Nigeria, one of Africa's superpowers, closed all its land borders two months ago to tackle smuggling - but the unprecedented move is affecting trade across the region.
Bustling borders have come to a standstill, with goods rotting and queues of lorries waiting at checkpoints in the hope the crossings will reopen.
The closures were imposed without warning on 21 August - and Nigeria's neighbours are angry.
What prompted the move?
Mainly rice. It seems Nigeria was fed up about the flouting of its ban on the importation of rice over its land borders.
Smugglers bringing in rice from Benin appeared to be making a killing.
The biggest contraband route was between Cotonou, Benin's biggest city, and Nigeria's commercial hub Lagos, which is just a few hours' drive away.
According to the World Bank, Benin's economy is heavily reliant on the informal re-export and transit trade with Nigeria, which accounts for about 20% of its GDP, or national income.
And about 80% of imports into Benin are destined for Nigeria, the bank says.
Nigeria banned the importation of rice from Benin in 2004 and from all its neighbours in 2016, but that has not stopped the trade.
Why is rice so lucrative?
Nigeria is only allowing in foreign rice through its ports - where since 2013 it has imposed a tax of 70%.
The move is intended not only to raise revenue but also to encourage the local production of rice.
But smugglers have been taking advantage of the fact that it is cheaper to import rice to Nigeria's neighbours.
According to the Nigerian maritime site Ships and Ports, in 2014 Benin lowered its tariffs on rice imports from 35% to 7% while Cameroon erased it completely from 10%.
Neighbouring Benin then recorded an astronomical rise in imports from Thailand, the world's second-largest producer.
At its height, each of Benin's 11.5 million citizens would have had to consume at least 150kg (330lb) of rice from Thailand alone.
So it seems pretty clear that the rice was making its way into Nigeria to meet the shortfall in local production for a country of almost 200 million people.
And Nigerians' appetite for rice is almost insatiable in a country where the grain is a staple.
There was a time was when it was considered an elitist meal consumed only on Sundays. But now its affordability - plus the love for jollof rice - has made it a national dish.
Is it just about rice?
No. Benin is also a major corridor for second-hand cars to Nigeria, where there is a ban on importing cars that are more than 15 years old.
Official figures are difficult to come by, but Luxembourg-based shipping company BIM e-solutions says an average of 10,000 cars arrive at the Cotonou port from Europe monthly.
According to the Nigeria Customs Service, many are smuggled across the border.
The authorities also want to tackle smugglers going the other way. Many sell cheap subsidised Nigerian petrol in neighbouring countries.
In July, the head of Nigeria's national petroleum company, Maikanti Baru, said petrol smugglers were taking about 10 million litres (two million gallons) out of the country each day.
How has West Africa been affected?
Many goods come in through the port of Lagos and are transported by road throughout the region by hundreds of thousands of lorries.
Nigeria's immediate neighbours Benin, Niger, Chad and Cameroon - as well as Ghana and Togo have been hit by the crisis.
Ghana's Foreign Minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey said the country's traders had incurred huge losses because their goods had been detained for weeks at the Nigeria-Benin border.
She advised the Nigerian government to "find ways of isolating the issues and the countries that it has problems with, so that Ghana's exports can enter Nigeria's market without being lumped up with all these issues that have emerged".
In Benin, photographer Yanick Folly posted images of baskets of tomatoes, lined up and decaying near the border.
Benin's Agriculture Minister Gaston Dossouhoui described it as "a distressing sight" when he visited markets in the town of Grand Popo.
"It's very difficult for our producers. It's a disaster," he was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
In an effort to mollify its powerful neighbour, Niger has since imposed its own ban on the exportation of rice to Nigeria.
But it is the border communities, where traders often criss-cross for market days, that are suffering.
BBC Hausa reporter Tchima Illa Issoufou in Niger said traders in two border towns she visited were unable to do business as most were not able to cross the border.
And a long line of lorries, most heavy with goods, stands at Maradi close to the border with Nigeria.
Is the move illegal?
The border closure goes against an agreement that guarantees free movement between the 15 members of the West African regional bloc Ecowas.
However it is legal for an Ecowas member state to restrict the importation of certain food and agricultural products - and in 2004 Benin and Nigeria agreed to ban 29 foreign products from being imported into Nigeria.
Yet Nigeria's actions have many questioning its commitment to the historic AfCFTA free-trade agreement, which it signed up to in July that lays the foundation for the creation of the world's largest free trade area and is intended to boost trade between African countries.
There are those who describe Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's protectionist attitude as "Trumpian".
But Kalu Aja, a financial analyst in Lagos, says the very fact that Mr Buhari signed AfCTA is proof that he is different from his US counterpart Donald Trump.
"Buhari is not being protectionist but seeking to protect the gains made in local agriculture, in rice especially," he told the BBC.
"Keep in mind the sea borders are still open, tariffs have not gone up. Trump cut taxes, then cut regulations then imposed tariffs on China, Canada etc."
How has Nigeria been affected?
In the southern state of Rivers, some traders at the rice depot section of the Mile 1 market in Port Harcourt have packed up and gone home.
They say the dramatic closure of the borders gave them no time to stock up.
And prices have gone up too. Foreign rice now sells for 60% more, while locally produced rice has increased by almost 100%.
But there has been the up side.
Nigeria customs chief Hameed Ali recently told MPs that tax revenues had gone up as cargo destined for Benin was now arriving at Nigerian ports.
One day in September, a record 9.2bn naira ($25m, £20m) was collected, which had "never happened before", he said.
"After the closure of the border and since then, we have maintained an average of about 4.7bn naira to 5.8bn naira on a daily basis, which is far more than we used to collect."
What happens next?
No-one knows. Nigeria has not said how long it will keep the borders shut to commercial traffic.
In August, Benin's President Patrice Talon pleaded with Mr Buhari, on the sidelines of a summit in Japan, for the reopening saying: "Our people are suffering."
But Nigeria's customs boss has been quoted as saying the borders will remain closed, blaming neighbouring countries for not doing more to stamp out smuggling.
Some point to corruption at border points as the main culprit behind the smuggling, which implicates Nigerian officials as much as those of its neighbours.
However, as its crude oil exports are not being affected, Nigeria's borders might remain closed for a while.
By Nduka Orjinmo
BBC
Related story: Smuggling booms despite Nigeria border closure
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
$2 billion tax dispute case between MTN and Nigeria set for January 2020
A federal judge in Lagos has set Jan. 30 and 31 for the hearing of a $2 billion tax dispute between South Africa’s MTN Group and the Nigerian government.
The attorney general has demanded the telecoms firm pay the tax bill relating to the import of equipment and payments to foreign suppliers from 2007 to 2017, but MTN argues the claim is without merit and that the attorney general exceeded his powers in making the request.
On Tuesday, lawyers for the government submitted their case against MTN, insisting the attorney general has the power to levy the charge and requesting a court date in late January to continue the proceedings.
Government lawyers had in June asked that the case be adjourned until October to give time to prepare their case, the latest dispute between MTN and the Nigerian government.
Nigeria is the South African firm’s biggest market, with roughly 58 million users accounting for a third of its core profit.
In December, MTN agreed to make a $53 million payment to resolve a separate dispute with Nigeria’s central bank, which said the company improperly removed $8.1 billion from the country between 2007 and 2008.
MTN also this year was set to pay off another 330 billion naira ($1 billion) fine imposed for not disconnecting unregistered SIM cards.
In May, the company’s local unit, MTN Nigeria, listed in Lagos in a 2 trillion naira flotation that made it the second-largest stock on the bourse by market value.
It has said that it would sell more shares to the public and increase local ownership once the tax row is resolved.
Reuters
The attorney general has demanded the telecoms firm pay the tax bill relating to the import of equipment and payments to foreign suppliers from 2007 to 2017, but MTN argues the claim is without merit and that the attorney general exceeded his powers in making the request.
On Tuesday, lawyers for the government submitted their case against MTN, insisting the attorney general has the power to levy the charge and requesting a court date in late January to continue the proceedings.
Government lawyers had in June asked that the case be adjourned until October to give time to prepare their case, the latest dispute between MTN and the Nigerian government.
Nigeria is the South African firm’s biggest market, with roughly 58 million users accounting for a third of its core profit.
In December, MTN agreed to make a $53 million payment to resolve a separate dispute with Nigeria’s central bank, which said the company improperly removed $8.1 billion from the country between 2007 and 2008.
MTN also this year was set to pay off another 330 billion naira ($1 billion) fine imposed for not disconnecting unregistered SIM cards.
In May, the company’s local unit, MTN Nigeria, listed in Lagos in a 2 trillion naira flotation that made it the second-largest stock on the bourse by market value.
It has said that it would sell more shares to the public and increase local ownership once the tax row is resolved.
Reuters
Heavy rains causes scores of inmates to break ouf of prison in Nigeria
Nearly 100 inmates remain at large after torrential rains in central Nigeria allowed scores of protesters to escape, according to authorities.
The "perimeter fence" of the facility in Kogi state was destroyed by rains and cells flooded, forcing inmates "to break out of custody for safety", Francis Enobore, of the Nigerian Correctional Service, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"A torrential downpour on Monday 28th October, 2019, caused a surging flood that overran the centre at about 02:00 hours (GMT) pulling down a section of the perimeter fence," Enobore said, adding that "122 of them took the opportunity to escape, 105 remained on the spot".
"Twenty-five of the escapees have been recaptured, leaving 97 still at large."
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has been particularly affected by heavy rains that have continued to fall, after the end of the rainy season.
The agrarian central states of Niger, Benue, Kogi and Taraba have been affected by flooding in recent months.
The rains have destroyed crops in the country's key agricultural belt, and forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.
In the northeastern state of Adamawa, more than 40 villages have also been totally destroyed by the downpour in recent days local news reports said.
Al Jazeera
The "perimeter fence" of the facility in Kogi state was destroyed by rains and cells flooded, forcing inmates "to break out of custody for safety", Francis Enobore, of the Nigerian Correctional Service, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"A torrential downpour on Monday 28th October, 2019, caused a surging flood that overran the centre at about 02:00 hours (GMT) pulling down a section of the perimeter fence," Enobore said, adding that "122 of them took the opportunity to escape, 105 remained on the spot".
"Twenty-five of the escapees have been recaptured, leaving 97 still at large."
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has been particularly affected by heavy rains that have continued to fall, after the end of the rainy season.
The agrarian central states of Niger, Benue, Kogi and Taraba have been affected by flooding in recent months.
The rains have destroyed crops in the country's key agricultural belt, and forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.
In the northeastern state of Adamawa, more than 40 villages have also been totally destroyed by the downpour in recent days local news reports said.
Al Jazeera
Monday, October 28, 2019
Video - UN reopens office in Abuja 8 years after a bomb attack
United Nations has reopened its building in the capital Abuja, eight years after a bomb attack.The August 2011 bombing left 23 dead and several others wounded. The UN was forced to continue its operations from donated buildings to allow renovation works. Looking to the future, the 75th UN assembly is set to redouble its efforts and commitment to multilateralism.
Torture houses masquerading as koranic schools in Nigeria
The private Islamic boarding school in Daura, northern Nigeria, was not somewhere you would want a child to stay for more than a few minutes, let alone months or years.
The Koranic and Rehabilitation Centre was one of series of institutions raided over the past month where parents have been sending troublesome children and young men who may be addicted to drugs or have committed petty crimes. But the raids have revealed them to be more akin to "torture houses", officials say.
The centre in Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari's hometown, was made up of two main buildings, one clean and well-built where children were taught the Koran.
Across the road was the centre's accommodation - a run-down single-storey compound, made up of five or six dark cells with barred windows and doors around a courtyard.
The air was stuffy and nauseating. Former students told us that up to 40 people were kept in chains in each 7-sq-m (75-sq-ft) cell.
Filthy clothes and bedding littered the floor. Those who lived there were often forced to urinate and defecate with their chains on - in the same place they ate and slept.
They would be regularly taken out for beatings or to be raped by the staff.
"It was hell on earth," said Rabiu Umar, a former detainee at the centre.
Sixty-seven boys and men were freed from the facility. Police said there were 300 people on the school register, but many of them had escaped following a riot the previous weekend.
Over the past month about 600 people have been found to be living in such horrifying conditions: chained, starved and abused.
The first discovery was in late September in the Rigasa neighbourhood of Kaduna city in the north-west. Following a tip-off from a relative, the police found nearly 500 people, including children, detained in appalling conditions.
Videos showed rescued students looking dazed, their legs shackled and their bodies covered in blisters.
Some of them were pictured dangling from the ceiling. Others had their hands or feet chained to car wheel rims.
Hafsat Baba, Kaduna state's commissioner of human services and social development, told the BBC at the time the authorities planned to identify all facilities of this type and close them down.
She added that they would prosecute the owners of centres "found to be torturing children or holding people in these kind of horrific situations".
Ten days ago, for the first time women were also amongst those rescued - from another institution in Kaduna.
This is unusual, according to Ms Baba, who added that these institutions seldom admit both sexes.
As the raids continue and more details emerge, they have been met with public outrage, but these institutions were no secret.
Jaafar Jaafar, from online media platform the Daily Nigerian, says people who live there have always known.
'Spiritual healing'
"I don't think there is any person who grows up in the north who can claim that they aren't aware of these schools - we all know they abuse children there."
He adds that growing up in Kano in the 1980s and 1990s he was aware of a number of schools like these.
"People believe that these schools have the spiritual power to heal. They don't mind how much the children are dehumanised, or how they're treated, as long as their child receives a Koranic education and is rehabilitated."
However, some parents have denied knowing their children were abused.
Following the raid in Kaduna in September, Ibrahim Adamu, the father of one of the students, told Reuters news agency: "If we had known that this thing was happening in the school, we wouldn't have sent our children. We sent them to be people but they ended up being maltreated.''
According to Sanusi Buba, the Katsina police commissioner, parents are not able to speak to their children while they are at the centres. And even if they visit they do not have unsupervised access to them.
This wave of discoveries has raised awareness outside of northern Nigeria of the problem of abuse in these rehabilitation centres.
Mr Buba said the tradition of people in the north taking their troublesome children to religious rehabilitation centres "has been an age-long situation but [the behaviour] can worsen as a result of abuse".
Nevertheless he is adamant that "the law of this country does not allow someone to create a rehabilitation centre and collect money".
Drug addiction
Part of the problem may be to do with the lack of state-funded facilities in the north.
According to the UN, there were three million drug users in north-west Nigeria in 2017. Nearly half a million of them were in Katsina state, which only runs two rehabilitation centres - one for men and another for women.
With a lack of publicly-funded options, private rehabilitation centres in the form of these schools have become a final resort for parents who have run out of options.
Even those who manage to access a public facility find conditions are not much better.
Last year a BBC investigation exposed horrifying conditions in a state centre in Kano, where patients with mental health issues were chained to the ground.
Katsina Governor Aminu Bello Masari said his centres were well-equipped to provide the rehabilitation needed for drug abuse or mental disorders.
But with parents still turning to centres that say they rehabilitate people in the name of Islam, it is not clear that the government has the capacity to deal with the problem.
And with no concrete alternatives, desperate families will keep turning to religious centres for solutions.
By Mayeni Jones
BBC
Related stories: Survivor recounts torture house experience in Nigeria
Hundreds freed from torture house in Nigeria
The Koranic and Rehabilitation Centre was one of series of institutions raided over the past month where parents have been sending troublesome children and young men who may be addicted to drugs or have committed petty crimes. But the raids have revealed them to be more akin to "torture houses", officials say.
The centre in Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari's hometown, was made up of two main buildings, one clean and well-built where children were taught the Koran.
Across the road was the centre's accommodation - a run-down single-storey compound, made up of five or six dark cells with barred windows and doors around a courtyard.
The air was stuffy and nauseating. Former students told us that up to 40 people were kept in chains in each 7-sq-m (75-sq-ft) cell.
Filthy clothes and bedding littered the floor. Those who lived there were often forced to urinate and defecate with their chains on - in the same place they ate and slept.
They would be regularly taken out for beatings or to be raped by the staff.
"It was hell on earth," said Rabiu Umar, a former detainee at the centre.
Sixty-seven boys and men were freed from the facility. Police said there were 300 people on the school register, but many of them had escaped following a riot the previous weekend.
Over the past month about 600 people have been found to be living in such horrifying conditions: chained, starved and abused.
The first discovery was in late September in the Rigasa neighbourhood of Kaduna city in the north-west. Following a tip-off from a relative, the police found nearly 500 people, including children, detained in appalling conditions.
Videos showed rescued students looking dazed, their legs shackled and their bodies covered in blisters.
Some of them were pictured dangling from the ceiling. Others had their hands or feet chained to car wheel rims.
Hafsat Baba, Kaduna state's commissioner of human services and social development, told the BBC at the time the authorities planned to identify all facilities of this type and close them down.
She added that they would prosecute the owners of centres "found to be torturing children or holding people in these kind of horrific situations".
Ten days ago, for the first time women were also amongst those rescued - from another institution in Kaduna.
This is unusual, according to Ms Baba, who added that these institutions seldom admit both sexes.
As the raids continue and more details emerge, they have been met with public outrage, but these institutions were no secret.
Jaafar Jaafar, from online media platform the Daily Nigerian, says people who live there have always known.
'Spiritual healing'
"I don't think there is any person who grows up in the north who can claim that they aren't aware of these schools - we all know they abuse children there."
He adds that growing up in Kano in the 1980s and 1990s he was aware of a number of schools like these.
"People believe that these schools have the spiritual power to heal. They don't mind how much the children are dehumanised, or how they're treated, as long as their child receives a Koranic education and is rehabilitated."
However, some parents have denied knowing their children were abused.
Following the raid in Kaduna in September, Ibrahim Adamu, the father of one of the students, told Reuters news agency: "If we had known that this thing was happening in the school, we wouldn't have sent our children. We sent them to be people but they ended up being maltreated.''
According to Sanusi Buba, the Katsina police commissioner, parents are not able to speak to their children while they are at the centres. And even if they visit they do not have unsupervised access to them.
This wave of discoveries has raised awareness outside of northern Nigeria of the problem of abuse in these rehabilitation centres.
Mr Buba said the tradition of people in the north taking their troublesome children to religious rehabilitation centres "has been an age-long situation but [the behaviour] can worsen as a result of abuse".
Nevertheless he is adamant that "the law of this country does not allow someone to create a rehabilitation centre and collect money".
Drug addiction
Part of the problem may be to do with the lack of state-funded facilities in the north.
According to the UN, there were three million drug users in north-west Nigeria in 2017. Nearly half a million of them were in Katsina state, which only runs two rehabilitation centres - one for men and another for women.
With a lack of publicly-funded options, private rehabilitation centres in the form of these schools have become a final resort for parents who have run out of options.
Even those who manage to access a public facility find conditions are not much better.
Last year a BBC investigation exposed horrifying conditions in a state centre in Kano, where patients with mental health issues were chained to the ground.
Katsina Governor Aminu Bello Masari said his centres were well-equipped to provide the rehabilitation needed for drug abuse or mental disorders.
But with parents still turning to centres that say they rehabilitate people in the name of Islam, it is not clear that the government has the capacity to deal with the problem.
And with no concrete alternatives, desperate families will keep turning to religious centres for solutions.
By Mayeni Jones
BBC
Related stories: Survivor recounts torture house experience in Nigeria
Hundreds freed from torture house in Nigeria
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