50 staff members sacked at Nigeria High Commision in London

Over 50 Staff of the Nigerian High Commision London were dismissed and asked to accept a letter dated 22nd of November, 2018, Meanwhile, the Commission claims the dismissal took effect from 1st of January 2018.

The staff of the commission have been working all year (2018) with months of no pay. The letter of termination came due to continual outcry from staff members of the commission demanding their salary arrears.

In the letter signed by Helen Nzeako on behalf of the Nigerian High Commission UK, the termination of employment is as a result of restructuring of the organization and due to budgetary constraints. The staff members of the Commission have received this news in dismay and disappointment as most have served the Federal Government of Nigeria meritoriously. A source alleged that the exercise is a plot by the management to disengage every staff to so as to pave way for them to employ their friends & family members into these positions. The letter of termination or disengagement instructed staff to reapply for the same job if they so wish.

“We want the World to see how we are been ill-treated just because we asked for our salaries. This is so unfair and an injustice to democratic rule”. As quoted by a displaced staff of the commission. However the aggrieved staff are calling on President Muhammadu Buhari, the Federal Government of Nigeria to look into the matter.

Vanguard

Bring Back our Girls activist runs for top office and vows to disrupt 'Nigeria's politics of failure'

Bring Back our Girls activist and former Nigerian minister Oby Ezekwesili has thrown her hat into the election ring for Nigeria's upcoming 2019 elections and says her candidacy will "disrupt the politics of failure" in Africa's most populous nation.

Ezekwesili in an interview with Christiane Amanpour said bad governance had become endemic in Nigeria and citizens no longer hold leaders accountable for corruption or corrupt acts.
"It [Nigerian politics] produced dismal results such that today Nigeria is the world's capital of extreme poverty," she said.

"It's totally unacceptable. What I intend to do is to disrupt this and build a nation that is based on prosperity, stability, cohesion, and equality of opportunities for our people."

Around 87 million Nigerians are living in extreme poverty, according to the 2018 World Poverty Clock, despite the country's vast oil wealth and human capital.

Incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, who is also running for a second term, vowed to tackle corruption in his first term, a promise many Nigerians say he has not fulfilled.

Ezekwesili, who announced she was running for Nigeria's top office in October, is towing the same path, with a campaign promise to weed out corruption, which she calls a "malignant and cancerous action."

"We know that corruption is a tax on the poor. And we already know there are ways to tackle corruption. You prevent opportunities for corruption; you reduce corruption.

"What my agenda is to deregulate the economy in the kind of way that public officials don't have too much presence in the economy to be able to utilize it for personal gain," she said in the interview.

Anti-corruption campaigner

Ezekwesili is one of the co-founders of Transparency International, a global watchdog fighting corruption. She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

She leads the Bring Back Our Girls group calling for the safe return of kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by terror group Boko Haram since 2014.

Ezekwesili faces an uphill task as a female presidential candidate, but most significantly, she will be running against incumbent President Buhari and Nigeria's former vice-president Atiku Abubakar in February next year. 

The activist said the candidates' popularity does not faze her and her ambitions to lead the West African nation. Ezekwesili believes she stands out from other candidates.  According to her, leadership is "gender neutral" and she brings "character, competence, and capacity" to the race, she said.  

"I am a better candidate than the men that are in this race, and even they will tell you that. I'm simply going to keep on with the issues that I want to solve and be a problem solver," Ezekwesili told CNN.

Her record of fighting corruption and plugging financial leaks in Nigeria's public sector, when she served as a minister proves she will deliver on her campaign promises, she said.

"I believe I am the candidate of the Nigerian people as I am not running alone. We are all running together. All of us that want a new direction for our country are running together," Ezekwesili said.
"This is a contest between the established class of politicians who have not delivered anything meaningful in governance and the rest of us. I'm simply a candidate who is providing a direction for the rest of society to take on these folks."

Ezekwesili served as Nigeria's minister of education in 2006 where she championed educational reforms to get more girls to attend school, especially in northern Nigeria.

CNN

50 loggers kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria

Boko Haram militants have been kidnapped 50 loggers in north-eastern Nigeria close to the border with Cameroon, the Daily Nation reported on Friday.

The abduction took place at Bulakesa village, 25 kilometres from Gamboru in Borno state.

Gunmen loyal to factional leader, Abubakar Shekau, carried out the abduction of the loggers, who were in a camp for people displaced by jihadist violence, last weekend according to a local militia.

The news took a while to reach the media due to limited communications with residents in the area. Two of the loggers, however, succeeded in escaping and fled home warning others of the kidnapping.

Thousands of people have lost their lives and more than two million have been displaced since Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising. In 2014 Boko Haram gunmen seized 276 girls aged 12 to 17 from a secondary school in the remote town of Chibok, also in Borno state.

Following repeated attacks on loggers, the Nigerian military managed to rid the nearby town of Wulgo and surrounding areas of the militants in 2017.

IOL

Video - Nigerian businessmen on benefits from Chinese Expo

African nations continue to reap benefits following the conclusion of the first China International Import Expo. Many products and services from Africa made their debut in the Chinese market. These have attracted a lot of attention. Exhibitors from Nigeria say the Expo opened a channel for African companies and products looking to enter the Chinese market.

Video - President Buhari, 78 others in the fray for Nigerian polls

Campaigning has begun for what is expected to be Nigeria's most expensive presidential election. A record 79 candidates are in the race, including the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari. But his hopes of re-election are threatened by criticism of his handling of the economy and the war against Boko Haram. The Nigerian presidential election will be held in February 2019.

Video - Nigeria's Buhari launches campaign for second term

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has launched his re-election bid. Buhari was the sole candidate of his ruling party and hopes his anti-corruption agenda can win him a second term in next year's election. He will face former vice president Atiku Abubakar who is also expected to unveil his policy plans.

Doctors are leaving Nigeria in droves

Each week, at least 12 Nigerian doctors are employed in the United Kingdom. More than 4,000 are already practicing in the United States, while Canada continues to attract medical professionals from Africa’s most populous nation.

But there are no full-time specialists at most Nigerian public hospitals. They are largely staffed by retired nurses, community health officers, and new doctors with little clinical experience. More than half of the doctors remaining in Nigeria work in a handful of major cities.

Doctors are leaving Nigeria — and the government seems to be making little effort to convince them to stay. In a recent viral video widely ridiculed on social media, health minister Isaac Adewole suggested that doctors who couldn’t find work should turn to alternative careers.

“It might sound selfish, but we can't all be specialists,” Adewole said. “Some [doctors] will be specialists, some will be GPs [general practitioners], and some will be farmers.”

A similar approach was taken by President Muhammadu Buhari last month. “You don’t have to be in [a doctor’s] uniform to be loyal,” he said. “Others who feel they have another country [to go to] may choose to go. We will stay here and salvage it together.” Online, citizens drily pointed to the president’s habit of going abroad for medical treatment.

But while officials play down the impact of Nigeria’s medical brain drain, advocates are increasingly concerned about the crisis, which they say has both human and economic costs.

Aside from leading to a severe shortage of medical staff in Nigeria and disrupting health care services, a report released in August by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation estimated that African countries have footed a bill of $4.6 billion in training doctors who were then recruited by the U.K., U.S., Canada, and Australia.

Following Adewole’s video, Nigerians took to social media to decry the minister’s claims. They blamed the government for the poor structuring of the medical residency program in Nigeria, which has left many doctors without placements, and for a difficult working environment that has recently seen the health sector plagued by incessant strikes.

It is not known exactly how many doctors have left the country. In 2017, a Nigerian Medical Association official, Olumuyiwa Odusote, told local media that 40,000 Nigerian doctors were practicing outside the country — around half of all doctors Nigeria has trained since the 1960s.

NMA President Dr. Mike Ogirima has put the number much lower, at about 15,000. Neither the NMA nor the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria could provide Devex with an official figure.

However, the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas has more than 4,000 members; data from the U.K. shows that more than 5,000 Nigerian doctors are working there; and the Canadian Medical Association Masterfile has recorded a quadrupling of Nigerian doctors practicing in the country over a decade, from 176 in 2008 to 568 in 2018. Other top destinations include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.

And there is no end in sight. A 2017 poll showed that 9 out of 10 doctors in Nigeria wanted to leave the country due to poor working conditions and low remuneration. Another survey showed that high numbers have registered to take foreign medical exams allowing them to practice abroad.

Organizing online

In WhatsApp and Telegram groups, Nigerian health care professionals are sharing information on how to migrate to higher income countries. Bimpe Folarin, a 32-year old nurse, moderates one such group. Bimpe works as a wedding makeup artist on the weekends for additional income, and says she has not received any salary from the government for three months. Most of her colleagues have at least one “side hustle” ranging from small-scale trading to photography, she told Devex.

“Those that don’t have a second job either have rich spouses or are cheating the system. It is a depressing mood at work and I just want to leave,” she said.

Bimpe wanted to move to the U.S. but, fearing recent stigma around her Muslim faith, the mother of two is now thinking of Canada. She is saving 40 percent of her monthly salary for the trip, and believes she can reach her target of 2 million Nigerian nairas ($5,500) whenever the government pays her outstanding salary. “I should be in Canada by early 2019,” she said.

In the group she moderates, hopeful emigrants refer to the paucity of job opportunities, low pay, insecurity, a bleak future for their children, and poor social infrastructure as reasons for wanting to leave Nigeria.

Hospitals owned by Nigeria’s central government, which are more competitive for placements, pay young doctors up to 200,000 nairas ($550) monthly. Some state hospitals and private facilities pay just a quarter of that. If they go to the U.S., doctors earn an average of $25,000 monthly.

“My husband used to be a die-hard, never-leave-the-country guy,” another medical doctor, Dr. Damilola Odewole, told Devex. “But we couldn't pay our rent and our daughters need to [go to] school and eat, plus they weren't giving us residency [placements at a hospital],” she said. They even increased the price for the medical exams, she added. The family is now looking to leave Nigeria.

Uneven distribution

In spite of the surge in doctors travelling abroad, the health minister argued the country has a better doctor-patient ratio — 1 to every 4,088 residents — than many countries in the region.

Instead, what Nigeria is struggling with is an uneven distribution of health care professionals, he suggested, explaining that about 50 percent of doctors work in the metropolitan hubs of Lagos and Abuja, while many facilities in the north and in rural areas are left without doctors.

A health ministry official also admitted that better salaries would discourage health workers from travelling abroad, but said the Nigerian government simply cannot match what the U.K., U.S., Canada, and Saudi Arabia are paying.

For doctors who spoke to Devex, however, the decision to leave is about more than just pay, including poor working conditions, delays in salary payments, and lack of employment.

And as hospitals across Nigeria lose their doctors, patient care is limited and health professionals who are left behind are overworked. Health indices show that Nigeria continues to be a major concern for global efforts to control diseases including HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. Only a third of births are handled by skilled health personnel, while the country has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

At Adeoyo Hospital in Ibadan, southwest Nigeria, all surgeries had to be cancelled or rescheduled when the hospital’s only anesthesiologist left in June. That situation is not unique.

“There was a time that all the resident doctors in our O&G [obstetrics and gynecology] unit moved to U.K. and Canada within two months,” said Folarin. “The house officers had to be the ones on call performing cesarean sections until the hospital could employ another resident doctor, who also left after a month because of the workload and a better job offer in London.”

Devex

Presidential candidate Abubakar launches 'Get working again' campaign

Nigeria's main opposition leader Atiku Abubakar has vowed to get the country "working again" by reviving its economy as he launched his 2019 presidential elections campaign.

In a Facebook Live address on Monday, the former vice president promised to create millions of jobs to tackle rising inequality and insecurity in Africa's top oil-producing country.

"The sad fact today, as you know, is that too many of our people are not working and are living in poverty and insecurity," Abubakar said.

"Almost all indices on socioeconomic and political development have plummeted, throwing over 70 percent of Nigerians into unprecedented poverty," the 71-year-old added.

"The most important question in this election is: are you better off than you were four years ago, are you richer or poorer? That is why our primary focus is to get Nigeria working again."

Abubakar's comments came a day after the official start of campaigning for the elections, which are scheduled to be held on February 16, 2019.

Incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to step up the fight against corruption as he bids for a second term.

"Corruption is an existential threat to Nigeria. Despite the gains we made in closing the gaps, we know that there is still much ground to cover to stop the systemic corruption," Buhari said on Sunday in the capital, Abuja.

"We are committed to deepening the work we started this first term," added Buhari, who in 2015 became the first opposition candidate to defeat a sitting president.

Record candidates

Nigeria's election commission has cleared a record 79 candidates in the race for the nation's top job, including Buhari, who belongs to the All Progressives Congress party.

Abubakar, seen as his closest rival, is from the People's Democratic Party (PDP).

Another prominent challenger is Oby Ezekwesili, a former minister and World Bank vice president, who is hoping to end the "duopoly" of the two leaders.

Ezekwesili, the cofounder of a group that raises awareness about the nearly 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by the Boko Haram armed group, was nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.

Sluggish economy

Unveiling his plan to ramp up growth in his policy document, Abubakar targeted a gross domestic product of $900bn by 2025 - more than double the current amount - and vowed to lift "at least 50 million people out of extreme poverty".

"It only takes a man with a vision and a mission to properly articulate a document that touches on every critical areas to fix Nigeria," Jackson Ude, member of the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP), told Al Jazeera.

But Kayode Ogundamisi, a Buhari supporter, dismissed Abubakar's policy document as "flowery".

"The Atiku document did not disappoint those of us who have always told Nigerians that the former vice president does not have anything different to offer," Ogundamisi told Al Jazeera.

For its part, the PDP has denounced Buhari's presidency as a failure, highlighting his inability to fix the nation's economy and tackle insecurity.

Last year, Nigeria emerged from its first recession in 25 years, but growth remains sluggish and inflation has remained high. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, has more than doubled since 2015.

Uche Ezechukwu, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera that the economy will play a crucial role in the upcoming polls.

"The most germane issue is the capacity of any candidate to ameliorate the economic situation," he said.

Security issues

Buhari, 75, a former military general, came to power in 2015 pledging to end Boko Haram attacks - but has struggled to fulfil the promise.

The armed group might have been pushed out of the Nigerian territories it held but continues to ambush security forces, launch attacks and stage kidnappings.

Despite the government insisting that Boko Haram is near defeat, northern Nigeria is still beleaguered by heavy fighting.

More than 20,000 people have been killed since the group's campaign to establish a breakaway Islamic state in northeast Nigeria began in 2009, while over two million others have been to flee their homes.

Meanwhile, concerns have been raised about the transparency of the impending vote following allegations of irregularities, rigging and vote-buying in recent local elections.

Buhari has repeatedly said the vote will be "free and fair" but civil society groups and opposition parties have accused the country's electoral body of bias.

"Most Nigerians distrust the capacity of the government to deliver a free and fair election," Ezechukwu, the analyst, said.

Al Jazeera

Video - South Africa 1-1 Nigeria - Highlights

Nigeria beaten by South Africa in Women's Nations Cup

South Africa surprised holders Nigeria with a 1-0 victory in the first game of Group B at the Women's Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana.

Nigeria, who have won eight out of the ten editions of the championship, were beaten by an impressive individual strike from Thembi Kgatlana five minutes from time in Cape Coast.

Desire Oparanozie had come close for the defending champions in the first half who suffered only their second defeat to Banyana Banyana in more than two decades.

Nigeria's head coach, Thomas Dennerby told the Confederation of African Football's official tournament website that he was "very disappointed" and that "it would have been fair if the game had ended in a draw."

Dennerby's South Africa counterpart, Desiree Ellis, described Kgatlana's goal as "a moment of brilliance" and said "the victory is not only for us but for the people back home."

In the day's second Group B match, Zambia were emphatic 5-0 winners over former champions Equatorial Guinea.

Grance Banda and Ireen Lungu had put Shepolopolo 2-0 up before half-time, with Mary Mwakapila and two goals from Rachael Kundanaji giving Zambia a big victory.

BBC

Video - Nigeria seeks extradition of former Oil Minister

Nigeria's Anti-graft agency, the EFCC says it is starting a process to extradite former Petroleum minister Diezani Alison Madueke from the UK. Madueke is accused of money laundering and stealing huge sums of petroleum money while in office.

2019 Forbes Under 30 list includes eight Nigerians

Eight Nigerians have been listed, among other global influencers, in the 2019 Forbes 30 under 30 list.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Forbes 30 under 30 is a set of lists issued annually by Forbes magazine and some of its regional editions to recognise business and industry figures.

This year, the list featured 300 trailblazers from 20 industries with average age of 26.8.

Over 55 per cent of them are founders or co-founders.

Also, 19 per cent of them include immigrants from 57 countries, and 38 of them identify as first generation Americans.

Nigerians who made the list include Taofeek Abijako, Kayode Ojo, Obi Omile Jr, Adegoke Olubusi, Tito Ovia, Dimeji Sofowora, Olaoluwa Osuntokun and Emmanuel Acho.

Taofeek Abijako is a 20-year-old designer who started his men's streetwear brand when he was a high school teenager.

Kayode Ojo is a 28-year-old photographer who has had solo shows in Paris, Berlin, New York and Dallas.

Communication expert, Obi Omile Jr. is the co-founder of the Cut, a technology platform that allows users and barbers to schedule and manage appointments.

Meanwhile, Adegoke Olubusi, 25, Tito Ovia, 25, and Dimeji Sofowora, 26 are founders of Helium Health a platform used by 5,000 doctors, with data from 500,000 patients across West Africa.

Olaoluwa Osuntokun, 25, is the co-founder of Lighting Labs which has raised $2.5 million to turn bitcoin into a more viable form of payment by making smaller transactions more cost-effective.

Also, Emmanuel Acho, 28, serves as the youngest national football analyst for ESPN and runs a charity that has built a hospital in Nigeria.

NAN reports that the list also features Ghanaian, Shadrack Frimpong, who founded Cocoa360, a 'farm-for-impact' model that uses revenues from community cocoa farms to fund educational and healthcare services.

International musicians Post Malone, 23, 21 Savage, 26, photographer Tyler Mitchell, 23 who photographed Beyonce for her Vogue September 2018 cover, and actor Storm Reid, 15 made the list.

NAN also reports that the 2019 class have raised over one billion dollars in funding and work an average of 67 hours per week.

Seventy-seven per cent of honorees consider being under the age of 30 an advantage in their career, 89 per cent are optimistic about the U.S. economy for startups,

Thirty-one per cent decided what they wanted to do for a career during university, 22 per cent decided as a child, and 10 per cent are still deciding.

All Africa

Video - Nigerian workers set to benefit from minimum wage increase

The lowest-paid Nigerian worker could benefit from a 66 percent pay rise should lawmakers approve the controversial tripartite committee report on the minimum wage. CGTN's Kelechi Emekalam takes a look at what a higher salary means to a minimum-wage earner, as well as the overall impact of the policy on the economy.

Video - China offers Nigeria's internally displaced persons relief items

The Chinese Government has donated relief items worth sixteen thousand dollars to internally displaced persons in Jos, Plateau State, North Central Nigeria. The Chinese Embassy, in collaboration with the Civil-Military Relief Initiative and the Nigeria Army, is providing the items worth sixteen thousand dollars to an IDP camp in Plateau. Violent conflicts between nomadic herders and farmers in North Central Nigeria has displaced about forty thousand people between June and October. Most of the displaced persons are living in deplorable conditions drawing the attention of the Chinese embassy in Nigeria.

President Buhari declares state of emergency in water sector

In Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari has declared the country's water supply crisis a state of emergency. He made the declaration at the launch of an action plan to revitalize water supplies, sanitation and hygiene.

Video - Baseball in Nigeria

A local baseball academy based in Nigeria's capital Abuja, is working hard to take the sport to greater heights. Despite a lack of facilities for the sport in the country, the academy is raising young players between the ages of 6 and 18 years in the hope that they will become future talents for Nigeria.

Video - Prince Charles speaks Pidgin English during speech in Nigeria

Prince Charles broke into Pidgin while delivering a speech in Lagos, Nigeria, on Wednesday. The Prince of Wales said it was particularly special to be in Lagos after nearly 30 years, saying the only words to describe it were '"God don butter my bread", a term in Pidgin meaning "God has blessed me.

Video - Nigeria labour unions call off nationwide industrial action

Nigeria's organized labour unions have called off the nationwide industrial action meant to press home workers' demand for a new national minimum wage. The National Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress says all parties have agreed on an $83 minimum wage deal.

Nigeria will benefit from Google Artificial Intelligence lab in Ghana

By Prince Osuagwu (Hi-tech Editor) reporting from Netherlands Amsterdam—Head Google AI, Ghana, Moustapha Cisse, yesterday revealed that there are ongoing plans to see that Artificial Intelligence, AI, helps in managing Nigerian and other African economies, particularly in the areas of flood, disaster management, technological inn ovations, and health among others.

The Senegalese born Research Scientist, made the revelation at the Google Making AI event in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

According to him, a lot of collaborations between Google and some higher institutions of learning, Research centres and some professors in Nigeria are ongoing and will help drive down the benefits of AI and other new technologies to the country. 

He said although Google is building an AI lab in Ghana, Nigeria was also in pole position to benefit because science and technology do not create barriers. 

He advised African countries to design a common collaborative template so that the continent doesn’t play catch up with the wave of technogical innovations sweeping across the globe. 

He said: “There are a lot of Google tech initiatives in Africa, from Nigeria to Ghana and the rest, partnerships and collaborations are needed to exploit potentials” Reacting to the development, National Coordinator, Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship, National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Dr Amina Sambo- Magaji who also participated at the forum, said government was ready to absorb the outcome of the collaborations and use same for common good of Nigerians. She said: “The National Information Technology Development agency is developing technology hubs in collaboration with the NSIO, where over 80 digital job creation centres are annually deployed across the country. 

“NITDA has empowered its two subsidiaries, Office for the Nigerian Content (ONC) and Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE) to ensure the enforcement of the local content policy and create an enabling environment for the Nigerian Technology Entrepreneurship ecosystem respectively.”

Vanguard

The 'Mona Lisa' of Nigeria returns back home

The Nigerian Mona Lisa, a painting lost for more than 40 years and found in a London flat in February, is being exhibited in Nigeria for the first time since it disappeared.

"Tutu", an art work by Nigeria's best-known modern artist, Ben Enwonwu, was painted in 1974. It appeared at an art show in Lagos the following year, but its whereabouts after that were unknown, until it re-surfaced in north London.


The owners - who wished to remain anonymous - had called in Giles Peppiatt, an expert in modern and contemporary African art at the London auction house Bonhams, to identify their painting. He recognized Enwonwu's portrait.

"It was discovered by myself on a pretty routine valuation call to look at a work by Ben Enwonwu," said Giles Peppiatt, director of contemporary African art at Bonhams. "I didn't know what I was going to see. I turned up, and it was this amazing painting. We'd had no inkling 'Tutu' was there."

How it got there remains a bit of a mystery, Peppiatt said.

"All the family that owned it know is that it was owned by their father, who had business interests in Nigeria. He traveled and picked it up in the late or mid-70s."

The family put the portrait up for sale, and it was auctioned for 1.2 million pounds ($1.57 million) in February to an anonymous buyer. The sale made it the highest-valued work of Nigerian modern art sold at auction.

"Tutu" was loaned to the Art X Lagos fair, held from Friday to Sunday, by Access Bank, the organizers said in a statement. Peppiatt said Access arranged the loan but is not the painting's owner.

"'Tutu' is referred to as the African 'Mona Lisa' by virtue of this disappearance and re-emergence, and it is the first work of a modern Nigerian artist to sell for over a million pounds," said Tokini Peterside, the art fair's founder.

The original Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, was stolen from the Louvre in 1911. The thief, Vincenzo Peruggia, eventually took it to Italy, where it was recovered and in 1914 returned to the Louvre.

The Nigerian painting is a portrait of Adetutu Ademiluyi, a grand-daughter of a traditional ruler from the Yoruba ethnic group. It holds special significance in Nigeria as a symbol of national reconciliation after the 1967-70 Biafran War.

Enwonwu belonged to the Igbo ethnic group, the largest in the southeastern region of Nigeria, which had tried to secede under the name of Biafra. The Yoruba, whose homeland is in the southwest, were mostly on the opposing side in the war.

Enwonwu painted three versions of the portrait. One is in a private collection in Lagos, while Peppiatt is hunting the third in Washington D.C., the expert said. Prints first made in the 1970s have been in circulation ever since and the images are familiar to many Nigerians. Enwonwu died in 1994. ($1 = 0.7649 pounds)

ABS-CBN

Nigeria reaches agreement with Labor union's 66% minimum wage demand

Nigeria’s biggest labor union reached an agreement with the government to increase the minimum wage by 66 percent, adding to inflationary pressures and reducing state funds for infrastructure.

The Nigeria Labour Congress called off its threat to hold a nationwide strike from Tuesday in the wake of the accord, spokesman Benson Upah said by phone from Abuja, the capital. A report on the agreement will be presented to President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday afternoon.

The accord comes before Buhari seeks a second term in presidential elections scheduled for February.
Raising the minimum wage to 30,000 naira ($83) a month adds to inflation pressures at a time when the government is being urged to stop capping the cost of gasoline and curb spending on subsidies. Price-growth, which has been above the authorities target of 6 percent to 9 percent for more than three years, has led the central bank to keep the benchmark interest rate at a record high of 14 percent since July 2016.

Buhari has already set aside 160 billion naira to provide for wage increases next year. That will weigh on the state’s ability to sustain its pledge of increasing investment in roads, ports and power that’s needed to spur growth, according to analysts including Cheta Nwanze, head of research at Lagos-based risk advisory SBM Intelligence.

“An increase in the minimum wage may provide a temporary lift to spending, but as we saw in 2011, it rarely brings about a sustained improvement in the economy,” said Razia Khan, head of macroeconomic research at Standard Chartered Bank Plc. “If anything, the risk is that it will serve as an additional drag on public finances.”

Bloomberg

Video - UN condemns recent violence on Borno communities in Nigeria

The United Nations has condemned an attack on villagers in Northern Nigeria by Boko Haram militants. The spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Jens Laerke appealed to the authorities to ensure the safety of vulnerable communities. On Wednesday, Boko Haram attacked several villages in Maiduguri, killing at least 15 people.

Video - Nigerian labour unions threaten strike reject $62 minimum wage offer

Nigerian labour unions have rejected the 62-dollar minimum wage offer by a forum of governors and have threatened to launch an indefinite strike next week. The current minimum wage is 18-dollars a month. Governors are worried about the impact a higher offer could have on the budget.

Trump's words used to defend killing of protesters by military in Nigeria

The Nigerian army appears to have used the words of President Trump to justify the killing of Islamic protesters.

On Friday (Nov. 2), the Nigerian army's official Twitter account tweeted a snippet of Trump's Thursday (Nov. 1) speech on immigration where he stated that the U.S. military should consider migrants throwing rocks as they would a rifle. The Nigerian army then went on to explain that they released the video to say "if President Trump can say rocks are as good as a rifle, who is Amnesty International?"

This came in response to growing scrutiny from human rights organizations, like Amnesty International, who've criticized the Nigerian government for its "horrific use of excessive force" when dealing with Muslim protestors. Days prior to the tweet, the Nigerian army fired bullets and tear gas into a crowd of Shai Muslims killing six protestors. This is not the first time conflicts between demonstrators — who routinely take to the streets to protest the imprisonment of Islamic Movement of Nigeria leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky — and armed forces have turned deadly.

"This violent crackdown on IMN protesters is unjustified and unacceptable," Amnesty International Nigerian Country Director, Osai Ojigho, said of the attacks. "They were perfectly within their rights to hold a religious procession and protest and there was no evidence they posed an imminent threat to life."

However, Trump is popular in Nigeria's Christian population for his talks against Islamic extremism. Using his controversial speech to justify their persecution of the IMN may help further sway the Nigerian popular opinion and invalidate the authority of Amnesty International.

The White House has yet to issue a response to the use of the president's comments.

Complex

Related stories: Video - Nigeria's Shi'ite Protests - death toll rises to 24

Nigeria arrests 400 Shia Muslims after deadly clashes

Using technology to tackle corruption in Nigeria

In 2012, Nigeria witnessed the worst flood in nearly five decades. Two million people were displaced and around 363 killed. Crops, homes, and entire communities were destroyed.

The central government swung into action and disbursed around $110m to affected states in October that year. Additional funding flowed from a public-private relief fund and the international community, including Canada, the European Commission, Japan, Norway and Sweden.

Back in Lagos, the team at BudgIT, a civil society organisation founded in 2011, watched closely. In September 2013, it sent a small research team to tour 12 affected states for a period of five months to find out whether the funds released were put to good use.

"We discovered that these funds went into the wrong hands and people never benefited," says Uadamen Ilevbaoje, who was part of the team.

Several decades of corruption have slowed progress in Nigeria, which is the largest oil producer in Africa. Public funds allocated for projects and services often go unaccounted for; mismanagement and corruption have fuelled inequality and poverty.

By the end of May, Nigeria became host to the world's largest population of people in extreme poverty with some 87 million in crisis, overtaking India's 73 million.

Across the country, but especially in remote areas, abandoned projects dot the landscape.

Citizens live without basic amenities like roads, housing, schools, potable water, hospitals and sanitation facilities.

In Maito village, in central Nigeria's Niger state, residents continue to use a dilapidated health centre with a roof covered by bats, despite the National Primary Health Care Development Agency having approved 22 million nairas ($60,600) for a better facility.

In the rural village of Akere, in the southwestern state of Ogun, schoolchildren learn under the shade of a tree and sit on bare floors in overcrowded classrooms, despite funding of $82,000 provided for refurbishment.

According to a UN report, roughly $4.6bn is spent on bribes in Nigeria each year.

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission reported that 60 percent of corruption cases in the country take place in procurement.

Poor transparency and accountability have allowed corruption to flourish, and a few civil society groups are trying to change the opaque environment.

Pressuring the government

In June 2014, BudgIT started the Tracka initiative to follow public projects and help communities ask serious questions that would enhance efficiency.

Tracka staff extract capital projects from the budget and design a pamphlet containing the project title, amount and phone number of public officials for each of the 22 states where it operates.

Armed with these details, tracking officers who have been recruited and trained visit the communities, hold town hall meetings with communities and help them ask government agencies and legislatures to complete projects which have either been abandoned or yet to start.

Tracking officers also take photos and upload them on Twitter and Facebook, adding pressure on government ministries to act transparently.

Through its work, Tracka was able to speed up the construction of a school in Iwoye Ilogbo in Ogun state, a primary healthcare centre in Delta state and boreholes in Edo and Anambra states.

In addition to Tracka, there is the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC), which is working to promote citizen participation in governance.

It uses radio and social media to monitor public procurement processes and push for greater access to information on public projects following the passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act in 2011.

"As soon as the FOI Act was passed, we jumped on it and began to use the provisions of the law to advocate and litigate for improved disclosure of public information," said Nkem Ilo, head of PPDC.

"With more use of the FOI, we began to receive more responses to our requests, which meant the availability of datasets."

In 2015, using data acquired from procuring entities over the years, PPDC worked with the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism and the School of Media and Communication at the Lagos-based Pan-Atlantic University to develop a web-based platform known as Budeshi, which means "open it" in the Hausa language.

Budeshi links budget and procurement data to public projects in a structured format, opening up publicly funded services for scrutiny.

Citizens can now look up public services by searching for the procuring entity - usually government ministries and agencies - as well as the project title, the state where the initiative is being implemented, or the year, and even pick from a list of contractors.

So far, Budeshi has data on 6,571 contracts in Nigeria from more than 100 public institutions. Budeshi is now fully deployed in Uganda and plans to start the platform in Kenya and Malawi are under way.

Every year, on the International Right to Know Day, September 28,- PPDC ranks government ministries, departments and agencies based on their responses to freedom of information requests mostly on public expenditure; the corporate affairs commission is currently first.

Much of the funding for these organisations comes from institutional and private donors, including the UK Department for International Development, the MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar network, Indigo Trust and National Endowment for Democracy.

Hamza Lawal, a tech-savvy activist, started the Follow the Money campaign in June 2012, following the deaths of hundreds of children from lead poisoning in the northern Nigerian state of Zamfara.

Though several villages had been cleaned up by late 2012, one - Bagega - caught Lawal's attention because, by January 2013, money released still hadn't reached the victims.

Using the hashtag #SaveBagega, the campaign was able to get clean-up operations started in the village, helping hundreds of children to receive care.

In December 2013, Lawal started a full-fledged movement known as Connected Development (CODE) with Follow the Money. With a team of nearly 40 people and community reporters in Nigeria 36 states, CODE's campaigns are driven by hashtags connecting the name of community and the project that needs to be tracked.

"The idea of using hashtags is to be able to document projects and track them on social media," said 31-year-old Lawal, now the CEO of CODE, "and this repository would be online so that other young people can learn from it."

Follow the Money now has over 2,000 members and this year expanded to Kenya and The Gambia. Last year, it won the One Africa award which came with $100,000 to support their work.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP, meanwhile, which is concerned with promoting transparency and accountability in government, including public expenditure.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, SERAP requests information on contracts awards and has even sued ministries and agencies that refuse to release information.

Through a partnership with BudgIT, it was able to get the public procurement agency in Lagos to make available the Lagos State Procurement Journal from 2012 to date.

SERAP has been published several reports on health, education, electricity and water sectors.

It has also partnered with CODE and the Paradigm Leadership Support Initiative, which was started in 2016 to help citizens track and report development projects in their communities.

Some citizens are happy that things are changing, albeit slowly.

"Tracka, Udeme and Budeshi are checking public expenditure which over the years have been full of excesses, misappropriation and greed by inflation of contracts," says Olajide Oluwaseun, an architect in Lagos.

"These initiatives are the future for a good governance drive and I appreciate they all do in this risky political space. We need and must build an alliance, not a political party, an alliance of voices that want and need to be heard."

But some challenges remain.

Access to information on public expenditure is not always available upon request. Some ministries, agencies and departments either do not respond to freedom of information requests or completely ignore them.

In addition, despite the presence of a procurement law passed in 2007 to ensure contractors follow due process, public procurement has been dogged by contract splitting; the use of fake documents by bidders, some of whom have multiple companies; government ministries and agencies collaborating with contractors to siphon money; and, importantly, delays in investigating and prosecuting cases of misappropriation or graft.

"We don't have a culture of punishing offenders," says Ike Fayomi-Awodele of the public administration department at Obafemi Awolowo University in Osun state.

To solve this, Uadamen Ilevbaoje, now the project lead of Tracka, believes more awareness is needed.

"We need more and more sensitisation and awareness. If there is awareness, citizens would ask more questions and politicians would be forced to do the right thing."

Al Jazeera