Skyrocketing medical costs are driving patients toward traditional practitioners who offer low-cost alternatives to modern medicine.
Friday, July 25, 2025
Video - Soaring healthcare costs push Nigerians to traditional medicine
Skyrocketing medical costs are driving patients toward traditional practitioners who offer low-cost alternatives to modern medicine.
Video - Nigeria’s Army-Air Force partnership reshapes security landscape
Kabir Adamu, a national security policy and strategy specialist for Nigeria and the Sahel, credits a strengthened army-air force collaboration for progress in tackling banditry. He highlights how this partnership addresses root causes such as resource conflicts and weak governance, marking a shift in Nigeria’s approach to curbing insecurity in affected regions.
Nigeria opens doors to stablecoin firms under regulatory oversight
Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Director-General Emomotimi Agama said the country was open to stablecoin businesses that comply with local regulations.
According to a Thursday report by English-language local news outlet, The Cable, Agama said stablecoin companies that complied with local regulations were welcome in Nigeria. “Nigeria is open for stablecoin business, but on terms that protect our markets and empower Nigerians,” he said.
“We have onboarded some firms focused on stablecoin applications, all while ensuring compliance with core risk management principles,” Agama said, adding that those companies were admitted through the SEC’s regulatory sandbox.
Agama made his remarks on Thursday at the Nigeria stablecoin summit in Lagos. During a panel discussion, he said regulating stablecoins was essential for Nigeria’s development.
Nigeria bets on crypto
He emphasized that regulating stablecoins is essential to Nigeria’s financial development. “When the history books document Africa’s financial revolution, today will be remembered as the moment we moved from potential to action.” This echoed a recent shift in Nigeria’s approach to crypto regulation.
In late May, a shift in local cryptocurrency regulation led Blockchain.com to announce plans to open a physical office in Nigeria, its “fastest-growing market” in West Africa. “Nigeria has taken meaningful steps toward creating a clear framework for crypto,” Owenize Odia, Blockchain.com’s general manager for Africa, reportedly said at the time.
Nigeria’s rocky crypto past
In March, Nigerian Information Minister Mohammed Idris said that the many crypto businesses operating inside the country were not facing litigation or criminal prosecution. Enforcement efforts aimed “to strengthen our laws, not to cripple anybody. We are ensuring that no one comes and operates without regulation,” he said.
The remarks followed Nigeria filing an $81.5 billion lawsuit against Binance in February, claiming the exchange caused the crash of Nigeria’s local currency, the naira. Local prosecutors also argued that Binance owed $2 billion in back taxes as the Nigerian government continued to grapple with sensible crypto policy.
Despite Nigerian authorities accusing a crypto exchange of being responsible for the devaluation of the local currency, some officials spoke highly of the technology. In a March opinion article, Mohammed Idris, minister of information of Nigeria, recognized that “blockchain technology and other digital assets are no longer on the fringes of our economy.”
He added: “They are fast becoming central to how our people transact, create and build.”
By Adrian Zmudzinski, COINTELEGRAPH
According to a Thursday report by English-language local news outlet, The Cable, Agama said stablecoin companies that complied with local regulations were welcome in Nigeria. “Nigeria is open for stablecoin business, but on terms that protect our markets and empower Nigerians,” he said.
“We have onboarded some firms focused on stablecoin applications, all while ensuring compliance with core risk management principles,” Agama said, adding that those companies were admitted through the SEC’s regulatory sandbox.
Agama made his remarks on Thursday at the Nigeria stablecoin summit in Lagos. During a panel discussion, he said regulating stablecoins was essential for Nigeria’s development.
Nigeria bets on crypto
He emphasized that regulating stablecoins is essential to Nigeria’s financial development. “When the history books document Africa’s financial revolution, today will be remembered as the moment we moved from potential to action.” This echoed a recent shift in Nigeria’s approach to crypto regulation.
In late May, a shift in local cryptocurrency regulation led Blockchain.com to announce plans to open a physical office in Nigeria, its “fastest-growing market” in West Africa. “Nigeria has taken meaningful steps toward creating a clear framework for crypto,” Owenize Odia, Blockchain.com’s general manager for Africa, reportedly said at the time.
Nigeria’s rocky crypto past
In March, Nigerian Information Minister Mohammed Idris said that the many crypto businesses operating inside the country were not facing litigation or criminal prosecution. Enforcement efforts aimed “to strengthen our laws, not to cripple anybody. We are ensuring that no one comes and operates without regulation,” he said.
The remarks followed Nigeria filing an $81.5 billion lawsuit against Binance in February, claiming the exchange caused the crash of Nigeria’s local currency, the naira. Local prosecutors also argued that Binance owed $2 billion in back taxes as the Nigerian government continued to grapple with sensible crypto policy.
Despite Nigerian authorities accusing a crypto exchange of being responsible for the devaluation of the local currency, some officials spoke highly of the technology. In a March opinion article, Mohammed Idris, minister of information of Nigeria, recognized that “blockchain technology and other digital assets are no longer on the fringes of our economy.”
He added: “They are fast becoming central to how our people transact, create and build.”
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Video - Northeast Nigeria’s farmers battle insurgency, climate, and economic crises
In Nigeria’s northeast, farmers face a triple threat: Boko Haram’s lingering insurgency, climate shocks, and soaring food prices. Once peaceful farmlands are now battlegrounds for survival, pushing millions toward hunger and economic despair.
Troops kill at least 95 'bandits' in northwest Nigeria
Armed gangs known as "bandits" have taken root across Nigeria's rural hinterlands amid poverty and government neglect. They raid, loot and burn villages, exact taxes, and conduct kidnappings for ransom.
On Tuesday, Nigerian air and ground troops "foiled an attempted bandit attack, launching air strikes and shootouts" in the northwestern state of Niger, according to the report, which was produced by a private conflict monitor.
It added that "at least 95 bandits" were killed in the clash, which occurred near the villages of Warari and Ragada in the Rijau local government area.
The Nigerian military put out a statement about the clash Wednesday, saying that forces "engaged terrorists in a firefight, neutralizing several."
One soldier was killed, it said.
Tuesday's attack follows a slew of battles where the Nigerian military -- which has in the past has been quick to publicise and sometimes exaggerate its gains -- has kept relatively mum on apparent victories where scores of bandits were killed.
An intelligence source told AFP the military was changing tack after realising publicising their gains was keeping jihadists and bandits abreast of their operations.
The army declined to comment.
Nigeria's myriad bandit gangs maintain camps in a huge forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states, in unrest that evolved from clashes between herders and farmers over land and resources into a broader conflict across the sparsely governed countryside.
Since 2011, as arms trafficking increased and the wider Sahel fell into turmoil, organised armed gangs formed, with cattle rustling and kidnapping becoming huge moneymakers in the largely impoverished northwest.
Groups also levy taxes on farmers and artisanal miners.
Violence has spread in recent years from its heartland in the northwest -- where analysts say some gains have been made by the military recently -- into north-central Nigeria, where observers say the situation is getting worse.
Increasing cooperation between the criminal gangs, who are primarily motivated by financial gains, and jihadists -- who are waging a separate, 16-year-old-armed insurrection in the northeast -- has seen attacks worsen.
Despite recent gains in the northwest, the military remains overstretched. While improved cooperation between the army and air force has aided the fight, analysts say, airstrikes have also killed hundreds of civilians.
Between 2018 and 2023, there were more deaths from bandits than there were from jihadist groups, according to figures from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based monitor.
Last week motorcycle-riding bandits rounded up a group of farmers working their fields outside Jangebe village in Zamfara state, killing nine and kidnapping around 15 others, local residents told AFP.
Earlier this month, Nigerian soldiers killed at least 150 bandits in an ambush in northwestern Kebbi state, a local official said.
On Tuesday, Nigerian air and ground troops "foiled an attempted bandit attack, launching air strikes and shootouts" in the northwestern state of Niger, according to the report, which was produced by a private conflict monitor.
It added that "at least 95 bandits" were killed in the clash, which occurred near the villages of Warari and Ragada in the Rijau local government area.
The Nigerian military put out a statement about the clash Wednesday, saying that forces "engaged terrorists in a firefight, neutralizing several."
One soldier was killed, it said.
Tuesday's attack follows a slew of battles where the Nigerian military -- which has in the past has been quick to publicise and sometimes exaggerate its gains -- has kept relatively mum on apparent victories where scores of bandits were killed.
An intelligence source told AFP the military was changing tack after realising publicising their gains was keeping jihadists and bandits abreast of their operations.
The army declined to comment.
Conflict spreading
Nigeria's myriad bandit gangs maintain camps in a huge forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states, in unrest that evolved from clashes between herders and farmers over land and resources into a broader conflict across the sparsely governed countryside.
Since 2011, as arms trafficking increased and the wider Sahel fell into turmoil, organised armed gangs formed, with cattle rustling and kidnapping becoming huge moneymakers in the largely impoverished northwest.
Groups also levy taxes on farmers and artisanal miners.
Violence has spread in recent years from its heartland in the northwest -- where analysts say some gains have been made by the military recently -- into north-central Nigeria, where observers say the situation is getting worse.
Increasing cooperation between the criminal gangs, who are primarily motivated by financial gains, and jihadists -- who are waging a separate, 16-year-old-armed insurrection in the northeast -- has seen attacks worsen.
Despite recent gains in the northwest, the military remains overstretched. While improved cooperation between the army and air force has aided the fight, analysts say, airstrikes have also killed hundreds of civilians.
Between 2018 and 2023, there were more deaths from bandits than there were from jihadist groups, according to figures from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based monitor.
Last week motorcycle-riding bandits rounded up a group of farmers working their fields outside Jangebe village in Zamfara state, killing nine and kidnapping around 15 others, local residents told AFP.
Earlier this month, Nigerian soldiers killed at least 150 bandits in an ambush in northwestern Kebbi state, a local official said.
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