Nigeria Super Eagle Ighalo comments about alleged death threats

Super Eagles player Odion Ighalo has spoken out against alleged death threats from fans who are blaming him for Nigeria's failure to advance to the knockout stages of the World Cup in Russia. 

Ighalo has been singled out for missing what fans believe was a clear goal opportunity that would have kept Nigeria's World Cup hopes alive in Tuesday's game against Argentina. 

Since their defeat, the striker has faced a barrage of insults -- including threats of violence -- online.
Ighalo took to social media Thursday to address fans and appeal to those who "want to kill him."


Writing in the local pidgin vernacular, Ighalo asked fans to remember he was "someone's child."
"Great experience to be at the World Cup and I enjoyed every moment of it," he wrote on Instagram.

 
"We did our best but sometimes things don't always go the way you want, but life has to go on.

 
"For those that want to kill me abeg na person pikin I be o (please I am someone's child), Ighalo wrote.

The Nigerian Football Federation's spokesperson, Ademola Olajire, told CNN in St Petersburg, that it strongly condemns threats to any of its players or members of their family because of the World Cup results.

Olajire said: "We understand that people might have been hurt by the loss to Argentina, and failure to qualify for the knockout stage. But we condemn any threat on the life of any of our players or their loved ones. We will immediately alert the police to this issue."
The NFF believes it is the first time a direct threat has been made to any of its players, many of whom do not live in Nigeria.

CNN

Fuel truck blaze kills nine in Nigeria

A petrol tanker has caught fire in Nigeria's biggest city, Lagos, killing at least nine people, officials say.

More than 50 vehicles, including five buses, were set ablaze after the truck lost control and spilled its contents on a busy motorway during rush hour.

The tanker is said to have crashed after its brakes failed.

Fuel explosions are common in Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer. Petrol is transported via badly maintained roads and vehicles.

The incident on Thursday occurred at about 17:30 local time (16:30 GMT) on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, one of the main motorways into the city.

A representative from the Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC) told the BBC that the tanker had lost control as it approached a bridge, and ended up falling on its side.

Petrol then began pouring from the tanker and a fire erupted. The blaze quickly spread from vehicle to vehicle.

Images later showed black smoke rising from the road and the shells of several burnt-out cars.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said he was "very sad to learn of the tragic loss of lives".

"Sadly, this seems to be one of the greatest tragedies we have seen in recent times," he said in a statement.

Government spokesman Kehinde Bamigbetan said it was time "to find ways of ensuring that tankers are driven by drivers who have more responsibility".

"We need to work more with federal agencies so we don't have these crises all the time," he said.

Disaster waiting to happen

By Friday morning the full scale of Thursday's tragedy was still visible as rescue workers clear the road of the burnt-out remains of the vehicles.

An acrid smell still hangs in the air.

It's a gory scene many Nigerians are all-too familiar with. Oil tankers have been involved in some of Nigeria's worst road accidents. Many of these tankers were conveying imported fuel from the Lagos port for distribution around the country.

Even though Nigeria is the world's sixth largest exporter of crude oil, the country imports virtually all its fuel because its refineries are not working due to years of mismanagement.

The Lagos port remains the main entry for the fuel that serves Nigeria's almost 200 million people.

It is a disaster always waiting to happen in a country where fuel distribution is in the hands of often reckless oil tanker drivers.

Most of them are driving tankers imported from Europe that are not roadworthy.

While Nigerians mourn the victims of this latest accident, many know it may not be the last, if efforts are not made to get good drivers and vehicles for Nigeria's fuel distribution business.

BBC

Video - Nigerian fans disappointed by refereeing decisions after loss to Argentina

Well, fans of the Super Eagles watching the match in Russia are disappointed about some of the refereeing decisions.

Death toll increases to 200 after attacks in central Nigeria

Over 200 people have died in Nigeria's central state of Plateau where gunmen attacked many villages last weekend, according to a local lawmaker and the media on Wednesday.

Peter Gyedeng, a member of Plateau State's parliament, said over 200 of his constituents died in the attack.

"Over 200 innocent citizens of my constituency were killed...this is barbaric and evil. This is happening even when we have security all over the state," Gyedeng told reporters in Jos, the state capital.

The lawmaker alleged "genocide and ethnic cleansing" against his constituents.

The attacks, which started on Saturday, continued on Monday in another area of the state, despite a dawn-to-dusk curfew imposed by the government.

Local police on Sunday confirmed only 86 people were killed and six others severely wounded. Meanwhile, 50 houses, two cars, and 15 motorcycles were razed, the police added. However, residents said more than 140 bodies were buried during a mass funeral on the same day.

More than 11 villages were targeted by the gunmen during these coordinated attacks, which mostly affected Razat, Nekan, Ruku, Nyarr, Kufang, Kura and Gana-Ropp villages of Gashish District in Barkin Ladi area of Plateau, Terna Tyopev, the spokesman for Plateau police, said.

The local Vanguard Newspaper on Wednesday reported that Ruku Village recorded more deaths in the attack, with at least 47 victims.

President of Nigeria's Senate Bukola Saraki on Wednesday arrived in the city of Jos to commiserate with Governor Simon Lalong and families of the victims.

Saraki's visit was also to do an on-the-spot assessment of the carnage.

On Tuesday, Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari was also in the city to mourn the victims. Buhari's condolence visit was preceded by that of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who led a federal government delegation to Plateau following the attacks.

Plateau State is located in Nigeria's middle belt where the Muslim-dominated north and the Christian-majority south meet.

There had been a long time strife in the central state between indigenous groups, mostly Christian or animist, and migrants and settlers from the Hausa-speaking Muslim over the control of fertile farmlands.

Earlier in the week, one regional head of a local cattle breeders group had opined that those who carried out the attacks in Plateau might be on a revenge mission.

Danladi Ciroma, the head of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) in the north-central region, said there had been recent reports of cow rustling and destruction of farms between local farmers and herdsmen.

"The people carrying out these criminal activities are well known to the communities but the communities are hiding them," Ciroma said in a statement.

This incident was not the first herdsmen-farmers conflict in the most populous African country, whose estimated nearly 200 million people are divided into at least 200 distinct ethnic groups and about evenly split between Muslims and Christians.

On March 7, 2010, members of local Muslim and Christian communities fought each other in revenge for previous killings.

In November 2008, clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs triggered by a disputed local government election killed hundreds of people in Jos and rendered thousands of people homeless.

According to media reports, hundreds of people died in clashes in the town of Yelwa in Plateau State in 2004, while in September 2001, ethnic and religious rioting in Jos had killed at least 915 people, according to official statistics.

On the other hand, Plateau has witnessed some bomb blasts, too, apart from the constant rifts between local farmers and herdsmen, with many, especially women and children, losing their lives.

The herders, pressured with the effects of climate change and others, are forced southward into the farming communities in search of better resources of grazing.

The threats posed by the fighting between herders and farmers as provided by some accounts have been more serious than those from Nigeria's Boko Haram extremist insurgency.

The conflict in the region has weighed upon the government and other political forces as general elections approach next year.

Xinhua

Bitcoin used in Nigeria to hedge against national currency

The scrappy citizens of Lagos, Nigeria are traders and can-do survivors almost by nature. Their government, however, has mismanaged the nation’s money to such a degree that it’s prone to wild devaluation swings. And while an argument could be made bitcoin too is volatile, it actually isn’t comparatively. With access to peer-to-peer exchanges such as Localbitcoins, Nigerians are revolutionizing even their traditional outdoor marketplaces, providing a financial oasis in rather dark times.

“I can use Bitcoin for anything now […],” Soji, a Lagos web designer told Jeremy Kirshbaum and Pelumi Oguntemehin. “It means I can invest and also pay anybody currently, except old people, I will send them bitcoin. But some people think it is a scam to deal in Bitcoin and they also fear being hacked, as many people do not know how to protect themselves online.” Bitcoin is a handy way for Soji to gain overseas hosting services from vendors who simply won’t accept his country’s native fiat currency, Naira.

Bitcoin gets considerable flack in professional financial circles for its legendary volatility. Wild price swings can for sure occur, and have. However it is no match for Nigeria’s Naira. As Longhash explains, “Silas Okwoche is a self-taught engineer […]. He was the co-founder of a cell phone company called Nerve Mobile, which used Android smart phones from Shenzhen, China. Silas found a Chinese partner via the e-commerce platform Alibaba. Nerve Mobile’s venture was profitable for a time, but ended for a reason that had nothing to do with Silas’s product. The Nigerian Naira fell against the Chinese yuan by over 15%, and the hardware became too expensive. Silas’s story is not exceptional: Nigerian business people struggle with currency volatility every day,” the reporters insist.

Nigeria rests on the African continent at its Western curve, hugging the Gulf of Guinea, a click North of the Equator. It’s bordered by four countries to its immediate East, as a kind of horseshoe with only the South Atlantic opening West. Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria, while also boasting being the highest concentrated city in Africa. It is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, according to many estimates. It routinely ranks as the highest in African GDP, acting as a financial center and bustling port. A rather wonderful examination of Lagos can be found in Robert Neuwirth’s presentation, “The power of the informal economy,” though admittedly a bit dated.

Present day sees the broader country as lagging behind even India in extreme poverty, as CNN reports, “Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, with an estimated 87 million Nigerians, or around half of the country’s population, thought to be living on less than $1.90 a day […] In Nigeria, as with other countries on the continent, that figure is projected to rise. ‘By the end of 2018 in Africa as a whole, there will probably be about 3.2 million more people living in extreme poverty than there are today,’” according to researchers. All this, and with being the largest oil producer in Africa.

Crypto as an Oasis in Extreme Poverty, Sectarian Violence

As of this writing, central Nigeria has descended into sectarian violence. Reports are sketchy, but most outlets reveal scores of people have been killed as ethnic and religious tensions rise. Fifty houses have been destroyed, if local police are to be believed. And these tensions have been brewing at least since 2013 between herdsmen and farmers.

Lagos, then, becomes a beacon of hope in a sea of economic and sectarian devastation. The settling of bitcoin in terms of price, the sideways action of recent weeks, has ironically allowed more businesspeople of Lagos to onramp into crypto. It’s also tamped down scams. “Currently, most Ponzi scheme traders are out of the market as they were only there for profit only, now that Bitcoin is stable and the profit margin is small, we will witness a gradual growth and diverse application of blockchain tech solutions,” Toyosi, investor and crypto trader, told Longhash.

Jeremy Kirshbaum and Pelumi Oguntemehin note “it is hard for a cryptocurrency to act as both a speculative asset and a currency. Countries like Nigeria that suffer from high volatility or institutional uncertainty actually need Bitcoin to act as a medium of exchange.” Traders such as Toyosi turn to remittance tokens such as Sure Remit, hoping to reduce overall costs. “Sure Remit,” they explain, “uses a cryptographic token as an alternative for sending money home from abroad. When people are using cryptocurrency for normal transactions and the value is more stable, Sure Remit can provide a more useful service.”

The key is contending with its fiat currency, Naira. Its flash devaluations add “another layer of uncertainty to businesses that purchase goods or components from abroad. That’s why Nigeria presents the perfect use case for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin,” Longhash stresses. Another tech businessman, Temo, “works on hardware ventures and he buys his components from China. When he does this, the most convenient option is to purchase Bitcoins on Localbitcoins.com or another peer-to-peer marketplace using Naira, and then sell them for Chinese yuan. It is much faster than using normal channels, and costs a fraction of the price. If he uses a normal bank transfer, he will be charged huge fees by both the sending bank in Nigeria and the receiving bank in China. Also, it can take up to a week for the wire transfer to move the money.”

Bitcoin.com