Despite forex trading being viewed as a high-risk venture, hundreds of thousands of Nigerians are diving in every year, as they explore new ways to earn a living.
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Video - Nigeria leads in adoption of forex trading in Africa
Video - Court in Nigeria starts hearing petitions challenging Bola Tinubu's win
Opposition political parties and their candidates filed challenges against Bola Tinubu's win in the February 25th election back in March. Nigeria's Presidential Election Petition Court has roughly until September to issue a judgment. However, that judgment can then be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Related story: President-Elect Bola Tinubu Leaves Nigeria to Rest in Europe After Campaign
Video - Clip from President-elect Bola Tinubu's acceptance speech
Video - Real estate sector shifts to renewable energy to power homes in Nigeria
In Nigeria, real estate developers are building more properties that use renewables as sources of energy. Despite huge investments in the sector, Nigeria suffers from an acute electricity shortage as capacity stands at an average of just 4,000 megawatts.
15 children dead and 25 more missing in boat accident in Nigeria
Fifteen children drowned and 25 others were left missing when a boat capsized in a river in northwest Nigeria's Sokoto state, a local official told AFP Wednesday. The children were on their way to collect firewood in the bush on Tuesday on the other side of Shagari river when their overloaded boat capsized, Aliyu Abubakar, political administrator of Shagari district said.
"We woke up to a tragedy yesterday morning, where a boat carrying children capsized mid-river," Abubakar told AFP.
"Fifteen bodies, 13 girls and two boys, were recovered by local rescue teams and buried in the village," said the official, who supervised the rescue operation.
River accidents are frequent in Nigeria, often caused by overloading, poor maintenance, heavy flooding in rainy season and disregard of safety regulations.
Divers were working in the Shagari river late on Tuesday searching for more of the children.
In April last year, 29 children from nearby Gidan Magana village in Sokoto drowned in the same river when their vessel capsized while they were also on their way to fetch firewood for their families.
During massive flooding in rainy season in December, at least 76 people drowned when their boat went down in a swollen river in southeast Anambra State.
In one of the country's worst river disasters in May 2021, only 20 people were rescued and more than 150 went missing when a boat transporting people to market broke apart while travelling between Kebbi and Niger states.
Nigeria's waterways authority has tried to ban night-time sailing on rivers to stop accidents, and overloading vessels is a criminal offence, but skippers and crews often flout the rules.
River transport and market trade are common in Nigeria, where roads are often poor. The Niger, West Africa's main river travelling through Guinea to Nigeria's Niger Delta, is a key local trade route.
Shell wins court case related to oil spills in Nigeria
The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court has ruled that it was too late for a group of Nigerian claimants to sue two Shell subsidiaries over a 2011 offshore oil spill.
On December 20, 2011, an estimated 40,000 barrels of crude oil leaked when a tanker was loaded at Shell’s Bonga oilfield, 120km (75 miles) off the coast of Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
Shell disputed the allegations and said the Bonga spill was dispersed offshore and did not impact the shoreline.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld rulings by two lower courts that found the plaintiffs had brought their case after the six-year legal expiry date.
A panel of five Supreme Court justices unanimously rejected the claimants’ argument that the ongoing consequences of the pollution represented a “continuing nuisance”.
According to the Reuters news agency, the court did not look at the evidence supporting either side’s assertions or make a ruling on the issue. It only decided the legal point of nuisance.
“The Supreme Court rejects the claimants’ submission. There was no continuing nuisance in this case,” Justice Andrew Burrows said as he delivered the ruling.
“The leak was a one-off event or an isolated escape. The oil pipe was no longer leaking after six hours,” he said.
A group of 27,800 people and 457 communities living in the delta have been trying to sue Shell, saying the leftover oil slick polluted their lands and waterways and damaged farming, fishing, drinking water, mangrove forests and religious shrines.
The average life expectancy in the region is 41 years, 10 years lower than the national average.
UK courts have previously ruled against Shell in another case involving pollution in the Niger Delta.
In February 2021, the Supreme Court allowed a group from the Ogale and Bille communities to sue Shell over spills, and that case is currently through the High Court.
At that time, Shell said it was not responsible for most of those spills and said they were caused by illegal third-party interference.
“We believe litigation does little to address the real problem in the Niger Delta: oil spills due to crude oil theft, illegal reining and sabotage, with which SPDC [Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary] is constantly faced and which cause the most environmental damage,” a Shell spokesperson said.
In a separate case in 2015, Shell agreed to pay 55 million pounds ($70m) to the delta’s Bodo community in compensation for two spills after a legal battle in London.
Related stories: The Criminals Undercutting Nigeria’s Oil Industry
Nigeria Shell employees causing oil leaks for profit: Dutch TV
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