Video - Concerns linger over Nigeria's plans to restart football

If everything goes according to plan, the new Nigerian Football League season is scheduled to start between late September and early October after the country's federation suspended and later cancelled the 2019-20 campaign. However, there are still concerns over whether the league will take off. CGTN's Deji Badmus has more.

More than 1,100 villagers killed in Nigeria this year: Amnesty

More than 1,100 people have been killed in rural areas across several states of northern Nigeria amid an alarming escalation in attacks and abductions during the first half of the year, according to Amnesty International.

"The Nigerian authorities have left rural communities at the mercy of rampaging gunmen who have killed at least 1,126 people in the north of the country since January," the London-rights group said in a new report on Monday, giving a figure until the end of June.

The killings, during attacks by "bandits" or armed cattle rustlers, and in clashes between herders and farming communities for access to land, have been recurrent for several years.

Amnesty said it had interviewed civilians in Kaduna, Katsina, Niger, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba and Zamfara states, who reported living in fear of attacks and kidnappings.

The rights watchdog said villages in the south of Kaduna state were affected the most, with at least 366 people killed in multiple attacks by armed men since January.

"Terrifying attacks on rural communities in the north of Nigeria have been going on for years," said Osai Ojigho, director of Amnesty International Nigeria.

"The ongoing failure of security forces to take sufficient steps to protect villagers from these predictable attacks is utterly shameful," he added.

'Gross incompetence'

Amnesty blamed state authorities and the federal government for failing to protect the population.

Armed groups loot and set fire to villages and frequently kidnap people for ransom, apparently with no ideological motive. Many experts have recently warned against associating the attackers with armed groups active in the region.

President Muhammadu Buhari was elected in 2015 on a campaign promise to eradicate the armed group Boko Haram, which has killed tens of thousands since it launched an armed in northeast Nigeria in 2009.

Amnesty said most villagers complained of receiving little or no help from security officials, despite informing them prior or calling for help during attacks.

"During the attack, our leaders called and informed the soldiers that the attackers are in the village, so the soldiers did not waste time and they came but when they came and saw the type of ammunitions the attackers had they left," a witness to an attack in Unguwan Magaji in southern of Kaduna was quoted as saying by Amnesty.

"The following morning so many soldiers came with their Hilux pick-up trucks to see the dead bodies."

Ojigho decried reported abuse of civilians who asked for more official help and protection.

"In their response to these attacks, the Nigerian authorities have displayed gross incompetence and a total disregard for people's lives," he said. "Arresting people who dare to ask for help is a further blow."

The escalating violence has forced many farmers and their families from their homes while thousands could not cultivate their farms during the 2020 rainy season because of fear of attacks or abduction, according to Amnesty.

It said that in Katsina state, at least 33,130 people were living in displacement camps, while others have headed to urban areas to stay with relatives.


Al Jazeera

Nigeria Economy Falls By the Most in a Decade

Nigeria’s economy contracted the most in at least a decade in the second quarter as the crash in oil prices and the global fallout from Covid-19 hit output.

Gross domestic product shrank 6.1% in the three months through June from a year earlier, compared with growth of 1.87% in the previous quarter, the Abuja-based National Bureau of Statistics said on its website on Monday. The median estimate of six economists in a Bloomberg survey was for a 4.05% drop in output. Quarter on quarter, real GDP decreased by 5.04%.

Oil production fell to 1.81 million barrels a day from 2.07 million barrels in the previous three months. That’s the lowest since the first quarter of 2017, which was the last time Africa’s largest economy contracted.

Crude contributes less than 10% to Nigeria’s GDP, but it accounts for about 90% of foreign-exchange earnings and half of government’s revenue. That means the plunge in oil prices in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which hit as the economy’s recovery from a 2016 slump was still gaining traction, have emptied coffers

Still, the drop in output was wider than just crude. The oil sector contracted by 6.6% from year earlier and the non-oil sector shrank by 6.05%, the first decline in non-oil GDP since the third quarter of 2017.

Nationwide Shutdown

“The decline was largely attributable to significantly lower levels of both domestic and international economic activity during the quarter, which resulted from nationwide shutdown efforts aimed at containing the Covid-19 pandemic,” the statistics office said.

The outlook for the economy remains fragile. The International Monetary Fund sees Nigerian GDP shrinking 5.4% this year, its biggest contraction in nearly 40 years.

“Macro headwinds -- depressed oil prices, a slow pickup in global trade, a strong dollar supported by the Fed -- along with local structural inefficiencies, will continue to batter the Nigerian economy,” Ikemesit Effiong, head of research at Lagos-based SBM Intelligence, said before the release.

What Bloomberg’s Economist Says

“We expect the economy to contract again in 3Q, but at a slower rate than 2Q. The above target oil production in April-June, though, mean steeper production cuts will be required in August and September in order to reach full OPEC compliance. At the same time, a weaker naira and ongoing foreign-exchange restrictions will continue to weigh on growth in the non-oil sector.”

Bloomberg

Getting a National ID card takes up to 4 years in Nigeria: going digital will not solve the problem

In Nigeria, attempts at creating a National ID card dates back to 1986. After several decades and millions of dollars, the government is now looking to take the process digital

In Nigeria, getting any accepted means of identification can be difficult. A driver’s licence costs up to ₦10,450 ($27) while a Nigerian passport with 10-year validity is ₦70,000 ($181). While the pricing of these documents means many Nigerians cannot afford them, the process of getting them is still slow.

It is not unusual for public officials to demand bribes before you can get a passport or driver’s licence in good time.

The free alternatives to a national identification card are the voters card and the national identity card.

While the voters card is issued during election season, the national identity card is supposed to be issued all year long.

Yet, in five years, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has had trouble issuing cards to millions of people who have registered. Innocent Chizaram, a Nigerian writer shared in this opinion piece that although he registered for an ID card in 2016, he is yet to receive it.

This kind of experience is why many Nigerians do not have any form of identification. In June 2020, the Director-General of the NIMC, Aliyu Aziz said only 38% of Nigerians have any form of identification.

According to Aziz: “over 100 million Nigerians have no identity (ID). These include the poorest and the most vulnerable groups, such as the marginalised – women and girls, the less-educated people, migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, people with disabilities and people living in rural and remote areas.”

Solving the Identification problem with the NIN

In 2007, the NIMC Act put the NIMC in charge of creating, managing, maintaining and operating a unified National Identity Database for Nigeria. The information the NIMC collects and stores includes biometric information, passport photographs and place of residence.

For each person who registers for the national identity card, a unique National Identity Number (NIN) is issued. This NIN is now tied to the Nigerian passport and there are plans to make it a requirement for students writing UTME examinations.

The NIMC is within its powers to do all of these. According to the NIMC Act, the registration and procurement of a National Identity Card is compulsory for all registrable persons in Nigeria. The registration is also free and has no age restrictions.

On paper, it sounds like the perfect solution to the problem. Yet, since 2007, less than 20% of Nigerians are registered on the National Identity database.

Many of the problems with the process can be traced to politics and a political process that has complicated what should be a non-issue.

A history of political problems surrounding NIMC

In 1998, Chams Limited, a Nigerian company won a $38.4 million contract to produce 52 million cards within four years. The project was off to a flying start, with Chams producing 1 million in 1999 while it waited for the Federal Government to buy some machines for the second stage of the contract.

While it waited, the government had other plans.

The Obasanjo administration handed over the contract to Sagem. In the end, Sagem was not able to produce all the cards required and the contract ended in a bribery scandal.

Chams on its part, went to court and won damages of $410,390. But the politics doesn’t end there: a back and forth between Chams and the NIMC meant that a concession agreement was not signed for years.

Yet, after it was signed, the contract would later be canceled in February 2015. Today, Chams is asking the Federal government to pay ₦44 billion ($113 million) in damages for lost revenue. Chams is also suing Mastercard for a breach of contract.

Nigeria’s national identity efforts have taken many turns and there is no immediate end in sight to the political problems plaguing the NIMC and the federal government. Now the government is hoping that digitising the process will lead to better outcomes.

Nigeria to dump plastic card in efforts to go digital

In August 2020, the government decided to move past the problems with the card process by focusing on digital cards.

According to the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Patami, the priority for the government is now digital cards.

“We are no longer talking about cards, the world has gone digital, so that card is no more. Our priority now is digital ID, it will be attached to your database wherever you are.

“So if you can memorize it by heart, wherever you go that central database domiciled with NIMC will be able to provide the number and every one of your data will be provided. Now, our focus is no longer on producing cards, that card is only for record but what is important is the digital ID, and if you notice we have started using the digital ID on the international passport. Once you have the digital ID but not the card, we are 100 percent done with you.”

Anyone unfamiliar with Nigeria would have been surprised by the announcement. In any other country, the first step would be fixing the persistent institutional and operational issues with the NIMC.

There’s only so much technology can do and like some states in Nigeria have shown, everytime you pitch politics against technology, the winner is always politics. It’s not a bold prediction to say that digitising the process will not solve a systemic problem.

NIMC’s digital process falls flat on its face in opening weekend

On August 15, there were pressers that the NIMC had begun its online process for national identification cards.

“First, you have to download the NIMC Mobile ID app, powered by its mobile services platform (MWS). Android users can visit the google play store to download and install the NIMC Mobile ID app. For iPhone users, they need to visit the app store to get the ios version of the app.”

-Technext 

Despite some initial excitement over the app, the problems began quickly, with a few people pointing out that the app was leaking private information.

Two days after, the app was pulled from the Google and ioS Playstore. The NIMC said the app was a “novel innovation” which was not yet approved for public consumption. It’s a poor excuse by the NIMC and is yet another sign that it has not solved the operational problems it faces.

It is worth asking why an app not approved for public consumption had access to the entire NIMC database housing the data of millions of people. It raises several privacy issues and litigation has now begun.

A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), Law and Rights Awareness Initiative (LRAI), has now dragged the NIMC to court. According to this blogpost:

“NIMC also failed to file a data protection compliance audit report with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) before uploading the personal data of Nigerians on “their insecure software application.”

“The suit also seeks an order of perpetual injunction against the NIMC to halt them from releasing more digital identity cards of the NIMC or any other platform prior to an external independent review of the safety and security of the NIMC’s app.”

While the court process will be interesting to keep an eye on, a system that cannot manage the process of printing cards will hardly be competent at managing the complexities that come with maintaining millions of digital identities.

By Olumuyiwa Olowogboyega

 Tech Cabal

Nigeria to bar flights from countries that block Nigerians

Nigeria will blocks flights from countries that do not allow Nigerian flights to land due to coronavirus restrictions, Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika said on Thursday.

“The principle of reciprocity will be applied,” Sirika told reporters. “If you ban us from coming to your country, the same will apply the other way.”

A spokesman for the minister said Sirika was referring to landing rights for aircraft, and not the nationals of the countries.

The director general of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority said that authorities were still drafting the list, but added that the European Union was among those barring Nigerians.

Nigeria earlier this week announced plans to resume international flights on Aug. 29. All but essential international flights were halted in late March in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.

The resumption will begin with four flights daily coming in to both Lagos and Abuja, but Sirika said that initially the number of passengers would be limited to 1,280 a day.

Nigeria has 50,488 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and has recorded 985 deaths.


Reuters