Nearly 100 inmates remain at large after torrential rains in central Nigeria allowed scores of protesters to escape, according to authorities.
The "perimeter fence" of the facility in Kogi state was destroyed by rains and cells flooded, forcing inmates "to break out of custody for safety", Francis Enobore, of the Nigerian Correctional Service, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"A torrential downpour on Monday 28th October, 2019, caused a surging flood that overran the centre at about 02:00 hours (GMT) pulling down a section of the perimeter fence," Enobore said, adding that "122 of them took the opportunity to escape, 105 remained on the spot".
"Twenty-five of the escapees have been recaptured, leaving 97 still at large."
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has been particularly affected by heavy rains that have continued to fall, after the end of the rainy season.
The agrarian central states of Niger, Benue, Kogi and Taraba have been affected by flooding in recent months.
The rains have destroyed crops in the country's key agricultural belt, and forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.
In the northeastern state of Adamawa, more than 40 villages have also been totally destroyed by the downpour in recent days local news reports said.
Al Jazeera
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Monday, October 28, 2019
Video - UN reopens office in Abuja 8 years after a bomb attack
United Nations has reopened its building in the capital Abuja, eight years after a bomb attack.The August 2011 bombing left 23 dead and several others wounded. The UN was forced to continue its operations from donated buildings to allow renovation works. Looking to the future, the 75th UN assembly is set to redouble its efforts and commitment to multilateralism.
Torture houses masquerading as koranic schools in Nigeria
The private Islamic boarding school in Daura, northern Nigeria, was not somewhere you would want a child to stay for more than a few minutes, let alone months or years.
The Koranic and Rehabilitation Centre was one of series of institutions raided over the past month where parents have been sending troublesome children and young men who may be addicted to drugs or have committed petty crimes. But the raids have revealed them to be more akin to "torture houses", officials say.
The centre in Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari's hometown, was made up of two main buildings, one clean and well-built where children were taught the Koran.
Across the road was the centre's accommodation - a run-down single-storey compound, made up of five or six dark cells with barred windows and doors around a courtyard.
The air was stuffy and nauseating. Former students told us that up to 40 people were kept in chains in each 7-sq-m (75-sq-ft) cell.
Filthy clothes and bedding littered the floor. Those who lived there were often forced to urinate and defecate with their chains on - in the same place they ate and slept.
They would be regularly taken out for beatings or to be raped by the staff.
"It was hell on earth," said Rabiu Umar, a former detainee at the centre.
Sixty-seven boys and men were freed from the facility. Police said there were 300 people on the school register, but many of them had escaped following a riot the previous weekend.
Over the past month about 600 people have been found to be living in such horrifying conditions: chained, starved and abused.
The first discovery was in late September in the Rigasa neighbourhood of Kaduna city in the north-west. Following a tip-off from a relative, the police found nearly 500 people, including children, detained in appalling conditions.
Videos showed rescued students looking dazed, their legs shackled and their bodies covered in blisters.
Some of them were pictured dangling from the ceiling. Others had their hands or feet chained to car wheel rims.
Hafsat Baba, Kaduna state's commissioner of human services and social development, told the BBC at the time the authorities planned to identify all facilities of this type and close them down.
She added that they would prosecute the owners of centres "found to be torturing children or holding people in these kind of horrific situations".
Ten days ago, for the first time women were also amongst those rescued - from another institution in Kaduna.
This is unusual, according to Ms Baba, who added that these institutions seldom admit both sexes.
As the raids continue and more details emerge, they have been met with public outrage, but these institutions were no secret.
Jaafar Jaafar, from online media platform the Daily Nigerian, says people who live there have always known.
'Spiritual healing'
"I don't think there is any person who grows up in the north who can claim that they aren't aware of these schools - we all know they abuse children there."
He adds that growing up in Kano in the 1980s and 1990s he was aware of a number of schools like these.
"People believe that these schools have the spiritual power to heal. They don't mind how much the children are dehumanised, or how they're treated, as long as their child receives a Koranic education and is rehabilitated."
However, some parents have denied knowing their children were abused.
Following the raid in Kaduna in September, Ibrahim Adamu, the father of one of the students, told Reuters news agency: "If we had known that this thing was happening in the school, we wouldn't have sent our children. We sent them to be people but they ended up being maltreated.''
According to Sanusi Buba, the Katsina police commissioner, parents are not able to speak to their children while they are at the centres. And even if they visit they do not have unsupervised access to them.
This wave of discoveries has raised awareness outside of northern Nigeria of the problem of abuse in these rehabilitation centres.
Mr Buba said the tradition of people in the north taking their troublesome children to religious rehabilitation centres "has been an age-long situation but [the behaviour] can worsen as a result of abuse".
Nevertheless he is adamant that "the law of this country does not allow someone to create a rehabilitation centre and collect money".
Drug addiction
Part of the problem may be to do with the lack of state-funded facilities in the north.
According to the UN, there were three million drug users in north-west Nigeria in 2017. Nearly half a million of them were in Katsina state, which only runs two rehabilitation centres - one for men and another for women.
With a lack of publicly-funded options, private rehabilitation centres in the form of these schools have become a final resort for parents who have run out of options.
Even those who manage to access a public facility find conditions are not much better.
Last year a BBC investigation exposed horrifying conditions in a state centre in Kano, where patients with mental health issues were chained to the ground.
Katsina Governor Aminu Bello Masari said his centres were well-equipped to provide the rehabilitation needed for drug abuse or mental disorders.
But with parents still turning to centres that say they rehabilitate people in the name of Islam, it is not clear that the government has the capacity to deal with the problem.
And with no concrete alternatives, desperate families will keep turning to religious centres for solutions.
By Mayeni Jones
BBC
Related stories: Survivor recounts torture house experience in Nigeria
Hundreds freed from torture house in Nigeria
The Koranic and Rehabilitation Centre was one of series of institutions raided over the past month where parents have been sending troublesome children and young men who may be addicted to drugs or have committed petty crimes. But the raids have revealed them to be more akin to "torture houses", officials say.
The centre in Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari's hometown, was made up of two main buildings, one clean and well-built where children were taught the Koran.
Across the road was the centre's accommodation - a run-down single-storey compound, made up of five or six dark cells with barred windows and doors around a courtyard.
The air was stuffy and nauseating. Former students told us that up to 40 people were kept in chains in each 7-sq-m (75-sq-ft) cell.
Filthy clothes and bedding littered the floor. Those who lived there were often forced to urinate and defecate with their chains on - in the same place they ate and slept.
They would be regularly taken out for beatings or to be raped by the staff.
"It was hell on earth," said Rabiu Umar, a former detainee at the centre.
Sixty-seven boys and men were freed from the facility. Police said there were 300 people on the school register, but many of them had escaped following a riot the previous weekend.
Over the past month about 600 people have been found to be living in such horrifying conditions: chained, starved and abused.
The first discovery was in late September in the Rigasa neighbourhood of Kaduna city in the north-west. Following a tip-off from a relative, the police found nearly 500 people, including children, detained in appalling conditions.
Videos showed rescued students looking dazed, their legs shackled and their bodies covered in blisters.
Some of them were pictured dangling from the ceiling. Others had their hands or feet chained to car wheel rims.
Hafsat Baba, Kaduna state's commissioner of human services and social development, told the BBC at the time the authorities planned to identify all facilities of this type and close them down.
She added that they would prosecute the owners of centres "found to be torturing children or holding people in these kind of horrific situations".
Ten days ago, for the first time women were also amongst those rescued - from another institution in Kaduna.
This is unusual, according to Ms Baba, who added that these institutions seldom admit both sexes.
As the raids continue and more details emerge, they have been met with public outrage, but these institutions were no secret.
Jaafar Jaafar, from online media platform the Daily Nigerian, says people who live there have always known.
'Spiritual healing'
"I don't think there is any person who grows up in the north who can claim that they aren't aware of these schools - we all know they abuse children there."
He adds that growing up in Kano in the 1980s and 1990s he was aware of a number of schools like these.
"People believe that these schools have the spiritual power to heal. They don't mind how much the children are dehumanised, or how they're treated, as long as their child receives a Koranic education and is rehabilitated."
However, some parents have denied knowing their children were abused.
Following the raid in Kaduna in September, Ibrahim Adamu, the father of one of the students, told Reuters news agency: "If we had known that this thing was happening in the school, we wouldn't have sent our children. We sent them to be people but they ended up being maltreated.''
According to Sanusi Buba, the Katsina police commissioner, parents are not able to speak to their children while they are at the centres. And even if they visit they do not have unsupervised access to them.
This wave of discoveries has raised awareness outside of northern Nigeria of the problem of abuse in these rehabilitation centres.
Mr Buba said the tradition of people in the north taking their troublesome children to religious rehabilitation centres "has been an age-long situation but [the behaviour] can worsen as a result of abuse".
Nevertheless he is adamant that "the law of this country does not allow someone to create a rehabilitation centre and collect money".
Drug addiction
Part of the problem may be to do with the lack of state-funded facilities in the north.
According to the UN, there were three million drug users in north-west Nigeria in 2017. Nearly half a million of them were in Katsina state, which only runs two rehabilitation centres - one for men and another for women.
With a lack of publicly-funded options, private rehabilitation centres in the form of these schools have become a final resort for parents who have run out of options.
Even those who manage to access a public facility find conditions are not much better.
Last year a BBC investigation exposed horrifying conditions in a state centre in Kano, where patients with mental health issues were chained to the ground.
Katsina Governor Aminu Bello Masari said his centres were well-equipped to provide the rehabilitation needed for drug abuse or mental disorders.
But with parents still turning to centres that say they rehabilitate people in the name of Islam, it is not clear that the government has the capacity to deal with the problem.
And with no concrete alternatives, desperate families will keep turning to religious centres for solutions.
By Mayeni Jones
BBC
Related stories: Survivor recounts torture house experience in Nigeria
Hundreds freed from torture house in Nigeria
Friday, October 25, 2019
Nigeria improves in World Bank ease of doing business
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, improved its ranking on the latest World Bank ease of doing business index, but some analysts say that doesn't necessarily mean an improved economy -- and that the country still has anti-business policies.
The country now ranks 131 on the World Bank's Doing Business 2020 index, released Wednesday. The west African nation moved up 15 places from its 2019 spot and has been tagged as one of the most improved economies in the world for running a business.
The index is a yearly ranking that assesses the business environment in 190 countries using various indicators including paying taxes, trading across borders, starting a business and protecting minority investors.
Tunde Leye, a Nigeria-based business analyst with SBM Intelligence, said the new rank is a major improvement from last year but there are existing counterproductive policies that make running businesses hard.
"The ease of doing business may be better, but the actual process of running a business has been stifled," he told CNN.
In 2016, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, set up a government organization -- the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) -- with the aim of minimizing the constraints that come with running businesses in the country.
The organization put together reforms geared toward making it more convenient for business owners to thrive.
Some of them include cutting down the time it takes to register a business, new grid connections for electricity and upgrading election systems for imports and exports.
But according to Leye, these policies may have the opposite of the desired effect as a lot of traders and business owners are losing revenue and goods, referencing the recent closure of the Nigerian land borders.
In August, Buhari closed Nigeria's land frontiers to goods traded with Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin, citing the need to protect the country's economy from frequent smuggling.
"This closure has erased millions' worth of trade. It is counterproductive in making business easy. We should not tamper with trade and monetary policy in that manner," Leye said.
Business transformation
Ola Brown, founder of Flying Doctors Nigeria, a medical emergency services company, said some of the reforms have helped transform her business.
"I run an air ambulance business and visa on arrival, a simple policy change, has changed my business. We can now bring patients to Nigeria without having to get a visa in advance," she told CNN.
In 2017, as part of a plan to improve the country's business climate, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) reviewed the requirements for Nigerian visas to make them more customer-friendly.
Brown admits that despite the change she has experienced, every business will be hit differently by the reforms. "Depending on what your business is or what you do, everyone will have a different opinion about how the current reforms are working for them," she said.
"For me, visa on arrival has helped increase my revenue and improve my business," she added.
In a statement Thursday, the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council said it has more plans to deliver sustainable economic growth and improvement of businesses across the country.
"We are committed to more engagement between reform-implementing organs of government and the private sector players and we are happy to see that this has resulted in a more favorable validation of the reforms by the private sector," council secretary Jumoke Oduwole said in the statement.
"The council is focused on delivering even more substantive reforms for the improvement of the general business climate," Oduwole said.
There is progress with government efforts to create a stable business environment, but there should also be consideration for better education and training for entrepreneurs on how to run businesses, Brown said.
According to her, investing in teaching business owners ways to improve and grow their business will have a positive effect on the country's business climate.
"It's not just in the big skills. Small systematic things, like how to negotiate better with foreign partners, will help the ease of doing business," she said.
By Aisha Salaudeen
CNN
The country now ranks 131 on the World Bank's Doing Business 2020 index, released Wednesday. The west African nation moved up 15 places from its 2019 spot and has been tagged as one of the most improved economies in the world for running a business.
The index is a yearly ranking that assesses the business environment in 190 countries using various indicators including paying taxes, trading across borders, starting a business and protecting minority investors.
Tunde Leye, a Nigeria-based business analyst with SBM Intelligence, said the new rank is a major improvement from last year but there are existing counterproductive policies that make running businesses hard.
"The ease of doing business may be better, but the actual process of running a business has been stifled," he told CNN.
In 2016, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, set up a government organization -- the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) -- with the aim of minimizing the constraints that come with running businesses in the country.
The organization put together reforms geared toward making it more convenient for business owners to thrive.
Some of them include cutting down the time it takes to register a business, new grid connections for electricity and upgrading election systems for imports and exports.
But according to Leye, these policies may have the opposite of the desired effect as a lot of traders and business owners are losing revenue and goods, referencing the recent closure of the Nigerian land borders.
In August, Buhari closed Nigeria's land frontiers to goods traded with Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin, citing the need to protect the country's economy from frequent smuggling.
"This closure has erased millions' worth of trade. It is counterproductive in making business easy. We should not tamper with trade and monetary policy in that manner," Leye said.
Business transformation
Ola Brown, founder of Flying Doctors Nigeria, a medical emergency services company, said some of the reforms have helped transform her business.
"I run an air ambulance business and visa on arrival, a simple policy change, has changed my business. We can now bring patients to Nigeria without having to get a visa in advance," she told CNN.
In 2017, as part of a plan to improve the country's business climate, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) reviewed the requirements for Nigerian visas to make them more customer-friendly.
Brown admits that despite the change she has experienced, every business will be hit differently by the reforms. "Depending on what your business is or what you do, everyone will have a different opinion about how the current reforms are working for them," she said.
"For me, visa on arrival has helped increase my revenue and improve my business," she added.
In a statement Thursday, the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council said it has more plans to deliver sustainable economic growth and improvement of businesses across the country.
"We are committed to more engagement between reform-implementing organs of government and the private sector players and we are happy to see that this has resulted in a more favorable validation of the reforms by the private sector," council secretary Jumoke Oduwole said in the statement.
"The council is focused on delivering even more substantive reforms for the improvement of the general business climate," Oduwole said.
There is progress with government efforts to create a stable business environment, but there should also be consideration for better education and training for entrepreneurs on how to run businesses, Brown said.
According to her, investing in teaching business owners ways to improve and grow their business will have a positive effect on the country's business climate.
"It's not just in the big skills. Small systematic things, like how to negotiate better with foreign partners, will help the ease of doing business," she said.
By Aisha Salaudeen
CNN
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Video - Farming: Adewale Akinnuoye-Abaje directorial debut with emotive film
Nigerian-British actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Abaje has launched his directorial debut – Farming – in Lagos, Nigeria, just days after it was released in the UK. "It is an important part of British history as well as Nigerian culture... I'm hoping that it (the #film) would create a dialogue and a collective therapy for those that are still suffering," the actor said during the launch on 19 October. The movie will premiere in the US on 25 October.
Related story: Black skinhead film directed by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje hopes to "heal" pain
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