Armed fighters have taken hundreds of hostages in a northeast Nigerian town where residents had only just returned after fleeing their homes, residents and militia sources said on Wednesday.
The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) group, a splinter group of Boko Haram, overran the town of Kukawa in Borno state late on Tuesday, the sources told the AFP news agency.
They seized residents who had returned to the town in a government operation on August 2, after spending nearly two years in displacement camps, said Babakura Kolo, head of a local militia.
"The terrorists attacked the town in 22 trucks around 4:00 pm (16:00 GMT) yesterday and engaged soldiers guarding the town in a fierce battle," he said.
Kukawa's residents had returned to their homes just 16 days earlier under military escort, on the orders of the Borno state authorities.
They had been living in camps in the regional capital Maiduguri, 180km (120 miles) away, where they fled following a bloody attack in November 2018.
A town chief who accompanied the residents to the town said the people had returned with the hope of cultivating their farmlands "only to end up in the hands of the insurgents".
"We don't know what they would do to them but I hope they don't harm them," said the chief, who asked not to be identified for safety reasons.
Squalid refugee camps
A security source who confirmed the incident to AFP said fighter jets were deployed from Maiduguri on Wednesday to "tackle the situation", but did not give further details.
The decade-long conflict in northeastern Nigeria has forced more than two million people out of their homes, most of them from the northern part of Borno.
Many have moved into squalid displacement camps in Maiduguri, where they rely on handouts from international charities.
In the last two years, local authorities have been encouraging the displaced to return home, despite concern by international charities that this is not safe.
Residents have been returned to five major towns since 2018, where they are confined under military protection, with trenches dug around to try to fend off attacks.
Despite the fortifications, the armed fighters have continued to launch attacks.
Since 2009, Boko Haram has been carrying out attacks in Nigeria and neighbouring countries in the Lake Chad region, with no signs of slowing down despite counterattacks by a joint multinational force across borders.
Boko Haram has been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the abduction of thousands of others, including hundreds of schoolgirls from Chibok in 2014.
In 2015, Boko Haram split, giving way to the formation of ISWAP, which has pledged allegiance to the ISIL (ISIS) group.
Since then, ISWAP has also gone on a spree of violence, attacking government forces and carrying out abductions and extortions.
The key strongholds of the armed groups are located in southern and southwestern regions of Lake Chad, the confluence of the borders of four African states - Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Al Jazeera
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Nigeria gets first electric motorcycles
The motorcycles were launched in Ogun State to ease transportation and boost economic activities in the state.
Chief Executive Officer, MAX.ng, Adetayo Bamiduro said the introduction of the electric motorcycles was in line with the firm’s commitment to make mobility safe, affordable and sustainable.
He said MAX.ng’s electric motorcycles had been in the works for over two years, culminating in a successful pilot after which improved models of the motorcycles were deployed.
According to him, MAX.ng is in partnership with Rubitec Nigeria Limited, a renewable energy company, to provide charging stations for the motorcycles.
He explained that the electric motorcycles use a battery-swap model that allows riders replace their depleted batteries with fully charged ones with the process taking less than five minutes, thus eliminating the wait-time for fueling traditional combustion engine motorcycles.
He noted that although in partnership with Asian and European partners, including Yamaha and Breakthrough Africa, the MAX M1 is an indigenous electric motorcycle, the first in the country.
Chief Executive Officer, Rubitec Nigeria Limited, Mr. Bolade Soremekun said MAX.ng has consistently shown that it is a company that takes its social responsibility seriously, in line with Rubitec’s desire to improve the standards of living of people in its communities and beyond.
“I am thrilled that this is happening here in Nigeria, especially considering the epileptic nature of power supply. It just shows that with innovation, we can overcome almost any challenge,” Soremekun said.
Baale of Gbamu-Gbamu community, Chief Kehinde Adekunle, expressed appreciation on behalf of the community.
He said Gbamu-Gbamu was a trading community, but the market people had always had issues transporting their goods to major markets due to the high cost of transportation.
He noted that the MAX electric motorcycles would enable the traders to move their goods faster and at a reduced cost which would allow them to make more profit.
Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer, MAX.ng, Mr Chinedu Azodoh said the key advantages of electric motorcycles are beyond cost implications.
“They are more durable and cost-effective when compared to combustion-engine motorcycles and are therefore easier to maintain. Electric motorcycles are also eco-friendly and MAX.ng’s motorcycles have the added prestige of being manufactured in Nigeria for Nigerians,” Azodoh said.
He said MAX.ng is working with different partners to roll out electric vehicles into the Nigerian market and with the successful launch and deployment of the MAX Series M1, the company intends to mass-produce the vehicles with a target of reaching thousands over the next one year period.
The Nation
Nigerians land scholarships abroad. Now they are stranded as their government fails to pay the money
When Nigerian student Mercy Eyo landed a foreign postgraduate scholarship in July 2019, she had just lost her father. A year earlier, her mother had passed away.
She was elated about the prospect of starting a master's degree in global health care management at Coventry University, in the United Kingdom, with a scholarship from a Nigerian government agency.
"I was super excited ... I felt it was a consolation that would change my life forever," Eyo said.
"It was that one little time I had hope in the Nigerian dream," she told CNN, "because I wanted to return home afterward to offer what I had to the society."
Living hand-to-mouth
However, that dream has turned into a nightmare for Eyo who said she is now living a hand-to-mouth existence and awaiting scholarship funds that have failed to arrive 12 months later.
Eyo, from Bonny Island, southeastern Nigeria, is one of more than 200 students who landed a scholarship through Nigeria's Niger Delta Development Commission in 2019.
CNN has seen a scholarship letter dated July 29, email exchanges between her and the awarding body and scanned copies of the letters she sent to the commission in December 2019 requesting funds to process her travel arrangements.
She was told to make her way abroad and the money would later follow, but despite selling her laptops, phones and other valuable properties, Eyo wasn't able to raise her travel funds and visa processing fees and lost her place at the UK's Coventry University.
She remains in Nigeria with no signs of the funds promised to her.
"These are things that make me cry sometimes or feel depressed," Eyo told CNN.
Other scholarship students from Nigeria that CNN spoke to were able to make their way abroad. But they are also still waiting for the promised funds.
They told CNN that their emails and correspondence with the agency have been mostly ignored since September 2019.
The scholars are scattered in various universities across the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.
Andrew Saba is studying for a master's degree in public health at the University of Aberdeen.
"I don't know the worth of a Nigerian life to the people in power. I feel betrayed by Nigeria ... I can't understand how a country can abandon her brightest of minds in a foreign land. I can't relate to priorities of the country," said Saba.
"I am disappointed. It is supposed to be a joyful thing to get a scholarship from your country. Numerous countries give their citizens scholarship... but ours require extra activism to work. This is not how it should be."
The students said they are going through a lot of hardship due to a lack of funds and are unable to engage in menial jobs to survive because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Each masters' scholar is owed $30,000, while the PhD students are owed $90,000, which runs for the duration of their three-year program.
Others say they live on charity from family at home and friends abroad, while looking for new jobs to start paying their debts and bills.
Some of them have been told by their universities that their graduation isn't possible until their debts are paid.
In May, after growing pressure, the agency paid a "take-off" grant of around $1,290. This was an initial payment that was supposed to help the students with their initial visa processing and traveling costs last year.
Protests in UK
Students recently held protests at the Nigerian High Commission Office in London. The protesters caught the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari who, on August 4, ordered the NDDC to immediately pay the outstanding sums owed to the students stranded across the globe.
The NDDC promised to pay the fees by the end of that week, adding that the death of the executive director of finance as well as the coronavirus pandemic was responsible for the delay in paying their fees.
"President Buhari ... has ordered that all stops be pulled to pay the students by the end of this week. We expect a new (executive director of finance) to be appointed this week. As soon as that is done, they would all be paid," the statement released on August 4 by Charles Odili, NDDC director of corporate affairs, said.
So far, none of the students CNN spoke to has received their outstanding payment.
CNN has contacted NDDC to find out why the payments to the students has still not been made two weeks after the President's order. The NDDC has not yet responded to the request for comment.
The scholarship program was developed to fund the study of marginalized young people from Nigeria's oil-rich Delta region in studies that could aid its development.
Despite accounting for 70% of Nigeria government revenue, the Niger Delta remains impoverished and faces numerous challenges such as oil spills, gas flares and vandalism.
The NDDC was established to drive the development of the region.
Corruption probe
The NDDC agency is currently embroiled in a multimillion-dollar corruption probe. Nigeria's President Buhari has ordered a forensic audit of the commission's activities from 2001 to 2019 after it was unable to account for around $209 million spent in less than a year.
Kemebradikumo Pondei, the acting managing director of NDDC last month appeared to faint while taking questions from Nigeria's lawmakers on how the agency spent around $100 million in the past few months.
While responding to questions on the students' scholarships and other incidents of unaccounted spending, he slumped, causing chaos in the room and forcing the investigative hearing to be stopped temporarily.
After the hearing the NDDC issued a statement saying that Pondei had been ill and had attended the hearing against his doctor's advice. Critics have suggested the incident was a ploy to thwart the probe.
It has not resumed since, although the agency was ordered to repay funds, according to local media reports.
Impact of pandemic
The events at the hearing have become the subject of memes and jokes among Nigerians.
But life is no joke for some of the students stranded abroad without the money promised for their fees and upkeep.
John Essien was a medical doctor in Nigeria and is now studying a for a master's in health economics and health policy at the University of Birmingham in the UK.
Essien said he sold properties and took loans to fund his overseas travel after delays in securing his scholarship money before he left Nigeria in September 2019.
"I knew previous scholars faced delays in getting paid. But I wasn't expecting it to exceed three months. When it did, I realized I wasn't prepared for what was to come," he told CNN.
Three months of waiting passed and his debts rose, Essien said. He was forced to rely on friends for money to eat and pay his rent.
In December 2019 he got a part-time job as a dishwasher with a company in Birmingham.
At various points, he said he has worked as a receptionist, porter, carpenter, bartender, and crowd control officer at Premier League soccer match venues.
Essien said he has been in contact with the other Nigerian students who received scholarships from the NDDC.
They all have tales of severe hardship. One of the students contracted Covid-19 while working as a carer in a home, another one has also had access to the school's student portals blocked for non-payment of fees.
Essien said this month he narrowly escaped eviction from his apartment after missing his payment deadline by more than 20 days.
The huge economic impact of the pandemic also means that his former means of income have dried up. "With less than one pound in my account, how do I continue begging around? Why should I deal with this kind of mental pressure?" he asked.
CNN
Nigerians flock to new Abuja beauty spot
An abandoned quarry in Nigeria has been become a tourist hotspot after images were posted on social media earlier this month.
The rocky cliffs climbing into a blue sky, a moss-lined footpath, small green hills and a lake that shimmers in the sun are quite breath-taking and a set of images shared on Twitter at the beginning of August has been liked more than a thousand times.
In a matter of days of the post, the site, known as Crushed Rock, in Mpape - a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of the capital Abuja - was thronged.
There has been a DJ stand, food vendors, hundreds of sun-bathing selfie-takers - and even a band of classical musicians.
Nigerians are not generally known to be outdoor lovers - the weather is very hot in the north and quite humid in the south.
However, there is a burgeoning community of hikers around Abuja inspired by the many expatriates living in the political capital.
The coronavirus pandemic has also had a part to play in encouraging these young middle-class Nigerians to explore the hills in the country's rocky central region.
The lockdown, which prevented people from travelling elsewhere, has meant that places closer to home are being explored.
The area around Mpape, which means "rock" in the local Gwari language, supplied much of the stone used to transform Abuja from a small village in the 1980s into the country's capital city.
"The quarry has existed for more than 10 years," said Mpape resident Courage Ebenz, who is somewhat bemused by the sudden influx of city-dwellers.
Nigeria has an abundance of sites of natural beauty, but this "man-made" location has its own appeal - with three main tiers that each give a stunning view of the water below.
Sightseers can choose a small winding footpath to the top terrace, where the grass is an ideal picnic location.
The more adventurous can continue down the path that circles and snakes down to the water's edge.
But a warning for the brave who might want to plunge into the water - the locals say it is full of abandoned machinery.
According to Abraham Adepelumi, a geo-physicist at Obafemi Awolowo university, the lake was formed as a result of the fracturing of an aquifer.
"Once the rock got fractured, the water within the rock was under pressure," he told the BBC.
"It is a natural phenomenon, Mpape is a fracture-prone area of Abuja and has experienced tremors as recent as 2018."
The local emergency agency has warned amateurs against hiking at Mpape Crushed Rock, but fun-seekers seem not to be deterred.
"I didn't know we had such a place in Nigeria and I wanted to see if it is real," Elizabeth Okute, who came with her friends after seeing pictures on Facebook, told the BBC.
"I am surprised such a place exists in Abuja and I love what I am seeing," said Ann Chukwuka.
Emeka Uko, who kept straying to the edge much to the chagrin of his friends, added: "I hope we put measures in place to preserve it."
This is exactly what some volunteers decided to do last Saturday, clearing up a trail of plastic waste around the quarry that has built up over the last few weeks.
They split into two groups to compete to see who could collect the most rubbish - updating social media as they went.
"A lot of people felt it was their responsibility to clean up the place," Brandon Akume, whose group came second in the clean-up dash, told the BBC.
This was an alien concept to most Nigerians, he added.
He moved from one group of picnickers to the other, handing out rubbish bags, instructing people to dispose of their litter.
"They want to poison this place, it seems I have my work cut out for me," he said.
BBC
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
71 Nigerian girls crying for help in viral video in Lebanon arrive Abuja
Mr Bitrus Samuel, the Head of NEMA Abuja Operation Office, disclosed this to Newsmen. He said that the girls were the second batch of the more than 150 Nigerian girls who were trafficked to Lebanon in search of greener pastures.
Early in the month, 94 victims that constituted the first batch were received at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. Samuel said that the latest victims would be going from the airport to the hotel where the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) would profile their records. The agency would quarantine the girls as a precaution against coronavirus pandemic.
Also, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Ferdinand Nwonye, said that the rescue came after video footage of the stranded Nigerians appealing to the Federal Government and well-meaning Nigerians to come to their aid went viral on the Internet. The spokesman said the ministry had several discussions with Mr Houssam Diab, the Ambassador of Lebanon to Nigeria before the Lebanese Government agreed to release the girls to the Federal Government.
He said that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, was very sad when he saw the video footage. He had to summon the Lebanese Ambassador, and both leaders had a series of engagements that led to the release of the girls.
Nwonye said that following the discussions between the two leaders, the Lebanese community in Nigeria through the facilitation of the Nigerian mission in Beirut chartered a flight, paid the flight tickets for these girls to return to Nigeria. NAN reports that various government officials from NAPTIP, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) respectively were on ground at the airport to receive them. Also, Mr Akinloye Akinsola, the representative of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), said that some Nigerians employed as domestic workers in Lebanon had complained of maltreatment from their Lebanese employers.
He said that sequel to the complaints; the Lebanese Ambassador to Nigeria had suspended the issuance of working visas to Nigerians seeking to do domestic work in Lebanon. He said the suspension had become imperative so as to stem the tide of the maltreatment. Akinsola said that the commission had started the procedure for proper harmonisation in line with best practices relating to orderly migration. He said that the discussion was with the Ministry of Labour and Employment and the House of Representatives’ Chairman on the Diaspora, Mrs Tolulope Akande-Shodipe.
Vanguard
Related stories: Canada and Nigeria working to combat migrant smuggling, human trafficking and irregular migration
Canada and Nigeria working to combat migrant smuggling, human trafficking and irregular migration
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