Nigerian breaks U.S varsity record

Nigerian scholar, Lanre Sanusi, has broken a five-year record at a United States varsity, Dallas Baptist University in Texas, after completing his Master’s programme in Business Administration (MBA) at the institution.

Sanusi broke a record, becoming the only Nigerian to have graduated from the great institution over the last five years, and with a fine result.

The Nigerian, a scholar, graduated with a 3.8 Cumulative Grade Points Average (CGPA) of the 4.0 obtainable mark set by the varsity for MBA students.

Sanusi, before now, had a Master’s degree in Accounting and Criminal Justice from the University of Texas.

He is also holds an associate degree holder from Tarrant County College, a Bachelor of Science from Texas varsity, and PhD in Law and Public Policy (In-view) from Northeast University in U.S.

Sanusi hails from Ijede in Ikorodu, and Amuwo-Odofin, and has contributed to the development of democracy in the country.

He has empowered youths, assist the needy, the aged, widows with his pet project, Apo Ariyo (Joyful groceries goodie pack). 

The Nation

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Gunmen kidnap Nigerian Bishop in Owerri

On Sunday night, armed men kidnapped the Auxiliary Bishop of Owerri Diocese, in Nigeria, Moses Chikwe, and his driver, whose name has not been released. The Archbishop of Owerri, Victor Obinna confirmed the kidnap in a statement made available to Vatican News, on his behalf by the Archdiocesan Chancellor, Msgr.Alphonsus Oha.

“His Grace, Most Rev. Archbishop Anthony J.V. Obinna, the Archbishop of Owerri painfully informs Christ’s faithful and God’s people at large that Most. Rev. Moses Chikwe, Auxiliary Bishop of Owerri was kidnapped late evening of Sunday 27 December 2020. The said incident took place around Site and Services, New Owerri, Imo State,” Msgr. Oha announced.
 

A sad day for Owerri. Solidarity and appeal for prayers

In an interview with Vatican News, Tuesday, Archbishop Obinna, said he was receiving messages of solidarity and assurances for prayer from within the Archdiocese and outside the country by people alarmed that such a thing could happen to a Bishop. The Archbishop said the kidnap was a sign that the Church is not insulated from ordinary people’s suffering.

Bishop Chikwe “was kidnapped two days ago as he was returning from a visit to his residence in Owerri, a mile or two away from the city of Owerri, where he has his residence. Kidnapping has, of course, been going on in Nigeria, in different parts of Nigeria. That it has happened to my Auxiliary Bishop shows that the security situation in Nigeria is very bad. The protection, the security that the people ought to have is not very effective. We have periodically raised the alarm about the state of insecurity in which we find ourselves …..The Church is not far removed from the people. We are not insulated from the suffering of the people. We take it as part of our testimony that we have to bear,” Archbishop Obinna told Vatican News.
 

Police have teams looking for the Bishop

According to Nigerian media, Bishop Chikwe’s car and episcopal vestments were abandoned by the criminals near the Assumpta Cathedral premises of Owerri.

Catholic news Agenzia Fides reports that the police have activated two special teams, the Quick Intervention Team (QUIT) and the Anti Kidnapping Unit (AKU), to find Bishop Chikwe and arrest his kidnappers.

The kidnapping of the Auxiliary Bishop of Owerri comes just a week after the abduction in the State of another Catholic religious priest, Fr Valentine Oluchukwu Ezeagu, abducted on 15 December by armed men while on his way to his father’s funeral. The priest was later released on 16 December.

Bishop Chikwe, 53, was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Owerri in October 2019.
 

A chilling message about personal safety

In recent years, Nigerian priests and religious women have become targets of kidnappings. Criminals kidnap religious women and priests on the assumption that congregations or dioceses will pay a ransom for the release of one of their own. The abductions of Church personnel in Nigeria has sent a chilling message about personal safety.

It is not only Church personnel who are targets of kidnappings and abductions. While Nigeria’s politicians, wealthy businessmen and women and foreign diplomats react with more armed security and blacked-out car windows, Church personnel and ordinary Nigerians do not have this option.

By Paul Samasumo 

Vatican News

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Boko Haram Landmines Kill 11 Nigerian Security Personnel

Landmines planted by Boko Haram jihadists have killed 11 security personnel, including four soldiers in northeast Nigeria, security sources said Tuesday.

Seven hunters recruited to help the military fight the Islamist insurgents were killed on Tuesday when their vehicle hit a landmine in the village of Kayamla, outside Borno State's capital Maiduguri.

"Seven hunters died in the explosion and nine others are badly injured," Babakura Kolo, the head of a local anti-jihadist militia, told AFP.

"Their vehicle hit a landmine as they were pursuing Boko Haram insurgents," he added.

Another local militiaman confirmed the incident.

Four Nigerian soldiers were killed on Monday when their vehicle hit a landmine planted by Boko Haram fighters in Logomani village near the border with Cameroon, two security sources told AFP.

There has been a sharp increase in attacks in northeast Nigeria since the start of the month.

Last week 40 loggers were kidnapped and three killed near the Cameroonian border.

On Christmas Eve, Boko Haram killed 11 people, burnt a church and seized a priest in a village near Chibok, where it notoriously kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls six years ago.

Boko Haram and a splinter group known as ISWAP have killed 36,000 people in the northeast and forced roughly two million to flee since 2009, according to the United Nations.

AFP

More work needed to identify risk from Nigeria variant, says researcher

A researcher who identified a novel coronavirus variant in Nigeria has cautioned against automatic assumptions that it poses similar risks to strains that have emerged elsewhere.

The new strain was uncovered last week by scientists at the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) in southeastern Nigeria.

ACEGID director Christian Happi said the variant was found in two out of 200 samples of virus collected from patients between August 3 and October 9.

The two samples were taken from the same state in Nigeria at different times.

They show a variant "different to the one that has been circulating in Nigeria, different from the one in South Africa and different from the one in the U.K.," he said in an interview with AFP.

Britain tightened restrictions after finding a new strain there that it said was more contagious than initial forms of the virus.

South Africa says a new strain detected there could explain the rapid spread of a second wave that has especially affected younger people.

Happi stressed that scientists were racing to unlock knowledge about the Nigeria strain and urged people not to "extrapolate."

"We have no idea, no evidence to say that this variant is linked to the spike we are seeing in Nigeria or not," said Happi, explaining that samples from the latest cases were being analysed for an answer.

Nigeria has recorded more than 82,000 cases of COVID-19, of which 1,246 were fatal.

Compared to the country's population of some 200 million people, this number is tiny.

However, the tally of cases has been rising by several hundred a day since the start of December. There has been a major increase in Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital, prompting the authorities there to reinstate a curfew and gatherings of more than 50 people.

But the number of deaths in Nigeria has not experienced a proportionate surge.
 

VIRUS MUTATION

Happi, a Cameroon-raised, Harvard-trained professor of molecular biology, works in a state-of-the-art lab in Ede, southeastern Nigeria.

It is one of only 12 in Africa designed to sequence viral genetic code and track mutations -- telltale changes that can be used to build a family tree of the microbe.

From this, the scientists at Ede believe the variant evolved "within Nigeria, I don’t think it was imported from anywhere," said Happi.

"When changes occur, what matters most, what we’re focusing on, is the spike protein," he said, referring to the prong-like protein by which coronavirus latches onto a cell and infects it.

Happi said there was a "tendency to extrapolate" after a discovery of this kind.

But he cautioned strongly against automatically assuming that what happened in one population setting would also happen elsewhere.
 

AFRICAN DIFFERENCE?

"A lot of the models drawn at the onset of the pandemic, all got it wrong," he said.

"They were saying by now that a third of the African population would be dead. So people need to think," he said.

"It is very wrong to assume models based on knowledge that are not accurate or on assumptions that are dependent on data obtained from Europe or the U.S. and transpose it to a continent like Africa -- we are genetically different, we are immunologically different."

All of Africa has recorded 2.4 million cases, according to an AFP tally -- just 3.6 per cent of the global tally, although testing is also far less widespread. The continent's death toll of 57,000 is less than a fifth of that of the United States.

John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the African Union's health agency, also urged patience as scientists worked to understand the Nigerian variant.

"Give us some time," he said in a videoconference from Addis Ababa. "It's still very early."

Nkengasong appealed to Africans not to let down their guard, warning of the danger of a second wave of infection.

By Louise Dewast

CTV News

Nigeria is Bitcoin Leader in Africa, Says Paxful

Recent data from Paxful has revealed that Nigeria leads Africa in peer-to-peer trading in bitcoin, posting monthly volumes of over $66 million in 2020.

According to a report, the country is closely followed by Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa respectively.

With over 620,000 active Nigerian users on its platform, Paxful in the report disclosed that Nigerians traded around $15 million worth of Bitcoin in April alone, making Nigeria the leader in the African region.

“Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa are our main markets in Africa. There’s no question that emerging markets are the future of the crypto economy.
“That’s been clear to us for some time, as we see on a daily basis how tech-savvy Africans are using Bitcoin to invest, trade, send money abroad and accumulate wealth.

“Bitcoin helps improve lives and gives opportunities for personal and entrepreneurial development. Paxful is all about bringing financial inclusion to the emerging world and we’re ecstatic to help so many people with limited access to the traditional financial services,” Paxful CEO and co-founder Ray Youssef said.

It noted that Nigeria has continued to witness a huge rise in the adoption of digital money as a means to store value, preserve wealth, trade, and settle day-to-day payments.

“Another great use case for crypto, popular with the local traders and businesses in Nigeria, is helping them hedge against weak naira partially caused by the shortage of US Dollars in the country,” it added.

Since launching five years ago, global transactions on the Paxful platform have grown by over 25 per cent from October 2019 to October 2020.
A large proportion of the transactions is attributed to the African market, with Nigeria leading the pack.

“Committed to providing users with a cost-efficient, accessible trading system on its platform, Paxful is strengthening Nigeria’s crypto market with varied payment methods that meet the needs of users.

“The company currently has over 300 payment methods all geared to meet users’ needs and includes a variety of local payment options, including BuyCoins, Bitsika, and Carbon.

“Paxful is a people-powered marketplace for money transfers with anyone, anywhere, at any time. Their mission is to empower the forgotten four billion unbanked and underbanked around the world to have control of their money using peer-to-peer transactions.

“The company has over 4.5 million users globally who you can instantly buy and sell Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) using over 300 different payment methods,” it added.

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