Nigeria Military raids Daily Trust Newspaper publication offices

The Nigerian military stormed the headquarters and three satellite offices of one of the nation’s largest newspapers on Sunday, detaining at least two journalists and seizing computers, phones and other equipment.

The military released a statement calling its actions an “invitation” to talk to staff about a lead article on Sunday in the newspaper, Daily Trust, about a planned military operation in the town of Baga, that it said had divulged classified information, “thus undermining national security.”

The Sunday edition also included an editorial criticizing the military for its lack of progress fighting Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group that has unleashed violence in the northeast of the country for nearly a decade.

The military raid came less than two months before scheduled presidential elections in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, and after a series of stinging losses in the war with Boko Haram.

Soldiers arrived Sunday afternoon at the Daily Trust office in Maiduguri, where Boko Haram was founded, and rounded up two journalists working there, Uthman Abubakar, a regional editor, and Ibrahim Sawab, a reporter who has worked in the past for The New York Times. The men were detained in a military barracks.

Mr. Sawab was released several hours later, but Mr. Abubakar remained in custody on Monday, colleagues said.

Later Sunday afternoon, armed soldiers in five vehicles stormed the paper’s main office in the capital, Abuja, and ordered journalists working inside to evacuate. They occupied the building for four hours, according to Mannir Dan-Ali, the paper’s editor in chief, ransacking the newsroom and carting away dozens of computers. Soldiers also entered the newspaper’s offices in Lagos and Kaduna.

Their actions “strangulated the production of the Monday edition of the paper,” Mr. Dan-Ali said.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who is running for re-election next month, made big gains against Boko Haram when he first took office in 2015, but some of that success has slipped away in recent months, as the group has carried out a series of successful attacks against the military. Boko Haram fighters have killed dozens of soldiers, even posting online a gruesome video of one attack, and rumors have circulated that they once again control some territory in the country’s northeast.

Soldiers have complained about long tours of duty that have left them with no days off for months, worn-out equipment and low rations, according to local news reports. The military has disputed all such claims.

Late Sunday, Mr. Buhari ordered soldiers out of Daily Trust offices, saying issues between the military and newspaper “will be resolved through dialogue.”

In its statement, the military said, “The Nigerian Army has no intention of muzzling the press or jeopardizing press freedom.” It added that the military would “not tolerate a situation where a publication would consistently side with terrorists and undermine our national institutions.”

The action was criticized by the Committee to Protect Journalists and by Amnesty International, which has also faced criticism by the military after releasing reports of human rights abuses by soldiers.

Soldiers shot and killed dozens of unarmed protesters from a minority Muslim religious group, and the military lashed out at Unicef, briefly ordering the group out of the country before relenting. Soldiers were angry about a training program by the aid group that aimed to teach people to spot and report military abuses.

The raids on Sunday seemed to be an escalation of the military’s lashing out at critics.

Abubakar Ibrahim, features editor at the Daily Trust, was on the third floor of the newsroom in Abuja on Sunday when soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying guns rushed inside and ordered everyone to shut down their computers and place them on a table.

“They collected the computers and our laptops then ordered everyone to the reception under escort,” he said. “Soldiers were pointing guns at journalists.”

Mr. Ibrahim said soldiers also raided a printing press building, effectively shutting it down.

“We’ve seen the military’s attitude to the population and how they can behave. That was playing in my mind,” he said. “Amongst us there was bafflement that something like this could happen in this age, supposedly in democratic society.”



The New York Times

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Netflix involvement in Nollywood

Global streaming service Netflix set its eyes a few years ago on Nigeria’s film industry, better known as Nollywood. Distribution of Nigerian movies on Netflix started around 2015. At the time the American giant bought the rights of blockbusters such as Kunle Afolayan’s October 1st, Biyi Bandele’s Fifty and several others, after they had already been distributed in Nigerian cinemas.

During the Toronto International Film Festival 2018, Netflix announced the acquisition of worldwide exclusive distribution rights for Nollywood star Genevieve Nnaji’s debut film as director, the comedy Lionheart. The film marked the first Netflix original film from Nigeria. Many saw this as the beginning of a new era in the relationship between one of the world largest streaming platforms and Africa’s most prolific film industry.

But, is this actually true? Is Netflix going to transform Nollywood? And how significant will its impact on the Nigerian film industry be?

Difficult questions

These are not easy questions to answer. Nollywood’s economy and modes of production are unlike those of most other film industries. Over the past 20 years Nigerian films have circulated mostly on videotapes and Video Compact Discs (VCDs).

This distribution system made the industry widely popular across Africa and its diaspora. But it prevented Nollywood from consolidating its economy and raising the quality of film production. Piracy dramatically eroded distribution revenues and producers had trouble monetising the distribution of their films. Nollywood prioritised straight-to-video distribution because cinema theatres had almost disappeared in the country (as in most other parts of Africa) as a result of the catastrophic economic crisis that affected Nigeria in the 1980s.

New multiplexes have emerged since the beginning of the 2000s. However, today there are only about 150 widescreens for a population of almost two hundred million people. The cinemas that exist are often too expensive for most of the population that used to buy and watch Nollywood films when they were distributed on tapes.

Within this context, many in the industry thought that streaming could be the best solution to the industry’s problems with distribution. However, a closer look to the history of what has been labelled the “Nigerian Netflix” (iROKO.tv, the leading streaming platform for Nigerian contents) shows that the reality is more complicated.

When the company decided to move its headquarters from Manhattan to Lagos it encountered countless difficulties. They were mainly connected to the costs of infrastructure development in Nigeria and to the hostility of local distributors who controlled Nollywood’s economy since its creation.

Weak internet

Internet connection in Nigeria is still too weak and expensive to guarantee easy access to streaming platforms. As a result, Nollywood content distributed by iROKO.tv and Netflix circulates mostly in the diaspora. Netflix is aware of this problem and is investing in infrastructures to secure a better connection for its Nigerian audiences.

But larger investments seem to be necessary to produce a significant impact on audiences’ behaviour. Accessing Nollywood films via piracy or local screening venues will continue to be, at least in my view, the key strategy adopted by the largest percentage of Nigerian viewers.

Netflix could have better chances in penetrating the country’s elite market, as richer people in Nigeria and across Africa have easier access to reliable power supply and internet.

This might be the reason why MultiChoice, the South African telecommunication giant controlling much of Nollywood distribution across Africa through its Africa Magic channels, has reacted nervously to Netflix’s increased interest in African markets. MultiChoice wants Netflix to be more closely regulated.

These two aren’t the only telecommunication “superpowers” in the field. France’s Canal Plus and the Chinese StarTimes have also made a few investments in Nollywood over the past few years. The competition among all these actors will probably have a positive impact for viewers across Nigeria and the continent. It could bring lower subscription fees for streaming and TV content packages.

There are also likely to be new investments in content production and infrastructures. And there’s larger continental and global exposure for Nollywood films in the offing.

Foreign investments

It remains to be seen how good these developments will be for Nollywood producers. Until now, foreign investments in Nollywood have mostly translated into “more of the same” content. Working conditions for crews and actors have remained the same – basically, low budgets and quick shooting schedules.

In fact, big investors seem to be mainly interested in Nollywood’s already established popularity with African audiences. Making Nollywood more palatable for international audiences doesn’t seem to feature.

This means that in most cases they are not ready to invest bigger money in production budgets. Rather, they invest in better structuring distribution networks to extract as much profit as possible from the Nigerian industry.

And most African audiences are indeed happy with how Nollywood is, even if they tend to complain regularly about the low quality and the repetition of film contents and aesthetics. The fact that Nollywood as it is keeps on attracting audiences makes investors reluctant to change the scale of their production budgets.

There are a few bigger productions, with higher production standards, that have emerged over the past few years in Nollywood. But they have hardly been the result of investments made by foreign firms like Netflix, Canal Plus or MultiChoice.

Nigerian producers are those who are mostly concerned about raising the quality of Nollywood films. They want to give better content to their audiences and reach global screens. In most cases, the people investing money in these kinds of projects have been independent producers or groups of investors related to the new business of multiplexes in Nigeria.

In my view, the question is: will these people benefit from Netflix, so as to continue investing in higher quality content? Or will Netflix and other international companies end up taking over the industry to make it only a bit more of the same?

Mail & Guardian

Air force helicopter crashes during combat with Boko Haram in Nigeria

A Nigerian Air Force helicopter crashed in combat, as fighting raged against Boko Haram extremists for control of the strategic town of Baga in northeastern Nigeria, according to the military.

The helicopter crash occurred Wednesday, according to a tweet by air force spokesman, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola.

The fighting was at Damasak in Northern Borno state, he said, without giving details of the fate of the helicopter crew.

The military is fighting to regain control of Baga, which Boko Haram seized last week. The town is a key base for a multinational force fighting the extremists. Many Baga residents have fled to the larger city of Maiduguri.

The fighting for Baga is intense, the chief of army training and operations, Maj. Gen. Lamidi Adeosun, told reporters.

“It’s a ding-dong situation but we are engaging them,” he said last week. “We are not in total control but Boko Haram have not taken control of Baga, either.”

Baga, close to the border with Chad, has weapons, ammunition and other equipment are a key target for the extremists. Insurgents also overran the base in 2015.

The Islamic State West Africa Province, the largest IS-linked extremist group in Africa, claimed to kill or wound “dozens” of soldiers in the latest attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group that monitors extremist communiques.

Nigeria’s military rarely announces death tolls in such attacks, but the government in November acknowledged dozens of soldier deaths in what it called an extremist resurgence.

In addition to the fighting for Baga and the helicopter crash, 53 police are missing after a Boko Haram raid last week.

It is not known if the missing police are dead, captured or escaped alive, according to a senior police officer in Maiduguri, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press. Among the missing are 40 marine police who were patrolling Lake Chad, he said.

Nigeria’s Defence Minister Mannir Dan-Ali reiterated the military’s commitment to ending Boko Haram’s insurgency in the country. He was speaking to the press Wednesday while on his way to neighboring Chad to discuss Boko Haram activity in areas along the border between the two countries.

Dan -Ali was responding to recent attacks by Boko Haram on Nigerian military in the northern parts of Borno State, including Baga and others towns. He met with Nigerian military commanders for about an hour.

The government also last month confirmed the insurgents had begun using drones, calling it a “critical factor” in the rise in attacks. Buhari at the time held an urgent meeting with member countries to “enhance the capacity” of the multinational force.

The nearly decade-old Boko Haram insurgency has been blamed for some 20,000 deaths and thousands of abductions. The unrest and displacement of millions of hungry people have turned northeastern Nigeria into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

TIME