Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Video - Opioid crisis in Nigeria
West Africa - and particularly its most populous nation, Nigeria - is battling an opioid abuse crisis. Medicines such as tramadol, legally and legitimately prescribed by doctors for pain relief, are also being taken in life-threatening doses by millions in search of a fix or a release from poverty, unemployment and lack of opportunity. People & Power sent filmmakers Naashon Zalk and Antony Loewenstein to Nigeria to investigate how the drug is smuggled, traded and abused, as well as the widespread corruption that follows this illicit trafficking, and the appalling health consequences for those in its grip.
Related story: Growing meth market in Nigeria
Video - Nigerian entrepreneur creates jobs to drive economic empowerment
A multiple award-winning Nigerian professional Chef is turning her passion for food into an enterprise that is creating opportunities for young aspiring chefs. Fatima Haruna has trained over 80,000 people on various culinary skills and her classes are usually packed. She says her dream is to train as many young Nigerians as possible, so that they too- can become economically empowered.
Video - Nigeria leads continent in Air Pollution-related deaths
Pollution in Nigeria is getting worse. According to a 2019 State of Global Air report, the West African nation has the highest air pollution-related deaths in the continent. In addition, burning wood and coal in Nigeria's vast rural areas is increasingly intensifying the suffering of many.
Growing meth market in Nigeria
Nigeria has emerged over the past decade as a significant producer of methamphetamine (meth), a highly addictive and illegal synthetic psychostimulant drug. Since the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency’s (NDLEA) first discovery in Lagos in 2011 of a clandestine meth laboratory, 17 more have been dismantled elsewhere in the country. The quantity of meth seized has skyrocketed, rising from 177kg in 2012 to 1.3 tons in 2017.
In late 2018, following the dismantling of a lab in Obinugwu village in south-east Nigeria, NDLEA Special Enforcement Team commander Sunday Zirangey reportedly said that meth was a serious threat and that Nigeria risked turning into a narco state.
Despite the acute health risks associated with its consumption – such as high blood pressure and cardiovascular-related illness – a growing number of young people in Nigeria reportedly take the drug. A 2018 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report estimated that 89 000 Nigerians were using meth. Abimbola Adebakin, a leading Lagos-based pharmacist, told Enact that “the youth may be using drugs increasingly to cope with a depressed economic reality for them”.
“Furthermore, due to our weak pharmaceutical drug distribution system, the youth have a porous drug supply situation that lends itself to support such abuse and misuse, she said.
In 2016, the illicit market for meth took a new turn in Nigeria. Drug syndicates brought Latin American drug experts to Nigeria to help them set up large-scale meth labs, with similar characteristics to those found in Mexico. One industrial super lab was said to have the capacity to produce 4,000 kg of meth per week.
When the NDLEA raided the site in March 2016, they arrested four Mexicans and five Nigerians. The Mexicans were reportedly from Sinaloa State. Their arrest provided further evidence of a formal and successful alliance between Nigerian and Latin American cartels.
The growth of the illicit meth market in Nigeria has also been fuelled by the accessibility of precursor chemicals such as ephedrine, which is theoretically a controlled substance but is widely available in Nigeria.
In March 2019, the NDLEA seized 309 kg of ephedrine from members of a criminal network in Trans Ekulu Estate in Enugu and Festac Town in Lagos. According to a 2017 report by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Nigerian criminal networks bring ephedrine in from countries in West Africa that import more than they need.
According to the UNODC’s Cheikh Touré, the “use and diversion of pre-precursors and other non-controlled chemicals signifies complex challenges in addressing clandestine meth manufacturing in Nigeria and West Africa”. Touré is the UNODC programme co-ordinator for the Economic Community of West African States Regional Action Plan to address the growing problem of illicit drug trafficking, organised crime and drug abuse in West Africa.
While a portion of the meth produced in Nigeria is consumed locally, most is reportedly exported to South Africa where 1kg of meth sells for up to €10 000 (R163,000). It is also trafficked to South-East Asia, in particular Japan, where 1kg can reportedly fetch €130,000.
As in Mexico where syndicates use violence to control the drug market, confrontations between drug gangs in Nigeria have increased. In August 2017, gunmen attacked a church in Ozubulu in Anambra State while looking for a rival drug gang leader, killing 13 people. An investigation revealed that the fighting was between two gangs operating from South Africa.
According to Touré: “Nigeria has built up expertise in relation to the detection and dismantling of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories.” He said stricter control by the national authorities on precursor chemicals and other psychotropic substances was being implemented.
However, despite the great efforts the Nigerian authorities are making to contain illicit meth production, the illicit market of the drug is yet to be eradicated. The government should focus on effective regulation of the import of controlled precursors.
By Mouhamadou Kane
Daily Maverick
In late 2018, following the dismantling of a lab in Obinugwu village in south-east Nigeria, NDLEA Special Enforcement Team commander Sunday Zirangey reportedly said that meth was a serious threat and that Nigeria risked turning into a narco state.
Despite the acute health risks associated with its consumption – such as high blood pressure and cardiovascular-related illness – a growing number of young people in Nigeria reportedly take the drug. A 2018 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report estimated that 89 000 Nigerians were using meth. Abimbola Adebakin, a leading Lagos-based pharmacist, told Enact that “the youth may be using drugs increasingly to cope with a depressed economic reality for them”.
“Furthermore, due to our weak pharmaceutical drug distribution system, the youth have a porous drug supply situation that lends itself to support such abuse and misuse, she said.
In 2016, the illicit market for meth took a new turn in Nigeria. Drug syndicates brought Latin American drug experts to Nigeria to help them set up large-scale meth labs, with similar characteristics to those found in Mexico. One industrial super lab was said to have the capacity to produce 4,000 kg of meth per week.
When the NDLEA raided the site in March 2016, they arrested four Mexicans and five Nigerians. The Mexicans were reportedly from Sinaloa State. Their arrest provided further evidence of a formal and successful alliance between Nigerian and Latin American cartels.
The growth of the illicit meth market in Nigeria has also been fuelled by the accessibility of precursor chemicals such as ephedrine, which is theoretically a controlled substance but is widely available in Nigeria.
In March 2019, the NDLEA seized 309 kg of ephedrine from members of a criminal network in Trans Ekulu Estate in Enugu and Festac Town in Lagos. According to a 2017 report by the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Nigerian criminal networks bring ephedrine in from countries in West Africa that import more than they need.
According to the UNODC’s Cheikh Touré, the “use and diversion of pre-precursors and other non-controlled chemicals signifies complex challenges in addressing clandestine meth manufacturing in Nigeria and West Africa”. Touré is the UNODC programme co-ordinator for the Economic Community of West African States Regional Action Plan to address the growing problem of illicit drug trafficking, organised crime and drug abuse in West Africa.
While a portion of the meth produced in Nigeria is consumed locally, most is reportedly exported to South Africa where 1kg of meth sells for up to €10 000 (R163,000). It is also trafficked to South-East Asia, in particular Japan, where 1kg can reportedly fetch €130,000.
As in Mexico where syndicates use violence to control the drug market, confrontations between drug gangs in Nigeria have increased. In August 2017, gunmen attacked a church in Ozubulu in Anambra State while looking for a rival drug gang leader, killing 13 people. An investigation revealed that the fighting was between two gangs operating from South Africa.
According to Touré: “Nigeria has built up expertise in relation to the detection and dismantling of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories.” He said stricter control by the national authorities on precursor chemicals and other psychotropic substances was being implemented.
However, despite the great efforts the Nigerian authorities are making to contain illicit meth production, the illicit market of the drug is yet to be eradicated. The government should focus on effective regulation of the import of controlled precursors.
By Mouhamadou Kane
Daily Maverick
Film industry in Nigeria draws global entertainment brands
“Oya!” shouts the director in Nigerian Pidgin English. Actors take their marks. Lighting blinks on. The film crew snaps into action after the order to hurry up.
It’s another day in Nollywood, the affectionate nickname for Nigeria’s film industry - the world’s second most prolific after India’s Bollywood, producing hundreds of films and TV episodes each month.
For decades it was a factory churning out visual pulp fiction destined for the market stalls of DVD pirates. But Nollywood is increasingly grabbing the attention - and financing - of global entertainment brands.
Some, like French group Vivendi’s Canal+, seek to harness Nigerian hustle and know-how to extend the lifespan of the traditional pay-TV model, which is bleeding customers in developed markets but still has a future in Africa.
Others, including South Africa’s MultiChoice, are using Nigeria as a testing ground for introducing streaming platforms in African markets with poor communications infrastructure and low income levels.
In both cases, it’s local production that’s benefiting.
“Ten years ago Nollywood was very different,” Mary Njoku, whose ROK studios was acquired by Canal+ in July, told Reuters as the film crew worked in an abandoned hotel in Nigeria’s megacity Lagos. “Today we shoot with better cameras... We do things differently.”
A room on the hotel’s top floor was standing in for a college dorm on “What Are Friends For?”, an ROK comedy series that will be among new shows aired by Canal+ in coming months.
The company first dipped its toe into Africa’s most populous country six years ago, buying up local films, dubbing them and airing them on a dedicated channel, Nollywood TV, to viewers in French-speaking Africa.
That success led to the creation of a second channel.
The deal with ROK secures a steady supply of new films and series as the firm eyes a further expansion of African content, said Fabrice Faux, Canal+ International’s chief content officer.
Since it was founded six years ago, ROK has produced more than 540 films and 25 series. Under the Canal+ deal, Njoku says it aims to increase production from next year to around 300 films and 20 series annually.
Canal+’s pivot to Africa - a golden opportunity for ROK - is a business necessity for the French company.
“It is one of the very rare pay-TV markets that is growing and is growing very fast,” Faux told Reuters. “When I joined Canal+ International back in 2014, we had half a million (African subscribers) and now we have 4 million.”
Compare that to mainland France where, as of last year, it had lost some 1.3 million individual subscribers since 2013.
Much of that decline arose from losing broadcasting rights to popular sporting events. But it also reflected stiff competition from streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon. However, Faux believes such rivals pose no threat in Africa due to a widespread lack of 4G coverage or fixed broadband internet on the continent.
To properly develop African markets, however, Canal+ must cater to their diverse audiences, Faux said.
Francophone Africa has no Nollywood equivalent. Producing shows there has been slow and expensive, as Canal+ has been forced to bring in film crews from Europe to shoot on location, Faux said. He now hopes Canal+ can use ROK to clone the Nollywood model.
“The best knowledge and expertise is there in Nigeria. So it is our intention to try to bring some producers, technicians, directors to French-speaking Africa, for us to try to develop new production methods,” Faux said.
TEMPORARY GLITCHES?
If Canal+ sees little threat from streaming services in Africa, MultiChoice - the first major entertainment group to realize Nollywood’s potential - is out to prove it wrong.
In its infancy in the 1990s, Nollywood churned out cheap films ranging from bawdy comedies to morality tales about witchcraft and infidelity.
Low on production quality but high on entertainment value, these movies quickly garnered a fanatical following across Africa and its diaspora. And in 2003, MultiChoice launched Africa Magic - a Nollywood channel that would grow into a subscription package on its DStv satellite network.
In July, Showmax, MultiChoice’s fledgling video-streaming service, launched in Nigeria.
“The Nollywood phenomenon makes it quite interesting from a content development point of view. You have a huge base of very loyal fans,” said Niclas Ekdahl, CEO of MultiChoice’s connected video division.
Showmax - also available in South Africa and Kenya - is not alone in Nigeria’s video-on-demand market.
U.S. streaming giant Netflix released “Lionheart”, its first original film produced in Nigeria, in January. It is also negotiating licence deals for Nigerian films such as “Chief Daddy”, a comedy that debuted on the platform in March.
But bringing streaming to African audiences won’t be easy. Expensive mobile data and low incomes make regular streaming unaffordable for many on the continent.
One gigabyte of data, enough to watch about three films, costs the equivalent of around $2.80 in Nigeria, while most people live on less than $2 a day.
The experience of Malaysian streaming platform iflix is a cautionary tale.
It launched in Nigeria in 2017, then expanded to Kenya, Ghana and Zimbabwe following a tie-up with Kwese TV, a subsidiary of Zimbabwe’s Econet Media Limited.
However, data discounts and a pay-as-you-go option were not enough to sustain the business. In December, iflix sold its Africa business to the Econet group, which shut down the streaming service last month.
Showmax’s Ekdahl remains undaunted, passing the challenges off as “temporary glitches”. The potential payoff - a largely untapped audience of 1 billion - is worth the effort of tailoring a business to African markets, he believes.
Showmax partnered with mobile phone operators Vodacom, MTN and Telkom in South Africa and Safaricom in Kenya to offer reduced data and subscription fees. It aims to do the same in Nigeria.
It is also experimenting with installing wireless internet in public transport, so viewers can download content during their daily commutes without incurring data costs.
The boom in interest in Nigeria’s film industry can only be a good thing, says Joshua Richard, a barrel-chested actor who plays a fanatically religious student on “What Are Friends For?”
Foreign investment will, he hopes, help Nollywood shake off a reputation for shoddy camerawork and muffled sound, while also leading to greater artistic recognition overseas.
“It exposes African actors to a bigger audience,” he said. “We have lots of good content in Nollywood, but it doesn’t get the credit it deserves.”
By Alexis Akwagyiram
Reuters
Related stories: Nollywood: most prolific movie machine
It’s another day in Nollywood, the affectionate nickname for Nigeria’s film industry - the world’s second most prolific after India’s Bollywood, producing hundreds of films and TV episodes each month.
For decades it was a factory churning out visual pulp fiction destined for the market stalls of DVD pirates. But Nollywood is increasingly grabbing the attention - and financing - of global entertainment brands.
Some, like French group Vivendi’s Canal+, seek to harness Nigerian hustle and know-how to extend the lifespan of the traditional pay-TV model, which is bleeding customers in developed markets but still has a future in Africa.
Others, including South Africa’s MultiChoice, are using Nigeria as a testing ground for introducing streaming platforms in African markets with poor communications infrastructure and low income levels.
In both cases, it’s local production that’s benefiting.
“Ten years ago Nollywood was very different,” Mary Njoku, whose ROK studios was acquired by Canal+ in July, told Reuters as the film crew worked in an abandoned hotel in Nigeria’s megacity Lagos. “Today we shoot with better cameras... We do things differently.”
A room on the hotel’s top floor was standing in for a college dorm on “What Are Friends For?”, an ROK comedy series that will be among new shows aired by Canal+ in coming months.
The company first dipped its toe into Africa’s most populous country six years ago, buying up local films, dubbing them and airing them on a dedicated channel, Nollywood TV, to viewers in French-speaking Africa.
That success led to the creation of a second channel.
The deal with ROK secures a steady supply of new films and series as the firm eyes a further expansion of African content, said Fabrice Faux, Canal+ International’s chief content officer.
Since it was founded six years ago, ROK has produced more than 540 films and 25 series. Under the Canal+ deal, Njoku says it aims to increase production from next year to around 300 films and 20 series annually.
Canal+’s pivot to Africa - a golden opportunity for ROK - is a business necessity for the French company.
“It is one of the very rare pay-TV markets that is growing and is growing very fast,” Faux told Reuters. “When I joined Canal+ International back in 2014, we had half a million (African subscribers) and now we have 4 million.”
Compare that to mainland France where, as of last year, it had lost some 1.3 million individual subscribers since 2013.
Much of that decline arose from losing broadcasting rights to popular sporting events. But it also reflected stiff competition from streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon. However, Faux believes such rivals pose no threat in Africa due to a widespread lack of 4G coverage or fixed broadband internet on the continent.
To properly develop African markets, however, Canal+ must cater to their diverse audiences, Faux said.
Francophone Africa has no Nollywood equivalent. Producing shows there has been slow and expensive, as Canal+ has been forced to bring in film crews from Europe to shoot on location, Faux said. He now hopes Canal+ can use ROK to clone the Nollywood model.
“The best knowledge and expertise is there in Nigeria. So it is our intention to try to bring some producers, technicians, directors to French-speaking Africa, for us to try to develop new production methods,” Faux said.
TEMPORARY GLITCHES?
If Canal+ sees little threat from streaming services in Africa, MultiChoice - the first major entertainment group to realize Nollywood’s potential - is out to prove it wrong.
In its infancy in the 1990s, Nollywood churned out cheap films ranging from bawdy comedies to morality tales about witchcraft and infidelity.
Low on production quality but high on entertainment value, these movies quickly garnered a fanatical following across Africa and its diaspora. And in 2003, MultiChoice launched Africa Magic - a Nollywood channel that would grow into a subscription package on its DStv satellite network.
In July, Showmax, MultiChoice’s fledgling video-streaming service, launched in Nigeria.
“The Nollywood phenomenon makes it quite interesting from a content development point of view. You have a huge base of very loyal fans,” said Niclas Ekdahl, CEO of MultiChoice’s connected video division.
Showmax - also available in South Africa and Kenya - is not alone in Nigeria’s video-on-demand market.
U.S. streaming giant Netflix released “Lionheart”, its first original film produced in Nigeria, in January. It is also negotiating licence deals for Nigerian films such as “Chief Daddy”, a comedy that debuted on the platform in March.
But bringing streaming to African audiences won’t be easy. Expensive mobile data and low incomes make regular streaming unaffordable for many on the continent.
One gigabyte of data, enough to watch about three films, costs the equivalent of around $2.80 in Nigeria, while most people live on less than $2 a day.
The experience of Malaysian streaming platform iflix is a cautionary tale.
It launched in Nigeria in 2017, then expanded to Kenya, Ghana and Zimbabwe following a tie-up with Kwese TV, a subsidiary of Zimbabwe’s Econet Media Limited.
However, data discounts and a pay-as-you-go option were not enough to sustain the business. In December, iflix sold its Africa business to the Econet group, which shut down the streaming service last month.
Showmax’s Ekdahl remains undaunted, passing the challenges off as “temporary glitches”. The potential payoff - a largely untapped audience of 1 billion - is worth the effort of tailoring a business to African markets, he believes.
Showmax partnered with mobile phone operators Vodacom, MTN and Telkom in South Africa and Safaricom in Kenya to offer reduced data and subscription fees. It aims to do the same in Nigeria.
It is also experimenting with installing wireless internet in public transport, so viewers can download content during their daily commutes without incurring data costs.
The boom in interest in Nigeria’s film industry can only be a good thing, says Joshua Richard, a barrel-chested actor who plays a fanatically religious student on “What Are Friends For?”
Foreign investment will, he hopes, help Nollywood shake off a reputation for shoddy camerawork and muffled sound, while also leading to greater artistic recognition overseas.
“It exposes African actors to a bigger audience,” he said. “We have lots of good content in Nollywood, but it doesn’t get the credit it deserves.”
By Alexis Akwagyiram
Reuters
Related stories: Nollywood: most prolific movie machine
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)