NAIJAFEED

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Nigeria receives 10,000 doses of mpox vaccines from US

Nigeria has received 10,000 doses of the mpox vaccine from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the first batch of the vaccine to reach the country which has confirmed 40 cases with no fatalities so far.

Muyi Aina, executive director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), called the donation a "critical step" for Nigeria.

"We are aware that the vaccine is not exactly in surplus supply. I believe we're getting 10,000 of the about 200,000 doses that are available globally," Aina said in a statement.

The Nigerian government has decided to prioritize five states to receive the vaccines including Bayelsa, Edo, Cross-River and Lagos, according to USAID's statement.

NHPCDA has not yet said when the vaccines would be distributed or who would be prioritised for treatment.

"We encourage the Government of Nigeria to continue to mobilize domestic resources to secure more vaccines to combat mpox," U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills said at the handover ceremony of the vaccines to the Nigerian government.

By Camillus Eboh, Reuters

6 Polish students and a lecturer freed from detention in Nigeria

Six Polish students and a lecturer from the Warsaw University who were detained in Nigeria during protests there have been released, the Polish foreign ministry said Wednesday. They are in good health and will be returning home this week.

The ministry's spokesman, Pawel Wronski, said the seven Polish citizens have had their passports, laptops and belongings returned and were staying at the university campus in the northern Nigerian city of Kano, waiting for the trip back.

The seven were in northern Nigeria to take part in a program to study the Hausa language. They were detained earlier this month in the state of Kano during a political protest, allegedly for carrying Russian flags, Nigeria’s secret service said.

Officials in Poland, which has frosty relations with Russia, said that was unlikely and that the whole situation was a misunderstanding. The seven were held at a hotel in Kano while Warsaw was actively seeking their release.

“Our students were at the wrong time at the wrong place,” Wronski said, urging people to be cautious when traveling to distant locations.

Wronski said the ministry posts warnings and advice to travelers on its website, including a warning about the Nigerian state of Kano, where it described the political situation as being “quite complicated."

Pro-Russian sentiment is rare in the Central European nation, which has bad memories of suffering under Russian rule in the past. Polish society is today deeply critical of Russian aggression in Ukraine and strongly backs Ukraine.

The protests in Nigeria saw thousands, mostly young people, rally against the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation and against alleged bad governance that has stifled development even though the country is a top oil producer.

In several northern states, a few protesters were seen waving Russian flags, a trend that until now was only common in Africa in coup-hit countries where pro-Russian sentiments are growing off the back of coups by militaries severing ties with the West.

AP

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Video - Experts in Nigeria call for formal recognition of its informal economy

Business experts in Nigeria also want simpler government policies and better access to financing to boost the sustainability and survival of the informal sector. Nigeria’s informal sector provides more than 80 percent of jobs in the country and contributes 46 percent to the nation's GDP.

CGTN

At least 170 killed in weeks of flooding in Nigeria

At least 170 people have died and more than 200,000 others are displaced following weeks of flooding in Africa’s most populous country, a spokesperson for Nigeria’s disaster management agency told CNN Tuesday.

Northern Nigeria has been hit hardest by the floods, according to Manzo Ezekiel, who speaks for the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA). Other parts of the country however remain at risk, he added, amid torrential rains and the rising water levels of its two largest rivers — the Niger and the Benue.

“The pattern of flooding in Nigeria is such that it usually happens on the northern side before moving to the central and the southern parts… because the water flows downwards,” Ezekiel said. “In the coming days, the central parts will soon witness similar floods, and even downwards to the southern parts.”

Although parts of Nigeria are prone to floods during the rainy season, Ezekiel said this year’s flooding has been reported in areas where it had previously been rare.

“The situation is such that some places that were not previously known to be prone to floods are experiencing floods this time because of climate change,” he told CNN.

Environmentalists partly blame the country’s annual floods on poor drainage infrastructure.

More than 600 people were killed in floods across the country in 2022, the worst recorded in the West African nation in more than a decade.

Authorities attributed that flooding to above-average rainfall and the overflowing of the Lagdo dam in Cameroon.

Last week, the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency (NIHSA) warned that flood waters from neighboring Niger and Mali were “expected to move gradually into Nigeria” while urging states located along the River Niger to be on alert.

The country’s meteorological agency NIMET has also warned of the risk of flash floodsacross the country.

The recent flooding has injured nearly 2,000 people and destroyed more than 100,000 hectares of farmland, according to the latest data from the disaster management agency shared with CNN.

By Nimi Princewill, CNN

President Tinubu to visit China seeking economic cooperation

Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a visit to China next week to discuss cooperation on the economy, agriculture and satellite technology, a Nigerian government spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Tinubu, who has set in motion deep reforms in Africa's largest economy, will be in Beijing along with other African leaders to attend the China-Africa Cooperation Summit.

"This is going to be part of a broader engagement where the two heads of state will discuss matters of mutual interest across not just the economy, but also on issues of national, regional, and international security," the spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, said.

Africa is a focus of China's flagship economic cooperation programme.

Tinubu's agenda in China will include site visits to two major Chinese companies: Huawei Technologies and the China Rail and Construction Corporation, as Nigeria looks to complete a high-speed rail line linking Ibadan in southwest Nigeria to the capital in Abuja. Tinubu will also meet with 10 CEOs of major Chinese companies across information and communications technology, oil and gas, aluminium production, seaport and harbour construction, financial services and satellite technology development.

Nigeria is seeking investment to boost its economy, which is battling double-digit inflation, foreign currency shortages and issues such as crude oil theft.

By Felix Onuah, Reuters