Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Video - Nigerian banks head to court over plan to forfeit unclaimed funds
Commercial banks are lobbying the Attorney General's office to back down on the government's plan to seize money from accounts with no Bank Verification Numbers. A high court in Abuja has ordered the forfeiture of all funds in accounts owned by corporates, government agencies and individuals without B-V-Ns. The order is, however, not final yet. Clients affected have 14 days to claim ownership and show cause why the amounts in their accounts should not be forfeited to the government.
26 Nigerian women among the dead found on boat headed to Italy
Italian prosecutors have commenced investigations into the deaths of 26 Nigerian women whose bodies were recovered at sea, BBC reported on Monday.
The victims, who are mostly teenagers, aged 14-18, are believed to have been sexually abused and murdered as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean.
Following several rescues, their bodies were discovered in a Spanish warship, Cantabria, carrying 375 migrants and the dead women; 23 of whom women had been on a rubber boat with 64 other people.
Italian media reported that the women’s bodies were being kept in a refrigerated section of the warship. Most of the 375 survivors brought to Salerno were sub-Saharan Africans from Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, The Gambia and Sudan.
Among the 375 survivors were 90 women, eight of them pregnant, 52 children and some Libyan men and women on board.
People-smuggling gangs charge each migrant about $6,000 (£4,578) to get to Italy, $4,000 of which is for the trans-Saharan journey to Libya and many migrants have reported violence, including torture and sexual abuse, by the gangs.
Five migrants are being questioned in the southern port of Salerno.
Thousands of Nigerians travel through the desert to Libya from where they try to cross the Mediterranean to Italy seeking better life.
Hundreds of such Nigerians, who could not make the crossing, end up getting trapped in Libya with many of them eventually returning to Nigeria with the help of the International Organisation for Migration.
The victims, who are mostly teenagers, aged 14-18, are believed to have been sexually abused and murdered as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean.
Following several rescues, their bodies were discovered in a Spanish warship, Cantabria, carrying 375 migrants and the dead women; 23 of whom women had been on a rubber boat with 64 other people.
Italian media reported that the women’s bodies were being kept in a refrigerated section of the warship. Most of the 375 survivors brought to Salerno were sub-Saharan Africans from Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, The Gambia and Sudan.
Among the 375 survivors were 90 women, eight of them pregnant, 52 children and some Libyan men and women on board.
People-smuggling gangs charge each migrant about $6,000 (£4,578) to get to Italy, $4,000 of which is for the trans-Saharan journey to Libya and many migrants have reported violence, including torture and sexual abuse, by the gangs.
Five migrants are being questioned in the southern port of Salerno.
Thousands of Nigerians travel through the desert to Libya from where they try to cross the Mediterranean to Italy seeking better life.
Hundreds of such Nigerians, who could not make the crossing, end up getting trapped in Libya with many of them eventually returning to Nigeria with the help of the International Organisation for Migration.
Monday, November 6, 2017
Video - A conversation with Wole Soyinka
For Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka its been a journey of many years, living and telling the African story: Its richness, complexity and its gradual evolution from a traditional to a modern society.
A towering figure in African literature, Soyinka who was born in Abeokuta in western Nigeria was jailed for his criticism of the Nigerian government in the 1960's; famously composing protest poems on toilet paper from his cell in solitary confinement. In 1986, he would become the first African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.
He made headlines again last year when he destroyed his green card following the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency. Soyinka shares his perspectives on contemporary society, this week on Talk Africa!
Oil spills in Nigeria could potentially kill 16,000 babies a year
Nigeria, one of the world’s most oil-rich countries, has a history of catastrophic oil spills that have wreaked havoc on the environment and local communities.
But a new study says that oil spills may have also claimed the lives of thousands of babies born to mothers who live in areas contaminated by such incidents.
The study, published as a working paper by the CESifo group, found that if an oil spill occurred within 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) of the residence of a mother before she fell pregnant, the mother’s baby would be twice as likely to die. Oil spills that occurred while the mother was actually pregnant did not have an impact on child or neonatal mortality, according to the study.
Researchers found that even if the oil spill occurred five years before the mother conceived, it still resulted in the neonatal mortality rate doubling from 38 deaths per year to 76 deaths per year for every 1,000 live births.
Given that there were almost 5.3 million live births in Nigeria in 2012 and that around 8.05 percent of these births took place within 10 kilometers of an oil spill, the authors estimated that oil spills could have killed around 16,000 infants within their first month of life in 2012.
Roland Hodler, the study’s lead author, told the Guardian that the results constituted a “tragedy.”
“Even four to five years prior to conception, an oil spill still matters. I think this should be seen as a first-world problem for something to be done,” said Hodler.
Oil spills are a fairly common occurrence in the Niger Delta region, a huge area of swamplands in southern Nigeria. The Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor has recorded more than 11,500 since 2006—when a government agency was set up to detect and investigate oil spills—though a few hundred of these were mistaken reports.
The spills have led to accusations from Nigerians that international oil companies are exploiting the country’s natural resources. Royal Dutch Shell paid out £55 million ($83.5 million) to some 15,600 farmers and fishermen from the Bodo community in 2015 after two massives oil spills in 2008.
Spills have also been a factor in periods of militancy in the region, most recently led by the Niger Delta Avengers.
The CESifo study, which was published as a working paper, looked at the effect of oil spills on mortality rates for infants born in the nine oil-producing states of the Niger Delta—Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers—to infants born elsewhere.
It paired data from the Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor with results from a 2013 national demographic and health survey and, overall, included data of around 5,000 children born to 2,700 mothers in 130 clusters that were all located within 10 kilometers of an oil spill.
The study compared mortality rates and health of siblings born before and after nearby oil spills. It found that the closer a child was born to the site of an oil spill, the higher the rate of neonatal mortality, and that oil spills prior to conception also resulted in increased wasting—i.e. low weight or stunted growth—among children.
The study also cited other research that showed the health impacts of oil-related pollution on unborn and newborn infants. For example, newborn infants have not yet developed the blood-brain barrier—a selective membrane that separates blood circulating in the brain from other fluid circulating around the body—which protects the brain from toxic chemicals.
Hodler told the Guardian he was unsure why oil spills did not have a pronounced effect on neonatal mortality if the spill occurred during the course of pregnancy. “Why we don’t find a stronger effect during the pregnancy is not entirely clear—maybe it is due to the cumulative contamination of crude oil in the water and soil, which increases over time. But that doesn’t explain the entire effect,” said Hodler.
In 2016, the Nigerian government launched a $1 billion cleanup operation in Ogoniland, an area of the Niger Delta that has been stricken by widespread oil pollution in recent years. Shell only began a cleanup operation following the 2008 and 2009 spills in the Bodo community earlier in 2017.
Nigeria has traditionally been Africa’s biggest oil producer, but the industry dipped below that of Angola in 2016 after a sustained period of militancy saw many oil pipelines attacked. The Niger Delta Avengers had agreed a ceasefire with the government in August 2016, but announced on Friday that it planned to resume attacks and warned that “every oil installation in our region will feel warmth of the wrath of the Niger Delta Avengers.”
But a new study says that oil spills may have also claimed the lives of thousands of babies born to mothers who live in areas contaminated by such incidents.
The study, published as a working paper by the CESifo group, found that if an oil spill occurred within 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) of the residence of a mother before she fell pregnant, the mother’s baby would be twice as likely to die. Oil spills that occurred while the mother was actually pregnant did not have an impact on child or neonatal mortality, according to the study.
Researchers found that even if the oil spill occurred five years before the mother conceived, it still resulted in the neonatal mortality rate doubling from 38 deaths per year to 76 deaths per year for every 1,000 live births.
Given that there were almost 5.3 million live births in Nigeria in 2012 and that around 8.05 percent of these births took place within 10 kilometers of an oil spill, the authors estimated that oil spills could have killed around 16,000 infants within their first month of life in 2012.
Roland Hodler, the study’s lead author, told the Guardian that the results constituted a “tragedy.”
“Even four to five years prior to conception, an oil spill still matters. I think this should be seen as a first-world problem for something to be done,” said Hodler.
Oil spills are a fairly common occurrence in the Niger Delta region, a huge area of swamplands in southern Nigeria. The Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor has recorded more than 11,500 since 2006—when a government agency was set up to detect and investigate oil spills—though a few hundred of these were mistaken reports.
The spills have led to accusations from Nigerians that international oil companies are exploiting the country’s natural resources. Royal Dutch Shell paid out £55 million ($83.5 million) to some 15,600 farmers and fishermen from the Bodo community in 2015 after two massives oil spills in 2008.
Spills have also been a factor in periods of militancy in the region, most recently led by the Niger Delta Avengers.
The CESifo study, which was published as a working paper, looked at the effect of oil spills on mortality rates for infants born in the nine oil-producing states of the Niger Delta—Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers—to infants born elsewhere.
It paired data from the Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor with results from a 2013 national demographic and health survey and, overall, included data of around 5,000 children born to 2,700 mothers in 130 clusters that were all located within 10 kilometers of an oil spill.
The study compared mortality rates and health of siblings born before and after nearby oil spills. It found that the closer a child was born to the site of an oil spill, the higher the rate of neonatal mortality, and that oil spills prior to conception also resulted in increased wasting—i.e. low weight or stunted growth—among children.
The study also cited other research that showed the health impacts of oil-related pollution on unborn and newborn infants. For example, newborn infants have not yet developed the blood-brain barrier—a selective membrane that separates blood circulating in the brain from other fluid circulating around the body—which protects the brain from toxic chemicals.
Hodler told the Guardian he was unsure why oil spills did not have a pronounced effect on neonatal mortality if the spill occurred during the course of pregnancy. “Why we don’t find a stronger effect during the pregnancy is not entirely clear—maybe it is due to the cumulative contamination of crude oil in the water and soil, which increases over time. But that doesn’t explain the entire effect,” said Hodler.
In 2016, the Nigerian government launched a $1 billion cleanup operation in Ogoniland, an area of the Niger Delta that has been stricken by widespread oil pollution in recent years. Shell only began a cleanup operation following the 2008 and 2009 spills in the Bodo community earlier in 2017.
Nigeria has traditionally been Africa’s biggest oil producer, but the industry dipped below that of Angola in 2016 after a sustained period of militancy saw many oil pipelines attacked. The Niger Delta Avengers had agreed a ceasefire with the government in August 2016, but announced on Friday that it planned to resume attacks and warned that “every oil installation in our region will feel warmth of the wrath of the Niger Delta Avengers.”
Aliko Dangote pledges $100 million to fight malnutrition in Nigeria
Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, has pledged to invest $100 million over 5 years to tackle malnutrition in Nigeria’s worst affected regions.
The Managing Director and CEO of the Dangote Foundation, Zouera Youssoufou, disclosed this at the just concluded Global Nutrition Summit held in Milan, Italy.
The event, which was attended by leading global corporations, civil society organizations, government officials, foundations, and international agencies, aims to accelerate the global response to malnutrition, an underlying cause of nearly half of all global child deaths.
“Nigeria’s high malnutrition rate is undermining progress towards improving child health and survival and putting the brakes on economic development. By investing in nutrition, we aim to directly improve the lives of Nigerian families and to empower our citizens to reach their full potential,” Youssoufou said in a press release.
The Dangote Foundation, which Aliko Dangote founded in 1993, makes social investments in health, education, economic empowerment and disaster relief. By making this $100 million commitment, the Aliko Dangote Foundation plans to reduce the prevalence of under nutrition by 60% in the most needy areas of Nigeria, specifically the North-East and North-West.
Aliko Dangote is currently worth $13.7 billion.
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