Friday, August 7, 2020

Stranded Nigerian chess player returns home after four months

Nigeria's number one chess player, Oladapo Adu, is back to his home country after being stuck in Ivory Coast for four months and five days due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Adu had been stranded in the Ivorian capital Abidjan since 24 March, when flight restrictions and border closures left him stuck as he attempted to return home from the African Chess Championship.

"It’s nice to be back home - I feel relieved and happy this is all over. I have never had an experience like this in my life”, Adu told BBC Sport Africa.

Adu had travelled from the USA to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he represented Nigeria at a zonal Chess Championship, which ended on 20 March.

But by this point the coronavirus outbreak had become a full-blown pandemic, leading to the ban on flights by countries and the closure of borders.

He had to stay with friends of another competitor from the tournament, Ivorian Simplice Delgundo, and later moved in with an Ivorian family.

"It was tough living with strangers in a strange land - having to depend on them for your survival," he said.

"But I am grateful to them. They took care of me for months even when it was not convenient for them."

Adu's return was finally secured through Nigeria’s ambassador to Ivory Coast, Mohammed Gana. He was prompted to intervene after several reports of Adu's case in the media.

He proceeded to arrange a return flight for Adu and 30 other stranded Nigerians in Abidjan.

"The ambassador said he was not aware of my situation until he got some pressure from Nigeria to get me out of Ivory Coast," Adu explained.

"He said my case had been on the news and he knew he had to intervene."

Adu, however, is said he was disappointed that the Nigerian Chess Federation had not spoken to him, despite enlisting him in the ongoing Online Chess Olympiad competition while still stranded in Abidjan.

“At the time I was enlisted, the Chess Federation did not even know of my whereabouts - I was still stranded in Abidjan when I was selected to represent Nigeria," he explained.

Nevertheless Adu is now participating in that online championship, which runs to 30 August.

The Nigerian Chess Federation did not respond to questions from the BBC.

By Juliet Mafua 

BBC

Nigeria extends second phase nationwide COVID-19 lockdown by four weeks

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has authorized the extension of a nationwide lockdown for four weeks as the country continues its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest extension is the third for the second phase of an eased lockdown meant to curb the spread of the disease in the West African country.

Local Channels TV announced on Thursday evening that the move was announced by Boss Mustapha, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, at a Task Force briefing in Abuja.

Nigeria is one of the worst affected countries in Africa by the COVID-19 pandemic, having reported 44,890 infections and 927 deaths.

The number of cases in the West African country is the third-highest on the continent, shadowed only by South Africa and Egypt.

By Jerry Omondi 

CGTN

Nigeria to reopen for international air travel in weeks

Nigeria will reopen for international air travel in a matter of weeks, the aviation minister said on Thursday, without giving a specific date for the resumption after months of closure due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

“It will be in weeks rather than in months,” Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika told a regular briefing in the capital Abuja on coronavirus.

Nigeria began to close its airports in March, a month after Africa’s most populous country confirmed its first coronavirus case. Domestic air travel restarted last month.

The country has 44,890 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 900 deaths, figures from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control show.

Reuters

Thursday, August 6, 2020

Producer of Nigeria’s new history-making lesbian film has a cunning plan to beat homophobic censors



Ife, which means "love" in the Yoruba language, tells the story of two young women who fall in love and face homophobia in their home country.

The trailer was uploaded to YouTube last month and immediately sparked excitement in the queer community in Nigeria, where same-sex sexual activity is illegal.

Now, the film’s producer has told Reuters that Ife will be released through an on-demand streaming platform later this year in an effort to dodge film censors, who would be highly unlikely to allow the film to be distributed in Nigeria.

“Anyone who wants to watch will be able to do so from anywhere in the world,” producer and LGBT+ activist Pamela Adie said.

“In Nigeria, there has never been a film like Ife,” Adie said.

“No film has had the impact it will have, or already has in Nigeria… The reception to the poster and the trailer has been mad.

“We expect that it will be madder when the full film is released.”

Adie believes the arts and media can help change people's views towards LGBT+ people.

“Every time there is a film made that centres LGBTQ people, it would always be about gay men,” she said.

“This is one for us… it will bring immense joy to the hearts of many of us who would be seeing people like us centred in a Nigerian film for the first time.”

Speaking to CNN last month, Ife director Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim said it was vital that space was created for queer characters in Nigeria’s prolific film industry, often referred to as Nollywood.

“I’m queer so Ife is dear to my heart,” she said.

“I wanted to represent LGBTQ characters in a different light than how they are shown in past stories, to change how heterosexuals view them.”

Anti-LGBT+ attitudes in Nigeria are pervasive. A survey last year from the Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERS) found that 75 per cent of people in the country support the ban on same-sex sexual activity.

Pink News 

Related stories: Police officer warns gays to leave Nigeria

Video - Nigeria's anti-gay law denounced

Wole Soyinka protests imprisonment of Nigerian humanist Mubarak Bala

The Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, who was held as a political prisoner in Nigeria in the 1960s, has written a letter of solidarity to the detained Nigerian humanist Mubarak Bala on his 100th day in detention.

Bala, the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was arrested on 28 April at his home in Kaduna state, and taken to neighbouring Kano state. He is accused of posting comments that were critical of Islam on Facebook, and has been charged under state law with violating a religious offence law and with cybercrime. He has not been heard from since the day of his arrest. His wife Amina Mubarak, with whom he has a newborn son, told the Guardian in July: “At this point, I’m not even begging for his release, I just want his proof of life.”

Soyinka, who was held as a political prisoner in Nigeria for 22 months in the late 1960s, smuggling his poems out of prison on toilet paper, told Bala that he imagined him “pacing your cell, just as I have done. Feeling with each passing day, the added strain.

“But I know too, that with each passing day you will reach further into your reserves – reserves that you have always thought finite – and discover strength of which you had never dreamed,” writes Soyinka in the letter, which is published by Humanists International.

“I write today to tell you that you are not alone, there is a whole community across the globe that stands beside you and will fight for you. We will not rest until you are free and safe.”

Bala is the son of a widely regarded Islamic scholar. He renounced Islam in 2014, and his family in Kano forcibly committed him to a psychiatric facility for 18 days before he was discharged. He has been an outspoken critic of religion in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north, where open religious dissent is uncommon.

Soyinka, who won the Nobel prize in literature in 1986, said that Bala had stood firm in his convictions: “You have lived. You have stood against the tide of religious imperialism. You have fought for all Humanity, to ensure a better, fairer, world for all. You have not sought to appease those that treasure scrolls. You have not bowed to pressure to revere their unseen deities.”

A group of UN human rights experts have called on Nigeria to release Bala, saying that his arrest and detention “amounts to persecution of non-believers in Nigeria”. Humanists International has led a campaign for his release.

“Mubarak Bala has been detained for long enough,” said Humanists International president Andrew Copson. “For 100 days, our colleague and friend has been held captive, without charge or access to his lawyer, in what can only be perceived at this point as a flagrant violation of his human rights. Our calls remain unchanged, release him immediately and unconditionally.”


The Guardian