Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Police rescue eight kidnapped victims in NW Nigeria

Nigerian police rescued eight kidnapped victims in the northwestern state of Kaduna, an official said on Tuesday.

The kidnapped victims were rescued on Monday by police operatives in the Giwa area of the state, said Muhammad Jalige, a police spokesperson in Kaduna in a statement reaching Xinhua.

Jalige said the eight persons were passengers abducted on Zaria-Kaduna expressway aboard a luxurious bus en route to Delta, a state in the southern part of Nigeria on February 29.

He said the victims were currently receiving medical attention in preparation for a reunion with their respective families.

According to the spokesman, the police had organized “a manhunt to apprehend and bring the bandits to book”.

The northern region of Nigeria has witnessed a series of attacks by armed groups in recent months. There have also been recurring incidents of livestock rustling and armed banditry in the region.

Xinhua


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Friday, March 26, 2021

Nigeria’s crackdown on Bitcoin echoes global crypto conundrum

Lagos, Nigeria – When the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular in early February warning banks and financial institutions that “facilitating payments for cryptocurrency exchanges is prohibited” and that they needed to identify and close accounts associated with them, it set the country’s crypto community alight.


“I was in a danfo [a yellow public transport bus that operates in Lagos] heading home when my phone started buzzing with WhatsApp notifications regarding the CBN ban on cryptocurrency transactions,” said David Akinwale, a 25-year-old financial analyst who trades in cryptocurrency. “It was really disappointing and sad. While other countries are embracing the use of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, Nigeria is doing the reverse.”

This week, a representative for Nigeria’s central bank chief Godwin Emefiele reportedly sought to clarify the February 5 directive, telling reporters that it was not aimed at discouraging people from trading in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but served to enforce orders in place since 2017 banning crypto transactions in the country’s banking sector.

But the 2017 directive did not prohibit crypto exchanges from using banking and payment channels. It simply required banks and financial institutions to ensure that their crypto-exchange customers have effective anti-money laundering and “anti-terrorism” financing controls in place.

The backlash and confusion echo a crypto-drama unfolding around the world as virtual currencies like Bitcoin grow in popularity and scale new heights during a time of unprecedented financial uncertainty stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, as well as uniquely domestic challenges.

In the United States this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raised concerns about the role cryptocurrencies play in facilitating criminal activity, as well as their infamous volatility, calling Bitcoin “more of an asset for speculation” than a substitute for the US dollar.

In Iran, officials recently targeted crypto exchanges and even pinned blamed for high levels of air pollution on Bitcoin mining.

The developments illustrate the regulatory conundrum governments face with crypto assets that by design are intended to be decentralised and beyond their reach, but which are part of a rapidly evolving sector of global finance that pivots on innovation.
 

Africa’s biggest Bitcoin market

Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy, its most populous country, and home to one of the youngest populations in the world. Throw in a burgeoning tech sector and it’s easy to see how Nigeria has become the continent’s largest Bitcoin market by trading volume, according to UsefulTulips.org, which gathers data from crypto exchanges Paxful and LocalBitcoins.

That ascent to Bitcoin prominence is rooted in a sharp fall in remittances during the pandemic, as well as the country’s state coffers and local currency, the naira, being ravaged by the twin blows of COVID-19 restrictions and plummeting crude prices.

In an effort to keep increasingly scarce US dollars from leaving the country last year, some Nigerian banks reportedly placed curbs on offshore debit card transactions and limited cash withdrawals.

Against this backdrop, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies soared in popularity last year, as both a hedge against the eroding purchasing power of the naira, as well as a way to move money around more easily.

‘With Bitcoin, I could bypass the $100 limit on my naira debit card and do all my transactions seamlessly,” Bola Williams, a 33-year old software developer, told Al Jazeera. “But the ban on crypto has now made it even more stressful.”

But it does not appear to have curbed appetites for crypto. Bitcoin trading volumes on Paxful and LocalBitcoins topped $9m in the seven days ending March 8, according to UsefulTulips.org, compared to roughly $7.55m in the seven days ending February 8.

The data suggest that despite the CBN directive, Nigerians are determined to leverage cryptocurrencies to increase their earnings, especially with rising inflation and limited access to foreign exchange liquidity.

“The ban was never going to stop a ship that is far gone on sail,” Eric Annan, co-founder of cryptocurrency trading platform KuBitX, told Al Jazeera.

Annan said if anything, the CBN directive only served to amplify the popularity of Bitcoin and pique the curiosity of crypto sceptics.

“No single government can stop an idea whose time has come to a generation who have added to the GDP [gross domestic product] of the internet,” he said.
 

Political pushback

The CBN directive also met pushback from some Nigerian politicians.

After the order was released, the Nigerian Senate summoned CBN chief Emefiele to explain the opportunities and threats cryptocurrencies pose to the nation’s economy and security.

During the February 23 briefing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Emefiele highlighted the role cryptocurrencies play in money laundering, “terrorism” financing, illicit arms purchases, and tax evasion.

“Cryptocurrency is not legitimate money because it is not created or backed by any Central Bank,” Emefiele said. “It has no place in our monetary system at this time and cryptocurrency transactions should not be carried out through the Nigerian banking system.”

That assessment drew criticism from crypto proponents.

“Whatever reason that necessitated the move for the current restriction of banking services to crypto traders and exchanges by the CBN could have been resolved through dialogue and collaboration,” Chimezie Chuta, the founder/ coordinator of the Blockchain Nigeria User Group, told Al Jazeera.

“In saying that ‘cryptocurrencies are not legitimate money’ he obviously has forgotten the origin, what money is, and its purpose,” he added, noting that “cryptocurrency is a property or commodity and thus not an illegal asset class.”

Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has also called for a less heavy-handed official approach – one that would vigorously regulate cryptocurrency transactions to address serious concerns “without necessarily killing the goose that might lay the golden eggs”.

“We’ve seen in many other sectors disruption makes room for efficiency and progress,” he said.

Al Jazeera

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The growing phenomenon of Christian insurgents in the Southern Nigeria

While Boko Haram monopolises the attention of politicians and specialists in northern Nigeria, in the south, Christian insurgents are becoming increasingly inspired by the terrorist group’s methods.


Nigeria is often portrayed as a country on the “frontline” between a predominantly Muslim north and a predominantly Christian south. From this perspective, observers concerned about religiously motivated violence are mostly preoccupied with Boko Haram’s bloody episodes in the Lake Chad region.

They are so preoccupied with the issue of terrorism in Africa that they pay little attention to the insurgents in southern Nigeria who also claim to be God’s followers when they take up arms.
 

Like the Jews led by Moses

Those nostalgic for the Republic of Biafra often use religious arguments to justify their rebellion. They have taken up the legacy of the secessionists who, between 1967 and 1970, posed as victims (essentially Catholics) of a genocide committed by Muslims, even though the head of the Nigerian state at the time was Christian.

Surrounded by an enemy with a much larger and superior army, who was also being supplied with arms by Arab countries, the Ibo of the Biafra region had set their sights not only on Rome, but also on the Holy Land. Since then, some of them have presented themselves as belonging to one of the lost tribes of Israel.

For example, Nnamdi Kanu – one of the leaders of the Biafran protest who was detained by President Muhammadu Buhari’s government in 2015 – says he converted to Judaism while in prison. Others have founded a Biafran Zionist Movement.

Generally speaking, protestors of all stripes denouncing the misdeeds of the ruling Muslims in northern Nigeria have found some resonance within the Ibo diaspora overseas. In fact, they have a global audience on social media and on ‘Voice of Biafra’, Kanu’s pirate radio station, which broadcasts from the UK.

Further south, along Nigeria’s Atlantic coast, the insurgents fighting the government in the oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta were not left out either. Like the Ibo, some Ijaw in the region have, for example, compared themselves to the Jews who, by following Moses, freed themselves from the chains of “slavery” – from the yoke of the Muslims in the north, in their case.

The Niger Delta Avengers – which emerged in 2016 – has, among other things, denounced the “tyranny” of Abuja and called President Buhari an “Egyptian pharaoh”, rhetoric not unlike that of jihadist Salafists, who have criticised ruling dictators in the Arab world.

On a more peaceful note, the Ogoni of the Delta have also anchored their struggle around religious rhetoric. Before being hanged in 1995 by a junta then led by a Muslim from the north, writer Ken Saro-Wiwa led the first protest marches of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (Mosop), organising masses, prayer vigils and nightly Bible readings.

In direct reference to Judaism, he evoked the prophet Jeremiah’s ‘Book of Lamentations’ to equate the repression of the military regime, as well as the pollution caused by the oil companies, to the destruction of Jerusalem and the persecution of the Jews.
 

Caliphate and greed

The difference, one might say, is that the protesters in southern Nigeria are not seeking to impose a Christian state, unlike the Boko Haram jihadists who dream of establishing a caliphate.

However, there are several indications that the political is strongly influenced by the religious. The celestial cities that developed in enclaves on the edge of the large cities of the south ended up having the characteristics of proto-states within a state. In 1990, mutineers financed by evangelical churches in the Delta attempted a putsch to “cleanse” Nigeria by expelling the predominantly Muslim northern states from the federation.

Today, even drug traffickers and gangster syndicates called ‘cultists’ imitate jihadist practices. In Ibo country, for example, rival groups lay the severed heads of their enemies in front of churches to send a message to the population.

Their criminal motives certainly distance them from any religious agenda. This is not very surprising as many Boko Haram fighters are also driven by greed, much more than by Islamic ideals.

The rebels and mafiosi in the south use religion to disguise petty materialistic concerns. But it is very easy to lose oneself in it. Asari Dokubo, founder of one of the main armed groups in the delta in the early 2000s, has just proclaimed himself head of a virtual Biafra government, even though he converted to Islam in the 1990s.

By Marc-Antoine PĂ©rouse de Montclos

The Africa Report 

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The Biafra secessionist movement in Nigeria

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Nigeria develops two coronavirus vaccines

Nigerian scientists have developed two vaccines against COVID-19, the government secretary announced Tuesday.

Boss Mustapha, who is also chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, said clinical trials for the new vaccines are underway.

“The vaccines will be used after completing clinical trials and obtaining certification,” said Mustapha.

“This is a welcome development that will open a new vista in scientific breakthrough and will boost the morale and image of the medical industry in the country.”

He called on all relevant agencies to provide the required support and enabling environment for the smooth conduct of the remaining protocols for the certification of the vaccines, with a view to encouraging and motivating other researchers.

At least 162,000 virus-related cases have been observed in the country and 2,031 people have died from the virus, while over 148,500 people have recovered from the disease.

CGTN