Below The Headlines - 60
Below The Headlines - 60
Sodiq Oyedokun suffered a wardrobe malfunction and what is 'hustle kingdom'?
It’s felt like a particularly bad week in Nigeria with news of terrible flooding and tanker accidents claiming so many lives. May God comfort those who have suffered losses.
Here are this week’s stories.
Inside Nigeria
An ‘innovative’ approach I must say:
Kano State poultry farmers have adopted a new approach of cooperating with smallholder farmers in the production of birds.
Weekend Trust gathered that chicken farmers, particularly those who work in hatcheries directly or indirectly, sell day-old chicks to smallholders and then purchase the chicks back after two or three weeks to complete the production cycle.
The new synergy enables shared breeding demand at a lower cost to both parties.
According to a poultry farmer in the state, Malam Shehu Caji, the adoption of the technique became necessary for the business to remain afloat due to the high cost of feed being experienced nation-wide.
He said a 25kg bag of starter poultry feed is now N20,700 as against less than N10,000 which it sold for late last year.
“The technique is a child of necessity because the poultry business is dying slowly and believe it or not, the sector is considered dead by some practitioners because they have already closed down their farms. However, this new method allows for shared responsibility in chicken breeding with moderate expenditure being shared. You buy a day-old chick, breed for two or three weeks and then take it back to the place you bought them and they will buy from you to continue the cycle. This is the practice now and from indications, it is sustaining the sector,” he said.
Are you even a serious Nigerian politician if there are no ‘discrepancies’ in your date of birth?
The case, with suit no CR/W22/816/2024, was instituted by an indigene of Edo State, Honesty Aginbatse, who alleged that Okpebholo claimed he was born on 29/08/1970 in the form submitted to INEC, while another document submitted by him states 29/08/1972 as his date of birth.
Aginbatse said, “The defendant, on 24/03/2024, submitted a list of his personal particulars dated 05/03/2024 to INEC wherein he made a statement in item number 4 in Part B, stating that he was born on 29/08/1970. A certified true copy (C.T.C) of the list of personal particulars submitted to INEC by the defendant is attached to this complaint and marked as Exhibit B.”
“In the same Exhibit B, the defendant made a declaration on oath dated 05/03/2024, supported by a verifying affidavit, wherein he attached several documents, including a Statutory Declaration of Age deposed to on 04/06/2022 by one Okpebholo Ojeifo Joseph; marked as Exhibit C in this complaint, and a West African Senior School Certificate with Candidate and Certificate numbers 4320545182 and NGWASSCS11023655 respectively, marked as Exhibit D in this complaint. The said Exhibit D contains a statement indicating that the defendant was born on 29/08/1972, which is false in all its material particulars.”
“This is particularly so, as the statutory declaration of age mentioned in paragraph 7 above as Exhibit C, which in law stands in the stead of the defendant’s Birth Certificate, definitively affirmed that the defendant was born on 29/08/1970.”
We don’t always praise the Police here but this is good work by them:
The Lagos State Police Command has arrested 18-year-old Michael Ogbugu for blackmailing and extorting a former secondary school classmate at the Orchid Estate in the Lekki area of Lagos State.
The victim, whose name has been withheld, was said to be having a video conversation with Michael when he took a screenshot of her nude picture.
Ogbugu then used the image to threaten and coerce her into sending more explicit photos and videos.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, who confirmed the incident to our correspondent in a statement on Thursday said the suspect also demanded sex and money from her parents.
He added that the victim’s sister reported the incident to the police, leading to the suspect’s swift arrest.
I don’t know why the vest failed him either:
A teenager, suspected to be an armed robber, Sodiq Oyedokun, has lamented how his traditional bullet proof and anti- arrest vest meant to make him disappear from crime scenes failed him.
Oyedokun was arrested and paraded alongside 20 other suspected criminals by the Ondo state security outfit codenamed Amotekun in Akure, the state capital.
In an interview, the suspect, said that he inherited it from his late father who was a herbalist.
According to him, ” my father gave the vest to me. I kept it in our house since it was given to me.
He said it was the first time he had put the vest on during an operation, but he usually goes out with it when going out for an operation.
” The bullet proof vest failed me because I ought to have disappeared from the scene of the operation.
” I don’t know why the vest failed me. I was expected to have disappeared and not arrested at the scene when the Amotekun personnel stormed the venue of the operation.
20 year old arrested for killing a 19 year old for ritual purposes in Lokoja. What is going on really? He also said elsewhere that he met the native doctor who gave him the order on TikTok:
“The suspect actually confessed to us that on 4th of September 2024, he met the deceased Damilola and lured her to the bush. At first, he pretended that he like her. When she accepted, he took her to an apartment. Before then, he gave the deceased a drink. Unknown to her, inside the drink, he has put some substance.
“This worked in her system which made her weak for the suspect to carry out his heinous crime. He took the deceased to an uncompleted building before strangling her to death and dismembered her body. He removed her eyes, lungs, lever, tongue and fleshy part of her buttocks with the purpose of performing some rituals.
“Initially, he called the parent of the deceased that he had kidnapped the lady and demanded a ransom which was paid before killing the girl. He collected a ransom of N400,000 from the parents.
I’ve been hearing a lot about the ‘Shila Boys’ in Nigeria’s north. This story should not be funny but it is:
The youths, said to be among notorious young criminal elements known around Adamawa State as Shila Boys, had deceptively operated their Keke NAPEP as a passenger vehicle.
They picked up their victim, only to turn on him and attempt to remove his phone from his pocket.
The man, incidentally a police officer, resisted, leading to the scuffle.
The suspects—Hamza Ibrahim, 19 years old; Auwal Kolo, also 19 years old; and Mubarak Sadiq, the owner of the tricycle used in the operation—have confessed their intention to steal the victim’s phone.
They admitted to the police that they picked up their victim and, instead of conveying him to his destination, suddenly diverted and headed to Mahmud Ribadu Square, a popular event venue that has recently become a hub of criminal activities due to its largely secluded location in the capital city.
While en route to Mahmud Ribadu Square, Kolo allegedly put his hand into the police officer’s pocket, attempted to remove his phone, and threatened to kill him upon his resistance.
During the fight in the moving tricycle, the police officer allegedly hit Hamza, who was riding, causing the Keke to sway and all of them to fall onto the street.
The suspects were subsequently rounded up.
Outside Nigeria
Olumide Osunkoya is in court in London:
The UK’s financial regulator has charged a man with unlawfully running a network of crypto ATMs, its first criminal prosecution for an activity that is widely used for money laundering.
The Financial Conduct Authority said on Tuesday that it had charged Olumide Osunkoya, a 45-year-old living in London, with running multiple crypto ATMs that had allegedly not been registered with the watchdog. Crypto ATMs are machines that allow users to exchange standard money for cryptocurrency, working in a similar way to a typical bank ATM.
They can take in cash, convert it to a cryptocurrency such as bitcoin, and send the digital money to a customer’s crypto wallet address. Authorities around the world have sought to shut the machines down because they are deemed an ideal way to launder money, with little traceability on where funds come from and to where they are sent. Operators typically earn fees on transactions.
The machines run by Osunkoya processed £2.6mn worth of crypto transactions across multiple locations between December 2021 and September 2023, the FCA said.
[…]
The FCA said Osunkoya had been the director of Gidiplus Ltd before acting independently. Gidiplus Ltd’s registration application had been rejected by the regulator in 2021.
Nigeria is still holding the Binance guy. I have no idea why and what the off-ramp is for this ridiculous situation but it appears the US is now finally putting pressure on Nigeria to let him go:
The U.S. government has urged Nigeria to release an employee of the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance who was arrested there in February and has faced mounting medical problems in prison, according to two senior State Department officials.
The detention of Tigran Gambaryan, a former U.S. law enforcement officer, has become a significant factor in the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Nigeria, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss a diplomatic matter.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken raised the issue with his Nigerian counterpart in May, the officials said. Other U.S. diplomats, including the ambassador to Nigeria, have called for Mr. Gambaryan’s release in private conversations with Nigeria’s president, finance minister, attorney general and trade minister, according to the officials.
The U.S. diplomats have argued that Mr. Gambaryan, 40, should be freed on humanitarian grounds, after he suffered from malaria and problems stemming from a herniated disk, the officials said. His family has said he hasn’t received adequate medical treatment, causing his health to worsen rapidly.
Where can one find the best jollof rice in London? The Flygerians think they have the answer by modestly ranking themselves as number one:
Jess and Jo Edun began their culinary quest serving outrageously good food inspired by their grandmother at The Old Nun’s Head pub in south London. They now run The Flygerians, an independent Nigerian street food restaurant in Peckham that is swimming in beef suya skewers, hot wings and – of course – smokey jollof. An endlessly delicious dish with a host of regional variations (not to mention regional rivalries over whose is best, spanning Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cameroon), jollof is a vibrant one pot rice dish with a tomato base and onions, chillies and spices added into the mix. Iconic? Just a bit.
As they release their first book, The Flygerians Cookbook, we asked the sisters for their recommendations on where to find the best takes on this classic west African dish in London. Here’s the Flygerians guide to the best jollof in London.
[…]
Jess and Jo Edun: ‘Flygerians, because there is no better place to be! It’s run by us, two Nigerian sisters, who will transport you to Lagos without you needing to ever board a plane. Our vibrant decor and sensational staff will ensure you are taken care of. We believe in social inclusion so whatever your dietary requirements no-one is left behind. We have tantalising dishes bound to take you on a journey to our grandma’s kitchen, such as ayamase, egusi and jollof. We have also introduced some revolutionary creations like the plantain colada and chinoffee pie.’
Peckham Palms, 14 Bournemouth Cl, SE15 4PB
If you can’t find the book you need, write it yourself:
When Tonye Faloughi-Ekezie decided to write her first book it was for her own children and she printed just two copies. She had been trying to explain to her son why people came to the house to play with his sister, Simone, but not him.
“When my son, Ugo, was about five, he came up to me perplexed and asked why he was not allowed to join in,” the Nigerian author recalls. “I explained to him that those people who visited were actually therapists because Simone has Down’s syndrome. Of course, he went on to ask me ‘what is Down’s syndrome?’.”
Faloughi-Ekezie searched for a book to help but found none that “represented our situation”. So she wrote one. Ugo and Sim Sim: What is Down Syndrome? was published five years ago. Sim Sim, Simone’s nickname, now features in Faloughi-Ekezie’s series of five books.
The Nigerian-American experience in 9 plays:
Mfoniso Udofia’s audacious nine-play Ufot Cycle is a bounty of characters, generations, plot twists and genres: Kitchen-sink drama. Autumn-of-life love story. Children’s play. Folk opera.
And still, Udofia, 40, believes that the sprawling series can forge a powerful narrative arc — one that tells of the Nigerian American experience.
“It was a pretty big mandate to myself, that they should be able to stand alone and then, when you see them together, tell an even greater story,” the playwright says in a Zoom interview from New York, where she lives.
The American theater is embracing that story. As its season opener, Round House Theatre is mounting the cycle’s origin tale, “Sojourners,” which the Playwrights Realm premiered off-Broadway in 2016 before a 2017 production at the esteemed New York Theatre Workshop. The play centers on a young Nigerian woman named Abasiama who comes to Texas in the 1970s and copes with homesickness, eccentric new acquaintances, her first Snickers bar, and an unreliable husband who’s entranced by Motown and Thunderbirds.
Three other plays in the cycle have premiered so far around the country. In addition to tackling “Sojourners,” Round House has commissioned another Ufot Cycle installment and developed a third. And in October, the city of Boston will kick off a staging of the entire cycle, with area theaters, universities and other community partners collaborating over two years in an effort that promises the premieres of five of the plays.
You may have seen the video in the last week:
A video showing a Metropolitan Police officer allegedly telling a group of Nigerian women not to call police on their husbands but to “manage it", is now being investigated after resurfacing six years later on social media.
The clip filmed inside Divine Restoration International Church in Camberwell in 2018 shows a police staff member addressing a group of mainly women as three officers stand beside, sparking outrage from abuse charities.
In the video, which the Mirror has seen, the officer can be heard speaking in Yoruba - a Nigerian language, as well as English, while he stands at a pulpit talking about knife crime and how sons ‘may not want to listen to their mothers” and instead prefer their fathers.
The footage goes on to show the officer allegedly saying that once Nigerian women arrive in the UK they start behaving “rudely” towards their husbands, adding that they should not call police on their husbands “but manage it.”
Police confirmed to the Mirror that the footage has been referred to the Met's standards unit.
Meanwhile over on YouTube:
A queer Nigerian streaming TV channel has initiated a global signature collection drive that demands YouTube restore its platform that was suspended this week under unclear circumstances.
Omeleme TV, which airs gay love movies in Nigeria, faulted YouTube’s action on Sept. 8 as “not only surprising but disappointing” to the LGBTQ community.
The channel, established a year ago, launched its first short film “Nearly All Men” on Oct. 22, 2023, featuring notable Nigerian actors as leads. “Pieces of Love” went viral after its release on June 21.
The channel boasted more than 5,000 subscribers and YouTube monetized it.
“We have never involved ourselves in any aspect that goes against YouTube policies and have always complied with their rules and regulations accordingly,” reads the petition. “So deleting our YouTube page is basically shutting the voice of the queer folks in the region.”
A truly astonishing story:
An NHS nurse who left her 10-week-old baby to die while she went to work at hospital has been jailed for three years after being caught trying to flee to Nigeria.
Single mother Ruth Auta, 28, abandoned Joshua Akerele in her nurse's accommodation for eight hours so she could work her shift at Royal Bolton Hospital. When she returned, she found Joshua lifeless and dialled 999, telling operators her son was not breathing.
Despite efforts to resuscitate Joshua, he was tragically pronounced dead at the scene. When the police arrived, Auta initially lied, claiming that she had picked up Joshua from his childminder after her shift.
She further claimed that she took him home, fed him, put him on her bed and fell asleep next to him. She said that when she woke up, he was unresponsive.
However, when the police contacted the childminder, she revealed that she hadn't seen Joshua for several days, the M.E.N reports. Bolton Crown Court was shown CCTV footage of Auta leaving her nurses' accommodation to go to work just after 6.30am on December 20, 2022, and returning just over eight hours later.
They are still doing this 90 day fiancé show, apparently:
In this episode, viewers will follow the journey of Rayne, a chicken farmer from New Mexico, as she meets her long-distance boyfriend, Chidi, in Nigeria. Chidi, who is visually impaired, has communicated with Rayne for five years, and their meeting comes with a unique set of challenges, including his faith-based decision to avoid premarital sex, which may test their relationship.
A thoroughly depressing read on how Yahoo Boys in Nigeria moved from run of the mill online fraud to sextortion. As I’ve said multiple times here - it is up to Nigeria to decide that this is a very serious problem and work to eliminate it. Because this is not really a problem you want to outsource to the rest of the world. The consequences will be dire:
The rise in global fintechs and, consequently, multiple payment options has also widened their target reach to more people. In parts of Ghana and Nigeria, apartments turned incubator campuses called “hustle kingdoms” (HK) or academies are springing up: there, groups of young people, some as young as 13, stay and learn fraud basics.
They are increasingly inspired by an aspirational lifestyle known as “Dorime culture”, which is named after the worldwide dance music megahit Ameno Amapiano Remix, and revolves around lounges and nightclubs across Nigeria where patrons compete in the showy purchase of expensive alcohol to flaunt how wealthy and popular they are.
Asake was at Madison Square Garden recently:
In turn, the concert often felt like more of a spectacle than an experience. It was certainly a sight to behold, from the mist and fireworks that cracked and popped for "Ligali" and "Organize" to the row of flame throwers that lit up the arena during songs like "Amapiano" and "Skating," doing their own dance as the fire gusted in percussive patterns. "Skating" had one of the most elaborate displays, with real skaters and trick bikers rolling around the stage in concert merch as the dancers cutely mimed riding a board themselves.
Who is Uzoamaka Aniunoh?
As a teenager, Aniunoh was obsessed with Nollywood movies. During holidays, she would spend days watching films that starred celebrated actresses like Genevieve Nnaji, Rita Dominic and Oge Okoye, films that explored Nigerian campus life, and captured the zeitgeist of the early and late 2000s. In these films, these women were unconventional, difficult, and unpredictable, and they were just what Aniunoh wanted to be.
“I would stand in the mirror and rehearse the lines in the films I watched. It was everything to me,” she says.
She would often gather schoolmates and make them reenact scenes from those films. Today, Aniunoh has starred in a range of films and series, including MTV Shuga Naija, Diiche, Juju Stories, Mami Wata and others – a lineup of projects that have defined her propensity for playing memorable supporting characters. “When I read a script, I am drawn to the smaller roles, especially when they mean something to the story.”
