Video - Some Lagosians forced to turn to alternate water supply

In Nigeria's Lagos state many residents have turned to informal wells to provide them with water. Some of the state's water infrastructure has been neglected for decades and officials say the little infrastructre that does exist, is over burdened. Millions of residents now rely on informal well diggers to get their water supply.

Video - Bomb blast in Abuja kills 71

A morning rush hour bomb killed at least 71 people at a Nigerian bus station on the outskirts of the capital on Monday, raising concerns about the spread of an Islamist insurgency after the deadliest ever attack on Abuja.

Suspicion fell on Boko Haram, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Islamists who are mainly active in the northeast. As well as 71 dead, police said 124 were wounded in the first attack on the federal capital in two years.

Security experts suspect the explosion was inside a vehicle, said Air Commodore Charles Otegbade, director of search and rescue operations. The bus station, 8 km (5 miles) southwest of central Abuja, serves Nyanya, a poor, ethnically and religiously mixed satellite town where many residents work in the city.

"I was waiting to get on a bus when I heard a deafening explosion, then saw smoke," said Mimi Daniels, who escaped from the blast with minor injuries to her arm.

"People were running around in panic."

Bloody remains lay strewn over the ground as security forces struggled to hold back a crowd of onlookers and fire crews hosed down a bus still holding the charred bodies of commuters.

"These are the remains of my friend," said a man, who gave his name as John, holding up a bloodied shirt. "His travel ticket with his name on was in the shirt pocket."

The attack underscored the vulnerability of Nigeria's federal capital, built in the 1980s in the geographic center of the country to replace coastal Lagos as the seat of government for what is now Africa's biggest economy and top oil producer.

Boko Haram militants fighting for an Islamic state have largely been confined to the remote northeast. They have been particularly active there over the past few months and are increasingly targeting civilians they accuse of collaborating with the government or security forces.

"NO SURPRISE"

"In some ways it's not a big surprise," said Kole Shettima, director of the Abuja office of U.S. charitable institution, the

MacArthur Foundation. "The situation has been escalating.

"It's a statement that they are still around and they can attack Abuja when they want, and instill fear."

The Islamists, who want to carve an Islamic state out of Nigeria, have in the past year mostly concentrated their attacks in the northeast, where their insurgency started.

There had been no such violence near the capital since suicide car bombers targeted the offices of the newspaper This Day in Abuja and the northern city of Kaduna in April 2012.

Security forces at the time said that was because a Boko Haram cell in neighboring Niger state had been broken up.

A Christmas Day bombing of a church in Madalla, on the outskirts of Abuja, killed 37 people in 2011, although the main suspect in that attack is now behind bars. Boko Haram also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on the United Nations' Nigeria headquarters that killed 24 people on August 26, 2011.

Boko Haram, which in the Hausa language of largely Muslim northern Nigeria means broadly "Western education is sinful", is loosely modeled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, and has forged ties with al Qaeda-linked militants in the Sahara.

Reuters

Chiwetel Ejiofor on shooting Half of a Yellow Sun in rural Nigeria

 Chiwetel Ejiofor has said he felt it was "correct" to shoot Half Of A Yellow Sun in rural Nigeria despite filming difficulties, because they were the areas most affected by the war.

Oscar nominee Chiwetel's latest film is an adaptation of the book Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, which tells the story of four people caught up in the Biafran War and Niferia's struggle for an independent republic.

Talking about the filming location, the 36-year-old star said: "Whenever I've been to Nigeria in the past, I've been to Lagos, Abuja and Nogu, which is where my family are and it's a bit more rural but it's in, comparatively to where we were [filming] in Calabar, it's very industrialised.

"We were out in a very rural part of Nigeria, which really made sense for the story, but it has its own challenges, just in terms of getting to places and moving equipment.

"So yeah it was complicated, but it's completely beautiful as well and so correct for the film."

He continued: "The nature of the Biafran War was so much of the struggles happened in the small villages. They were the people who really suffered as a result of the conflict.

"It felt correct to get out there and tell the story in that way."

The 12 Years A Slave star has spoken before about his own family's involvement in the war, including his grandfather's, and added that he was pleased to be able to tell a story so personal to him.

He said: "I'd always understood its very profound relevance to me and my family history and so I was excited about getting a bit of that out there and talking about it all."

Half Of A Yellow Sun is in cinemas now.

Belfast Telegraph

Related story: Video - Half of the Yellow Sun film adaptation to premiere at TIFF

Video - Best selling author Chimamanda Adichie talks about her new book and gives praise to Lupita Nyongo

Child bride kills 35 year old groom and three others with poison

Police say a child bride forced into marriage in Nigeria prepared a poisoned meal that has killed her groom and three of his friends.

They quote 14-year-old Wasila Umaru as saying she used rat poison in the food because she was forced to marry a man she did not love.

The couple was married last week. The 35-year-old groom had invited a dozen friends to celebrate at his village 100 kilometres from the north Nigerian city of Kano over the weekend.

Child marriage is common in Nigeria and especially in the mainly Muslim north.

Assistant police superintendent Musa Magaji Majia said Thursday that the teenage suspect is co-operating with police and probably will be charged with culpable homicide.

The Gazette

Bitcoin interest grows in Nigeria

There is an emerging market of online shoppers in Nigeria. Many entrepreneurs and investors see promise in this market, in spite of negative stereotypes held globally. The online shopping market has been valued at several billion dollars and there are currently over 300 registered e-commerce sites. The total investment, locally and abroad, in the e-commerce space was estimated at over fifteen million US dollars at the end of 2013. That figure has already been well surpassed, as investors seek new opportunities in this emerging market.

The opportunities

Nigeria’s population is expected to swell to well over four hundred million people by the year 2050; this represents a four times increase. Critical infrastructure is lacking: notably, there is no functioning postal service in the country and a lack of reliable roads makes deliveries difficult. Nigeria also lacks access to standardised banking and payment networks, such as PayPal. As a result it has been a tough market to crack for conventional online retailers like Amazon.

This is where local companies, Konga and Jumia, have seen a unique opportunity on which they are capitalising. These companies promise delivery within twenty-four hours. Both companies have been able to live up to that promise and they both boast a safe and secure online shopping experience available to all Nigerians.

Their success has not gone unnoticed. Jumia has secured over sixty million US dollars in seed and series-A funding, to-date. Its growth has been rapid, expanding from three to five hundred employees. Konga has raised similar investment capital, fostering similar growth.

Media giant Facebook is also interested in the opportunities that exist in the Nigerian market. Facebook has over twelve million registered users in the country and they recently sent a delegation to Lagos to strengthen relations with these companies.

Overcoming the limitations

Jumia and Konga are the larger operators in the local market. However, they are not the only businesses developing online shopping. More specialised entrants are also making their presence felt. Gloo.ng focuses on supermarket items. The last twelve months have seen this company grow four times in size and expand to a massive twenty thousand square foot facility.

Similar to Amazon, these companies are known to be exploring the use of drone technology in product delivery, as a means of servicing the growing population base.

The African continent, for the most part, skipped fixed line Internet and moved immediately to mobile technology for connectivity. Perhaps it will move directly to drone delivery out of necessity, bypassing conventional means of transportation.

This is real economic growth and it is exciting. While none of the above listed companies use bitcoin yet, it could certainly provide benefit going forward. However, there is one online retail start-up embracing the utility of bitcoin for its fashion design business: Minku.

Minku is based in Nigeria and Spain. The company specialises in the design, manufacture and sale of original handmade leather bags. These bags are sold both online and at high-end fashion stores in Nigeria. The founder, is a young and dynamic entrepreneur. She has worked in the fashion industries in both the United States and Europe. Minku's bags are all designed and handmade by Kunmi personally. Excited by the opportunities bitcoin represents in the Nigerian e- commerce space, Kunmi points to leading online merchants, like Overstock.com, as indicative of growing acceptance globally. She sees greater merchant acceptance in Nigeria as inevitable. In the meantime, she is content to be pioneering.

For her company, "accepting bitcoin is not just about nudging Nigerians to adopt the currency", it is also about "including Nigeria...in an interesting global conversation".

Bitcoin represents an opportunity for Minku as a company and Kinmi sees that. Her company is more focused on the international market than online retailers like Konga and Jumia. With bitcoin, Minku is able to sell product to clients in over sixteen countries. For the most part, product is delivered to Nigeria and the USA. Notably, there is a market for her products in places as far-flung as Finland and India. It is bitcoin that facilitates this extraordinary global reach.

Bitcoin’s acceptance by boutique manufacturers and designers in Nigeria is a trend that one would expect to gain momentum; it just makes sense. Conventional payment processors block Nigeria and banking infrastructure is poor. The greater promise of bitcoin to entrepreneurs in markets lacking access to conventional payment networks is often cited. It is good to see the early signs of this development in Nigeria.

Written by
Tristan Winters