Below The Headlines - 75
Air-fryers are cheaper than vegetable oil and the clock is ticking for Bala Muhammad's business
A very happy new year to you! In line with the recently released Presidential directive, I am pleased to confirm to you that you need not make any resolutions for 2025. This time, it is the year that is obliged to improve its own behaviour. So sit back and enjoy!
Hope you enjoyed your break? Welcome to another week and enjoy the usual selections below.
P.S. This newsletter may not reach you next week due to travelling. So apologies in advance.
Inside Nigeria
Not a great way to start the year for Nuhu:
A man identified as Nuhu created a scene inside a banking hall of the Gwagwalada branch of Stanbic Bank on Thursday morning when he busted into tears after he was defrauded of N30,000 by a suspected fraudster in the area.
Abuja Metro observed as the victim who was inside the bank shouting amid tears when he was claimed to the bank staff that he has been debited of N30,000 from his account.
It was observed that one of the staff after listening to him and verifying his account details, it was discovered that a suspect defrauded him of the money.
The victim, who later spoke to our reporter, claimed that he received a text message that his ATM has issues and he should forward details to rectify his account details.
“Just this morning when I received a message that my account has issues and that I should forward my ATM details so that they can rectify it, in which I obliged,” he said.
He said “Immediately I received the message; I sent it, the next thing I saw was that a debit alert. And I borrowed the money from a friend to enable me to solve some problems,” he said.
Some bank customers who were inside the banking hall blamed the victim for sending his secret pin to an unknown person, a situation, which left the victim in disarray, shedding tears.
Air fryers to replace expensive vegetable oil? Hmmm:
A visit to various food markets in Lagos State showed that the price of a 5-litre vegetable oil, which sold for N2,100, depending on the brand, as at 2018 before Covid-19 era, now sells for N22,000.
The price of the 25-litre keg, which was N9,500, now sells for between N95,000 to N105,000.Mrs. Chinenye Anyadike, a business woman, said she had to get a second hand 3.5-litre air fryer for N18,000 to cut the cost of buying expensive vegetable oil.
She said: “Every home now has an air fryer. Gone are the days when a woman will be battling to buy vegetable oil, which price is always increasing in the market.
“Imagine buying 10 litres of vegetable oil at N49,000 and you will consume it in less than three months.
“Again the market women are not helping matters too. Some of them just add money to the oil they have in store, telling you that the prices have gone up from the suppliers.
“In Nigeria now, you need to be wise to survive.”
This guy is attacking 2025 head on:
Popular Isoko highlife musician Dr. Arube Otor is set to wed three women in the same day in Delta state.
As seen in a viral flier, Dr. Arube is seen dressed in matching attire with his three soon-to-be wives: Oghenekome, Ewoma, and Oghenekaro, all hailing from Delta State.
Arube’s foster son and one of the RSVPs, Emperor Efih (Oscar), shared details about the ceremony.
According to Efih, the wedding will take place as announced, though the initial plan to wed four women was altered after one of the brides-to-be withdrew for personal reasons.
Explaining the rationale behind Arube’s decision, Efih said, “Arube married two women about 20 years ago. One divorced him, leaving him with just one wife. To cut costs, he decided to marry four women this year. Along the way, one pulled out,” said as quoted by PUNCH.
Red Wedding in Jigawa:
A wedding in Jigawa State has turned tragic after a bride allegedly poisoned food served at the reception.
The incident is said to have left the groom critically ill and one of the wedding guests dead.
The incident occurred in the Jahun Local Government Area of the state.
Eyewitnesses suggested to PUNCH Online that the bride’s actions may have been driven by a personal vendetta.
Speaking to PUNCH Online on Friday, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Shi’isu Adam, confirmed the incident and said an investigation was underway.
“We received a report that the bride had tainted the food served at the wedding reception, leaving the groom critically ill.
“Police have arrested two suspects in connection with the alleged food poisoning incident that occurred during a wedding ceremony in the state,” Adam said.
What a story:
A Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Joseph Enyinnaya, of St. Columbus Catholic Church, in Amaimo, Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State, has been arrested by the police command for allegedly killing a boy who threw a firework, popularly called knockout or banger, inside the church on New Year’s Eve.
PUNCH Metro gathered that the event left the boy, identified simply as Joseph, dead and others injured.
A source who pleaded anonymity told our correspondent on Thursday that the incident happened during the crossover night/New Year’s Eve service where the Catholic priest had warned the boys throwing fireworks to usher in the New Year not to throw the ‘banger’ inside the church premises but one of them went ahead, ignoring the warning.”
He said, “The priest, angered by the boy’s action, took his revolver after the boy disobeyed his warning, fired into the air but accidentally shot at the boy with others sustaining injuries.”
Another indigene of the community, who witnessed the incident, corroborated the remark noting that the Catholic priest fired the gun to scare the boys away unmindful of the resultant consequences.
Outside Nigeria
Have I mentioned that Nigerian food is on a global tear? I have? Ok let me mention it again. The New Yorker has a piece on the thriving West African (mostly Nigerian) food scene in Houston, Texas:
The other day, at a Nigerian restaurant called Safari, in Houston, Texas, I peeled back the plastic wrap on a ball of fufu, a staple across West Africa. Made from a steamed root vegetable or grain—in this case, yam—that’s been pounded and hydrated until it’s soft and slightly stretchy, reminiscent of rising bread dough, it falls under a pan-African category known as “swallow,” most often served as a starchy accompaniment to soup or stew. This was not my first time eating fufu. With confidence, I tore off a small piece and began to roll it between my palms. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me. “Unh-unh. Mm-hmm. What are we doing?”
The voice belonged to Kavachi Ukegbu, a Houstonian whose mother, Margaret, a Nigerian immigrant, opened Safari in 1994. After checking, and then checking again, that I was after “traditional traditional” Nigerian dishes, Ukegbu, the co-author of a 2021 book called “The Art of Fufu,” had ordered for me, ferrying plates from the kitchen herself. There was a meaty whorl of land snail, which was draped in sautéed onions and peppers, and required a sharp knife to slice; abacha, shredded cassava tossed with palm oil and hunks of stockfish; and the fufu, which came with a bowl of nsala, a thick, fragrant soup, crowded with offal and various cuts of beef and goat.
[…]
In the early nineties, opening a Nigerian restaurant made Margaret Ukegbu a pioneer. In the years since, dozens of other businesses have followed, mostly in and around Alief, an area of southwest Houston that borders the city’s Asia Town and encompasses Little Africa. On a brief tour that included the wholesaler Bukky Enterprises, which imports goods from all over West Africa, and Suya Hut—a tiny restaurant specializing in exceptional grilled meat, as perfected by the Hausa people, marinated in a mixture of ground peanuts and spices—Ukegbu emphasized that we were barely scratching the surface. In October, Houston’s city hall mounted an exhibition commemorating “notable Houston Nigerians,” including the rapper Tobe Nwigwe; Seun Adigun, a biomechanist who has competed in both the Summer and the Winter Olympics; and Ope Amosu, ChopnBlok’s thirty-seven-year-old owner and chef.
Why can’t Nigeria attract more tourists? Why indeed:
At the top of the Ado-Awaye hills lies a lake suspended 433 metres above sea level. Local people say the lake is named Iyake (Yoruba for “crying woman”) after a weeping, barren woman who fell in the water hundreds of years ago, conferring on it powers of fertility.
This belief in the divine is evident in the foothills, where a huge boulder is emblazoned with the words, written in golden letters: “Here we come: African Jerusalem.”
Ado-Awaye, a tourist site as sleepy as the community it shares a name with in the south-western Nigerian state of Ogun, gets a modest 3,000 or so visitors annually. Most of these are religious worshippers who climb the 369-step path to the top, where they camp or visit the lake, which is reportedly one of only two natural suspended lakes in the world. Others are hikers or visitors to an annual festival held every November.
But as Nigeria experiences its worst cost of living crisis in decades, tourism is on the back burner. Even Detty December, the country’s month-long potpourri of festivities, has been affected.
And in Ado-Awaye, divine pilgrimages have slowed down. “[Just] over 2,400 came this year because of current economic challenges,” said Niyi Okunade, a prince of the community who organises site tours.
On paper, Nigeria is a tourist haven. In the north, there is the colourful Kano Durbar festival, the sand dunes of Yobe and the country’s most popular game reserve in Bauchi. In the Middle Belt, teas, strawberries and apples grow in towns around the Mambilla and Jos plateaus, with some of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet.
Detty December, powered by TikTok, raises salon prices in Lagos:
Protective styles such as braids or cornrows, which guard naturally textured hair from the damage of heat styling, are notoriously expensive in Western countries. In New York City, a set of knotless braids — where long strands of synthetic hair are placed at the scalp to add the necessary length and volume to the natural hair without creating the bulk of a knot — can range anywhere from $200 to $600, making salon braids a luxury for many Black women. But in Nigeria, where the majority of the population is Black, there is a much wider range of prices with a lower starting point, as getting a protective style done is seen as more of a necessity.
The “getting my hair done in Lagos” hashtag on TikTok has countless videos, many of which have over 200,000 views. Lagos-based content creator Dodo Babs notes that these videos tend to go viral, especially when they include price details converted to dollars or pounds, so an international audience can see just how much cheaper it is to get a great style in Lagos than in the U.K. or U.S.
But discussion of U.K. or U.S. prices misses the local context: The average monthly salary in Nigeria is about 340,000 naira ($220), and 47% of Nigeria’s population lives below the international poverty line of $2.15 per day. Prices that may seem cheap to those jetting in for a set of knotless braids in December are becoming out of reach to those using the services year-round.
Babs said that many hairstylists in Nigeria see this content when it’s rolled out, and that can influence pricing. “December is a very notorious period for raising prices,” she said. “Salons increase their prices by ridiculous amounts to capitalize not only on the festive season but also on the return of the IJGBs and the arrival of tourists.”
Technology is driving Bala Muhammad out of business in Kaduna:
Ticking is the predominant sound inside Bala Muhammad's tiny watch-repair shop, tucked away on a bustling street in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna.
It is like a time capsule from a different era with numerous clocks hanging on the wall and small tables at the entrance full of his tools and watches in various states of repair.
His shop is on one of Kaduna's busiest shopping streets - sandwiched between building material suppliers.
Until a few years ago, he had a steady stream of customers dropping by to get their watches fixed or get a new battery fitted.
"There were times I get more than 100 wristwatch-repair jobs in a day," the 68-year-old, popularly known as Baba Bala, told the BBC.
But he worries that his skills - taught to him and his brother by their father - will die out.
"Some days there are zero customers," he says, blaming people using their mobile phones to check the time for the decline in his trade.
"Phones and technology have taken away the only job I know and it makes me very sad."
But for more than 50 years, the boom in watches allowed the family to make a good living.
"I built my house and educated my children all from the proceeds of wristwatch repairing," he says.
I had never heard of this Woah Vicky person before:
An influencer has faced backlash after admitting she faked her own kidnapping because she was “bored”.
24-year-old American Victoria Waldrip, who goes by the name Woah Vicky online, shared a series of posts about being on a trip to Nigeria.
Initially, her tweets on X/Twitter showed her having a great time but the tone then changed as she seemed to want to come home.
Her friends, seemingly concerned, shared her various posts on Instagram amid worry for Woah Vicky’s safety. Her friend also claimed a police report had been filed.
One since-deleted post shared from her X/Twitter account, but purporting to be written by another person, said: “I have kidnapped vicky. She is with me in Nigeria. I am demanding $1million for her release.”
But the influencer has now revealed that the whole thing was faked because she was “bored” and she has apologised for starting a fake rumour.
Her friends, seemingly concerned, shared her various posts on Instagram amid worry for Woah Vicky’s safety. Her friend also claimed a police report had been filed.
One since-deleted post shared from her X/Twitter account, but purporting to be written by another person, said: “I have kidnapped vicky. She is with me in Nigeria. I am demanding $1million for her release.”
But the influencer has now revealed that the whole thing was faked because she was “bored” and she has apologised for starting a fake rumour.
A sad story from Chicago:
On a brilliant day three years ago, a grieving crowd gathered on the South Side of Chicago to bury Adewale Ezekiel Ogunyemi.
In Nigeria, Mr. Ogunyemi had not earned enough working in a bank to support his mother, wife and two daughters. So in 2019, he flew to the United States on a tourist visa and obtained fake identity documents. He then signed on for temporary work at several staffing agencies in the Chicago area.
Shy and laid-back, he was often assigned to do night jobs. One agency, Snider-Blake Personnel, sent him to scrub machines at Rich Products Corporation, which makes food products that have been sold at stores like Walmart and distributed by suppliers like Sysco.
One night in July 2021, workers at Rich heard a scream. Rushing to an area of the plant where the dough for frozen pizzas rises, they found Mr. Ogunyemi, who was 42, tangled in a machine that helps the dough ferment. His right arm had been pulled through the conveyor and wrapped around his head. His chest was crushed. The fire department had to free him from the machine, and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Staffing agencies, like the ones Mr. Ogunyemi worked for, have become ubiquitous in America’s on-demand economy. Companies turn to the firms to find workers for factories, warehouses and distribution centers, where jobs are often difficult to fill.
Who is Nick Isiekwe?
Last Wednesday, during a horribly grim week in rugby, I sat down with him, all 19st and 6ft 7in of him — even though he has the movements on and off the field of a true athlete. It was rewarding to be in his company.
He and Itoje have much in common. Both are of Nigerian extraction; Isiekwe’s father Michael (“Dad is a strong-minded guy with real drive, that is quite contagious”) comes from the same area of Nigeria as the Itoje family. Itoje once wrote down a team of great players who would otherwise be available for Nigeria. Frightening. Isiekwe also nominates his Sarries colleagues Rotimi Segun and Andy Onyeama-Christie.
Concussion protocols mean that Isiekwe will not be able to play in the big one against Northampton Saints on Sunday but he should be fine for next week and for England’s Six Nations campaign. It was irresistible to ask him what it really is like playing alongside Itoje. “Unbelievable, unbelievable. He is never flustered, he is never too high or too low,” he says of his 30-year-old team-mate. “He has been a superstar outside the game but that never distracts from what he is as a leader and a man.
A critically endangered baby gorilla was rescued in Istanbul:
Authorities at Istanbul Airport intercepted a baby gorilla classified as critically endangered under international wildlife protection agreements.
Customs enforcement teams from the Ministry of Trade inspected cargo at Istanbul Airport.
Officers from the Customs Enforcement Smuggling and Intelligence Directorate tracked a shipment originating from Nigeria and heading to Bangkok
They flagged the cargo for further inspection as part of their risk analysis efforts to protect wildlife and natural habitat
During the detailed examination, officers found a baby gorilla inside a cage
The ministry stated, “The animal is classified as ‘gorilla gorilla,’ (Western lowland gorilla) a species listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).”
An Egyptian doctor based in Montreal, Canada returned to Ilorin where he was once lived:
For Montreal Children’s Hospital pediatric surgeon Sherif Emil, a recent teaching stint in the Nigerian city of Ilorin was a special homecoming — and an emotional one.
The only child of two doctors, Emil was raised in Egypt but lived in Ilorin between the ages of six and nine as his parents worked there.
Ilorin is the capital of Kwara State, which at the time was one of Nigeria’s poorest states, recalled Emil, now 60. “The roads were horrible. ... It was such a primitive place to be — and that is where they chose to be.”
His parents were among fewer than 15 doctors for the entire state and, in some smaller towns, the only doctors altogether. His father, having just completed his training in general and orthopedic surgery, was the surgeon; his mother, a family doctor focused on children’s and women’s health care, took care of the non-surgical patients. They were “typically the only barrier between the patient and a very poor outcome.”
Fast-forward more than half a century and Emil is himself a doctor — a surgeon and professor of pediatric surgery and pediatrics in McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.
He was in Ilorin last September to lead a group of North American doctors in giving a two-day course called Trauma Resuscitation in Kids (TRIK) to a group of Nigerian pediatric surgeons: Drs. Karen Gripp, a pediatric emergency physician at University of Manitoba Children’s Hospital in Winnipeg; Natalie Yanchar, a pediatric surgeon at Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, and Robert Finkelstein, a pediatric emergency medicine physician in New York and a native of Montreal.
The Ayenis also returned to Nigeria after 40 years:
Almost four decades ago, Dr. Femi Ayeni and his wife Titi Ayeni made a major decision: they moved their five children from tropical Nigeria to chilly Canada.
Not just anywhere in Canada, but Kapuskasing, a timber town of fewer than 10,000 in northern Ontario, where temperatures average at minus 16 in January.
Femi had studied in Canada and saw it as a land of opportunity and a place for his children to pursue their dreams.
“It speaks to how much of visionaries my parents are,” said Dr. Buki Ayeni, a plastic surgeon at Humber River Health in Toronto. He said his father understood the transition would not be easy for the family but, knowing it would be worth it for his children, he chose to put the professional pathway he built in Nigeria to the side.
The outcome of his sacrifice is remarkable: Four of the Ayeni children followed their father and became doctors in various fields, and one became an educator like their mother.
The children credit much of their successes to their parents and the difficult decisions they made. Growing up watching their parents make the most of their life’s possibilities was a source of inspiration for them all
Australian media report of that story about the Nigerian guy who was arrested for scamming $8m out of Aussies:
A high-profile Nigerian footwear entrepreneur turned suspected online scammer who allegedly stole more than $8 million from 139 Australians, has been arrested in an elaborate sting with a surprising twist.
A squad of crack Nigerian law enforcement officers and a private investigator staked out the Murtala Mohammed International airport in Lagos, one of Nigeria’s busiest cities, lying in wait for Osang Usie Otukpa to return from a trip to the US — where some of the Australians’ missing funds are believed to have ended up.
The 34-year-old, who founded the Nigerian Flykicks sneaker company was grabbed and taken into custody in a public-private take-down organised by Australian private investigator Ken Gamble from IFW Global, Europe-based Rexxfield Cybercrime Investigations founder, Michael Roberts, and members of Nigeria’s foremost anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
A spokesman for the EFCC said he expected Mr Otukpa to be charged and face court.
Mr Gamble and Mr Roberts who were working on behalf of the Australian victims, said they teamed up and bypassed what they call “bureaucratic delays” by Australian authorities, taking action and working directly with Nigerian EFCC and US law enforcement.
How are African YouTubers and Tiktokers going to be earning a living from content creation?:
While the industry is gaining traction, it is still young, according to the report. Most content creators are in their first three years, with fewer than 10,000 followers, and face challenges translating their social capital into income. Conversations about monetising and standardising the creator business ecosystem are still mainly happening in the west, the report adds.
But that is slowly changing.
As Aina’s channel grew and attracted a more global viewership, he discovered he could make much more money when his content was viewed by audiences in the west rather than in Africa. YouTube’s advertising model relies on ad spend, which is lower in many African markets than in North America or Europe.
“Part of it is economic: generally speaking, western creators and audiences have more resources, but it’s not enough to justify the disparity in opportunities,” says Adeleke.
For Aina, who started to diversify his content and viewer base so he could earn more, there were other issues to worry about. He has vlogged about the barriers and prejudice he has faced while travelling, such as being detained in Ethiopia over suspicions that he was carrying drugs, being arrested in South Africa over suspicions that he was a “fraudster”, and being denied entry into Dubai. The Dubai incident in 2022 was the “last straw” for Aina, who eventually secured a passport from St Kitts and Nevis by pouring his savings into investments there, making him a national of the Caribbean country.
Afolabi Opaso’s family are still waiting for answers:
The family of a Nigerian international student shot and killed by Winnipeg police say they're "dealing with a profound sense of frustration" as they continue to wait for the independent report into what led to the incident, almost a year after the death of 19-year-old Afolabi Opaso.
"The investigation into Afolabi's death has dragged on far too long, and we are still left with more questions than answers. Our family deserves transparency, accountability and above all, we need justice," Opaso's sister, Yemisi Opaso, read from a statement prepared on behalf of her family via video call at a news conference Monday afternoon.
She said the delay in the release of the report into her brother's death has "only compounded our grief," and left her family feeling like the case is being treated with indifference.
"Afolabi's life mattered. We implore the authorities to act swiftly and release the findings of the investigation so we can begin to find the closure that we desperately need," she said.
Opaso, who was a student at the University of Manitoba at the time of his death, was shot dead by Winnipeg police officers responding to a check well-being call at an apartment building at 77 University Cres. around 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2023, the provincial Independent Investigation Unit (IIU) has said. The agency investigates all serious incidents involving police in Manitoba.
Who is Travy?
“I like peace. London’s just hectic full stop”, says Travy, reclining on a couch in an oversized hoodie.
The rapper is enduring a trip to the English capital to do a bunch of interviews, but feels much more at home in Ireland. Born in Nigeria, at the age of six Travy moved to Tallaght, an outer suburb of Dublin, where he was sent to boarding school by his mum: “I remember bringing J‑rice [jollof] to school. That was my first introduction to putting Irish people on to African culture,” he says. “They would try it and I’d just see them running up and down like what is this? This is so crazy! That was one of the first times I thought, maybe I should show my culture more, who knows? They might really fuck with it.”
After dropping out of college in Dublin, Travy pursued acting, modelling and music. Teaming up with his best friend and fellow rapper Elzz in 2022, the pair founded Gliders, a Dublin-based clothing brand, event series and cultural collective. Travy and Elzz have since dropped two hard-hitting collaborative albums, Full Circle (2023) and Doghouse (2024), which reached No.2 and No.1 in the Irish charts respectively. But when Travy went to collect his plaque from the record label’s office, he was underwhelmed: “They’re not having meetings to [expand] new areas,” he says. “There’s like one person in these offices. Seeing that made me realise that I have to build my own industry”.
Travy attributes his confidence to his mum, a chef and business owner who was the first to introduce African cuisine to the shelves of Irish supermarket SuperValu in the form of ready meals and snacks. “My mum’s kind of like the way I am with music – she’s full of belief and nothing can stop her. I’ve seen where it takes her and it’s rubbed off.”