted that the suspects were exposed following a fight that ensued between them when one of the homosexuals who allegedly had anal sex with the other refused to pay him his ‘contractural fee’ of N15,000.
A fascinating look at the world of illegal mining in Nigeria. Although the article makes the error of saying lithium prices are rising globally. In fact they are crashing directly because of the output from illegal mining in Nigeria and other places flooding the market:
A truck entered the street leading to Ori Oke Igbala Oniwamimo, a Cherubim and Seraphim church in Igbeti, Olorunsogo Local Government area of Oyo State, on April 7. It was loaded with with batches of minerals and covered with tarpaulin. Off the street was another collection centre for powdered lithium stones, and from there, the truck would take off at 9:34 pm.
Lithium-carrying trucks wait until midnight before journeying out of Igbeti, this reporter has learned, after collecting minerals from the different collection points scattered in the ancient town. One is behind New Links College of Health Technology, off Igboho road. Some distance further up, there’s another collection centre, close to a public borehole. Opposite the road leading to Arije Royal Castle Inn, there is another one, and then the one off the street leading to Ori Oke Igbala Oniwamimo. Along Bani road, there are several others sited in front of residential buildings.
At the centre behind the college of health, a Chinese man was spotted moving with a gun-bearing civil security officer. His black 4RUNNER SUV with number plate GWA-666 GW was parked under a tree, while a lavender-colour truck hired to collect the minerals being bagged waited at the centre. His fellow Chinese and illegal mining financier, who was patronising another centre, drove a black Highlander with number plate APP-06 HZ.
These Chinese miners operate freely within the town and are known faces to their collaborators, including tens of young locals who work at collection centres and truck owners.
“They are taking them [lithium ore] overseas,” said Lateef Akanni*, this reporter’s rider. “You know they are from China.”
Flogging is bad and stupid enough. Flogging for this reason? Insane:
A priest of the Enugu Catholic Diocese, Rev. Fr. Linus Okwu, has reportedly flogged members of his church, including women, girls and choir members, for allegedly failing to clear grasses within the church premises.
Okwu is said to be the parish priest of St. Bartholomew’s Catholic Church, Agbani in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State.
The Nation reports that the cleric allegedly whipped the parishioners, comprising mothers, young men, ladies and teenagers.
According to the report, trouble started when the angry priest, armed with canes, interrupted a choir practice in his parish and demanded an explanation on why the church field was yet to be cleared.
Not satisfied with the responses he got, he ordered the choir members to kneel and started flogging them mercilessly.
Akwa Ibom State Government has spoken out about why it is building a residential tower in Victoria Island, Lagos:
According to the statement, the 18-storey Ibom Towers will feature one and two-bedroom flats and business suites intended for high-income earners, with the proceeds directed to the state treasury. This initiative is part of a broader strategy to boost the state’s revenue streams through strategic investments.
Additionally, the state plans to convert its liaison office in Abuja into a three-star hotel, further enhancing its income-generating capabilities.The government emphasized the importance of reason and rationality in media analyses of its activities.
Outside Nigeria
The first museum in the US to return Benin bronzes to Nigeria is in… Iowa:
The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art has become the first in the United States to restitue its holdings of Benin Bronzes, to the Oba of Benin, the former head of the royal family of Benin and steward of its legacy. Two objects, a brass plaque and wooden altarpiece, were formally returned in a ceremony held on July 15 at the Benin Palace in Nigeria.
Long overdue recognition for Nike Davies-Okundaye in the international media:
Davies-Okundaye is a living testament to the cultural transformation that has brought new attention and appreciation to Nigeria’s artists.
The artist and entrepreneur, 73, owns galleries across Africa’s most populous country and has driven much of Nigeria’s contemporary art evolution over the last generation. The country’s artwork, formerly considered a luxury reserved for expats, has become what Davies-Okundaye calls a vehicle for social, economic and political change.
At her gallery—four floors filled with sculpture, mixed media, portraits and masks that testify to Nigeria’s cultural wealth—she nods to her beadwork piece commemorating the protests that sparked the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign. “They managed to bring some of them back, but not all of them yet,” Davies-Okundaye told Newsweek recently.
“So that is political. Many people, they will say, ‘Don’t show this work.’ I said, ‘Yes, we have to remind them that not all the girls are back.’”
A fifth-generation artist, Davies-Okundaye was born into poverty in a small village about 300 miles northeast of Lagos. Her great-grandmother raised her after both her mother and grandmother died before she was eight years old. Davies-Okundaye could not attend secondary school because her family lacked the funds, so she followed her great-grandmother into the family artistry business.
Guy who moved to the UK from Nigeria and found a very competitive job marker for his chosen line of work tells his story to the media:
I saved a great deal before moving. I was fairly comfortable with the income from my full-time job and writing side hustles in Nigeria, and for around eight months, I spent less than a third of my salary to save before resigning from my job.
Before arriving in the UK, I'd lined up part-time editing work. I'd been vigorously applying for full-time employment in the arts but couldn't land anything. After around three months in the UK, I secured a full-time position as a digital marketing executive for a power tool company.
My job involves some copywriting, but I want to work in the UK's creative industry. I applied to editing and contributor roles but got rejection after rejection. I've been able to freelance but haven't secured permanent creative work.
London was lonely. I stayed with a friend in London for the first six weeks before moving into my own apartment. I had Nigerian friends who lived across England, but it was difficult to meet up.
I knew how the creative industry worked in Nigeria, but I don't have the same knowledge of opportunities here, and there's only so much you can Google.
In Nigeria, I've worked as a staff writer and senior editor, but I feel there's more competition for the same kind of roles in the UK. Sometimes, when I see an opening on LinkedIn, 100 people will have applied in the past hour.
Some organizations that have rejected me have said they want candidates with more UK experience, so the criteria seem quite stringent here.
I thought I was entering a senior stage of my career in Nigeria, but in the UK, I can't land midlevel jobs. I've seen some of my Nigerian peers apply for entry-level British jobs who were at a mid-senior level back home.
One big crypto exchange is leaving Nigeria at the end of August:
Global cryptocurrency exchange OKX is winding down services in Nigeria as of Aug. 30, a company spokesperson told The Block in an email.
"OKX is committed to adhering to the applicable rules and regulations of all jurisdictions in which we strive to offer services," an OKX spokesperson said in a statement. "Due to local laws and regulations, we notified local customers that we would no longer offer services to customers in Nigeria from August 30."
OKX customers in Nigeria will be barred from accessing their accounts from the stated date, while the exchange noted that their funds remain secure.
This comes after the crypto trading platform halted withdrawal services for the Nigerian Naira in May as the country tightened regulatory scrutiny on Binance and other centralized exchanges. Binance removed support for the naira in March.
The story of Jude Okeleke who moved from Nigeria to the US to play American football:
When Jude Okeleke looks back on his trip across the Atlantic Ocean from his home in Lagos, Nigeria to Connecticut, he remembers it as surreal.
A giant of a freshman standing at 6-foot-3 and weighing in at 280 pounds, he had never played in a football game before. Yet, here he was in a foreign country, attempting to make a name for himself at a highly respected prep school program.
Okeleke ended up starting every game on the defensive line in his first year at The Taft School and, in almost no time, the collegiate offers began to arrive.
"Jude added me on Twitter and I started seeing videos of him flipping tires and benching 415 pounds as a ninth grader," Taft football coach Tyler Whitley said. "I was like, 'Geez, this kid is unbelievable.'"
Who is Shaboozey?
Shaboozey has been a consistent name on everyone’s lips this year, especially in the United States, where he was born and raised. The artist’s evocative blend of hip-hop and country music has made him, quite unarguably, the breakout star of the year. As of last week, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” occupied the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 as well as its Hot Country Songs chart. It was the first time a Black male artist has topped both charts at the same time.
Born Collins Obinna Chibueze, the artist’s Nigerian roots have had a large influence on him. His name, Chibueze, means “God is king” in Igbo, and he took its mispronunciation for his stage name. His father migrated from Nigeria to attend school in Texas and would become involved in community building. He eventually bought land in Virginia, where he and his Nigerian wife settled and where Chibueze was born. When his father returned to Nigeria, he started a farm. During this time, Shaboozey attended a boarding school in his home country, a multicultural experience he credits to shaping his perspective. As for his father, “[he] was always big on working with his hands,” Shaboozey recounts to Baller Alert. “If anything, I kinda ended up being a lot like him.”
It was his father who introduced him to country artists like Kenny Rogers and Garth Brooks, while Shaboozey also listened to the likes of Ja Rule and Usher. It’s this fusion that exists at the core of his sound.
A Nigerian teacher in Japan posted about her kids being racist to her on TikTok:
A Nigerian woman teaching in Japan tearfully recounted how one of her students called her a slur. TikTok user @gamezu3, who graduated from a Japanese university, shared the incident in a video uploaded to her account on Friday.
What happened: “On this day, my student called me a monkey and the N-word,” the teacher wrote in the on-screen caption, adding that she is tired of life abroad. The TikTok user’s post, which has a hashtag calling for “Fix Africa,” has been viewed over 58,000 times.
The malaria vaccine will begin rolling out before the end of the year:
Within the next 48 hours, babies in Africa will receive doses of the world’s first affordable malaria vaccine. It costs less than £3 a dose.
The introduction of the R21 jab could pave the way for the eradication of malaria within a decade, scientists believe.
Malaria kills more than 600,000 people a year, 95 per cent of them in Africa and 80 per cent under the age of five. Even at the height of the Covid pandemic, malaria claimed more African lives than the coronavirus.
The first doses — the culmination of 30 years of research by Oxford University, which developed the vaccine — are expected to be given to babies aged under two in the Ivory Coast on Monday and South Sudan on Tuesday.
Fifteen countries in Africa — including the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Ghana, Mozambique, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Burundi and Nigeria — are expected to introduce the vaccine by the end of the year, with another 15 African nations due to follow.
NYT profiles the A-list music producer, Michael Uzowuru:
Uzowuru may not have the name recognition of Jack Antonoff or Rick Rubin, but his work with artists including Beyoncé, FKA twigs, Frank Ocean, Halsey, Rosalía and SZA has solidified him as a collaborator that A-list artists seek out to sharpen and elevate their craft. His reputation for concocting elegant, distinctive pop songs — like Ocean’s “Nights,” or twigs’s “Cellophane” — has made him one of contemporary music’s most respected producers even as he remains absent from the public eye.
On Friday, his latest high-profile collaboration — “Bando Stone & the New World,” the sixth album from Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino — arrives, 17 songs filled with dramatic rock, clever rap and silky R&B that were driven by a concept for a film: an artist recording his masterwork on a remote island as civilization collapses around him.
“For a while I thought he was some sort of shady character,” Glover said in a phone interview, with a laugh. “He works with Frank and that whole camp, and they’re very mysterious. I was intimidated.”
A story tangentially related to Nigeria - the TV game show Jeopardy was on the final question when it was interrupted for the US presidential debate. Viewers were incensed:
For Final Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings asked a clue from the countries of the world category.
'Until 1991 this country, named for a river, had a capital whose name means 'lakes' in Portuguese,' he said.
The correct answer was Nigeria and was only guessed by Isaac, who went on to add $1,600 to his prize pot, leading him to win with $20,000.
Fans who were unable to watch Isaac's crowning moment joked they were indebted to some viewers who were able to see the clip and uploaded it online for those who missed it.
Nigeria asks Meta to pay up:
Nigeria fined Meta Platforms (META.O) $220 million, its competition watchdog said on Friday, after investigations showed data-sharing on social platforms violated local consumer, data protection and privacy laws.
Nigeria's Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) said Meta appropriated the data of Nigerian users on its platforms without their consent, abused its market dominance by forcing exploitative privacy policies on users, and meted out discriminatory and disparate treatment on Nigerians, compared with other jurisdictions with similar regulations.
Meta did not immediately comment, but the FCCPC said in a statement that the company had provided some documents and have retained counsels who have met and engaged with the agency.
FCCPC chief Adamu Abdullahi said the investigations were jointly held with Nigeria's Data Protection Commission and spanned over 38 months.
The investigations found Meta policies don't allow users the option or opportunity to self-determine or withhold consent to the gathering, use, and sharing of personal data, Abdullahi said.
A look back at Nigeria’s Olympic Dream Team that won the football gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996:
Two years before the Olympics, Nigeria won the African Cup of Nations for the second time. It was the culmination of a football program headed by Dutch coach, Clemens Westerhof, who personally scouted players from the local league and kept tabs on players abroad. Upon usurping power, General Abacha held a meeting with Westerhof and the country’s administrators, committing to do all in his power to support the national team to qualify Nigeria for its first World Cup berth.
At the ‘94 World Cup in the U.S., the team exited in the second round, a decent outing for a team making its debut on the biggest stage in world football. The next major tournament was supposed to be a chance for the Super Eagles to defend its AFCON title, however, Nigeria under Abacha’s rule was under intense global scrutiny for its human rights violations, underlined by the execution of environmental activist and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and nine other leaders of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP).
After that, Nigeria was, amongst other international sanctions, suspended from the Commonwealth, a decision that was recommended by anti-apartheid hero and then South African President Nelson Mandela. This led to tensions between Nigeria and South Africa, and would effect the withdrawal of the Super Eagles from the ‘96 AFCON hosted in, and eventually won, by South Africa.
Missing AFCON made playing in the Olympics even more important, but things were far from smooth. In his book about the ‘96 gold medal team, The Making of Nigeria’s Dream Team, respected sports journalist Mumini Alao revealed that some players had to pay for team expenses with their credit cards, renting buses for the team and even driving the buses to and from training themselves. The conditions were so bad players had to wash their training kits themselves after each session.