The futures of more than a million Nigerian university students are on hold as a lecturers' strike drags on less than a month before a presidential election, as Yemisi Adegoke reports from Lagos.
Olamide Tejuoso had been looking forward to the start of 2019.
She was expecting to be a fresh graduate beginning her career with a paid internship at a media company. The first step in realising her dream of becoming a writer after four years of studying at the University of Ibadan.
But instead of excitement, the communications student feels frustrated because of the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Students at Nigeria's state-funded universities have not resumed their studies due to an indefinite nationwide strike by academic staff that began in November.
The union has accused the government of failing to honour past agreements over the redevelopment of tertiary education.
They are also protesting about poor facilities, poor funding and an alleged plan to increase tuition fees.
There have been talks between the union and the government but negotiations are dragging on.
'Can't make plans'
Meanwhile, the future of Nigeria's 1.2 million federal university students is in limbo.
"It's depressing," says Ms Tejuoso. "As a final year student, you have all these plans, but you're not seeing the reality."
"I should have graduated last December, but because of this strike I'm limited. I can't do any major travel, I can't take any major job because I don't know when we're going to resume."
She now keeps herself occupied by writing and trying to work on her final project.
Ms Tejuoso has also enrolled in a sewing class, but she is anxious and desperate to get back to university.
"We've had more than two months [of the strike] already and it's making the future look so bleak," she says.
"We don't know what's going to happen. Because of the elections, [resuming in] February is in doubt. We don't even know what the future holds for us."
ASUU president Biodun Ogunyemi, who himself has two children at public universities, says the strike is to secure the future of tertiary education, and ultimately the students' future.
'Restore dignity'
"We have always told our students and their parents what we're doing is in their own interests," Prof Ogunyemi says.
"We don't want them to earn certificates that will be worthless, we don't want them to get an education they can't be proud of, we want the restoration of the integrity of their certificates."
One of the major demands of the union is the implementation of past agreements and the spending of $2.7bn (£2.1bn) in total to revamp universities.
Annually, the government currently allocates about $1.8bn (£1.4bn) to the education sector overall, which accounts for 7% of federal government spending. Federal universities get nearly $750m of that.
But the lecturers say that it is not enough.
In a move to reassure striking workers, Employment Minister Chris Ngige said that the president was determined to "reposition our universities [and] will do everything possible to remove the present challenges".
This is the second strike since President Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015, but the tradition of the ASUU taking industrial action stretches back further than that.
Its members have been on strike almost every year since since the country's return to democracy in 1999.
Prof Ogunyemi, who became ASUU president in 2014, says this is because the education sector has been sidelined by successive governments.
"What is missing is how to get political leadership that will appreciate the role of education in the development of individuals and the country," he says.
With a presidential election less than a month away, both candidates of the major parties have talked about their commitments to education, promising to increase funding.
But despite the frequency of the strikes in the university sector, neither has raised the issue of labour relations in the tertiary sector in their party manifestos.
"This is election period. If one wants to campaign fully this is a place you should work on," says Lydia Agu Uka, a biochemistry student at the Federal University of Technology Owerri.
"But they ignore this crucial part, they focus on trivial matters, things that don't really count at all."
Since the strike began she has started selling second-hand items through a website. Earning money online has become a common way for Nigerian students to earn extra cash.
One of the country's most popular and successful employment websites, Jobberman, was started by three students during the 2009 ASUU strike.
Although Ms Agu Uka enjoys running her business she is worried about how the time off is affecting her studies.
"At a point you start to lose focus, which is not right," she says. "I don't know when last I actually opened a biochemistry textbook."
Despite this Ms Agu Uka and many other students support the aims of the strike.
But not all of her peers agree. The Nigerian Association of Students has accused lecturers of holding the strike for their own personal interests and have threatened mass protests.
While students like Ms Tejuoso are hopeful the outcome of negotiations will be successful there are concerns that if real action is not taken strikes will continue to be a constant feature of student life.
"Public universities are really, really suffering," she says. "It's a bad reality. We need the government to start focusing on our education."
BBC
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Police officer warns gays to leave Nigeria
Dolapo Badmos, a Chief Superintendent and spokeswoman for the Lagos State Police Command, made the comments on her personal Instagram account, which is set to private and has 125,000 followers.
"If you're homosexually inclined, Nigeria is not a place for you," Badmos wrote last week.
"There is a law (Same-sex Prohibition Act) here that criminalizes homosexual clubs, associations, and organizations with penalties of up to 14yeats (sic) in jail.
"So if you are homosexual in nature, leave the country or face prosecution," wrote Badmos, who has attained celebrity status in the country due to her frequent social media posts.
Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan signed the controversial Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA) into law, despite widespread international objection.
Those found guilty of being in a same-sex relationship face up to 14 years in jail.
The law was widely condemned by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch at the time, as well as the then United States Secretary of State, John Kerry.
Badmos' comments are the latest reminder of the challenges facing members of the LGBT community in a country where the anti-gay law enjoys broad support among its citizens.
According to a survey of 2,000 individuals conducted by The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERs), a Nigeria-based human rights organization, about 90% of Nigerians support the continued enforcement of the SSMPA.
Following her post, Badmos received scores of comments, with most of them expressing support for the proposed prosecution of gay people living in Nigeria. "It is illegal and ungodly," one user wrote.
Another user said, "we must say no to lesbianism and homosexuality it's evil."
Badmos did not respond to CNN's requests for clarification on her comments.
A spokesman for Lagos State police declined to comment and referred the inquiry back to Badmos.
Olumide Makanjuola, executive director at TIERs, told CNN the Instagram post is tantamount to inciting violence against LGBTQ people in Nigeria, calling her comments "unacceptable."
"Police should be wary with their statement and if they incite violence. What she said is out of line," Makanjuola said.
Homophobia is widespread in many African countries.
More than half of the countries on the continent have enacted laws that make it illegal to be gay and in several, including Somalia and South Sudan, homosexuality is punishable by death.
A 2013 Pew Research survey found that 98% of people in Nigeria believe LGBTQ people should not be accepted by society.
However, a 2017 survey by NOI Polls commissioned by TIERs showed a seven percent increase in the acceptance rates of LGBTQ people in Nigeria when compared to a similar survey from two years earlier.
Many of the people who commented under Badmos' post also singled out an openly transgender individual, who is prominent on social media, and called for their arrest.
CNN
Related stories: Being gay in Nigeria
Video - Nigeria's anti-gay law denounced
Oby Ezekwesili quits Nigeria presidential race
Oby Ezekwesili of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) announced her decision on Thursday morning in a series of posts on Twitter.
"I have decided to step down from the presidential race and focus on helping to build a Coalition for a viable alternative to the #APCPDP in the 2019 general elections," she said.
"This coalition for a viable alternative has now more than ever before become an urgent mission for and on behalf of the citizenry," she added.
"Over the past three months, I have been in private extended talks with other candidates to make a coalition possible that would allow Nigerians to exercise choice without feeling helplessly saddled with the #APCPDP."
The main female candidate in Nigeria's upcoming presidential election has said she is withdrawing her candidacy to help build a coalition to defeat the ruling All Progressive Congress.
Oby Ezekwesili of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) announced her decision on Thursday morning in a series of posts on Twitter.
"I have decided to step down from the presidential race and focus on helping to build a Coalition for a viable alternative to the #APCPDP in the 2019 general elections," she said.
"This coalition for a viable alternative has now more than ever before become an urgent mission for and on behalf of the citizenry," she added.
"Over the past three months, I have been in private extended talks with other candidates to make a coalition possible that would allow Nigerians to exercise choice without feeling helplessly saddled with the #APCPDP."
Al Jazeera
Related story: Bring Back our Girls activist runs for top office and vows to disrupt 'Nigeria's politics of failure'
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Video - Unrest forces farmers off their land in Nigeria
Conflict between farmers and herders are affecting Nigeria's rising levels of poverty. Analysts say the violence is forcing millions of people, mostly poor farmers, from their lands.
20,000 Nigerian girls trafficked to Mali for prostitution
Nigeria's anti-trafficking agency says it has received concrete intelligence that around 20,000 Nigerian girls have been forced into prostitution in Mali.
Many of the girls are working in hotels and nightclubs after being sold to prostitution rings by human traffickers, according to a fact-finding mission carried out by the agency in collaboration with Malian authorities in December.
NAPTIP's Arinze Osakwe told CNN most of the girls said they were lured by human traffickers who promised them employment in Malaysia.
"The new trend is that they told them they were taking them to Malaysia and they found themselves in Mali. They told them they would be working in five-star restaurants where they would be paid $700 per month," Osakwe, who was part of an earlier NAPTIP rescue mission, said.
Some of the girls had been sold as sex slaves in gold mining camps in northern parts of Mali, he said.
Officials from the agency under Operation Timbuktu rescued 104 Nigerian girls from three brothels in Bamako, Mali's capital in 2011.
They were forced to become sex workers in mining communities in northern Mali.
"We brought back 104 girls just from three ramshackle brothels, and those were the ones that were even willing to come. They were mostly between the age of 13 and 25, and they had been trapped in the country for many years," Osakwe said.
"Since then, we have been working with local authorities and receiving reports from the Nigerian embassy in Bamako that the number of Nigerian girls trafficked to Mali has spiked tremendously," he said.
The agency said it is working with Malian authorities, the International Organization for Migration and National Emergency Management Agency to send the girls back to Nigeria.
Every year, tens of thousands of Nigerians are trafficked illegally to destinations abroad especially Europe.
Around 97 percent of victims are women, and 77 percent have been sexually exploited by their traffickers, according to IOM estimates.
CNN
Related stories: The illegal sex trafficking trail between Nigeria and Europe
Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'
Many of the girls are working in hotels and nightclubs after being sold to prostitution rings by human traffickers, according to a fact-finding mission carried out by the agency in collaboration with Malian authorities in December.
NAPTIP's Arinze Osakwe told CNN most of the girls said they were lured by human traffickers who promised them employment in Malaysia.
"The new trend is that they told them they were taking them to Malaysia and they found themselves in Mali. They told them they would be working in five-star restaurants where they would be paid $700 per month," Osakwe, who was part of an earlier NAPTIP rescue mission, said.
Some of the girls had been sold as sex slaves in gold mining camps in northern parts of Mali, he said.
Officials from the agency under Operation Timbuktu rescued 104 Nigerian girls from three brothels in Bamako, Mali's capital in 2011.
They were forced to become sex workers in mining communities in northern Mali.
"We brought back 104 girls just from three ramshackle brothels, and those were the ones that were even willing to come. They were mostly between the age of 13 and 25, and they had been trapped in the country for many years," Osakwe said.
"Since then, we have been working with local authorities and receiving reports from the Nigerian embassy in Bamako that the number of Nigerian girls trafficked to Mali has spiked tremendously," he said.
The agency said it is working with Malian authorities, the International Organization for Migration and National Emergency Management Agency to send the girls back to Nigeria.
Every year, tens of thousands of Nigerians are trafficked illegally to destinations abroad especially Europe.
Around 97 percent of victims are women, and 77 percent have been sexually exploited by their traffickers, according to IOM estimates.
CNN
Related stories: The illegal sex trafficking trail between Nigeria and Europe
Video - Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution at 'crisis level'
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