At least 31 people have been killed during a stampede at a charity event in southern Nigeria’s Port Harcourt city on Saturday (May 28), according to the Associated Press.
A witness named Daniel said “there were so many children” among the dead. Five of the dead children were siblings, he told the Associated Press. He added that a pregnant woman was also among those that lost their life.
The event was organized by the Kings Assembly Pentecostal church in Rivers state and it involved hundreds of people who had showed up to receive free food and other goods at the church’s annual “Shop for Free” charity event, according to Grace Iringe-Koko, a police spokeswoman.
Iringe-Koko stated that the donation drive was supposed to start at 9 a.m. but dozens of people arrived as early as 5 a.m. to secure their spot in line. The crowd apparently forced their way into the church, despite the fact that the gate was locked, causing the stampede.
“People were there earlier and some got impatient and started rushing, which led to stampeding. The police are on the ground monitoring the situation while the investigation is ongoing,” Iringe-Koko told Reuters.
Seven others were injured but are “responding to treatment,” said Iringe-Koko. The event was suspended while authorities launched an investigation on how the stampede occurred.
According to another witness Christopher Eze, some of the church members were attacked and injured by relatives of the victims after the stampede. The church has declined to comment on the situation.
Nigeria has seen similar stampedes in the past. In 2013, twenty-four people died at an overcrowded church gathering in the southeastern state of Anambra. In 2014, at least 16 people were killed when a crowd got out of control during a screening for government jobs in the country’s capital, Abuja.
Monday, May 30, 2022
At least 31 killed, including children, in stampede during charity event in Nigeria
Musk’s Starlink to disrupt ISP market as hope rises for 25m unserved Nigerians
Following the operational licences handed to Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), owned by world’s richest man, Elon Musk, to operate in Nigeria, there appears to be hope of connectivity for the about 114 access gaps (communities without telecoms services) in Nigeria.
Data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showed that the 114 access gaps in the country currently house some 25 million Nigerians without basic telephony services. It must also be stated that where there are coverage currently, telecoms services have not been optimal.
Besides, the coming of Starlink is expected to boost Federal Government’s efforts, as enshrined in the National Broadband Plan 2020 to 2025, to reach 70 per cent broadband penetration, covering 90 per cent of the population by 2025.
Already, analysts have submitted that the coming of SpaceX, which brings Starlink into Nigeria’s over $75 billion telecoms market, is poised to cause a paradigm shift in telecommunications services in the country.
Starlink is a satellite Internet constellation operated by SpaceX, providing satellite Internet access coverage currently to 32 countries of the world. There are about 69,000 active Starlink users in the United States and other selected locations in the region.
Musk had on Friday, tweeted @elonmusk that Starlink had been approved by Nigeria and Mozambique to provide services.
The Guardian gathered that SpaceX, got six different licences, including Internet Service Provider (ISP) operational licence; International Data Access (IDA) operational licence; Full Gateway Operational licence; Sales and Installation Major (S&I- Major) licence; Gateway Earth Station (GES) Network Frequency licence per Gateway the company is to build; and Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) Network Frequency licence.
Starlink’s journey into Nigeria’s telecoms sector actually started May 2021, when a delegation from SpaceX, known for innovations, visited NCC in Abuja. The Guardian, however, gathered that the deal was sealed in Barcelona, Spain, at the yearly Mobile World Congress in February 2022.
As it is, Starlink will be competing against MTN Nigeria, Glo, Airtel and 9mobile and other ISPs in the market. This is coming on the back of about $30 billion, which the U.S company has projected to spend to make its service available in many markets, including Nigeria.
At the commencement of the move last year, Musk had tweeted, where he disclosed that Starlink is, “expecting over 4,200 Starlink satellites in operation within 18 months, which is two-third of all active satellites of Earth,” which makes it a force against existing players in the country.
The Guardian gathered that Lagos, Abuja and Benin are some of the areas mentioned for availability of Starlink in Nigeria when it begins operations soonest. SpaceX is reported to have spent between $5 billion and $10 billion in its bid to cover five per cent of the global population.
With Starlink tipped to offer high-speed, low-latency broadband Internet across the globe, hope of improved telephony services may have come to Nigeria, albeit expensive.
But to show its readiness for the Nigerian market, it was gathered that SpaceX had already launched several satellites into space, and currently in the process of launching a low-earth orbiting (LOE) constellation of satellites to provide low latency, high bandwidths Internet to all corners of the globe and Nigeria would be a critical market.
The coming of Starlink may be a decisive period for ISPs in the country, which has continued to reduce numerically due to supposed economic challenges, lack of innovation, among others, that have made many to close shops.
Statistics gathered from NCC as at the last quarter of 2021 revealed there were 73 licensed ISPs with 351,817 connected subscribers, of this, 198,090 were active users.
The ISPs, as listed by NCC, includes VDT Communications, Dimension Data Limited, Hypria Ltd, Layer 3, IpNX Nigeria Ltd, MainOne Cable Limited, Odua Telecoms Ltd, Tizeti Network Ltd, Cyberspace, Spectranet, among others, only have 1,879 Point of Presence (PoP) across the country.
Interestingly, the quartet of MTN, Airtel, Globacom and 9mobile, due to their Universal Access Service License (UASL), also offer Internet service. They currently have 145 million users. MTN has 60 million, Globacom 39.7 million, Airtel 39.3 million and 9mobile 5.5 million, as at March 2021.
Broadband users as at first quarter 2021, stood at 80.6 million with 42.7 per cent penetration in the country.
On the possible impact of SpaceX on the Nigerian telecoms sector, the National Coordinator, Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), Olusola Teniola, said satellite is used for many applications right from solving military to medical problems in hard to reach areas.
Teniola explained that satellite technology was very prevalent in telecoms in the absence of wide coverage of terrestrial networks especially during the 1980s to 2008 and before the advent of the laying of additional undersea fiber cables in the shores of Lagos.
The former ATCON boss said SpaceX offers another opportunity in addition to 5G and fibre to deliver hyper-fast broadband speeds to those that can afford to subscribe to the offerings being brought to market.
He said it is more than likely that those that live in the affluent parts of the cities will be able to now have an option to choose from. “So SpaceX will present a switching of customers from one technology to another at a price range that might exclude the low-income earners or those struggling to survive on a minimum wage.”
According to him, like the war between GSM and CDMA, SpaceX may challenge the 4G and 5G advance on a per Mbps basis. “I personally foresee a situation where different business models will be created to merge the strengths of each emerging technology to deliver the customer and consumer benefits. Price will always be the determinant and affordability the key outcome and measure of acceptability.
“In the Broadband Plan, it was envisioned that 4G should cover 90 per cent of the population by 2025 and that a mixture of both satellite and 5G technology will fill the remaining 10 per cent,” he stressed.
On the readiness of the Nigerian market for such disruption, the Group Managing Director/CEO, VDT Communications, an ISP operator, Biodun Omoniyi, said there is a way that strong global provider energises a market like never before. He said he believes Starlink would have significant competitive effect on the ISP sub-sector of the industry in the area of service quality and pricing.
Submitting that there is ample market for all, Omoniyi said Nigeria is still a land of scarcity for good broadband service, stressing that the country is the most important and attractive Internet market in Africa, given its population, GDP size and level of penetration.
The VDT boss said Starlink, been a satellite and fixed broadband offering, “it definitely would fill some important gaps that have been gaping all the while.”
According to him, given the entry price point that “I have read in the papers, the market looks more for high brow homes and offices.”
Conservatively, a Personal finance expert, Kalu Aja, stated that the arrival of Starlink in Nigeria implies that a child in Ohafia, Abia State will have the same or quicker Internet connection as a child in Ikoyi, Lagos.
He revealed this in a series of tweets in which he outlined the advantages of Elon Musk’s Internet company, Starlink, expanding into Nigeria.
He said, “Starlink coming to Nigeria means a kid in Ohafia will have same or faster internet access than a kid in Ikoyi. A teacher from Ohafia (a local government in Abia State) can move back to home where the cost of living is cheaper, open a school (or clinic), connect online, and create local jobs.”
He went on to list the possibilities of high-speed Internet remediating common pains suffered by Nigerians.
“A film crew in Jos can film and upload their videos direct from Plateau. A bank in Bama, Borno State, can be online in real-time with banks in Lagos. ABU Zaria students can stream high-speed videos from around the world. That’s productivity, that’s GDP growth, that’s wealth creation,” he said.
Another telecoms expert, Kehinde Aluko, said the Nigerian government has a National Policy on 5G Policy. “With 5G policy in place and the satellite that we have, this will support our security institution to leverage emerging technologies such as Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Internet of Things (IoT), and many more to handle security challenges and to facilitate their activities in control of communication, computing, information gathering, intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance,” he said.
According to him, the satellite operations can easily be conducted with broadband from space, stressing that with 5G technology coming almost at the same time, this will redefine the telecoms sector to a greater extent, especially in two ways, which are fast-tracking economic development and handling security challenges.
By Adeyemi Adepetun
Nigeria CDC confirms 21 cases of monkeypox in 2022
Nigeria has confirmed 21 cases of monkeypox since the start of the year with one death reported, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said.
“Among the 21 cases reported in 2022 so far, there has been no evidence of any new or unusual transmission of the virus, nor changes in its clinical manifestation documented (including symptoms, profile and virulence),” NCDC said in a statement late on Sunday.
Monkeypox, a usually mild viral infection, is endemic in the African countries of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria.
But it has caused global alarm after more than 200 suspected and confirmed cases of the virus were detected in at least 19 countries since early May, mostly in Europe and the Middle East. No deaths have been reported so far.
The NCDC said out of 61 suspected cases of monkeypox reported since January, 21 had been confirmed with one death, that of a 40-year-old man. The cases were reported in nine states and the federal capital Abuja.
Six of the cases were detected this month, it said.
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Confusion in Lagos as passenger plane is towed along highway
A plane that was towed along the side of a busy expressway in Lagos on Tuesday night has caused widespread confusion and amusement to commuters – and rumours it had crashed – before Nigerian authorities said that it was being delivered to its new owner via the busy road.
Several videos of the aircraft posted on social media showed it at various points along the side of a major road, within a mile of the international and domestic airport terminals and plane storage facilities in the Ikeja area of Lagos.
Footage showed the passenger aircraft being towed alongside heavy traffic as pedestrians passed closely by, with videos taken from one side of the plane showing trucks towing away part of one of the aircraft wings.
Some initial reports spread online claimed that the plane had crash landed in the populous area.
In response to questions on how the surprise aircraft had arrived on the side of the road, Ibrahim Farinloye, the head of Lagos’ emergency management agency said officials “tracked all incoming and outgoing flights in Lagos and there is no plane missing so far.”
Then in a statement on Tuesday night Nigeria’s airport authorities said reports of a crash landing were false. “The aircraft was sold by the owner to a buyer, who was talking it to its final destination. Thank you,” the statement said posted on social media.
Isaac Eneji, who took a video of the plane on his way home from work after 8pm said the sight of the plane left him and others baffled. “At first I thought it was an art work. I was arguing with a colleague until we saw it was a plane on the road. How can a tow truck move a plane’s fuselage along a major highway during the peak of traffic?” he said.
“I saw a towing truck pulling the fuselage of the plane out of something that looked like a ditch, and the cockpit was on the road,” Eneji said.
Jude, another eye witness who posted footage of the plane said, “It was a shock to everyone, seeing a plane on the express road. The things we see in Lagos.”
By Emmanuel Akinwotu
‘Green Nobel’ Winner Warns Oil Majors May Abandon Nigeria on Pollution Cleanup
A Nigerian lawyer awarded a top prize for grassroots environmental activism has warned that international oil companies divesting from the West African country will abandon their obligations to compensate and clean up communities polluted by decades of crude production.
Multinationals such as Shell Plc and TotalEnergies SE have been selling onshore and shallow water permits to local firms for more than a decade to focus on deep-water projects off the Nigerian coast. That process is accelerating as the majors map out plans to transition to cleaner forms of energy and avoid problems associated with operating close to communities in the crude-rich Niger Delta, where the oil industry has wreaked massive environmental devastation.
“Once they have divested, then they will say that he who buys the assets also buys the liabilities,” Chima Williams, who on Wednesday was named a winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, said in an interview. The risk is that “incompetent domestic companies” short of know-how and resources will end up in possession of the licenses, he said.
Williams, who is currently the executive director of Nigerian advocacy group Environmental Rights Action, has spent decades at the forefront of efforts to hold oil companies accountable for pollution from their facilities in the Niger Delta. The 52-year-old worked with farmers from two communities and the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth to sue Shell in the Netherlands in 2008 over pipeline leaks that had occurred several years earlier.
In January 2021, the Court of Appeals in The Hague ordered Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary to compensate the villagers and also instructed the parent company to install better warning systems. The amount of money Shell will pay has yet to be determined.
While Shell didn’t respond to a request for comment, the company has argued most spills in the Niger Delta, including those in the Dutch case that affected the Goi and Oruma communities, are caused by theft and sabotage rather than equipment failure.
But Williams said much of the infrastructure for pumping oil and gas in Nigeria, including pipelines, “has outlived its lifespan,” which makes it “easy prey.”
“There is contributory negligence on the part of the operators,” he said. The prize, dubbed the Green Nobel, is awarded annually by San Francisco’s Goldman Environmental Foundation to six recipients recognized for their grassroots work.
Read more: A King in Oil-Rich Nigeria Delta Pins Hope on U.K. In Shell Case
Formerly a UK business with headquarters in the Netherlands, Shell relocated in January from The Hague to London – where it is also facing a potentially precedent-setting lawsuit brought by Nigerian communities. The UK Supreme Court ruled last year that more than 40,000 residents of the Niger Delta could sue Shell in England over oil contamination the plaintiffs blame on the company.
The claimants from Goi and Oruma filed their suit in Europe because they think it will be easier to enforce court decisions than in Nigeria, said Williams. “We decided to bring this case in the Netherlands where we feel that Shell respects the law, respects judicial orders,” he said. Other communities have contacted Williams and ERA about the possibility of taking legal complaints against oil companies overseas, he said.
Shell is considering bids for its remaining onshore and shallow water permits, while Total last month announced it would also seek to offload its minority interest in the same group of licenses. “You leave your legacy onshore pollution problems unsorted and you are receiving incentives for making investments in areas where it would be difficult to scrutinize what you’re doing,” Williams said.
By William Clowes
Related stories: Oil spills in Nigeria could potentially kill 16,000 babies a year