Below The Headlines - 79
President Tinubu deports like Trump and Nigerian fathers doing the most
January is over which means you should have been paid by now. Why not take some of that cash and take out a subscription with 1914 Reader? Just a thought.
Welcome to February and enjoy the usual selection below
Inside Nigeria
So much to unpack in this story:
In the isolated settlements of the northern regions, you will encounter donkeys, a specie on the verge of extinction. These animals are burdened with loads, and their owners follow them, wielding short sticks to maintain control over any donkey that attempts to stray from the path or impede the pace of the journey.
In northern Nigeria, donkeys were indispensable for rural farmers transporting their goods and agricultural products across different areas.
On the flip side in southern Nigeria, it is the bicycle that plays a similar role for most rural women farmers.
[…]
Delta State, located in the South-South zone, is one of the states in the zone with a large number of families with bicycles that are primarily used by women, as opposed to the North West, where the majority of users are males.
During a recent visit to Ndemili Umusadege in Ndokwa West LGA, Weekend Trust observed that many families rely significantly on bicycles and motorcycles to get to their farms.
Hardly a minute passes by that a woman does not pass with load on a bicycle in the community.
Miss Perpetual Uzor tells Weekend Trust that bicycles and motorcycles are essential aspects of their everyday life and are required by practically every household in rural farming villages.
Some households own more than two bicycles, such as Miss Uzor’s, who began riding before the age of ten.
“If you want to fetch water, you can go with it; you can also go to the farm with it,” she added.
Without bicycles, life would have been awful for many women who rely on this low-cost mode of transportation to go long distances to their farms.
“I can’t tell how many bikes we have here because most houses have more than three or four. Both men and women use the bikes as a means of transportation to the farm or market,” Perpetual asserted.
Nigeria signalling its support for President Trump’s policies:
The Federal Government on Tuesday disclosed that it repatriated 828 foreigners to their various countries in 2024.
Interior minister, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo disclosed this at a media parley in Abuja.
While he did not list their specific offences, he said the repatriation was carried out by the Nigeria Immigration Service NIS.
What does one say to a 6 month old baby being kidnapped?
The Niger State Police Command has rescued a six-month-old baby who was kidnapped by her cousin and taken to the Federal Capital Territory to be sold.
The incident happened last Saturday in the Kwamba area of Suleja.
The baby’s mother had asked her cousin, Joy Nuwa, to look after the child while she went on an errand.
Instead, Nuwa, along with some neighbours, took the baby to Kubwa, Abuja, intending to sell her.
However, their plan failed when the baby was reported missing to the police.
After an investigation, the police found the baby and returned it to her mother.
There is SO much going on in this story not least the role played by TikTok:
A 16-yr-old secondary school student in Lagos has allegedly ran mad after confessing that he was sexually molested by a popular Lagos hotelier at Bucknor, Isheri Oshun area of the state.
The incident, which rattled his parents reportedly started before last Christmas when the student confided in his mother that he had a confession to make before the New Year.
The mother obliged her son of confidentiality only to raise alarm after the boy told her that the owner of a popular hotel in the area lured him and four of his fellow students to his hotel and sodomised them and warned them that if they disclose it to anybody, they would die.
The shocked mother of the estranged teenager said few minutes after her son opened up to her, he started misbehaving by talking to himself like a mad person.
According to father of the boy, a spare parts dealer at Ladipo auto spare parts market in Lagos, Edozie Christian, 44, “My son started behaving like a mad person after the confession.
“We rushed him to a prayer house and after some days when he became a bit sober, we took him to Isheri Osun police station where he made statement and narrated his ugly encounter with the hotelier.
“Shockingly, after he disclosed the names of his fellow students that took him to meet the Chief Executive Officer of the hotel, he relapsed and started behaving like a mad person. The police went to invite the students he mentioned but succeeded in getting only one of them who boldly came with a laptop and gave detailed accounts of how the hotelier sodomised them.
“He told detectives that they went to the hotel to partake in a Tik Tok programme only for the owner of the hotel, usually addressed as CEO, to lure them inside one of the rooms and promised to pay them N5,000 after sodomising them.
“The student said from all indications, he has been doing it to many other students who he usually pay and after using them, he will clean himself with white handkerchief and threaten them never to discuss the encounter with anybody and if they do, they will die.
A very weird story from Bauchi where a commissioner was accused of abduction:
Bauchi State Commissioner for Water Resources, Abdulrazak Nuhu Zaki, has described the petition of child abduction against him by one Iklima Manu Soro as baseless, unfounded, and very unfortunate.
Reacting to the petition submitted to the Office of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Nuhu Zaki declared, “How can I abduct my own biological daughter? Zainab Nuhu Zaki is my biological daughter, and I have every right over her, both religiously and constitutionally.”
He explained that he was married to her mother under Islamic law, but due to irreconcilable differences with the family, the marriage ended in divorce.
According to him, “It was not my intention to divorce my wife because we loved each other, but pressure from her family, especially her two brothers and their mother, made it impossible, forcing her to leave the house.”
The Commissioner commended the late father of the woman, Manu Soro, the uncle, Musa, and others who played roles in trying to make the marriage work. They even attempted to remarry the couple after the first divorce, but the three individuals opposed the arrangement.
Nuhu Zaki, while recounting the situation, stated that he received favorable judgments from three different courts, yet he was still denied access to the girl, even after the mother remarried.
“Now that she is married to someone else, and my daughter, Zainab Nuhu Zaki, is no longer comfortable in that house, she chose to stay with me and her siblings. What is wrong with that? Now they are running around for no just cause,” he added.
Outside Nigeria
Another American teenager dead by suicide after sextortion. Another Nigerian extradited to face charges in America:
A Nigerian man who was indicted in connection with the "sextortion" of a South Carolina teen who died by suicide has been extradited to the United States to face prosecution, the Justice Department said Monday.
Gavin Guffey, 17, died by suicide in 2022 after, prosecutors allege, Hassanbunhussein Abolore Lawal extorted him using "compromising photos," the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina announced.
A lawsuit filed in South Carolina in 2023 alleges Lawal posed as a young woman and coerced Guffey into sending him sexually explicit content in 2022. Lawal then threatened to leak the content if Guffey didn't send him money, it says.
Lawal is alleged to have sent harassing messages to Guffey and some of his relatives, threatening to leak the pictures and ruin their public reputation unless they sent him money, court documents say.
Guffey was the son of state Rep. Brandon Guffey. After his son's death, Brandon Guffey went on to sponsor a bill known as "Gavin's Law," which made sexual extortion a felony offense in the state and an aggravated felony "if the victim is a minor, vulnerable adult, or if the victim suffers bodily injury or death directly related to the crime," according to Gov. Henry McMaster's office. McMaster signed the bill into law in August 2023.
Should you choose to make the move, there will be Nigerians in Aberdeen waiting to receive you:
Safe, affordable, and full of potential – that’s how cybersecurity specialist Timi Adegunwa is promoting Aberdeen as a new hub for black tech professionals.
Nigerian-born Timi moved to the Granite City back in 2012 to work for BP after almost a decade in London.
Since then she has watched Aberdeen’s Nigerian population grow at a staggering rate.
Now, she’s setting out to create real change for black professionals in the region with the launch of Black Tech Scot — an initiative to get more black people into Scotland’s booming tech sector.
Nigerian fathers are at it again:
Manhattan-based painter and product design specialist Uzo Njoku was in for the surprise of a lifetime as she was gearing up to introduce her new boyfriend to her Nigerian father for the first time.
In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Jan.12, Njoku revealed that her father had prepared a 20-question quiz to determine if her new boyfriend was truly “the one.”
The list included some rather personal inquiries, where Njoku’s dad delved into everything from her boyfriend’s professional background to sensitive details about his medical history. Among the probing questions were whether he had a family history of conditions like diabetes, blood disorders, sickle cell traits, sickle cell disease, or cancer. The concerned father also wanted to know if his daughter’s partner had fully cut ties with any exes, and if he had ever smoked or drank in the past.
Njoku told her followers that she was upset by the lengthy list.
“My dad sent me a 20-question pdf about my boyfriend that I have to answer before I can introduce them. Nigerian fathers,” the star, who has designed products for Walmart and Apple Music, wrote, attaching two angry face emojis along with her message.
News from Canada:
A Nigerian man residing in Canada was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to 54 months in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft after he defrauded programs intended for aid during the pandemic of millions of dollars.
Fatiu Ismaila Lawal, 46, stole thousands of workers’ identities to submit more than 1,700 claims for pandemic unemployment benefits across 25 different states, including Washington, according to the Department of Justice. The claims totaled $25 million, but Lawal, alongside co-defendant Sakiru Olanrewaju Ambali, 46, obtained approximately $2.7 million, primarily from pandemic unemployment benefits.
When Lawal pleaded guilty in September 2024, he admitted he personally submitted claims for $1,345,472, using four internet domain names and more than 800 different email addresses. Lawal has been ordered to pay the $1.3 million back.
“This defendant made it his full-time job to defraud the U.S. for years before the pandemic, but he kicked it into high gear once critical aid to American workers was flowing,” U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman said during Lawal’s sentencing. “His fraud included using stolen identities of Washington residents to file dozens of unemployment claims in the first few weeks of the pandemic, contributing to the flood of fraudulent claims that caused the state to pause all unemployment payments. In this way, his fraud harmed all Washingtonians who desperately needed assistance at the onset of the pandemic.”
Additionally, Lawal used stolen personal information to submit approximately 3,000 income tax returns for $7.5 million in refunds. However, after the IRS suspected some of these claims as fraudulent, the department only paid out $30,000.
Feature piece on the rise of ‘African’ music which is just code for Nigerian music:
It is not just Amapiano, from the southern tip of the continent, that is gaining new listeners beyond Africa. West Africa’s Afrobeat, a genre created by the legendary Fela Kuti in the 1960s, continues to make waves across the globe. The late American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis once described Kuti as a “life-changing artist.” Kuti fused American blues, jazz and funk with traditional Yoruba music, turning Afrobeats into a cultural phenomenon in Nigeria that later gained worldwide acclaim.
This global appeal of African music by musicians like Kuti undoubtedly paved the way for today’s artists to captivate international audiences.
Some of the Afrobeat artists who are taking the world by storm include Burna Boy, who made history with a Grammy win for the album “Twice As Tall,” while Wizkid’s album “Made in Lagos” secured his place as an international star. Tems collaborated with global stars like Drake and Rihanna, while Davido’s hits like “Fall” and “If” have captured audiences around the world.
Femi Kuti still playing London gigs at the young age of 62:
As the stage filled with hip-shaking dancers in neon green garb and bright-trousered brass players dispelling a cold January evening with the sounds of a sub-Saharan sunburst, Femi Kuti — for all his lyrical pronouncements on war, corruption and the African struggle — arrived at north London’s Koko as a boundless conduit for joy.
“Don’t take me too seriously,” the 62-year-old Nigerian legend told the crowd at this “teaser” gig for his new album, leaning against his keyboard in the sort of futuristic red jumpsuit you might wear to leap over the Notting Hill Carnival on a motorbike. When he wasn’t spinning on one leg to Afrobeat grooves drenched in distilled sunshine, he was putting on a posh British accent to declare himself and his band Positive Force “a musical craft” providing “awesome energy to prepare yourself for the trouble outside”. Or reliving character-building childhood chastisements from his grandmother. “I said, ‘[I am] Fela Kuti’s son,’” he recalled defiantly. “She said, ‘I don’t care who you are, you bloody sod.’”
Black Jewellers reflect on life since George Floyd:
Thelma West, who grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and apprenticed in both Antwerp, Belgium, and the Hatton Garden area of London before opening her own design atelier and a gemological lab called IGR London, is philosophical about the current situation.
She remembers being the only Black person in her gem class; her goal now is to create and disrupt the industry with bolder pieces and louder messaging than ever before. “Ultimately this has been a wake-up call,” she wrote in an email. “We don’t need to wait for a ‘moment’ to shine. True talent has always been bright. The world’s just starting to catch up.”