Lion removed from house near school in Lagos, Nigeria

A lion which was reportedly being used to guard a house in Lagos, Nigeria, has been removed by authorities.

The two-year-old lion was reportedly discovered at a property opposite a school by a task force team on Friday.

It was tranquilised on Monday and transferred to Bogije Omu zoo in Lekki, head of the task force team Yinka Egbeyemi told the BBC.

The owner of the animal has been told to report himself to police before the end of Monday or face arrest.

A team from the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences Unit located the animal after residents filed a petition to the state's ministry of environment.

A crèche and elementary school stand opposite the house, according to the BBC's Damilola Oduolowu in Lagos.

The school's management said it had been conscious of the children's safety.

It is thought the lion was brought into the building two months ago.

BBC

Startups in Nigeria are beating the odds to succeed

Entrepreneurs in Nigeria have an oft-repeated saying that is borrowed from New York: “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”

The phrase captures the daily challenges that come with running a business in Africa’s largest economy. And since tech startups exist within the ecosystem, they face their share of difficulties too. A new survey of Nigerian tech firms offers a glimpse into the tough realities of running a tech startup in the country.

The survey was conducted by two Washington-headquartered organizations—ONE Campaign, an international non-profit seeking to fight extreme poverty, especially in Africa, and the Washington think tank Center for Global Development.

More than half the respondents identified the lack of a reliable electricity supply as a severe constraint. A majority of the startups reported 30 or more power outages every month. It’s likely that many startups keep the lights on by investing in generators that cost a lot to run.

That’s money the startups could have put to other uses, as 60% of them reported access to credit as a major obstacle. Nigeria annually features among the top destinations in Africa for startup investment, but much of the funding goes to established ventures with high-profile or foreign-trained founders. For many others, the reality is much more stark given local banks’ reluctance to provide loans to startups, and the high interest rates they charge when they do.

Meanwhile, wealthy Nigerians who might fund home-grown startups still seem reluctant to do so. Entrepreneurs also reported the following obstacles: Political instability, corruption, multiple government taxes and levies. And then there are stories of harassment by the police.

For its part, the Nigerian government points to its improved rank on the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019 report—it went from 146 last year to 131—as proof of its efforts to improve the business climate. But, as the World Bank’s report measures progress more by changes to policy rather than its implementation, it could be argued that it’s getting easier to do business in Nigeria only on paper.

But the workarounds to some of the problems that plague Nigeria’s business environment may come from the tech ecosystem itself. From off-grid energy companies trying to drive up electrification, to fintech ventures looking to boost financial inclusion and access to credit—startups are struggling against the odds. And sometimes beating them too.

By Yomi Kazeem

Quartz

Video - Lesotho 2-4 Nigeria - Highlights

Nigerian army rescues 8 hostages in NE region

Eight hostages held by Boko Haram insurgents in Gwoza area of Borno state in the restive northeast Nigeria have been rescued, the army spokesman Aminu Iliyasu said Sunday.

In a statement reaching Xinhua in Lagos, Nigeria's economic hub, Iliyasu said troops subdued Boko Haram terrorists in an encounter and rescued eight villagers including four children held captives by the insurgents.

The coordinating army spokesperson said the rescued victims were evacuated while the children among them were equally administered with Polio vaccination by a Nigerian army medical team.

He added that no causality was recorded by the army troops during the commando operations.

According to him, many of the Boko Haram criminal elements fled in disarray toward the summit of Mandara Mountains with gunshot wounds.

"The troops' resilience and doggedness are unwavering as further exploitation to complete the annihilation of the insurgents is being sustained in the mountainous environment," he said.

Iliyasu said the army continued to sustain the tempo of the counter-insurgency operations in the northeast with a view to decimating and destroying the remnant of "Boko Haram/Islamic State West Africa (ISWAP) criminals".

Xinhua

Nigerian entrepreneur Temie Giwa-Tubosun wins Jack Ma's African business hero award

A Nigerian entrepreneur has taken home the top prize at the Jack Ma Foundation's first annual prize for African businesses.

Temie Giwa-Tubosun walked away with the top $250,000 cash prize from the $1 million available from the Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative (ANPI), started by Chinese investor Jack Ma.

The organization says it will award a $1m grant to 10 African entrepreneurs every year for the next 10 years.

Giwa-Tubosun is the founder and CEO of LifeBank, a Lagos-based blood and oxygen delivery company that connects registered blood banks to hospitals and patients in need of urgent blood supplies.

She said: "The Africa Netpreneur Prize will give me the resources to grow LifeBank and expand our presence in Nigeria and throughout the rest of Africa. I look forward to continuing my journey to solve problems and make a significant impact on the future of Africa."

Drone delivery of blood
 
Giwa-Tubosun also announced at the 'African Business Heroes' event held in Accra,Ghana on Saturday that LifeBank will start delivering blood through Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), known as drones.
She said the decision to add drones to their mobility fleet was to get blood to patients in places that are hard to reach.
At the event, Giwa-Tubosun spoke about LifeBank's findings while researching the best situations to use drones for blood delivery.
"After running our operations for three years we knew that there were some patients we could not reach on time. Like areas where there are bandits on the road so we need to fly," she told CNN.
According to her, the drones will only supply blood in emergency situations where patients are hard to reach.

An Ethiopian partnership
 
In October, in partnership with the Information Network Security Agency (INSA), the Ethiopian government agency tasked with exploring technology, the LifeBank team successfully did a test run of drone delivery in Ethiopia.
"What we did in Ethiopia... was like a research project to show that we can deliver these critical supplies [blood]. We did that for a couple of weeks and it was successful," Giwa-Tubosun said.
The drones are programmed to automatically pick up samples from blood banks and deliver to laboratories or hospitals without any form of human control.
Giwa-Tubosun says beyond Ethiopia, LifeBank's drone delivery services will be tested and launched in other regions including Nigeria.
"We have the results of the success, and we're going to do the same in another country, perhaps Nigeria," she said.

Nigeria's blood deficit
 
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, needs up to 1.8 million units of blood every year, but the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) collects only about 66,000 units per year, leaving a deficit of more than 1.7million pints of blood, according to the country's health ministry.
Through their real-time delivery of blood using motorcycles and boats, LifeBank is trying to improve the numbers in the West African country.
Their dispatch riders pick up specified units of blood from blood banks, storing it in their motorbike's cold chain transport box and delivering to the required hospitals quickly, a challenge in gridlocked Lagos.

10,000 applications
 
Around 10,000 applicants from 50 African countries were whittled down to just 10 for the "Africa's Business Heroes," finale event, held Saturday in Accra, Ghana.

The final 10 pitched their businesses to four judges, including Ma, Zimbabwean businessman Strive Masiyiwa, Joe Tsai, Vice Chairman Alibaba Group and banking boss Ibukun Awosika.
In second and third place were Egyptian Omar Sakr, founder and CEO, Nawah-Scientific and Christelle Kwizera, founder, Water Access Rwanda who were awarded $150,000 and $100,000 each.
The remaining finalists each walked away with $65,000 for their businesses.

By Aisha Salaudeen and Stephanie Busari

CNN