NAIJAFEED

Friday, April 9, 2021

Nigeria generating huge revenue from coconut oil export

The export of coconut oil and its derivatives have continued to generate huge revenue for Nigeria, as the country recorded at least $150 million in 2020 alone, an official said on Thursday.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Sabo Nanono said in a statement seen by Xinhua that coconut has so far proved to be a major non-oil export foreign exchange earner for Nigeria.

Coconut, Nanono said, currently accounts for 10 percent of Nigeria’s agricultural exports, and by the end of this year, it is expected to generate more than 250 million dollars.

It is also the means of livelihood for more than 500,000 households, as well as women and youths, in the country, he said.

The West African country has now increased the volume of production of coconut to an average of 250,000 metric tons per annum, the minister explained.

“In 2016, Nigeria produced 283,774 metric tons and the demands for the crop have been on the increase, growing upwards to more than 500 percent in the last decade,” he added.

Coconut is grown in 22 out of Nigeria’s 36 states, with Lagos being the largest producer, according to official data.

Xinhua

Kidnappings Plague Chinese Worksites in Nigeria

Two Chinese citizens working at a gold mine in southwestern Nigeria were kidnapped on April 5, China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Thursday. “Upon learning of it, the Chinese consulate general in Lagos immediately activated emergency response mechanism, urging the Nigerian police to rescue the hostages and ensure their safety, and guiding the enterprise involved to deal with the situation properly,” spokesperson Zhao Lijian told the media in a regular press briefing on April 8.

The incident took place in Nigeria’s Osun state. According to China’s Global Times, a local police spokesperson “said in a statement that around 4 pm that day, a group of criminals attacked the local gold mine and abducted two Chinese citizens. The two men, Zhao Jian, 33, and Wen, 50, were employees at the gold mine.” Two security guards were shot and injured during the attack.

The kidnapping followed a previous attack and abduction case of Chinese nationals in Osun state. Two other Chinese workers were kidnapped on March 31, and rescued by police on April 6 – the day after the attack on the gold mine.

In February, three Chinese workers were abducted from a gold mine in Osun state. It’s not immediately clear if this was the same mine attacked on April 5. In the February incident, the Chinese workers’ police escort was killed in the attack. The three Chinese workers were rescued by police on February 9, according to AFP, but no arrests were made, raising questions over whether a ransom had been paid to secure their release.

“Kidnapping for ransom, which used to be common in Nigeria’s oil-producing south, has lately spread to the other parts of the country,” AFP reported back in February. “The victims are usually released after a ransom is paid, although police rarely confirm if money changed hands.”

“We are very often the ‘sweet pastry’ for local violent militants. I once heard a friend relay the story of a Chinese worker who experienced a kidnapping firsthand; he had literally gone to hell on earth,” Global Times quoted a Chinese engineer who works in Nigeria as saying. The engineer said most Chinese companies have hired security guards to protect their workers – presumably the two guard injured in this week’s attack were supposed to provide protection.

According to the China Global Investment Tracker, run by the American Enterprise Institute, Chinese companies had cumulatively invested over $40 billion in Nigeria as of 2020, with the vast majority of that going to either transportation infrastructure ($17.1 billion) or energy projects ($16.5 billion, mostly in the oil sector specifically). That makes oil-rich Nigeria the top destination for Chinese investment in sub-Saharan Africa.

Data from the China-Africa Research Initiative Johns Hopkins University SAIS put the number of Chinese workers in Nigeria at 12,199 as of the end of 2019.ADVERTISEMENT

The surge in kidnappings comes at an awkward time, as China and Nigeria mark the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic relationship. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited the country in January, where he told his Nigerian counterpart that “China has always prioritized its cooperation with Nigeria and taken Nigeria as a major strategic partner.”

“Wang Yi added, this year is vital for China-Nigeria relations. It is the right time for the two countries to set up an intergovernmental committee and make overall plans for bilateral cooperation,” according to a read-out from the Chinese Embassy in Nigeria.

Zhao, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, insisted that China was not considering drawing down its presence in Nigeria due to the recent kidnappings. “We have a number of projects and Chinese funded enterprises in Nigeria, even though the local security situation has never been ideal,” he told reporters. “We will not resort to evacuation because of some occasional individual cases.”

By Shannon Tiezzi

The Diplomat

American rescued in daring SEAL Team 6 raid in Nigeria

Nigeria pays $11 million as ransom to kidnappers in four years

Two police officers arrested for the kidnapping of Okonjo-Iweala's Mother

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Nigeria army finds five kidnapped students

Nigerian soldiers have found five of the dozens of students kidnapped last month from their college in the country’s northwest, state officials said on Monday.

Dozens of gunmen last month seized 39 students from their hostels in the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in Afaka in Kaduna state, after a gunfight with soldiers.

It was the latest mass kidnapping in the country’s northwest, where criminal gangs have been increasingly abducting students for ransom, raiding villages, pillaging and stealing cattle.

“The Nigerian military has informed the Kaduna State Government that five of the many kidnapped students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, Kaduna, were recovered this afternoon,” Samuel Aruwan, Kaduna state internal security commissioner, said in a statement.

Aruwan did not give details about how they were found but said they were undergoing medical checks at a military base.

The kidnap gang has previously released videos showing the distraught students being whipped and calling on the government to secure their release.

On Sunday, Aruwan had warned Kaduna authorities will prosecute anyone who negotiates with the kidnappers of the missing students as parents called for their rescue.

Aruwan ruled out negotiations and ransom payments to the kidnappers, warning that “any person who claims to do so in any capacity if found, will be prosecuted accordingly.”

He said the announcement was prompted by media reports that the state government had appointed “representatives to interface with bandits on its behalf”.

“The Kaduna State Government hereby clarifies firmly that such intermediaries have never been appointed.”

On Monday, parents of the kidnapped students, who have formed a support group, issued a statement condemning the state government’s “insensitivity” over the negotiations threat.

“For us, the statement is unfortunate and another demonstration of callousness on the part of the government,” Sam Kambai, the group’s head, said in the statement.

“We can never abandon our children and we will do whatever we can to see that we get them back.”

Kambai said the father of one of the kidnapped students died of shock after learning that his daughter was abducted. Local media have named the individual as Ibrahim Shamaki.

“We do not want to lose more parents… we will not resign to fate by doing nothing,” Kambai said.

On March 22 parents and colleagues of the kidnapped students held a protest outside the school where they blocked a highway and disrupted traffic for hours.

Heavily armed gangs have recently turned their focus to schools, where they kidnap students or schoolchildren for ransom — the Afaka mass abduction was at least the fourth such attack since December.

AFP

American rescued in daring SEAL Team 6 raid in Nigeria

Nigeria pays $11 million as ransom to kidnappers in four years

Two police officers arrested for the kidnapping of Okonjo-Iweala's Mother

At least 50 killed in suspected cholera outbreak in Nigeria

At least 50 people have been killed in a suspected cholera outbreak this year in Nigeria, local health authorities confirmed Tuesday.

Some eight states across the country had reported the suspected cholera outbreak, said the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), which is currently monitoring the situation and coordinating the national response.

“As of March 28, a total of 1,746 suspected cases including 50 deaths with a case fatality rate that is 2.9 percent have been reported,” Chikwe Ihekweazu, head of the NCDC, told reporters in Abuja.

So far, states including Nasarawa, Sokoto, Kogi, Bayelsa, Gombe, Zamfara, Delta and Benue have reported the suspected cholera cases, Ihekweazu said.

Cholera is a highly virulent disease characterized in its most severe form by a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhea that can lead to death.

The outbreak of cholera in Nigeria has remained persistent, occurring annually mostly during the rainy season and more often in areas with poor sanitation, overcrowding, lack of clean food and water, and areas where open defecation is common practice.

On November 20, 2019, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari signed an executive order committed to ending open defecation throughout the country by 2025 in consonance with the commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Whilst signing the document, Buhari also declared a state of emergency on Nigeria’s water supply, sanitation and hygiene sector, saying the action will reduce the high prevalence of water-borne diseases which caused preventable deaths in different parts of the country.

In 2018 alone, the NCDC confirmed more than 16,000 cholera-related cases across the country.

Xinhua

More Than 1,800 Prisoners Are Broken Out of Jail in Nigeria

The Nigerian authorities say they are searching for about 1,800 inmates who escaped from a prison aided by heavily armed gunmen in the southeastern corner of the country, where anti-government separatists have long been active.

The authorities laid blame for the jailbreak on a rebel group that promotes the decades-old cause of secession for Nigeria’s southeastern corner, popularly known as Biafra.

“All is not well in the southeast,” said Emeka Umeagbalasi, a criminologist at the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law in Nigeria, a good-governance advocacy group.

The escapes came as security has been declining in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, where kidnapping has become rife and the army has been deployed to respond to security threats, including terrorism and banditry, in almost every state.

Prison officials said that early on Monday morning, men armed with high-powered weapons including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades arrived at a prison in Owerri, in southeastern Imo State. They exchanged fire with security personnel, according to prison officials, and then used explosives to blast their way into the prison yard.

One inmate died in the stampede that followed, officials said, and one police officer sustained a minor bullet wound to the shoulder. Officers repelled an attack on the armory at the prison, according to Frank Mba, a police spokesman.

Nigeria’s security services have launched a search operation to recapture the inmates, whose number was put at 1,844. It is not yet known how many of them were convicts and how many were just awaiting trial. Justice is often slow in Nigeria, with people spending years in jail before their cases are heard.

“I am worried that some criminals were set free,” said Kelechi Njoku, a hotelier and resident of Owerri whose hotel is about five miles from the prison. “But not all of them are criminals. There are thousands awaiting trials.”

A few prisoners were trickling back into custody, accompanied by their relatives or lawyers, Francis Enobore, a spokesman for the prison system in Nigeria, said in a WhatsApp exchange. Thirty-five inmates refused to leave when the jailbreak happened, he said.

The police said that the attackers were members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, a secessionist group that has been banned in Nigeria since 2017 and is designated as a “militant terrorist organization” by the government.

But a spokesman for the Indigenous People of Biafra denied that the group — or its paramilitary wing, the Eastern Security Network — were involved.

“E.S.N. is in the bush chasing terrorists and have no business with the said attacks,” the spokesman, Emma Powerful, said in a statement. “It is not our mandate to attack security personnel or prison facilities.”

Escaped inmates who return voluntarily will not be charged with unlawful escape, the minister of interior, Rauf Aregbesola, said on a visit to the prison. Prison officials said in a statement that they were “appealing to the good citizens of Imo State and indeed Nigerians to volunteer useful intelligence that will facilitate the recovery effort.”

They said all officers at other prisons should “remain vigilant at this trying moment in our history,” suggesting concern about further prison breaks.

Visiting the prison on Tuesday, Nigeria’s inspector-general of police, Mohammed Adamu, took a belligerent tone, instructing his officers to “never spare” bandits, in an apparent reference to the gunmen who attacked the prison.

“Deal with them ruthlessly,” local journalists reported Mr. Adamu as saying. “Unleash your full arsenal on them. The law is behind you.”

But while he was visiting Owerri, Mr. Adamu was fired as police chief by the Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari. It was a month before his tenure was set to end, and the reasons for the dismissal were unclear.

It has been 51 years since the end of the Nigerian civil war in which people of the eastern region broke away from the rest of the country. Biafra, the state they created, came to an end when its leaders surrendered after 30 months of fighting.

But the Biafran dream is alive and well.

It is nurtured by Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, a populist figure who peddles conspiracy theories — including one that the Nigerian president died and was replaced by a body double. Nevertheless, Mr. Kanu has managed to amass a huge following.

Biafra’s enduring popularity — and the group’s — is attributable in part to the rampant police abuses that a generation of Nigerians rose up against last fall, under the banner of the #EndSARS movement.

Young people in southeastern states have for years complained of arbitrary arrests, torture and killings at the hands of the security forces, who are usually drawn from other regions of Nigeria. Convinced that Biafra should be a separate country, many residents of the southeast say the heavy military presence in the region is reminiscent of an occupying foreign army.

The prison break is part of a pattern of attacks on national security forces. Six police stations were razed and 10 police officers killed in the southeast by gunmen over two weeks starting in late February, according to local media reports.

“With the way things are going, in two years’ time Nigeria may be able to play host to 30 to 40 insurgency groups, because government is pushing the people to the wall,” said Mr. Umeagbalasi, the criminologist.

By Ben Ezeamalu and Ruth Maclean

The New York Times