Wednesday, May 15, 2019

US makes new rules for visa applications for Nigeria

Nigeria accounted for over 25% of non-immigrant visas issued to Africans in 2018 alone—but that may be set to change.

The United States embassy has announced an immediate indefinite suspension of interview waivers for visa renewals for applicants in Nigeria. Known as “drop-box,” the interview waiver process allowed Nigerian applicants who met certain eligibility criteria to renew their visas by submitting their passports and supporting documents for review without going through a new in-person interview each time.

The process mainly targeted regular visitors to the US who have a history of applying for and receiving visas. One of the requirements for the interview waiver was for an applicant to have previously received a two-year visa.


With the new waiver suspension, all applicants—first time and recurring—will now be required to appear for in-person interviews at US embassies in Nigeria.

A likely consequence could be a drop-off in the number of non-immigrant visas issued to Nigerians. Compared to the drop-box process which resulted in a high rate of visa renewals for regular visitors, in-person interviews will likely result in increased scrutiny, a much longer process and, by extension, fewer visas issued.

There have already been local reports of visa drop-box submissions taking much longer to process over the past year, hinting at increasing scrutiny. Increasingly, drop-box applications have also been returned unapproved with requests for in-person interviews.

The possibility of a tougher outlook for applicants is noted in the US embassy’s statement as it says one of the reasons it has suspended the interview waiver is to “promote legitimate travel.” It’s rhetoric that is consistent with the Trump administration’s stance on immigration.

The suspension also comes one month after news that Trump administration has been considering new immigration measures to impose visa restrictions on countries whose citizens have a track record of overstaying beyond the validity of their short-term US visas. Nigeria accounted for the third highest number of US visa overstays last year.

The proposed measures included reducing visa validity periods, making it tougher for citizens from countries like Nigeria to receive visas at all and the long-term possibility of outright bans.

Quartz

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

50 women freed from Boko Haram by Nigerian army

The Nigerian army says it has rescued 54 women and children held captive by the extremist group Boko Haram.

A statement issued Monday by military spokesperson Sagir Musa says troops rescued the captives during a clearance operation over the weekend in Borno State.

The military spokesperson said the rescued persons consist of 29 women and 25 children.

Sagir said Boko Haram fighters had fled the villages before troops arrived.

Boko Haram frequently abducts women and children. The jihadist group began its insurgency in northeastern Nigeria and now has expanded its reach to the neighbouring countries of Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

In April 2014, 276 girls were abducted from the Government Secondary School in Chibok. Many have been freed, but more than 100 of them are still missing five years later.

More than 100 schoolgirls were kidnapped in February 2018 after Boko Haram attacked a village in the northeastern state of Yobe.

Last Friday, UNICEF reported that a regional militia allied with Nigerian government forces freed almost 900 children the militia had used in the war against Islamist Boko Haram insurgents.

Non-state armed groups embroiled in the decade-long conflict against Boko Haram recruited more than 3,500 children between 2013 and 2017 in Nigeria's northeast, according to UNICEF.

"[This] is a step in the right direction for the protection of children's rights and must be recognized and encouraged," UNICEF Nigeria chief Mohamed Fall said in the statement, referring to Friday's release by the militia group, which works closely with the military to fight Boko Haram.

CBC

65 women arrested in raid in Nigeria. Some of the arrested said police raped them

In a sparsely decorated room in Nigeria's capital city of Abuja, seven women are seated in a row, their backs turned to the assembled media to remain anonymous.

One after the other, the women recount horrific physical and sexual abuse they say they were subjected to following their arrests on April 27 by officers of a special task force that raided hotels and nightclubs in Abuja.

"They forced us, they raped us," one of the women shouted into the microphone at the media conference, which was recorded on video and seen by CNN.

The 65 women who were arrested say they were beaten and harassed by officers, who forced them into their vans and drove them to the police station, their lawyers and NGOs told CNN. The seven women in the video say they were sexually assaulted as well.

They said the officers, part of a task force targeting prostitution, demanded bribes in return for some of the women's release. Those who couldn't pay were forced to have sex with the officers, the women said during the media conference.
"'Where is your money?' they asked, and if you say you don't have, then it is your turn to have sex with them," one of the women said in the video of the news conference. The event was organized by activists calling for the officers involved in the raid to be arrested.

Police investigating allegations


Abuja police spokesman Gajere Tanimu said in a statement that the department is taking the rape allegations against the task force seriously and investigations are under way.

"The command wishes to assure members of the public of its zero tolerance for unprofessional disregard to human rights and stiff punishments will be meted out to erring officers," the statement read.

"A high-powered team was constituted to investigate the veracity of the allegation" against police, he wrote. "In this regard invitations were sent out to relevant individuals that may assist in getting to the root of the matter."

In all, 65 women were arrested by a task force comprising officers from the city's environment and social development agency and local police, Tanimu told CNN.

Twenty-seven of them were arraigned and charged with prostitution, said their lawyer, Jennifer Ogbogu.

The women said they were coerced into confessing and had no legal counsel at the time to contest the allegations against them, their lawyer said.

"They threatened they would be sentenced to six months in jail and they won't have access to their family. They were scared and they had no lawyer at the time," she told CNN.
Those who pleaded guilty were sentenced to a month in jail and given an option to pay a fine of 3,000 naria (less than $10) for an immediate release, said their lawyer. An NGO paid the fines to secure the women's release, Ogbogu said.

Women say arrests are arbitrary


The FCT (Federal Capital Territory) Joint Task Force frequently conducts raids on institutions or establishments suspected of violating city laws, including prostitution. They regularly clear beggars from streets.

But Nollywood actress Ada Akunne said she was in her car to go out with friends to celebrate a cousin's graduation from medical school when police officers accosted them on the night of the raid.
Akunne, 44, said the officers threatened to seize their phones and accused them of being inappropriately dressed.

"They said we dressed provocatively and since there was no man in the car we must be prostitutes looking for clients. They called their colleagues to come and arrest us," she told CNN.

She was not arrested. She said the police officers only released them after passersby gathered around.
Some women arrested in the raids said that they were randomly selected in nightclubs and detained at the Utako police station, where police sexually assaulted them, according to a coalition of over 70 activist groups and individuals protesting the arrests.

Tanimu, the police spokesman, said, "We know some of the women were arrested and released by the task force even before they got to the police station. Some were also charged to court, we are investigating all these allegations and questioning all those who went on the raids."

Groups want the raids to stop

The allegations of rape and extortion at the hands of law enforcement officers have provoked widespread anger, with many calling for a shutdown of the task force.

Hundreds of women and rights groups organized two demonstrations in the capital in the space of a week calling for the shutdown of the task force.

Rights group Amnesty International said the raids were "unconstitutional" and also called for an end to the continued harassment of women in the city.

Osai Ojigho, Amnesty International's Nigeria director, said the raid violated the women's rights of free movement and expression.

"This adds another layer to the insecurity women already face," Ojigho said. "A woman now fears to go out in the evening because she can be picked up and labeled a prostitute while shopping or jogging."

Nigerian actress Dorothy Njemanze knows only too well the consequences of being falsely arrested and labeled a prostitute in conservative and highly religious Nigeria, where some people believe that "decent" women do not walk on the streets after midnight.

"We need to address this preconceived notion that any woman out at night and wearing what the police thinks is not decent is a prostitute. We are saying we have had enough," Njemanze told CNN.

In 2012, she was arrested by officers of the task force and accused of prostitution alongside three other women. She was never formally charged and she challenged the arrest in a lawsuit against the Nigerian government.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ruled in 2017 that the arrest was unlawful and violated her right to freedom of liberty.

Njemanze was awarded 6 million naira in damages (approximately $16,000).
"Seeing this happening all over after again, after all I have gone through and lost is very traumatizing," Njemanze told CNN.

CNN

Friday, May 10, 2019

Widespread attacks by armed gangs in Nigeria



There is a growing concern in northern Nigeria where violence has increased significantly. More than 100 people have been killed in the past month by armed gangs. What began as a conflict between farmers and cattle herders a decade ago has now turned into regular killings and kidnappings.

Tracking movie box office earnings to become easier in Nigeria

The latest boost local movie industries in Africa are getting is data.

Comscore, the US-based media analytics company known for providing box office measurement data, is expanding operations to nine African countries where it will “capture more than 95% of all revenue and admissions.” The company’s operations on the continent will focus on West and southern African countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Namibia, South Africa, eSwatini, Zambia Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

As expected, Nollywood, Nigeria’s high-profile movie sector, has proven a big draw. With investment in cinema outlets spiking over the past decade (and with more on the way), movie earnings have grown steadily in tandem. And this growth has not been limited to Hollywood blockbusters as Nollywood hits are also earning big box office returns with an increased focus on quality rather than quantity.

But the rising box office earnings have also created the need for more accurate data on movie earnings in an industry that’s long had a culture of opacity. A long-running piracy problem has usually meant that it’s unclear how much profit, if any, filmmakers and producers earn. But with cinemas now opening up an important revenue stream in comparison to other existing earning models like DVD and VCD releases, the need for industry data is even more apparent.

While local bodies like the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association of Nigeria currently track box office earnings, they lack the credibility of a global independent player like Comscore. There has also been some skepticism from industry insiders who suggest that earnings by local Nollywood movies may be inflated especially as earnings are typically declared by filmmakers and production companies rather than independent box office data sources. Indeed, last December, Genevieve Nnaji, veteran actress and director of Lionheart, Netflix’s first original Nollywood film, accused local cinema chains of manipulating numbers to maintain a “false imagery of making box-office hits.”

While Comscore is currently focused only on West and Southern Africa, there’s a chance it might look farther across the continent as more investors make plays to build cinema infrastructure. For instance, Orange, the dominant telecoms player in the region has partnered with CanalOlympia, the cinema network owned by French media giants Vivendi, to open a chain of twenty 300-seater cinemas.

By Yomi Kazeem


Quartz