Airports in Nigeria brace for coronavirus

International airports yesterday went on red alert as they intensified the screening of inbound passengers, following an outbreak of the deadly coronavirus in China.

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) advised passengers and other airport users to comply with all quarantine procedures at airports nationwide to prevent the importation of the virus.

Airports worldwide also increased health screenings and the implementation of new quarantine procedures as officials hurried to slow the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, a new SARS-like illness that first appeared in Hubei province, China.

The General Manager (Corporate Affairs) at FAAN, Henrietta Yakubu, said all the equipment and personnel used in combating the deadly Ebola virus in 2014 were still much in place at the airports and were being deployed accordingly.
She said FAAN had always had thermal scanners at its airports to monitor the temperature of passengers and capture their pictures. “When passengers walk pass the scanner, it registers their temperature. And if it’s too high, they are pulled aside for observation. FAAN, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health, has confirmed the adequacy of the facilities at the nation’s airports, to prevent the importation of the virus through the airports. Passengers are therefore advised to submit themselves for routine quarantine checks whenever they are asked to,” Yakubu said.

With the coronavirus (nCoV) reportedly infecting over ‘10,000’ persons and killing nine, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) disclosed that it had set up a multi-sectoral technical group to handle the threat. It advised Nigerians to remain calm, while travellers from Nigeria to Wuhan, China, have been asked to avoid contact with sick people, animals (alive or dead), and animal markets.

Coronaviruses are zoonotic, which implies that they are normally transmitted between animals and people. But a novel coronavirus is a new strain of the virus that has not been previously identified in humans. Some coronaviruses can be transmitted from person to person, usually after close contact with an infected patient, in a household or health care setting. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans, until now.

To reduce the risk of spreading the virus, NCDC advised members of the public to adhere to the following measures: wash your hands regularly with soap under running water; cover your mouth and nose properly with handkerchief or tissue paper when sneezing and/or coughing; you may also cough into your elbow if a handkerchief is not available; avoid close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing; avoid self-medication; and report to the nearest health facility when you experience any of the above-mentioned symptoms.

In a statement by its Director General, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, in Abuja yesterday, NCDC said the Port Health Services unit of the Federal Ministry of Health in Nigeria had been placed on alert and had heightened screening measures at the points of entry. It also said that in China, exit screening measures had been enhanced for travellers from Wuhan city at the Points of Entry (PoE) -airports and ground transport stations- since the January 14, 2020, and this includes temperature checks, combined with provision of information and masks to passengers with fever, as well as directing symptomatic passengers to health facilities for follow up.

Asked if Nigeria is ready to diagnose, treat and prevent the spread of any case of coronavirus, Ihekweazu told The Guardian: “As this is a new strain of the coronavirus, a standardised diagnostic test is still being developed. We are working closely with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to access reagents molecular diagnosis in the NCDC National Reference Laboratory. As the situation evolves, we will know more.”

According to the Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Prof. Babatunde Lawal Salako, the institute in collaboration with NCDC is capable of diagnosing and containing possible cases of coronavirus in the country.

He explained: “Last year, we sent three of our researchers to China for three months to learn the art and skills and research of pathogen identification especially viruses. So, this knowledge is with them. We also have about two of them who went for another two weeks course. Two people also went to Institute Pasteur in Senegal, a World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional lab, which is where Nigeria often sends samples to during outbreaks and they spent about two weeks. All of these are to prepare the capacity of the institute to assist public health institutions in making detection of pathogens during outbreak.”

The Guardian

Slum dwellers in Nigeria left homeless after mass eviction

Authorities in Nigeria evicted thousands of impoverished residents from a Lagos slum, leaving many homeless, residents and eyewitnesses told CNN.

Residents described scenes of panic and confusion Tuesday as hundreds of navy personnel pushed into Tarkwa Bay and neighboring island communities on the Lagos Lagoon, ordering them to leave within an hour.

Navy Cmdr. Thomas Otuji, a spokesman for the operation launched in December, said the planned demolition of buildings aims to tackle oil theft along pipelines that run through the coastal city.
Mohammed Zanna, a resident and paralegal, told CNN that the forces shot sporadically in the air as residents, who said they had no prior notice, scrambled to find their families and pack their belongings.

"Everyone was panicking and packing everything they could carry. The men were shooting in the air and shouting that people should leave," Zanna told CNN.

Many residents queued at the harbor till nightfall, trying to secure boats to transport their families from the island to the city, said Megan Chapman, co-director of the Justice & Empowerment Initiatives, a nonprofit that assists poor communities. She visited neighborhoods while the evictions were ongoing, Chapman said.

"We saw dozens of boats filled with belongings and families trying to see how they were going to leave the island. Most of them did not know," Chapman said.

A consortium of advocacy groups, including JEI and the Nigeria Slum/Informal Settlement Federation, put the number of displaced persons in the thousands.

The navy's Otuji said he did not have an exact figure of those impacted by the eviction, but residents in affected communities had been told to leave before the exercise began.
Residents were still packing their belongings out of the waterfront settlement on Wednesday, according to Zanna.

Tarkwa Bay, home to at least 4,500 people, is among dozens of communities with structures that have been marked for demolition by the navy. All are accessible only by water.
In some communities, bulldozers have already done their work.

Otuji said residents had been advised to leave in December after authorities found that the majority of homes on the islands were built along pipelines. They also discovered that some structures in the slum were being used as a disguise for crude oil theft operations, he said.

"We found at least 300 illegal spots and dug out pits where oil products were being tapped and sold illegally, even to neighboring countries," Otuji said.

"They have been there doing all sorts of illegalities. This is dangerous for people to be living in these areas with oil pipelines. What else can we do but to make sure that we salvage the situation?" he said.

Chapman said authorities should have targeted those involved, instead of evicting innocent families in the community, mostly inhabited by fishermen and artisans.

"The law does not allow for collective punishment and summary demolition as a security measure. If there are individuals involved in these activities, what the law requires is for the individuals to be arrested and prosecuted for any crime they might have committed," Chapman told CNN.

People living in waterfront communities in Lagos, a city of 21 million people, have been forcefully evicted in recent years by authorities citing safety concerns.

In 2016, more than 30,000 families were sent packing from Otodo Gbame, a fishing community, after state security agents allegedly destroyed their homes.

Many of them are still homeless despite a court ruling that the Lagos state government should resettle those affected by the demolition.

CNN

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Popular Nigerian words added to Oxford English Dictionary

My English-speaking is rooted in a Nigerian experience and not in a British or American or Australian one. I have taken ownership of English.

This is how acclaimed Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes her relationship with English, the language which she uses in her writing, and which millions of her fellow Nigerians use in their daily communication. By taking ownership of English and using it as their own medium of expression, Nigerians have made, and are continuing to make, a unique and distinctive contribution to English as a global language. We highlight their contributions in this month’s update of the Oxford English Dictionary, as a number of Nigerian English words make it into the dictionary for the first time.

The majority of these new additions are either borrowings from Nigerian languages or unique Nigerian coinages that have only begun to be used in English in the second half of the twentieth century, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.

One particularly interesting set of such loanwords and coinages has to do with Nigerian street food. The word buka, borrowed from Hausa and Yoruba and first attested in 1972, refers to a roadside restaurant or street stall that sells local fare at low prices. Another term for such eating places first evidenced in 1980 is bukateria, which adds to buka the –teria ending from the word cafeteria. An even more creative synonym is mama put, from 1979, which comes from the way that customers usually order food in a buka: they say ‘Mama, put…’ to the woman running the stall, and indicate the dish they want. The word later became a generic name for the female food vendors themselves—Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka notably includes a Mama Put character in one of his works.

The informal transport systems that emerged in Nigeria’s huge, densely populated cities have also necessitated lexical invention. Danfo, a borrowing from Yoruba whose earliest use in written English is dated 1973, denotes those yellow minibuses whizzing paying passengers through the busy streets of Lagos, the country’s largest city. Okada, on the other hand, is first attested twenty years later, and is the term for a motorcycle that passengers can use as a taxi service. It is a reference to Okada Air, an airline that operated in Nigeria from 1983 to 1997, and its reputation as a fast yet potentially dangerous form of transport, just like the motorcycle taxi.

A few of the Nigerian words in this update were created by shortening existing English words. One example is the adjective guber (earliest quotation dated 1989), which is short for ‘gubernatorial’—so Nigerians, for instance, would call a person running for governor a ‘guber candidate’. Another frequently used clipping with a longer history in English is agric. It was originally used in American English around 1812 as a graphic abbreviation for the adjective agricultural, but is now used chiefly in this sense in West Africa. In the early 1990s, agric began to be used in Nigeria to designate improved or genetically modified varieties of crops or breeds of livestock, especially a type of commercially reared chicken that is frequently contrasted with ‘native’ (i.e. traditionally reared) chicken. Two decades later, Nigerian students also started to use the word as a noun meaning agricultural science as an academic subject or course.

Also originating in the 19th century is K-leg, first attested in 1842 in British English, but now used mostly in Nigerian English. It is another term for the condition of knock knees, as well as a depreciative name for a person affected with this condition, whose inward-turning knees often resemble the shape of the letter K. It is of such widespread use in Nigeria that by the early 1980s, it had acquired a figurative meaning—a K-leg can now also be any sort of problem, flaw, setback, or obstacle.

The term ember months was first used in an American publication in 1898 to signify the final four months of the calendar year. Almost a century later, this expression was taken up again in Nigeria, where the months from September to December are usually considered together as a period of heightened or intense activity.

The oldest of our new additions that are originally from Nigeria is next tomorrow, which is the Nigerian way of saying ‘the day after tomorrow’. It was first used in written English as a noun in 1953, and as an adverb in 1964. The youngest of the words in this batch is Kannywood, first used in 2002, which is the name for the Hausa-language film industry based in the city of Kano. It is a play on Hollywood, following the model of Nollywood, the more general term for the Nigerian film industry that was added to the OED in 2018.

Nigerian Pidgin is another rich source of new words for Nigerian English. Sef, first evidenced in Nigerian author Ben Okri’s novel Flowers and Shadows, published in 1980, is an adverb borrowed from Pidgin, which itself could have been an adverbial use of either the English adjective safe or the pronoun self. It is an emphatic marker added to the end of statements or rhetorical questions, often to express irritation or impatience, as in this quotation from Adichie’s 2013 novel Americanah:

‘He could have given you reduced rent in one of his properties, even a free flat sef.’

Also coming from pidgin contexts is the verb chop, which is a common colloquial word in Ghana and Nigeria meaning ‘to eat’. However, beginning in the 1970s, chop also developed the sense of acquiring money quickly and easily, and often dishonestly. The negative sense of misappropriating, extorting, or embezzling funds is also in the earlier reduplicative noun chop-chop (earliest quotation dated 1966), which refers to bribery and corruption in public life. This likening of stealing money to actually devouring it is also reflected in the even earlier synonymous phrase to eat money (1960), as in the following quotation from Nigeria’s News Chronicle in 2016:

‘Our roads were not done. By the end of this year, you will know who ate the money of these roads.’

A few other expressions in this update would require some explanation for non-Nigerians: a barbing salon (earliest quotation dated 1979) is a barber’s shop; a gist (1990) is a rumour, and to gist (1992) is to gossip; when a woman is said to have put to bed (1973), it means that she has given birth; something described as qualitative (1976) is excellent or of high quality.

By focusing on contemporary language in this update, and adding words and phrases that form part of the everyday vocabulary of today’s Nigerians, we hope to give a flavour of English-speaking which, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie put it, is rooted in a Nigerian experience.

Here you can find a list of the new Nigerian words and senses added to the OED in this update:

agric, adj. & n.
barbing salon, n.
buka, n.
bukateria, n.
chop, v./6
chop-chop, n./2
danfo, n.
to eat money, in eat, v.
ember months, n.
flag-off, n.
to flag off in flag, v.
gist, n./3
gist, v./2
guber, adj.
Kannywood, n.
K-leg, n.
mama put, n.
next tomorrow, n. & adv.
non-indigene, adj. & n.
okada, n.
to put to bed, in put, v.
qualitative, adj.
to rub minds (together) in rub, v./1
sef, adv.
send-forth, n.
severally, adv.
tokunbo, adj.
zone, v.
zoning, n.

Vanguard

Gold miners face dangerous life in Nigeria's 'bandit' country

From dawn, before the sun starts to sear the earth, Biltamnu Sani is already hard at work, pounding away at the dusty soil in his perilous quest for gold.

The mineral-rich earth of Zamfara State, northwest Nigeria, has provided generations of families with the means to make ends meet.

Never easy, it is a work that today is fraught with danger, from the armed groups that rove the region and from the toxic lead that lurks in its soil.

"I've been doing this since I was 12 years old," Sani, now 26, told AFP.

"It's very challenging work, but this is our livelihood."

The mines lie within the reach of heavily-armed groups -- "bandits" in the lexicon of the local authorities -- that have been terrorising this remote region.

Gangs of mainly Fulani herders started cattle rustling and small-scale criminality decades back.

Lately, they have exploited a security vacuum to become essentially an insurgent army of thousands.

As the struggle with farmers over land expanded, other communities took up arms in a spiral of bloodshed that has seen an alarming proliferation of weapons.

The violence claimed more than a thousand lives in 2019, the regional government estimates.

In the scramble for resources, the fighters have increasingly exerted control over artisanal mining -- one of the few reliable sources of income in this impoverished region.

Miners have been forced to share profits and carry out the bidding of the armed groups in order to continue their trade.

Many locals suspect the gunmen are paid by outside interests to secure mineral-rich areas for private gain.

"The challenges in past years have been tough," Sani says.

- 'Just shoot you' -

Nigeria's central government in April announced a ban on mining in the region in a bid to curb the armed groups.

But while some companies closed down operations, local miners have carried on working by themselves.

The local authorities brokered a controversial peace deal around five months back between bandits and vigilantes that has seen some of the gangs disarm.

But the situation at the mines remains perilous.

"You enter some places and people will just shoot you," Ayuba Muhammed, the secretary of a large mining union in the state, told AFP.

The remoteness of the mines and the absence of police outside of Zamfara's capital Gusau have left all trade here brutally exposed to insecurity.

"Some of the mines you see, they have an arrangement with the bandits so that they can stay. In some other areas they cannot even try to go there," Muhammed said.

As he spoke an elderly man in his office poured out small sacks of lilac stones onto a weighing scale.

Extracting minerals from tons of solid rock typically yields only small amounts of cash, but it is still vital income for people in a part of Nigeria where 70 percent of the population are estimated to live in extreme poverty.

The mining industry in the country remains largely artisanal, beset by corruption and poorly regulated.

Successive governments have pledged -- and failed -- to bolster this lucrative sector as an alternative to the oil resources that account for the biggest chunk of Nigeria's income.

- Lead poisoning -

Compounding the insecurity are serious health risks from lead.

The highly poisonous element occurs naturally and in high abundance in Zamfara's gold-rich areas, escaping into the air when the dusty rock is pounded to extract the precious specks.

"People are doing these processes in their homes. Then their children play around in the same areas -- it is extremely dangerous," Simba Tirima, a doctor working at a clinic run by aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the town of Anka, told AFP.

In the past decade more than 500 children have died from lead poisoning, and many others have suffered long-term ill-health.

Aliyu Usman, four, began to have violent seizures two years ago as his parents often refined gold in their compound.

"He's deaf, you can see he can look around but his gaze is blank," Tirima said, examining the boy at his rudimentary clinic.

"His mother brought him in two years ago and said 'he's not the same anymore, it's like he's not there'."

In 2010, an outbreak of lead poisoning in Zamfara prompted scientists from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to survey 122 villages.

They looked in detail at 56 of these villages, three-quarters of whom were involved in the gold trade.

Of nearly 400 children who provided blood samples, the average amount of lead in the blood was 8.5 microgrammes per litre -- previous research found that lead can damage health at levels as low as five microgrammes per litre.

The surge of deaths in 2010 led to increased awareness and improvements in the way miners worked.

But cases keep coming despite a reduction in the overall numbers.

"There are still pockets of lead exposure," Tirima said. "More needs to be done to bring mining practices into better organised and regulated spaces."

AFP

Chinese app is facing claims of predatory consumer lending in Nigeria

OKash and OPesa, the Africa-focused consumer lending apps of Opera, the Chinese-owned internet browsing giant, appear to be flouting Google’s Play Store policies. In a report this week, equity research house Hindenburg Research suggested that Opera’s Android-based lending apps in Nigeria, Kenya and India typically require loan repayments within a 30 day period—less than Google’s stipulation of 60 days with steep interest rate payments.

Hindenburg Research also highlighted discrepancies in information contained in the apps’ description online and their actual practices. While they require payments in a shorter time-span, the apps list repayment periods that fall within Google’s stipulation online, seemingly to feign compliance. The report also claims the apps charge interest rates much higher than advertised.


The report appears to have already had one effect as OPesa, one of Opera’s lending apps, is no longer listed on Google’s app store. A similar delisting of its other apps will likely hobble distribution for Opera as Google’s Android operating system dominates market share across several African countries.

As several digital lending apps operate on the continent by offering collateral-free loans, they have quickly gained traction among middle-class and lower income users who typically face access to credit barriers. Unlike traditional banks which require a paperwork-intensive process and collateral, digital lending apps dispense quick loans, often within minutes, and determine creditworthiness by scouring smartphone data including SMS, call logs, bank balance messages and bill payment receipts.

Amid growing evidence that access to quick, digital loans is leading to a spike in personal debt among African users, there have been increased attempts to regulate how digital lending apps operate to curb predatory short-term lending practices. In a key move last August, Google announced that lending apps that require loan repayment in two months or less will be barred from its apps store—the major distribution point for most apps.

For its part, Opera claimed Hindenburg Research’s report contains “numerous errors, unsubstantiated statements, and misleading conclusions and interpretations.” However, its brief statement does not share any information to clarify the conflict between how its apps operate and how they are advertised to users. Opera had not responded to Quartz’s follow-up email queries ahead of publication.


Opera has made a deep play for African markets over the past year amid ambitions to build a super-app after originally starting out a simple mobile phone internet browser on Android phones. In Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country, Opera’s OPay app first launched on the basis of providing payments and financial services to users but has since kicked off operations across various verticals including motorcycle and car hailing as well as food delivery. It also has the Opera news service.

The African market watchers have been paying rapt attention to Opera since last year when it raised an unprecedented $170 million over two funding rounds from a raft of Chinese investors to boost its plans to expand in various verticals and out to other African countries.

By Yomi Kazeem 

Quartz