Death toll has risen to 18 due to the floods caused by persistent rainfall in central Nigeria, said a local official on Wednesday.
Confirming the figure to reporters, Ibrahim Inga, head of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency in Nigeria's central region, said eight more deaths were recorded recently.
On October 16, Inga had earlier confirmed 10 deaths recorded over the past two months as the floods wreaked havoc in the state.
So far, 41,959 people have been displaced due to the disaster, the official said.
The floods, as a result of a localized high-intensity rainfall accompanied by torrential winds since August, also triggered massive run-off activities in streams and rivers in the state.
"The combined effect of the micro-climate trend and severe rainfall regime upstream of rivers Niger and Kaduna increased inflow in the basin, which resulted in the spillage of the water from the three hydropower dams," Inga told reporters.
He said 2,714 houses have been destroyed so far by the disaster. The flood swept through 20 local government areas, with 152 communities submerged.
The floods also badly damaged, roads, bridges, culverts and other buildings, the official said.
Inga said the excess waters had inundated several hectares of farmlands and displaced some dwellers in hinterland communities.
The Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency, which is responsible for issuing flood alerts here, had since early August issued an alert over possible flooding due to the high intensity of rainfall across the country.
The hydrological body said the flooding incidents are due to high rainfall intensity of long duration, rainstorms, blockage of drainage systems and poor urban planning resulting from the erection of structures within the floodplains and waterways.
This year, Nigeria's 36 states and the federal capital territory, Abuja, would witness different levels of flooding, the hydrological body predicted.
Xinhua
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Video - Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri brings NBA trophy to Nigeria
Real Sports travels with Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri as he returns home to Nigeria with the NBA trophy. Real Sports is all-new Tuesday, October 22 at 10PM on HBO.
Related story: The remarkable story of British Nigerian football start Ola Aina
Whatsapp is the app of choice for spreading face news in Nigeria
Amid fears of a possible Ebola outbreak in Nigeria during the devastating epidemic that plagued West Africa in 2014, a WhatsApp broadcast made the rounds:
“Please ensure that you and your family and all your neighbors bathe with hot water and salt before daybreak today because of Ebola virus which is spreading through the air,“ it read.
Even though there was no medical basis for it, the “prescription” went viral enough for the government to officially debunk it. But that ultimately proved futile, as at least two people died and several others were hospitalized over excessive salt consumption.
The incident offered a snapshot of how misinformation spreads unchecked on social media platforms, especially WhatsApp. Crucially, older Nigerians served as key conduits for that WhatsApp broadcast as several recipients—even beyond Nigeria—say they got the broadcast from parents, grandparents, and older relatives. Given the potent mix of fear (the outbreak killed over 11,000 people across West Africa) and uncertain information about the virus and the disease, older Nigerians were particularly quick to spread the bogus prevention technique in a bid to “save” family and friends.
But that Ebola broadcast was not a one-off. With family WhatsApp groups so popular, a common complaint among younger Nigerians revolves around the barrage of forwarded messages which range from improbable to ludicrous that are shared by parents and grandparents.
But there’s an explanation for this. In some ways, WhatsApp is theinternet for older users.
Unlike other social platforms which require creating and managing online profiles as well fast-moving interactions older users may be unable to keep up with, WhatsApp condenses the experience of having personal and group conversations, sharing photos and videos, receiving and sharing news into a one-stop shop platform that mirrors regular text messaging in its ease of use. “WhatsApp is the closest to SMS, which is the simplest of the lot. I don’t have to try remembering your handle or go to a platform to message you. That is appealing for everyone, not just the 60-plus age group,” says Gbenga Sesan, founder of Paradigm Initiative, a digital rights-focused social enterprise.
WhatsApp can also be thought of as a “walled garden” for a generation that’s too old to keep up with the vastness, complexity, and fast-moving pace of the wider internet. As such, just as WhatsApp is both an entry point for social media and internet use, it can also a bubble.
Part of the problem lies in how WhatsApp is structured and how it works as its biggest strength—end-to-end encryption on messages—is also its key weakness. The platform has admitted to struggling with finding ways to detect and manage the flow and impact of misinformation. WhatsApp’s potential as a tool for misinformation is further amplified by its sheer popularity: it’s the most popularmessaging app across several African countries, including Nigeria. Local telecoms operators have also created WhatsApp-only data bundles for users.
New tech, old ways
Despite the modernity of WhatsApp and the technology that powers it, the driving force of the spread of misinformation, especially among older users, is linked to an old concept: social trust.
In a recent report by the Center for Democracy and Development and the University of Birmingham on WhatsApp’s role during Nigeria’s February elections, some respondents cited parents and grandparents as the “biggest sharers” of misinformation. “It was something we heard quite a lot,” says Jamie Hitchen, one of the report’s authors. “While younger people have more critical thinking with sharing when it comes to digital platforms, older people were reported to be far more willing.” The report attributes that tendency to share as being down to a lack of digital literacy and a reliance on trusted social networks.
“It’s the same way wealth is created among trusting friends: you get, you share,” Sesan says. “At 60, you’ve probably grown to get information in a world where trust existed, where verification and media were synonymous. Unfortunately, digital tools don’t follow old school traditional verification and trust ethos.”
For his part, Olurotimi Alade, a 60-year old university teacher and father of three, says his trust in “the integrity” of the sender of information “plays a huge role” in his decision to forward messages. And while he tries to fact-check information before forwarding as much as possible, he says “some alarming information appear to be of such immediate concern that forwarding them without probably verifying would most likely to be the prudent thing to do.”
For parents and older relatives, those sort of messages revolve around the safety of loved ones, however improbable the information appears to be. Sherifat, a 54-year old retired bank director, who also forwarded the salt-water Ebola cure to her daughter eight years ago, says she did so out of fear. “Even if I didn’t believe it, it was better to be careful,” she says.
In search of solutions
WhatsApp understands the scale of its fake news problem. Earlier this year, it pegged its message forwarding limit to five people to “help keep WhatsApp focused on private messaging” with close contacts. “The change has reduced messaging behavior by around 25% globally,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told Quartz.
But with its groups feature largely unaffected, the flow of misinformation remains prominent: “one random person can share into a trusted network and that gets shared on,” Sesan says. CDD’s report also noted that 73% of respondents said the average size of the groups they were in was 50 or more people. WhatsApp groups can hold up to 256 members.
As added measures, WhatsApp now labels forwarded messages and has also recently introduced a “frequently forwarded” label to alert users when they received messages that “were previously forwarded several times.” It is also introducing more controls for group admins to allow them determine members that can send messages.
WhatsApp has also relied on mass media to solve its fake news problem. “In the run-up to the Nigeria national election, WhatsApp made significant product changes to limit the spread of viral content, banned accounts engaging in automated or bulk messaging, and sponsored a broad education campaign on broadcast platforms in Nigeria including on the radio, print, and online,” the WhatsApp spokesperson says.
Some solutions have also come from third-party groups. During Nigeria’s general elections, a coalition of journalists set up a WhatsApp business channel for crowd-sourcing questionable claimsfrom the public which were then fact-checked with users encouraged to spread accurate fact-checked reports just as widely as the initial claims.
But none of these solutions focus primarily on older users.
One possible fix could come in the form of younger members of family groups on WhatsApp challenging and correcting their parents when questionable claims are shared. That’s unlikely though, given Nigeria’s conservative family culture, which often places obeisance above perceived dissent. Yet those who are brave enough to try are hardly guaranteed success either: Akinlabi, a 24-year old Lagos-based filmmaker, still gets broadcasts with questionable claims from mum despite several conversations about mindless forwarding.
And so the big question: is it too late to improve the levels of awareness of fake news among older users of WhatsApp in Nigeria?
Sesan says “the short answer is yes.” And Hitchen largely agrees: “It’s difficult to think of a short term solution to solve the problem. It’s got to be long term thinking on how to improve digital literacy but it will be more difficult among older people with less understanding of these things work.”
By Yomi Kazeem
Quartz
“Please ensure that you and your family and all your neighbors bathe with hot water and salt before daybreak today because of Ebola virus which is spreading through the air,“ it read.
Even though there was no medical basis for it, the “prescription” went viral enough for the government to officially debunk it. But that ultimately proved futile, as at least two people died and several others were hospitalized over excessive salt consumption.
The incident offered a snapshot of how misinformation spreads unchecked on social media platforms, especially WhatsApp. Crucially, older Nigerians served as key conduits for that WhatsApp broadcast as several recipients—even beyond Nigeria—say they got the broadcast from parents, grandparents, and older relatives. Given the potent mix of fear (the outbreak killed over 11,000 people across West Africa) and uncertain information about the virus and the disease, older Nigerians were particularly quick to spread the bogus prevention technique in a bid to “save” family and friends.
But that Ebola broadcast was not a one-off. With family WhatsApp groups so popular, a common complaint among younger Nigerians revolves around the barrage of forwarded messages which range from improbable to ludicrous that are shared by parents and grandparents.
But there’s an explanation for this. In some ways, WhatsApp is theinternet for older users.
Unlike other social platforms which require creating and managing online profiles as well fast-moving interactions older users may be unable to keep up with, WhatsApp condenses the experience of having personal and group conversations, sharing photos and videos, receiving and sharing news into a one-stop shop platform that mirrors regular text messaging in its ease of use. “WhatsApp is the closest to SMS, which is the simplest of the lot. I don’t have to try remembering your handle or go to a platform to message you. That is appealing for everyone, not just the 60-plus age group,” says Gbenga Sesan, founder of Paradigm Initiative, a digital rights-focused social enterprise.
WhatsApp can also be thought of as a “walled garden” for a generation that’s too old to keep up with the vastness, complexity, and fast-moving pace of the wider internet. As such, just as WhatsApp is both an entry point for social media and internet use, it can also a bubble.
Part of the problem lies in how WhatsApp is structured and how it works as its biggest strength—end-to-end encryption on messages—is also its key weakness. The platform has admitted to struggling with finding ways to detect and manage the flow and impact of misinformation. WhatsApp’s potential as a tool for misinformation is further amplified by its sheer popularity: it’s the most popularmessaging app across several African countries, including Nigeria. Local telecoms operators have also created WhatsApp-only data bundles for users.
New tech, old ways
Despite the modernity of WhatsApp and the technology that powers it, the driving force of the spread of misinformation, especially among older users, is linked to an old concept: social trust.
In a recent report by the Center for Democracy and Development and the University of Birmingham on WhatsApp’s role during Nigeria’s February elections, some respondents cited parents and grandparents as the “biggest sharers” of misinformation. “It was something we heard quite a lot,” says Jamie Hitchen, one of the report’s authors. “While younger people have more critical thinking with sharing when it comes to digital platforms, older people were reported to be far more willing.” The report attributes that tendency to share as being down to a lack of digital literacy and a reliance on trusted social networks.
“It’s the same way wealth is created among trusting friends: you get, you share,” Sesan says. “At 60, you’ve probably grown to get information in a world where trust existed, where verification and media were synonymous. Unfortunately, digital tools don’t follow old school traditional verification and trust ethos.”
For his part, Olurotimi Alade, a 60-year old university teacher and father of three, says his trust in “the integrity” of the sender of information “plays a huge role” in his decision to forward messages. And while he tries to fact-check information before forwarding as much as possible, he says “some alarming information appear to be of such immediate concern that forwarding them without probably verifying would most likely to be the prudent thing to do.”
For parents and older relatives, those sort of messages revolve around the safety of loved ones, however improbable the information appears to be. Sherifat, a 54-year old retired bank director, who also forwarded the salt-water Ebola cure to her daughter eight years ago, says she did so out of fear. “Even if I didn’t believe it, it was better to be careful,” she says.
In search of solutions
WhatsApp understands the scale of its fake news problem. Earlier this year, it pegged its message forwarding limit to five people to “help keep WhatsApp focused on private messaging” with close contacts. “The change has reduced messaging behavior by around 25% globally,” a WhatsApp spokesperson told Quartz.
But with its groups feature largely unaffected, the flow of misinformation remains prominent: “one random person can share into a trusted network and that gets shared on,” Sesan says. CDD’s report also noted that 73% of respondents said the average size of the groups they were in was 50 or more people. WhatsApp groups can hold up to 256 members.
As added measures, WhatsApp now labels forwarded messages and has also recently introduced a “frequently forwarded” label to alert users when they received messages that “were previously forwarded several times.” It is also introducing more controls for group admins to allow them determine members that can send messages.
WhatsApp has also relied on mass media to solve its fake news problem. “In the run-up to the Nigeria national election, WhatsApp made significant product changes to limit the spread of viral content, banned accounts engaging in automated or bulk messaging, and sponsored a broad education campaign on broadcast platforms in Nigeria including on the radio, print, and online,” the WhatsApp spokesperson says.
Some solutions have also come from third-party groups. During Nigeria’s general elections, a coalition of journalists set up a WhatsApp business channel for crowd-sourcing questionable claimsfrom the public which were then fact-checked with users encouraged to spread accurate fact-checked reports just as widely as the initial claims.
But none of these solutions focus primarily on older users.
One possible fix could come in the form of younger members of family groups on WhatsApp challenging and correcting their parents when questionable claims are shared. That’s unlikely though, given Nigeria’s conservative family culture, which often places obeisance above perceived dissent. Yet those who are brave enough to try are hardly guaranteed success either: Akinlabi, a 24-year old Lagos-based filmmaker, still gets broadcasts with questionable claims from mum despite several conversations about mindless forwarding.
And so the big question: is it too late to improve the levels of awareness of fake news among older users of WhatsApp in Nigeria?
Sesan says “the short answer is yes.” And Hitchen largely agrees: “It’s difficult to think of a short term solution to solve the problem. It’s got to be long term thinking on how to improve digital literacy but it will be more difficult among older people with less understanding of these things work.”
By Yomi Kazeem
Quartz
The remarkable story of British Nigerian football start Ola Aina
In doing so, he completed a remarkable personal journey.
Born in Southwark, South London to Nigerian parents, Ola has risen to the ranks of professional football - playing for Chelsea, Torino and the Nigerian national team, despite growing up with few privileges.
His journey began when he competed in a tournament in Bognor Regis on the English coast with his youth side. He was voted "most valuable player" among over 600 others, spotted by scouts and attracted attention from 15 clubs, including Premier League sides Tottenham and Chelsea - he later went on to play for the "Blues" as an under-11.
His father Olufemi Aina, a central figure in Ola's story, always believed his son had the making of a gifted athlete. Ola as a child, Olufemi told Al Jazeera, was so physically impressive that he carried his birth certificate around to prove he was the right age.
"He was meant to sign for Tottenham," his father said. "They had him over for about three weeks, then on the day he was supposed to sign, they kept acting funny. As a big Spurs fan, it was heartbreaking. Luckily, Chelsea officials were still calling us daily, so we decided, 'Why not go where you are wanted?'"
But the celebrations were short-lived, as the family desperately rallied around to try and make Ola's dream possible.
His parents often worked several jobs. At one time, his mother Esther had four just to put food on the table for her four sons - Michael, Ola - the second born, Jordan and Benjamin.
When Ola started playing with Chelsea, they would pick him up in their shabby car from training after their work shifts, getting back home just before midnight.
Ola would be up for school again the next morning.
The situation got worse when Olufemi, unable to hold onto jobs because of his commitments to his son's training, lost their house.
"A bleak time for the whole family, and for me," said Ola. "That was a life lesson."
Although Esther is, in Ola's words, his "number one fan", she needed a bit more convincing every now and then.
As a young player, the budding footballer spent four days trying to persuade her to move the family from Essex to Surrey, to be closer to Chelsea. She eventually gave in.
But that was the least of it. About six years ago, his father was driving him to Chelsea when the car broke down.
"The car just stopped in the middle of Vauxhall (in central London), and we were just stranded.
"He sold the car on the spot and then he put me on the train. He came on the train with me because I hadn't really used trains like that before, so it wasn't really too familiar.
"He came with me all the way to Chelsea training ground, made sure I got into my changing room, and then went all the way back home again … All those sacrifices they [made] is fuel for me to strive and to do well and repay them in ways that they can't imagine."
Remembering that day, Olufemi said: "It was not always smooth sailing, but you need to give the child support. In football, some will not make it, but the child deserves a chance."
One of the ways Ola has "repaid" his parents is by taking Esther to a dealership and buying her a brand new car, which prompted her to fast for three days to thank God.
"My heart was full with thanks to God. I never thought that in my lifetime that my child would get me a car," she told Al Jazeera.
In August 2016, Ola made his senior professional debut for Chelsea in the League Cup. Over the course of that season, he made a handful of appearances.
But the next season was spent out on loan to Hull City in the English Championship.
When he returned to London in 2018, there was interest from Torino.
"This was an opportunity to be in a top league, and to get some good experience," he said.
The Italian team made his loan deal permanent earlier this year.
Playing for Nigeria
In 2017, Ola chose to represent the Nigeria national football team, also known as the Super Eagles, at the international level, despite having played for England in the youth ranks.
At the Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt, his spectacular back-heeled assist against Burundi was among the many moments celebrated by fans and countrymen.
His performance in North Africa earned him rave reviews in the local press and also impressed the notoriously judgemental Super Eagles fans on social media.
Thousands of miles away, he was being cheered in Nigeria.
"It was all over the news, [Ola] gave our folks something to be proud of back home," said his uncle Abayomi Aina.
"I was overjoyed and the fact that it's my nephew, the name Aina being mentioned by commentators.
"In a country of about 200 million people, his name was on the lips of millions from Lagos to Ijebu Ikenne (the family's ancestral hometown) and it was indeed a proud moment for us."
In Nigeria, the chances of a footballer ascending to the highest levels of the sport are slim.
"Nigeria is a conveyor belt of talent, with its sheer weight of numbers allied to the popularity of football," said Lagos-based sports journalist Solace Chukwu.
"However, there are simply no structures in place to develop and harness all that talent: among many other issues, there is a massive infrastructure deficit as a result of a non-existent sports policy, and the nation's football administration lacks the vision and integrity to get around that deficit.
"In those circumstances, real success stories are fewer than they should be, and are often a result of sheer determination and perseverance."
Reflecting on his performance in Egypt, Ola said: "It was completing a circle in my life having played for England at youth level. To then play for Nigeria at a major tournament - the buzz after that assist was amazing.
"To play five matches in seven at that tournament and to win a third-place medal is the stuff of dreams."
By Oluwashina Okeleji
Al Jazeera
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Video - Nigeria's Lost Generation Pt. 2
In Part two of this documentary the story of courage and persistence continues. Fatima Adam, one of the chibok girls abductees soldiers on past the trauma she under went at the hands of the boko haram. Bukky Shonibare fights on to have the rest of the chibok girls released. A story of courage and resilience.
Related story: Video - Nigeria's lost Generation
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