Nigeria will begin a "gradual easing" of coronavirus-related lockdowns for millions of people in its largest city Lagos and the capital, Abuja.
President Muhammadu Buhari said the lockdowns, which had been due to end on Monday, needed to continue until 4 May.
He also ordered new nationwide measures against Covid-19, including a night-time curfew and mandatory face masks.
The moves would ensure the economy functioned "while still maintaining our aggressive response", Mr Buhari said.
The easing will apply to Abuja, Lagos and neighbouring Ogun state, where collectively more than 25 million people have been under lockdown since 30 March. Other states have introduced their own measures.
Before the announcement, workers at a construction site in Lagos rioted in protest at the lockdown.
A police spokesman said the workers at the Lekki Free Trade zone - including those at the oil refinery of billionaire Aliko Dangote - injured several officers in the area. Fifty-one people were arrested, he added.
There are reports that the protesters were angry that some foreign nationals were allowed to go to work at the site.
Nigeria, Africa's most-populous nation and largest economy, has reported 1,273 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 40 deaths.
In a televised address on Monday night, Mr Buhari acknowledged that the lockdowns in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun had "come at a very heavy economic cost" since they began on 30 March.
"Many of our citizens have lost their means of livelihood. Many businesses have shut down," he said.
He added: "No country can afford the full impact of a sustained lockdown while awaiting the development of vaccines."
The president said there would therefore be a "phased and gradual easing" of these lockdowns next Monday to allow some economic activities to resume.
But to limit the spread of Covid-19, he announced that the government would impose a curfew across the country between 20:00 and 06:00, require everyone to wear face masks in public, and stop "non-essential inter-state passenger travel".
Bans on social and religious gatherings will also remain in place.
Mr Buhari also expressed deep concern over the unexplained deaths of a number of people in the northern state of Kano.
He said a lockdown would be imposed there for two weeks with immediate effect and that he was sending a government team to investigate.
BBC
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Monday, April 27, 2020
Nigeria's Okraraises $1M from TLcom connecting bank accounts to apps
A new Nigerian fintech venture, Okra, has racked up a unique mix of accomplishments in less than a year.
The Lagos based API developer created a product that generates revenues from both payment startups and established financial institutions.
Okra has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding from TLcom Capital — a $71 million Africa focused VC firm that rarely invests in early-stage companies or fintech.
The startup is also poised to enter new markets and it’s hiring.
Founded in June 2019 by Nigerians Fara Ashiru Jituboh and David Peterside, Okra casts itself as a motherboard for the continent’s 21st century financial system.
“We’re building a super-connector API that…allows individuals to connect their bank accounts directly to third party applications. And that’s their African bank accounts starting in the largest market in Africa, Nigeria,” said Ashiru Jituboh.
As a sector, fintech has become the continent’s highest funded tech space, receiving the bulk of an estimated $2 billion in VC that went to African startups in 2019. Those ventures, and a number of the continent’s established banks, are in a race to build market share through financial inclusion.
By several estimates — including The Global Findex Database — the continent is home to the largest percentage of the world’s unbanked population, with a sizable number of underbanked consumers and SMEs.
With 54 countries, 1.2 billion people and thousands of relatively young startups, there are a lot of moving parts in Africa’s fintech space. Similar to U.S. company Plaid, Okra is shaping a platform that connects accounts and financial data to banking apps into a revenue generating product.
With Africa’s largest population of 200 million people, Nigeria serves as a major financial hub — but there’s still a disconnect between fintech apps and banks, according to Okra’s Ashiru Jituboh.
“Here in this market there’s no way to directly connect your bank account through an API or directly to an application,” she said.
Okra offers several paid packages for those types of integrations and opens up the code to its five product categories — authorization, balance, transactions, identity and accounts — to developers.
Okra has already created a diverse client list that includes mobile payments startup PalmPay, insurer Axa Mansard and Nigerian digital lender Renmoney.
The startup generates revenues through product fees and earns each time a user connects a bank account to a customer, according to Ashiru Jituboh.
On how the Okra differs from other well-funded fintech companies in Nigeria, such as Flutterwave or Interswitch, “The answer is we’re not doing payments, but what we’re doing is making processes with [payment providers] even smoother,” she said.
Ashiru Jituboh comes to her CEO position with a software engineering background and a strong connection to the U.S. Born in Nigeria, she grew up in and studied computer science in North Carolina.
She did stints in finance — JP Morgan Chase and Fidelity Investments — and then in tech companies before making the leap to founder. “I went to work in startups, but I was always employee number two or three,” said Ashiru Jituboh.
She decided to go all in on Okra after returning to Nigeria and noting the need for linking together the country’s emerging digital financial infrastructure.
“When we knew that it was a big addressable market is when we realized that all these fintech CEOs and CTOs were struggling with this use case,” she said.
Shortly after its launch, Okra attracted the attention of TLcom Capital in second quarter 2019, according to VC Andreata Muforo.
With offices in London, Lagos, and Nairobi, the group closed its $71 million Tide Africa fund this year. TLcom has focused primarily on Series A and later investments, including backing Kenyan agtech startup Twiga Foods and Nigerian trucking logistics company Kobo360.
In an interview last year, the fund’s managing partner, Maurizio Caio, explained that TLcom was steering more toward investments in infrastructure oriented tech companies and away from Africa’s more commoditized payments and lending startups.
The VC firm was attracted to Okra for its ability to serve the continent’s broader financial sector. “It’s a service that other fintechs can plug into and utilize, so it’s accelerating the growth of fintech across the continent…That to us was a big hook,” TLcom’s Andreata Muforo told TechCrunch on a call.
Founder Fara Ashiru Jituboh was also a factor in the fund making a $1 million pre-seed investment in Okra. “We found her to be very strong and also liked the fact that she’s a technical founder,” said Muforo. As part of the investments, she and TLcom Capital partner Ido Sum will join Okra’s board.
In addition to hiring fresh engineering talent, the startup aims to take its product offerings that connect bank accounts to apps to new African countries — though it would not disclose where or when.
“We’re looking at three target markets that our clients are already in,” said Ashiru Jituboh. Okra investor Andreata Muforo named Kenya — with one of the highest mobile money penetration rates in the world — as a likely candidate for the startup’s product services.
By Jake Bright
TechCrunch
Related stories: Video - Nigerian returns bitcoins worth $80,000
Bitcoin used in Nigeria to hedge against national currency
The Lagos based API developer created a product that generates revenues from both payment startups and established financial institutions.
Okra has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding from TLcom Capital — a $71 million Africa focused VC firm that rarely invests in early-stage companies or fintech.
The startup is also poised to enter new markets and it’s hiring.
Founded in June 2019 by Nigerians Fara Ashiru Jituboh and David Peterside, Okra casts itself as a motherboard for the continent’s 21st century financial system.
“We’re building a super-connector API that…allows individuals to connect their bank accounts directly to third party applications. And that’s their African bank accounts starting in the largest market in Africa, Nigeria,” said Ashiru Jituboh.
As a sector, fintech has become the continent’s highest funded tech space, receiving the bulk of an estimated $2 billion in VC that went to African startups in 2019. Those ventures, and a number of the continent’s established banks, are in a race to build market share through financial inclusion.
By several estimates — including The Global Findex Database — the continent is home to the largest percentage of the world’s unbanked population, with a sizable number of underbanked consumers and SMEs.
With 54 countries, 1.2 billion people and thousands of relatively young startups, there are a lot of moving parts in Africa’s fintech space. Similar to U.S. company Plaid, Okra is shaping a platform that connects accounts and financial data to banking apps into a revenue generating product.
With Africa’s largest population of 200 million people, Nigeria serves as a major financial hub — but there’s still a disconnect between fintech apps and banks, according to Okra’s Ashiru Jituboh.
“Here in this market there’s no way to directly connect your bank account through an API or directly to an application,” she said.
Okra offers several paid packages for those types of integrations and opens up the code to its five product categories — authorization, balance, transactions, identity and accounts — to developers.
Okra has already created a diverse client list that includes mobile payments startup PalmPay, insurer Axa Mansard and Nigerian digital lender Renmoney.
The startup generates revenues through product fees and earns each time a user connects a bank account to a customer, according to Ashiru Jituboh.
On how the Okra differs from other well-funded fintech companies in Nigeria, such as Flutterwave or Interswitch, “The answer is we’re not doing payments, but what we’re doing is making processes with [payment providers] even smoother,” she said.
Ashiru Jituboh comes to her CEO position with a software engineering background and a strong connection to the U.S. Born in Nigeria, she grew up in and studied computer science in North Carolina.
She did stints in finance — JP Morgan Chase and Fidelity Investments — and then in tech companies before making the leap to founder. “I went to work in startups, but I was always employee number two or three,” said Ashiru Jituboh.
She decided to go all in on Okra after returning to Nigeria and noting the need for linking together the country’s emerging digital financial infrastructure.
“When we knew that it was a big addressable market is when we realized that all these fintech CEOs and CTOs were struggling with this use case,” she said.
Shortly after its launch, Okra attracted the attention of TLcom Capital in second quarter 2019, according to VC Andreata Muforo.
With offices in London, Lagos, and Nairobi, the group closed its $71 million Tide Africa fund this year. TLcom has focused primarily on Series A and later investments, including backing Kenyan agtech startup Twiga Foods and Nigerian trucking logistics company Kobo360.
In an interview last year, the fund’s managing partner, Maurizio Caio, explained that TLcom was steering more toward investments in infrastructure oriented tech companies and away from Africa’s more commoditized payments and lending startups.
The VC firm was attracted to Okra for its ability to serve the continent’s broader financial sector. “It’s a service that other fintechs can plug into and utilize, so it’s accelerating the growth of fintech across the continent…That to us was a big hook,” TLcom’s Andreata Muforo told TechCrunch on a call.
Founder Fara Ashiru Jituboh was also a factor in the fund making a $1 million pre-seed investment in Okra. “We found her to be very strong and also liked the fact that she’s a technical founder,” said Muforo. As part of the investments, she and TLcom Capital partner Ido Sum will join Okra’s board.
In addition to hiring fresh engineering talent, the startup aims to take its product offerings that connect bank accounts to apps to new African countries — though it would not disclose where or when.
“We’re looking at three target markets that our clients are already in,” said Ashiru Jituboh. Okra investor Andreata Muforo named Kenya — with one of the highest mobile money penetration rates in the world — as a likely candidate for the startup’s product services.
By Jake Bright
TechCrunch
Related stories: Video - Nigerian returns bitcoins worth $80,000
Bitcoin used in Nigeria to hedge against national currency
Friday, April 24, 2020
Lebanon arrests suspect for putting Nigerian worker up 'for sale'
Lebanese security forces have arrested a man suspected of putting a Nigerian domestic worker up "for sale" on a popular Facebook page used to trade everyday items such as furniture, food and shoes.
"Domestic worker of African citizenship (Nigerian) for sale with a new residency and full legal papers," an account under the name Wael Jerro posted on the page, named Buy and Sell in Lebanon. The exact date of the post remains unclear.
The suspect was arrested on Thursday by Lebanon's General Security agency, the country's leading intelligence agency, which also controls entry and exit from the small Mediterranean nation. General Security said an investigation was under way in the case, and warned that advertising people online violated the country's human trafficking laws, subjecting perpetrators to prosecution.
The arrest came after Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najem on Wednesday ordered the judiciary to follow up on the case, citing Lebanon's anti-human trafficking law. Lebanon's Ministry of Labour also released a statement saying anyone who advertises domestic workers online would be prosecuted.
Najem said in a statement that the case represented a "blatant violation of human dignity".
The case has sparked fury in Nigeria, where officials requested the Lebanese authorities to investigate the incident.
"The government is very angry," said Julie Okah-Donli, director-general of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). "The Lebanese government should prosecute him and rescue other girls that have been sold or [are] about to be sold into slavery."
Many Nigerians also took to social media to express their outrage.
'Modern-day slavery'
Some 250,000 migrant domestic workers - most from sub-Saharan African countries such as Ethiopia and Ghana, and southeast Asian countries including Nepal and the Philippines - reside in Lebanon.
Domestic workers in Lebanon are legally bound to their employers through the country's notorious kafala system, which only allows them to end their contracts with the consent of employers.
The system has led to widespread abuse, ranging from the withholding of wages, to physical and sexual assault. Camille Abousleiman, Lebanon's former labour minister, has called it "modern-day slavery".
While Lebanon's Ministry of Labour says it is working to improve protection for domestic workers by amending the contract between them and their employers, experts say the abuse will continue until the kafala system is entirely abolished.
"Adopting a revised contract which addresses shortcomings is undoubtedly a step forward, but it's not enough," Diala Haidar, a Lebanon campaigner at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera.
"The Lebanese labour law explicitly excludes domestic workers from labour protections enjoyed by other workers such as minimum wage, overtime pay, compensation for unfair dismissal, and social security. The labour law needs to be amended to recognise domestic workers as workers and grant them full labour protections," she said.
General Security had said in 2017 that two domestic workers die every week in Lebanon. Videos often circulate of domestic workers trying to escape the homes of their employers by climbing down high buildings. Frequently, they are found dead.
Last month, the body of 23-year-old Ghanaian domestic worker Faustina Tay was found in a parking lot under the fourth-storey apartment of her employers. In the days leading up to her death, Tay had alleged repeated abuse by her employer and the agent who brought her to Lebanon and said she feared her life was in danger.
The employer has since been blacklisted, meaning he cannot hire any more domestic workers, while a criminal investigation is ongoing. The high-profile case, first reported by Al Jazeera, shed light on the conditions migrant workers face in Lebanon.
Despite the fact that most domestic workers arrive in Lebanon by legal means, the Facebook post has renewed calls in Nigeria for tougher measures to curb the activities of those involved in human trafficking - a big problem faced by a number of African countries.
"As long as traffickers are working about freely, making money, trafficking will not stop," Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, told Al Jazeera.
Last year, the Nigerian government began the repatriation of up to 20,000 girls who were trafficked to Mali.
The national agency fighting human trafficking said many of these girls ended up working as sex slaves in mining camps in Mali after they were tricked with promises of getting jobs in Europe.
In 2018, the government removed some 5,500 Nigerians from Libya following reports of abuse, slavery and torture.
"We shall, after COVID-19, engage countries where human trafficking is endemic with a view to rescuing and repatriating victims of trafficking as we did in Libya a few years ago," Okah-Donli said, referring to the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
"Human trafficking is a global problem and huge all over the world because of the large profit. It's an organised criminal network that cuts across local and international boundaries. more of it is for sexual and labour exploitation and of course organ harvesting," she added.
Al Jazeera
Related stories: Lebanese puts up Nigerian for sale on Facebook
Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'
"Domestic worker of African citizenship (Nigerian) for sale with a new residency and full legal papers," an account under the name Wael Jerro posted on the page, named Buy and Sell in Lebanon. The exact date of the post remains unclear.
The suspect was arrested on Thursday by Lebanon's General Security agency, the country's leading intelligence agency, which also controls entry and exit from the small Mediterranean nation. General Security said an investigation was under way in the case, and warned that advertising people online violated the country's human trafficking laws, subjecting perpetrators to prosecution.
The arrest came after Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najem on Wednesday ordered the judiciary to follow up on the case, citing Lebanon's anti-human trafficking law. Lebanon's Ministry of Labour also released a statement saying anyone who advertises domestic workers online would be prosecuted.
Najem said in a statement that the case represented a "blatant violation of human dignity".
The case has sparked fury in Nigeria, where officials requested the Lebanese authorities to investigate the incident.
"The government is very angry," said Julie Okah-Donli, director-general of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). "The Lebanese government should prosecute him and rescue other girls that have been sold or [are] about to be sold into slavery."
Many Nigerians also took to social media to express their outrage.
'Modern-day slavery'
Some 250,000 migrant domestic workers - most from sub-Saharan African countries such as Ethiopia and Ghana, and southeast Asian countries including Nepal and the Philippines - reside in Lebanon.
Domestic workers in Lebanon are legally bound to their employers through the country's notorious kafala system, which only allows them to end their contracts with the consent of employers.
The system has led to widespread abuse, ranging from the withholding of wages, to physical and sexual assault. Camille Abousleiman, Lebanon's former labour minister, has called it "modern-day slavery".
While Lebanon's Ministry of Labour says it is working to improve protection for domestic workers by amending the contract between them and their employers, experts say the abuse will continue until the kafala system is entirely abolished.
"Adopting a revised contract which addresses shortcomings is undoubtedly a step forward, but it's not enough," Diala Haidar, a Lebanon campaigner at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera.
"The Lebanese labour law explicitly excludes domestic workers from labour protections enjoyed by other workers such as minimum wage, overtime pay, compensation for unfair dismissal, and social security. The labour law needs to be amended to recognise domestic workers as workers and grant them full labour protections," she said.
General Security had said in 2017 that two domestic workers die every week in Lebanon. Videos often circulate of domestic workers trying to escape the homes of their employers by climbing down high buildings. Frequently, they are found dead.
Last month, the body of 23-year-old Ghanaian domestic worker Faustina Tay was found in a parking lot under the fourth-storey apartment of her employers. In the days leading up to her death, Tay had alleged repeated abuse by her employer and the agent who brought her to Lebanon and said she feared her life was in danger.
The employer has since been blacklisted, meaning he cannot hire any more domestic workers, while a criminal investigation is ongoing. The high-profile case, first reported by Al Jazeera, shed light on the conditions migrant workers face in Lebanon.
Despite the fact that most domestic workers arrive in Lebanon by legal means, the Facebook post has renewed calls in Nigeria for tougher measures to curb the activities of those involved in human trafficking - a big problem faced by a number of African countries.
"As long as traffickers are working about freely, making money, trafficking will not stop," Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, told Al Jazeera.
Last year, the Nigerian government began the repatriation of up to 20,000 girls who were trafficked to Mali.
The national agency fighting human trafficking said many of these girls ended up working as sex slaves in mining camps in Mali after they were tricked with promises of getting jobs in Europe.
In 2018, the government removed some 5,500 Nigerians from Libya following reports of abuse, slavery and torture.
"We shall, after COVID-19, engage countries where human trafficking is endemic with a view to rescuing and repatriating victims of trafficking as we did in Libya a few years ago," Okah-Donli said, referring to the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
"Human trafficking is a global problem and huge all over the world because of the large profit. It's an organised criminal network that cuts across local and international boundaries. more of it is for sexual and labour exploitation and of course organ harvesting," she added.
Al Jazeera
Related stories: Lebanese puts up Nigerian for sale on Facebook
Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'
Nigeria Defends Slow Pace of Virus Testing
Nigeria defended the slow pace of testing for the coronavirus amid a lockdown that’s paralyzed economic activity in its two main cities as concern over the government response to the outbreak grows.
The lockdown has kept more than 40 million people at home since March 30 and discontent is mounting in the country, which late February became the first in sub-Saharan Africa to identify a person with the virus. Health authorities have tested only 10,000 people out of a population of more than 200 million. Almost 900 infections have been reported, and 28 deaths.
Authorities have adopted a strategy of “managed acceleration” and won’t pool samples to multiply testing capacity as is currently being done in Ghana, which has rolled out one of the largest testing programs in the region, said Chikwe Ihekweazu, director general for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
“I would rather go a little bit slower and get it right than speed into a situation that we will end up regretting,” he said during a briefing by the World Health Organization on Thursday.
There are signs that Nigeria’s weak health system won’t be able to cope with a larger outbreak. At least four private hospitals in the commercial hub Lagos closed temporarily or ‘until further notice’ because they had to be decontaminated. A laboratory in the northern city of Kano, Nigeria’s third-largest, shut after two workers tested positive. And reports that 150 people died in the state with the same name this week have added to fears that the government response is inadequate.
“Our performance has been a show of shame,” said Cheta Nwanze, lead partner with Lagos-based risk consultancy SBM Intelligence. “It’s been completely uncoordinated, with different state governments doing different things at different times. We have essentially wasted four weeks of lockdown.”
The national pandemic response is based on a mix of the CDC’s guidelines and an existing influenza outbreak preparedness plan that will be turned into a single document, according to Sani Aliyu, chairman of Nigeria’s presidential task force on Covid-19. Nigeria had about 350 ventilators before the coronavirus outbreak, not all of them functional, and obtained at least 100 more in recent weeks, he said.
Still, the government is struggling to import the kits needed to enable existing tuberculosis and HIV centers to test for the coronavirus due to a global supply crisis, said Ihekweazu of the NCDC.
“Once we have these in, we will be able to quickly scale up testing across the country,” he said, without saying when they will arrive.
By Tope Alake
Bloomberg
The lockdown has kept more than 40 million people at home since March 30 and discontent is mounting in the country, which late February became the first in sub-Saharan Africa to identify a person with the virus. Health authorities have tested only 10,000 people out of a population of more than 200 million. Almost 900 infections have been reported, and 28 deaths.
Authorities have adopted a strategy of “managed acceleration” and won’t pool samples to multiply testing capacity as is currently being done in Ghana, which has rolled out one of the largest testing programs in the region, said Chikwe Ihekweazu, director general for the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
“I would rather go a little bit slower and get it right than speed into a situation that we will end up regretting,” he said during a briefing by the World Health Organization on Thursday.
There are signs that Nigeria’s weak health system won’t be able to cope with a larger outbreak. At least four private hospitals in the commercial hub Lagos closed temporarily or ‘until further notice’ because they had to be decontaminated. A laboratory in the northern city of Kano, Nigeria’s third-largest, shut after two workers tested positive. And reports that 150 people died in the state with the same name this week have added to fears that the government response is inadequate.
“Our performance has been a show of shame,” said Cheta Nwanze, lead partner with Lagos-based risk consultancy SBM Intelligence. “It’s been completely uncoordinated, with different state governments doing different things at different times. We have essentially wasted four weeks of lockdown.”
The national pandemic response is based on a mix of the CDC’s guidelines and an existing influenza outbreak preparedness plan that will be turned into a single document, according to Sani Aliyu, chairman of Nigeria’s presidential task force on Covid-19. Nigeria had about 350 ventilators before the coronavirus outbreak, not all of them functional, and obtained at least 100 more in recent weeks, he said.
Still, the government is struggling to import the kits needed to enable existing tuberculosis and HIV centers to test for the coronavirus due to a global supply crisis, said Ihekweazu of the NCDC.
“Once we have these in, we will be able to quickly scale up testing across the country,” he said, without saying when they will arrive.
By Tope Alake
Bloomberg
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Nigerian woman, 68, gives birth to twins after four IVF attempts
A Nigerian woman has given birth to twins, a boy, and a girl at the age of 68.Margaret Adenuga went through three previous IVF procedures before finally having twins.
Her husband Noah Adenuga, 77 told CNN the couple, who married in 1974 had long desired to have a child of their own.
Adenuga said they never gave up even after the failed attempts.
The retired stock auditor told CNN, "I am a dreamer, and I was convinced this particular dream of ours will come to pass."
The babies were delivered via caesarian section at 37 weeks last Tuesday at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) but the hospital only recently made the news public to give the first-time mother time to recuperate, it said.
Dr. Adeyemi Okunowo, who delivered the babies, told CNN a specialist team was assembled at the hospital to monitor the pregnancy because of her age.
"As an elderly woman and a first-time mother, it was a high-risk pregnancy and also because she was going to have twins but we were able to manage her pregnancy to term," Okunowo told CNN.
Last year, a 73-year-old Indian woman was safely delivered of twin girls after she conceived through IVF and is reported to be the oldest person to give birth at that age.
Okunowo said even though older women are able to conceive through IVF, doctors must lay bare the medical risks associated with being pregnant at that age.
"There are age-related medical complications that come with being pregnant at that age such as the baby being born preterm. She's lucky but many may succumb to other complications during or after having a baby," he told CNN.
CNN
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