Gunmen kill three, kidnap at least 50 in northwest Nigeria

At least 50 people, including women and children, were abducted and three others were killed in an attack by gunmen in Bagega, a mining village in Nigeria's northwest Zamfara state, residents said on Tuesday.

Kidnapping for ransom has become commonplace in northwestern Nigeria in recent years where armed gangs, often referred to locally as bandits, have targeted villages, schools, and travelers, demanding millions of naira in ransom and making it unsafe to travel by road or to farm in some areas.

The Zamfara police spokesperson did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on the attack, which took place on Monday.

Residents told Reuters the gunmen had stormed the village on motorcycles, shooting indiscriminately and setting houses ablaze. Seven people were also injured in the attack.

The district head was among at least 50 people kidnapped, Mallam Abubakar, the village chief, said by phone on Tuesday.

Bello Yahaya, whose father was abducted, said three people were killed and two policemen were shot and wounded while trying to fend off the attackers.

"The injured officers, along with the other individuals who suffered various degrees of gunshot wounds, are currently receiving medical treatment while two critically injured victims have been referred to the Federal Medical Centre in Gusau," Yahaya said. Gusau is the state capital.

"As I speak with you now, an unspecified number of people have been abducted. There is panic and widespread fear among our people," Ismail Badamasi, a resident who managed to escape the assault, told Reuters by phone.

Nigeria faces numerous security challenges, including a 14-year Islamist insurgency in its northeast, separatist violence in the southeast, and frequent deadly clashes between farmers and herders in the central region.

President Bola Tinubu has yet to detail how he will tackle the insecurity. His economic reforms, including the removal of a costly petrol subsidy and freeing the naira currency, have led to a sharp increase in the cost of living, angering citizens.

By Ahmed Kingimi, Reuters

Nigeria to require mining firms to invest in domestic processing

Nigeria is toughening up licensing rules for foreign mining companies to push them to boost processing and refining of metals like lithium and zinc within the country, its minister of mines said on Tuesday.

The policy announced by Dele Alake at a Nigeria Mining Week event in the capital Abuja will require mining companies to show business plans for so-called "value addition" before they are granted licences.

Alake said that the move is essential to help create jobs. "I am glad to mention that such an initiative is already on stream as some companies have already commenced operations in Nigeria," he said.

The minister referenced Ganfeng Lithium Industry Ltd, a Chinese company that is building a lithium processing plant in the central Nasarawa state, as an example of the type of investment the government is looking for.

The plant will process about 18,000 tons of lithium ore per day to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles, he said.

Nigeria is seeking to woo investors to a mining sector that has long been underdeveloped, contributing less than 1% to the country's gross domestic product.

Africa's top oil producer, which is also rich in gold, limestone and zinc, wants its mining industry to play a much bigger role in its effort to diversify the economy away from its reliance on oil.

Alake said the mining industry is been modernized and the government is investing in data collection, spending more than 15 billion naira ($19.6 million) over seven years to generate mineral data through a National Integrated Mineral Exploration Project (NIMEP).

"The preliminary reports from this project have unravelled massive discoveries which have literally put Nigeria on the world map of lithium-rich countries," he said.


Last month, Nigeria announced plans to start a state-backed company to help attract investments for the extraction of gold, coal, iron ore, baryte, lead, bitumen and limestone.

By Camillus Eboh, Reuters

President Tinubu launches cash transfer to 15million Nigerian households

The Federal Government has announced that President Bola Tinubu will launch the new cash transfer program to 15 million households across Nigeria on Tuesday, October 17.

Nigerian Presidency made the announcement in a tweet on Tuesday.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Betta Edu, had disclosed the FG’s plan to commence a new cash transfer program to 15 million households by October.

She disclosed this in September during an interview on Arise Tv on the Progress Report on Nigeria’s participation at the 78th United Nations General Assembly meeting.

Edu made the disclosure while responding to questions on the FG’s presence at the UNGA 78 and what it meant for the Nigerians.

“We had meetings with the World Bank and very soon, we will announce the upscale of the national safety net program which will be putting funds in the pocket of over 15 million households in Nigeria,” she said.

“These are tangible funds that people can use to start businesses and improve their lives. This will be happening next month October.”

Edu had also revealed that the FG was ready to extend its social safety net program so as to reduce the level of poverty among households across Nigeria.

She added that the initiative is a strategic effort on the part of the FG to empower individuals and families in the country.

“We’ll initiate an expanded and upscaled social safety net program designed to reach a lot of households in Nigeria,” Edu said.

“These funds are aimed at jumpstarting businesses and helping individuals regain their footing.”

She further noted that the Federal government will partner with the state government and local communities in the verification of the national social register.

The Minister said it was geared towards ensuring that those in the current social register are still in that social category.

By Oluyemi Ogunseyin, The Guardian

Related story: President Tinubu stuns wary investors with quick reforms

Naira Drops in Four months to New Record Low

Nigeria’s naira plunged the most in almost four months to an unprecedented level in the official market as the West African nation’s move to a more flexible exchange rate puts pressure on the currency.

The naira weakened 8.9% to 848.12 to the dollar in the official market on Tuesday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The drop was the most since June 20.

Trades in the foreign-exchange market were executed within the range of 700 naira to 981 naira per dollar, according to an investment note by Lagos-based investment banking firm Chapel Hill. The value of dollar traded jumped 2.12 times to $133 million, the firm said.

The currency was little changed at 1,052 a dollar on the street, according to Abubakar Mohammed, chief executive officer of the Forward Marketing Bureau de Change Ltd.

The Central Bank of Nigeria eased foreign exchange controls in mid-June after newly elected President Bola Tinubu criticized monetary policy measures and pledged an end to the nation’s multiple exchange-rate regime. That saw the official rate plunge 40%, briefly aligning with the parallel market before the spread began to widen again. Until Tuesday, the official rate stayed near 800 to the dollar even as the street rate weakened past 1,000 naira.

“Illiquidity persists in the market in the absence of central bank intervention,” Tajudeen​​​​ Ibrahim, head of research at Chapel Hill, said by phone.

The widening premium between the official rate and the black market “indicates that the exchange rate has not been setting a clearing price,” the central bank said on Monday after it scrapped restrictions put in place eight years ago to manage demand for dollars.

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest crude producer, has been struggling to boost the supply of dollars for years after falling oil revenue left its foreign-exchange reserves in a perilous state. That prompted authorities to stop selling foreign currency to importers of products such as rice, vegetables and chicken in a bid to encourage local production.

The move only pushed demand for dollars to unauthorized trade.

Anthony Osae-Brown and Emele Onu, Bloomberg 

Five Nigerians jailed for exhuming skull 'to get rich'

Five men have been jailed for 12 years each in Nigeria after they were convicted of exhuming a human skull.

They had planned to take it to a traditional doctor who said it was needed for rituals that would make them rich.

The men pleaded guilty after being caught with the skull in a bag.

The prosecutor told the court that the men had dug up a body buried three years earlier at a Muslim cemetery in the north-central Niger state.

"They said the herbalist informed and promised all of them that they would share the wealth from the said criminal activity and directed them to look for the human skull," the prosecutor was quoted as saying by the privately owned Daily Punch newspaper.

Security officers had arrested the young men, who are aged between 18 and 28, in early September as they transported the remains to a third party, on the instructions of a traditional doctor.

A court in Minna, the capital of Niger state, declared the men guilty on the charges of criminal conspiracy, trespassing on burial grounds and unlawfully possessing a human skull.

The traditional doctor was not arrested and charged.

Belief in "juju" - sometimes known as voodoo or magic - is fairly widespread in Nigeria, with many combining it with either Christianity or Islam, according to a 2010 report by the Pew Research Centre.

Such beliefs, especially that human body parts and charms can produce money from a clay pot, have led to a recent wave of gruesome murders in Nigeria, often targeting individuals seen as vulnerable, including children, single women and people with disabilities.

Local authorities have also said that body parts are sold and used in rituals believed to generate wealth.

Money-making rituals in Nigeria have also been fuelled by mounting economic desperation, in a country where four out of 10 people live in poverty, according to World Bank data.

By Gloria Aradi, BBC