Landmines planted by Boko Haram jihadists have killed 11 security personnel, including four soldiers in northeast Nigeria, security sources said Tuesday.
Seven hunters recruited to help the military fight the Islamist insurgents were killed on Tuesday when their vehicle hit a landmine in the village of Kayamla, outside Borno State's capital Maiduguri.
"Seven hunters died in the explosion and nine others are badly injured," Babakura Kolo, the head of a local anti-jihadist militia, told AFP.
"Their vehicle hit a landmine as they were pursuing Boko Haram insurgents," he added.
Another local militiaman confirmed the incident.
Four Nigerian soldiers were killed on Monday when their vehicle hit a landmine planted by Boko Haram fighters in Logomani village near the border with Cameroon, two security sources told AFP.
There has been a sharp increase in attacks in northeast Nigeria since the start of the month.
Last week 40 loggers were kidnapped and three killed near the Cameroonian border.
On Christmas Eve, Boko Haram killed 11 people, burnt a church and seized a priest in a village near Chibok, where it notoriously kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls six years ago.
Boko Haram and a splinter group known as ISWAP have killed 36,000 people in the northeast and forced roughly two million to flee since 2009, according to the United Nations.
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Boko Haram Landmines Kill 11 Nigerian Security Personnel
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
More work needed to identify risk from Nigeria variant, says researcher
A researcher who identified a novel coronavirus variant in Nigeria has cautioned against automatic assumptions that it poses similar risks to strains that have emerged elsewhere.
The new strain was uncovered last week by scientists at the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) in southeastern Nigeria.
ACEGID director Christian Happi said the variant was found in two out of 200 samples of virus collected from patients between August 3 and October 9.
The two samples were taken from the same state in Nigeria at different times.
They show a variant "different to the one that has been circulating in Nigeria, different from the one in South Africa and different from the one in the U.K.," he said in an interview with AFP.
Britain tightened restrictions after finding a new strain there that it said was more contagious than initial forms of the virus.
South Africa says a new strain detected there could explain the rapid spread of a second wave that has especially affected younger people.
Happi stressed that scientists were racing to unlock knowledge about the Nigeria strain and urged people not to "extrapolate."
"We have no idea, no evidence to say that this variant is linked to the spike we are seeing in Nigeria or not," said Happi, explaining that samples from the latest cases were being analysed for an answer.
Nigeria has recorded more than 82,000 cases of COVID-19, of which 1,246 were fatal.
Compared to the country's population of some 200 million people, this number is tiny.
However, the tally of cases has been rising by several hundred a day since the start of December. There has been a major increase in Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital, prompting the authorities there to reinstate a curfew and gatherings of more than 50 people.
But the number of deaths in Nigeria has not experienced a proportionate surge.
VIRUS MUTATION
Happi, a Cameroon-raised, Harvard-trained professor of molecular biology, works in a state-of-the-art lab in Ede, southeastern Nigeria.
It is one of only 12 in Africa designed to sequence viral genetic code and track mutations -- telltale changes that can be used to build a family tree of the microbe.
From this, the scientists at Ede believe the variant evolved "within Nigeria, I don’t think it was imported from anywhere," said Happi.
"When changes occur, what matters most, what we’re focusing on, is the spike protein," he said, referring to the prong-like protein by which coronavirus latches onto a cell and infects it.
Happi said there was a "tendency to extrapolate" after a discovery of this kind.
But he cautioned strongly against automatically assuming that what happened in one population setting would also happen elsewhere.
AFRICAN DIFFERENCE?
"A lot of the models drawn at the onset of the pandemic, all got it wrong," he said.
"They were saying by now that a third of the African population would be dead. So people need to think," he said.
"It is very wrong to assume models based on knowledge that are not accurate or on assumptions that are dependent on data obtained from Europe or the U.S. and transpose it to a continent like Africa -- we are genetically different, we are immunologically different."
All of Africa has recorded 2.4 million cases, according to an AFP tally -- just 3.6 per cent of the global tally, although testing is also far less widespread. The continent's death toll of 57,000 is less than a fifth of that of the United States.
John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the African Union's health agency, also urged patience as scientists worked to understand the Nigerian variant.
"Give us some time," he said in a videoconference from Addis Ababa. "It's still very early."
Nkengasong appealed to Africans not to let down their guard, warning of the danger of a second wave of infection.
By Louise Dewast
Monday, December 28, 2020
Nigeria is Bitcoin Leader in Africa, Says Paxful
Recent data from Paxful has revealed that Nigeria leads Africa in peer-to-peer trading in bitcoin, posting monthly volumes of over $66 million in 2020.
According to a report, the country is closely followed by Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa respectively.
With over 620,000 active Nigerian users on its platform, Paxful in the report disclosed that Nigerians traded around $15 million worth of Bitcoin in April alone, making Nigeria the leader in the African region.
“Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa are our main markets in Africa. There’s no question that emerging markets are the future of the crypto economy.
“That’s been clear to us for some time, as we see on a daily basis how tech-savvy Africans are using Bitcoin to invest, trade, send money abroad and accumulate wealth.
“Bitcoin helps improve lives and gives opportunities for personal and entrepreneurial development. Paxful is all about bringing financial inclusion to the emerging world and we’re ecstatic to help so many people with limited access to the traditional financial services,” Paxful CEO and co-founder Ray Youssef said.
It noted that Nigeria has continued to witness a huge rise in the adoption of digital money as a means to store value, preserve wealth, trade, and settle day-to-day payments.
“Another great use case for crypto, popular with the local traders and businesses in Nigeria, is helping them hedge against weak naira partially caused by the shortage of US Dollars in the country,” it added.
Since launching five years ago, global transactions on the Paxful platform have grown by over 25 per cent from October 2019 to October 2020.
A large proportion of the transactions is attributed to the African market, with Nigeria leading the pack.
“Committed to providing users with a cost-efficient, accessible trading system on its platform, Paxful is strengthening Nigeria’s crypto market with varied payment methods that meet the needs of users.
“The company currently has over 300 payment methods all geared to meet users’ needs and includes a variety of local payment options, including BuyCoins, Bitsika, and Carbon.
“Paxful is a people-powered marketplace for money transfers with anyone, anywhere, at any time. Their mission is to empower the forgotten four billion unbanked and underbanked around the world to have control of their money using peer-to-peer transactions.
“The company has over 4.5 million users globally who you can instantly buy and sell Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) using over 300 different payment methods,” it added.
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Gender conversion 'therapy' made me suicidal. I fear for other young Nigerians
When I was nine, my parents took me to a traditional healer. He used a razor to make three incisions on the insteps of my feet, my wrists, my elbows, my forehead and on the back of my neck. As blood started to flow, the healer rubbed a concoction of herbs into the incisions and gave me a potion to drink. He took alligator pepper and rubbed it on various parts of my body. There was a rooster, into which he cast the “demon” inside me. The rooster was slaughtered and thrown into the river, supposedly taking my sexuality with it.
In boarding school, I met a boy who I would say was my first love. We talked about everything and liked to take long walks. But he struggled. I watched him struggle to accept his sexuality. He felt there was something wrong with him but I didn’t know how to help him. For me it was different. It wasn’t just about sexuality; it was also about gender. I was born male but I have never felt like a man.
When I was 22, in university, I met a transgender woman. She was a lot more open, more cosmopolitan, more upfront about what she wanted. I’d never met anyone like her. We had a sisterhood –– fun, graceful, pure. It was as if the scales fell from my eyes.
My family was not happy about our friendship. They said I was bringing shame to the family. They took me to a Catholic priest to cast away the stubborn spirit that made me different. The priest told me that God had intended a great path for me, but some negative force had diverted me from it. He made me believe I could change. For a year, I fasted, I went to mass and took communion. I recited all the prayers as though my life depended on it. And it felt as if it did, you see, with the way everyone treated me.
But I was all right. I always was. The main issue with conversion therapy is that victims don’t talk about it. It tends to make something that is so wrong look right. The worst part is when they are able to convince you that change can happen, that there is indeed something wrong with you, that you are a mistake of nature, an anomaly. It messes you up.
The encounter with the healer was many years ago, but the memory is still harrowing. What part of me has been lost in an effort to make me fit a heteronormative, socially acceptable form? I’m 43 now. Still gay, still a trans woman. Still looking over my shoulder fearing that someone might want to hurt me. I’m much more scared than the average person. And I’m not the only one. Exposure to gender identity conversion efforts can have severe adverse effects on mental health. There are thousands of young people in Nigeria being subjected to these dangerous practices in a bid to “cure” them.
There are no structures in Nigeria to deal with these psychological scars. That’s why we need our community. We need to have conversations about safety and security, especially with regard to familial relationships and dating. We need to openly talk about the devastating impact of conversion therapy. I have contemplated suicide several times. I attempted it once; relieved that it failed.
I’ve noticed that when people have a personal experience –– they find out their partner or friend or child is LGBTQ+ –– they become less aggressive. I think my mother always knew, even as she went through the motions of trying to convert me. At some point she realised it wasn’t something she could struggle against. My father never accepted my reality, even until he died. He didn’t know how to deal with it. People need to realise that the world is not black and white; it’s in colour.
Many people, like my friend in university, left for other countries where they thought they could live freely. But nowhere is safe. Brazil, Ecuador, Taiwan, Malta and Germany are the only countries in the world that have banned conversion therapy. Nigeria is a hostile place. The Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act makes our existences illegal. I have not been able to undergo surgery here because there’s no access to medical care to support transitioning.
I know that if I look after myself, I will be fine. I’m concerned about the younger ones. The Commonwealth Equality Network is working towards decriminalisation of homosexuality in Commonwealth countries. I look forward to freedom. It may not be in my time. But we must keep fighting. Just so future generations will not live through the same things I have lived through.
The author, from Nigeria, wished to remain anonymous to protect her safety.
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At least 40 feared abducted in northeast Nigeria
Three loggers have been found dead and at least 40 more feared abducted by Boko Haram fighters in northeastern Nigeria.
Sources and residents told AFP news agency on Saturday that the loggers were rounded up by the fighters on Thursday in Wulgo forest near the town of Gamboru where they went to collect firewood.
“A group of more than 40 loggers left Shehuri on the outskirts of Gamboru on Thursday and never returned by evening as usual,” said a group leader Umar Kachalla, who was involved in the search.
“On Friday, we mobilised men and went deep into the forest where we recovered three bodies identified to be among the loggers, without a trace of their colleagues.”
The missing loggers were presumed kidnapped by the group, who are known to maintain camps in the forest, said Kachalla, a view widely shared by other residents.
The fighters have increasingly targeted loggers and farmers in the northeast, accusing them of passing information to the military and local armed groups.
‘Shot from behind’
“We believe the men were taken by Boko Haram who have been attacking loggers in the forest,” said Shehu Mada, leader of another armed group.
“From all indication, the three dead loggers were shot when they tried to escape as they all were shot from behind.”
The area has been without telephone services for years following the destruction of masts in Boko Haram attacks, forcing residents to rely on Cameroon’s mobile phone networks.
Gamboru loggers have suffered repeated Boko Haram attacks and abductions, especially around Wulgo forest.
In November 2018, Boko Haram seized some 50 loggers on their way to collect firewood in the forest, after killing 49 loggers in two previous attacks.
Babandi Abdullahi, a resident, said military officials had warned loggers not to venture deep into the forest to avoid the attacks.
People are compelled to take that risk because nearby vegetation has been depleted by constant logging, Abdullahi said.
According to the UN, Boko Haram and a splinter group known as ISWAP have killed 36,000 people in the northeast and forced roughly two million to flee since 2009.
Earlier this month, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of more than 300 schoolboys who were taken after an attack on their school in Katsina’s Kankara village, in northwest Nigeria. All the boys have since been rescued.
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