Category: Special Report

He has been killed, cloned, replaced and given another wife, but only on social media. ROBERT EGBE looks at different times the rumour mill went crazy about President Muhammadu Buhari 

 

THE past few weeks have certainly been one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s most interesting or if you will, exciting times. Fancy learning of your own purported plan to marry a second wife – wedding invitation and all – on social media.

But fake news peddlers didn’t start today, and such rumours are an experience President Buhari must have come to know too well since he assumed office in 2015. Not a week seems to go by without a reputable but not-too-vigilant news medium, a fake news merchant, a traffic-hungry blogger, or a social media troll manufacturing a sensational publication that often turns out to be an empty rumour.

There have been countless such fake news items in the last five years. AFP Fact Check, for instance, records at least 14 made against or about the President or members of his family since 2017.

One in every five Nigerians is mad

Imagine waking up one morning to read that one out of every five of your countrymen is mad, and you, the president, were the one that said so. The only problem was, you never did.

A claim widely shared on Facebook and Twitter in February 2019 alleged that in a speech at a meeting of world leaders in Paris, President Buhari said: “One in every five Nigerians is mad”.

The earliest source of the rumour was traced to a tweet at 8:52 am on November 14, 2018, by Ibu Thomas, an “activist” and “commentator”.

It claimed that Buhari had made the statement in France. The tweet was retweeted more than 1000 times.

This claim was false. A text search of a transcript of his speech found that the President did not mention mental health at the Paris Peace Forum.

Replaced by a clone

This is perhaps the biggest social media rumour in Nigerian history.

The claim was that President Buhari died in a London hospital sometime in 2017 and was replaced by a lookalike or clone from Sudan.

The double or clone was described as “Jibrin from Sudan”, “Jubrin”, “Jubril Aminu” or “Jubril Al-Sudani”.

The rumour, which went viral online, was fueled in part by the Federal Government’s evasiveness about President Buhari’s long medical vacation to the United Kingdom (UK) for an undisclosed illness.

The President’s numerous medical trips began in mid-2016. When he returned in September 2017, he had, as should have been expected, lost weight.

But the lack of information about his medical status and differences in his physical condition strengthened claims about his identity.

According to AFP, social media posts repeating claims that President Buhari was an imposter called “Jubril” were shared and viewed over 500,000 times by last November.

AFP found that one of the earliest mentions of the claim was in a video posted by Twitter user @sam_ezeh, re-posted on September 3, 2017. The vide

“The man you are looking at in the television is not Buhari… His name is Jubril, he’s from Sudan. After extensive surgery they brought him back,” he said.

Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu repeated the claim and called the lookalike “Jubril Al-Sudani” in separate broadcasts on his station, Radio Biafra.

On each occasion, Kanu gave no evidence for the claim.

He and others did, however, share photos showing different angles of filtered pictures of President Buhari’s face or ears as proof of their claims. Another picture showing the president supposedly signing documents with the wrong hand was found to be a reversed image.

Comments by several high-profile opposition figures, including then Ekiti State Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose and former Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode also boosted the rumour.

On July 12, 2018, Fayose threatened to release 11 photos of the President in terrible shape

“If care is not taken, I will release pictures and this will create serious problems for the country. If care is not taken, I will release about 11 pictures (on his bad health)”, the governor said.

He never did.

London buses and rigged Nigeria’s election

Last March, a Facebook page Trend Media posted a video with the caption: “‘Buhari rigged 2019’, this is an inscription found on a bus in the UK”.

The video, seen by thousands of people on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, was actually a fake. It was an old video that was doctored to suit the poster’s false claim.

The same footage had earlier been doctored to suggest that London buses were carrying adverts calling for the imprisonment of former senate president Bukola Saraki.

Germany and Ekweremadu

Former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu was assaulted on August 17 by activists claiming to be from the separatist Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group as he attended a conference in the German city of Nuremberg.

Days later, posts on Facebook and WhatsApp claimed to show a letter from German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas reprimanding President Muhammadu Buhari after the attack.

However, the Germans denied writing any such letter.

Marrying another wife

If you believed the rumour mill that President Muhammadu Buhari was set to marry his Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, on Friday, October 11, 2019, then, the joke’s on you.

This rumour followed the absence of First Lady, Aisha Buhari, who had been out of the country for two months.

Peddlers of the news ignored a statement by Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, which debunked the claim.

Social media had fun while the rumour lasted, with users throwing in memes and pictures aplenty to poke fun at themselves over the ‘palace wedding’ that never was.

Some persons even trooped to the Aso Rock mosque on Friday, October 11 to witness the wedding.

A video that claimed Aisha Buhari was locked up in a room in Aso Villa after she returned from London last Thursday was shared and viewed tens of thousand times on social media.

Also, in an interview after her return, Aisha laughed off suggestions that her long absence was some sort of protest on her part concerning the wedding preparations.

She said: “(Laughs) Protest? What protest? In the past, the rumours that were going round when my husband was hospitalised…people were posting pictures of a corpse being moved in an ambulance and saying it was my husband. I got calls from First Ladies of other countries calling to ask, and leaders of other countries were calling to ask.

“I drew the attention of the regulatory bodies like NCC, NBC and the likes and I told them: “If you allow these rumours to continue, they will birth crisis that will be hard to handle. I’m not saying it because today people are saying see my husband’s corpse, see my house, see the ambulance.”

“I told them: ‘You know the people responsible for these rumours.’ But they left the people to go scot-free till today. So this one too, I am not surprised or bothered.”

But the rumour mill ground to a halt when the wedding failed to hold.

Buhari did not attend the Yokohama summit?

A separatist group said images of Buhari arriving in Japan were fake. But AFP photos show he did attend Yokohama summit.

IPOB and its supporters claimed images of President Muhammadu Buhari arriving in Yokohama, Japan on August 26, 2019, for a summit were faked and cast doubt on his attendance.

One post on August 27, from an account, named after the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, said that the media had been used “in the propagation of deliberate falsehood” that Buhari “is in Japan when clearly he was in Oman”.

It claimed that footage and pictures of Buhari arriving in Japan were “fake photoshopped images and digitally altered videos”.

But aside other credible and eyewitness reports showing that the allegation was false, an AFP photographer in Japan also took pictures of the president at the summit on African development.

Did US, UK and EU boycott President Buhari’s inauguration to protest the election?

Last May, the rumour mill again went to town in the form of a viral picture claiming to show representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union absent from President Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration, allegedly to protest his re-election.

The post shows a picture of a former head of state, Yakubu Gowon, sitting in the middle of a group of empty chairs at the inauguration ceremony. The empty chairs were actually for former presidents or heads of state, most of whom were absent.

“Gowon, In his own world. Obasanjo – absent. Jonathan – absent. IBB- absent. Shonekan – absent. Abdulsalam- absent. The representative of the US -absent UK representative – absent. EU representative – absent… The world knows that Buhari and INEC stole Atiku’s victory,” the caption reads.

This claim is false; the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union had representatives at the inauguration and did not protest Buhari’s re-election.

Supreme Court nullified results of the presidential election or called for a new vote?

A recent post shared more than 1,000 times on Facebook claimed that the Supreme Court annulled the February 23 presidential election and ruled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should conduct a new vote.

Needless to say, no such judgment was ever made.

President Buhari appointed a Supreme Court judge who was never called to the bar?

Posts viewed tens of thousands of times on Facebook claimed that the then acting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Mr Tanko Muhammad did not attend Law School and was never called to the bar.

In a video shared on January 28, 2019 a man protesting Muhammad’s appointment claimed that the new Chief Justice was “not even a lawyer” and “had not been called to bar.”

The claim was false. Justice Muhammad was called to the bar in 1981.

Election and Buhari’s relative in charge of logistics

A viral post on Twitter and Facebook claimed that Nigeria’s last general elections were delayed because Amina Zakari, a relative of President Muhammadu Buhari through marriage, was in charge of the vote’s insufficient logistical preparations.

The claim was shared by Nigerian opposition figures — including Senator Ben Murray-Bruce and Reno Omokri, a former media aide to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan.

The claim was false. The presidential vote indeed delayed until February 23 due to what Nigeria’s Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) said were logistical difficulties.

But Zakari, an INEC staff, was not in charge of logistics for the vote.

INEC had in fact announced on January 3 that retired Air Vice Marshal Ahmed Tijjani Mu’azu would be in charge of the ad hoc logistics committee organising the election, which was originally due on February 16.

Buhari’s daughter and  NNPC Board 

The news that President Buhari had appointed his daughter Halima Buhari to the Nigerian National Petroleum Board (NNPC) Board sent tongues wagging across the country.

An anonymous Twitter account called ‘Broda Ayo @sovereignayo was one of the peddlers of the rumour. Broda Ayo’s post claimed that Halima, a fresh law school graduate, had been appointed to the NNPC Board on a salary of N6.7million.

A website, scannewsnigeria.com also claimed that Halima had been “given a Board member Position at NNPC earning over N7-million Naira per month amongst other fringe benefits”.

The rumour was false.

Buhari unaware elections had been postponed

An image was posted by a Facebook page called “Dailymail gist” on February 16 claiming to show President Muhammadu Buhari turning up at his local polling booth unaware that the elections due that day had been postponed.

“Breaking news: Buhari Just Arrived His Unit For Accreditation, Saying He Is Not Aware That The Elections Has Been Postponed,” reads the caption.

A similar post by a Facebook page called “Nigeria Politics Today” also used a different picture from 2015 to make the same misleading claim.

The picture was seen and shared by thousands of Facebook users. It also trended on Twitter and elsewhere online.

It was false; the photo was taken in 2015.

Army spokesman quits over a Buhari ‘crackdown plan’

A post published by the Facebook page Dailymail Gist on February 19, 2019 shared a picture of former Nigerian army spokesman Sani Usman with the caption: “BREAKING NEWS!!! Brigadier General Sani Kukasheka Usman, Director Army Public Relations, Announces His Voluntary Retirement From The Nigerian Army. Saying!! I will not be part of what The presidency planned against innocent Nigerians if Buhari didn’t win 2019 Election!!!”

But while Usman did retire that month after 36 years in service, he made no such comments at the time and has reasserted that he did not resign for political reasons.

On February 20, 2019, he released a statement describing the posts as “mischievous fake news” and saying he had never issued any such public comments against Buhari or a supposed crackdown planned by the President in the event of a defeat in the election.

“I voluntarily retired from the Nigerian Army on 7th February 2019 having served for over three decades and commenced my terminal leave the following day,” Usman said.

Sacking Emefiele

Last February, a post by Hope for Nigeria, a Facebook page notorious for spreading misinformation, claimed that Buhari sacked Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele and shortlisted two people from the North as a replacement.

A tweet by Jackson Ude, former communications director to ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, also claimed that Buhari had sacked the CBN governor. It was shared more than 500 times.

Needless to say, Emefiele was never sacked.

Forbes list

A trending story in May claimed that U.S. business magazine Forbes will list or has listed Yusuf Buhari, the son of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, as the fourth richest son of any sitting president in the world, allegedly worth $2.3 billion.

But Forbes released no such report. The magazine does not list the richest children of sitting presidents.

 

 

As the days when bags of rice practically walk in from the country’s borders with the connivance of the Customs seems to be over for good, JULIANA AGBO, writes on how the shut borders can become the catalyst for local production

 

BEFORE the discovery of crude oil, agriculture was the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy.

It accounted for 50 per cent of the nation’s Gross Development Product (GDP), and more than 75 per cent of her export earnings, Nigeria was a major producer of Cocoa and other cash crops such as groundnut, sesame, palm oil, and rubber.

All through the first decade of her nationhood, Nigeria could feed herself, but by the 70s, Nigeria began to move down the slope from self-sufficiency in basic foodstuffs to becoming import-dependent.

On average, Nigeria spends an average of US $22 billion (?7.92trn) each year on food imports. Its major food imports include wheat, sugar and fish.

Another big import, rice, accounts for about US$1.65 billion, or ?0.59trn. Most of the country’s rice is imported from Thailand and India.

Prior to now, rice was one of the country’s most imported cereals. This has led experts to predict Nigeria will be the world’s second-largest importer of rice after China in 2019.

In theory, Nigeria has the capacity to grow most or even all of its rice. There are 82 million hectares of arable land across the country; five million hectares are suitable for growing rice, but only about 3.2 million hectares are being used for growing rice. Collectively, these produce 3.7 metric tons per year and that rice meets about 50% of domestic rice demand.

Following the concern raised by President Muhammadu Buhari and other stakeholders concerning the importation of rice into the country, on August 2019, the joint security operatives led by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) in collaboration with the Armed Forces of Nigeria, as well as the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), launched an intelligence-gathering operation by conducting a joint border security exercise, code-named “EX-SWIFT RESPONSE”.

The Comptroller General of NCS, Colonel Hameed Ali (retd), in response to the concerns raised over the closure of the border, said the borders will remain closed to stop the conduit of illicit drugs and the proliferation of small arms.

The Nation gathered that a bag of local rice now sells for N18, 000 and N24, 000 at the market following the border closure. The foreign rice sells for N25, 000.

Taking advantage of border closure

The National Coordinator, Nigeria Farmers Group and Cooperative Society (NFGCS), Mr Retson Tedheke, told The Nation during a team visit to the integrated farm in Gaate Village, Kokona Local Government Area of Nasarawa State that more borders need to be closed, from Benin to Cameroon and from Niger to Chad, for Nigeria to grow.

Tedheke said the ban on importation of rice is a catalyst capable of triggering a massive industrial revolution that is driven by agriculture and sustained by rice.

He said the country must get to that point where the border must be closed against the importation of rice, maize, and petroleum products heading out of the country.

The National Coordinator who explained that when he left the Niger-Delta for Abuja, he had no idea he was going to become a large scale farmer, said, in 2017, he, along with several others, and an entire community, formed a cooperative that enables them to work a huge chunk of land simply by putting their heads together.

He said the farm, which seeks to expand its operations is leveraging on the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) Credit Risk Guarantee (CRG).

He added that the integrated farm is into rice production, oil processing, ranching, poultry farming and milk production that has over 10,000 members across the country with over 300 local employees during the farming season and over 500 at harvest time.

“We are also building a mini health care centre that can take care of about 300 to 500 people”, he said.

Production capacity

On the current production capacity, the Farm Manager, NFGCS, Peter Ogbeide said the farm cultivates about 150 hectares for the rice farm which they are hoping to increase by 2020.

Furthermore, Mr Tedheke said with the successful completion of the rice mill, the integrated farm is producing about a thousand bags in a month.

According to him, “By November 2019 the group’s output will be up to 25,000 bags, and 100,000 bags within the first quarter of 2020.

He said: “95 per cent of Nigerians eat rice every day. Look at what customs has done in the last couple of days, even if the Nigerian farmers are not benefiting and custom is bringing in revenue of N10 billion every day, do you know what that means? It means that every 10 days customs can be putting about 300 billion Naira on the table and every month, customs can be putting trillions of Naira on the ground and that will generate a lot for the country yearly.

“We are going to be a cooperative company that will be able to deliver 50,000 bags of rice into the Nigerian market every month. With the kind of training our staff has, they have no issues in computing their farm activities.

 

Why border closure policy is necessary

The Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kia Kia Bits Limited, Mr Olajide Abiola, noted that Nigeria for long has been a dumping ground for imported products, especially through neighbouring countries, adding that the country loses a lot of revenue in the form of taxes and import duties.

According to him, “Most of these duties are paid to the customs and as revenue through the ports of entry of the country which they came, and secondly, it also discourages local production and investments, because smugglers do not pay anything in bringing these things into the country, they have a natural competitive advantage over indigenous farmers and indigenous producers of these commodities that we have local capacity to actually produce and also significantly drive down the price through economy of scales.”

Abiola who said the border closure would help stimulate local production and empower Nigerian farmers in many ways said Kia-Kia Bits as a licensed lender empowered to lend would leverage on it to empower more farmers.

However, the farm manager, NFGCS, Peter Ogbeide while explaining that the border closure would leave most Nigerians with no choice than to go into rice farming, said the country might not have the quantity of rice to satisfy local demand immediately, but it will be an eye-opener for Nigerians to venture into rice business.

“So even if you are a rice farmer, and you cannot process, you can give it out to who can process it because is a value chain”, he said.

 

 Why Nigerians should boost local production capacity

On boosting local production capacity, Tedheke said the production of local rice needs more attention as it has no difference with foreign rice.

He said: “Local rice is more nutritious, safer and more body friendly. But, Nigerians are in love with foreign contents, Even when things come from one of the poorest countries in the world, they respect it, we need to understand as a people that our insatiable demand for foreign content is one of the reasons why unemployment is so high in this country. Our demand is the reason our people are suffering, and that is why people are not farming locally.’’

He continued: ” Now, we are importing Garri from Togo, We are a nation that always expects a miracle from things we can do because of religion. Americans love Nigerians because we always import things from them, all we do is to eat without developing the place that can get us food.

“The Lebanese are the ones coming to develop our agriculture for us, they take our raw materials, take ginger to China, refine it and bring it back for us to take as ginger tea, they also take our yam, process it and return it to us as Poundo yam. So what we have done is that our eating culture is now being monetized by the Chinese. The mistake we made in crude oil when Nigeria produced about two million barrels of crude a day, is the mistake that is already taking place in agriculture.‘’

He said the Chinese and Japanese are already here to take over our agriculture. Adding that if we are not careful and think about Nigeria first, we are going to get that point that the Chinese will come here and become our landlords and the next thing we will do is to begin to rant on social media which won’t take us anywhere.

‘’Every Nigerian must understand that change begins with him or her first and that the nation that prays, fails, and a nation that farms, succeed.

“Every single kobo that has been invested in this project has come from crowdfunding and loans from organizations like Kia Kia. The federal, state and local government have not contributed or supported this project financially. But the federal government has provided us with machines at subsidised rates. So, the federal government warehouse in Keffi has been open to this cooperative”, he averred.

 

The need for the government’s  investment  in rice farming

Tedheke further reiterated the need for the government to deploy resources to boost production capacity in the country.

According to him, “If Nigeria can cultivate 30 million hectares of rice, in a year, and with average five tons per hectare, we will have 30 million hectares multiplied by five, you have 150 million tons of paddy rice, if you such amount and discount those at about 50 per cent, you are going to be having 75 million tons of rice, the point is that we have the capacity of being food sufficient.

“I don’t think the whole of Nigeria has up to 200 thousand tractors, so we need to invest heavily in the deployment of machinery across the country for all of the rice beds for people to be interested in farming’’.

However, Mr Ogbeide also decried that research institutes are not doing enough to support agricultural growth in the nation.

“If you look at countries that are doing well is because their research institutes are doing well in producing hybrids seedlings that can give a good yield.

“Closing of the border is a good thing for Nigeria, is for a while, is because we are new to it that people are concerned, we will be pushed to improve because when we have so much demand, we have to push and increase our capacity of producing rice, between 2015 to now, rice production has increased, why is it that local farmers are crying, is because of importation, the cost of production of local rice caused the high cost of rice in the market. If farmers are provided with the amenities to produce rice, we will not be facing these challenges now.

“In China, 90% of what they need for their production, the government provides it for them, even if they need to get a loan for the implement, the government does that, but ours is different here in Nigeria,” he said.

Challenges

On the challenges militating against rice production in the country, Mr Tedheke noted that the country must also fight against the external forces that are militating against its local farmers and producers, said there should be a synergy between the state, local and the federal government when it comes to harmonising relationships, the differences and the area of challenges that are being faced across these levels of government.

While reiterating the need for investments in machineries, infrastructure, agro-processing, research, and in every sector of the economy that is capable of supporting a massive revolution in agriculture, he said: “We have made progress but we are not there yet, we have the potential and the capacity to become food sufficient within the next decade. 84 million arable hectares of farmland is no joke. If you utilise 50 per cent of these arable farmlands, you will provide enough for your people, then you begin to preach free trade, why, because if as we speak, Nigeria is producing 10 tons of finished rice every month, then we will now begin to embrace free trade in rice, we will now say, when it comes to the rice industry Nigeria wants to become a liberal economy.”

 

 

Inflation surges after war against food smuggling

 

THE inflation rate went up to 11.2 per cent in September after falling to a 3 1/2-year low in the preceding month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said.

The NBS blamed this on increase in food prices. Food prices went up after the partial closure of the country’s borders with the Benin Republic to curb rice smuggling.

Food-price growth accelerated for the first time in four months rising 1.3 per cent from August. The borders were closed in late August.

The President Muhammadu Buhari administration further tighten the screws on Monday by banning trade across all land borders to force neighbouring Benin and Niger to halt food smuggling into the country.

Food prices rose at the fastest pace in four month in September

“The key factor for prices has been the partial closure of the land border with our neighbors,” said Omotola Abimbola, an analyst with Chapel Hill Denham Securities Ltd. “We have stable fuel and energy prices, and we are in the harvest season. Inflation should be lower.”

With a population barely 5 per cent of Nigeria’s, Benin has turned into the world’s No. 2 exporter of rice while Nigeria is expected to be the biggest buyer of the grain this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“At some point, it has to be Nigeria first — we have to protect our own industries,” Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said on Monday.

The policy has hurt food sellers in the capital, Abuja, who say Nigerians prefer imported food items because they’re more affordable. Prices of imported products such as rice, palm oil and frozen chicken have gone up by more than 50%, they say.

“I can already see this border closing affecting us terribly, especially with December around the corner,” said Grace Auta, 45, who sells goods at a food stand in the bustling Wuse market in Abuja. An increase in wholesale prices forced her to more than double the price of a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of rice.

“Already we are seeing drop in sales; we don’t have enough money to take in products as we normally would,” said Auta.

 

 

With the world’s attention on terrorism and militancy, Foreign Affairs Desk Head BOLA OLAJUWON writes about the rise in piracy and organised crimes in the Gulf of Guinea and the need for urgent international intervention.

 

UNITED Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres is concerned about tensions in Nigeria, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad and Cameroun. Threats from extremist groups, including Boko Haram, al-Qaeda affiliates, Ansarul Islam, the Islamic State jihadist groups, have increased since 2015.

Guterres, at 74th General Assembly, said: “Time has come for urgent mobilisation to support countries and people of the Sahel” against the violence in the area.

But as the 15-member UN Security Council focus on humanitarian situation caused by Boko Haram activities in the Lake Chad Basin region, a growing number of incidents of piracy have gradually shifted into the Gulf of Guinea. This has added to the multi-dimensional security threats faced by the region. Much was not heard about the spiralling threat during the discussions of the global leaders at the UN General Assembly.

Last week, President Muhammadu Buhari sought the collective efforts of stakeholders in the maritime sector to rid the nation’s waters of emerging security threats. The President made this call on Monday at the first-ever Global Maritime Security Conference in Abuja. The President said statistics indicated that efforts to eradicate the menace by governments of the region are yielding result, citing the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting centre. He hailed the Nigerian Navy “for actively responding to reported incidents by dispatching patrol boats”.

But, a report made available to The Nation by National Project Officer, Outreach and Communications, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Nigeria Country Office, Abuja, Sylvester Tunde Atere, said rather than decreasing, the trend of piracy and organised crimes in the region has found many coastal countries insufficiently prepared in terms of their capacity to effectively prevent attacks and counter-attacks carried out by pirates within and beyond their coastal waters.

Moreover, all types of trafficking flow through the Gulf of Guinea continue to constitute a major breeding ground for transnational organised criminals operating across the region and globally with devastating effects on people.

$2.2bn lost to piracy in Gulf of Guinea annually

Raising his concern over the issue, the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Ibok Ibas said West African countries, including Nigeria, are losing an estimated $2.2 billion annually to piracy and other maritime crimes in the Gulf of Guinea. At the Annual General Meeting and inauguration of the new executives of the Maritime Security Providers Association of Nigeria (MASPAN), the Naval chief, quoting a statistics by the United Nations Foods and Agricultural Organisation, said countries in the region lose about $370 million to illegal and unregulated fishing.

Ibas said owing to the high cases of piracy and sea robbery within the Gulf of Guinea, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has ranked the region as one of the most troubled waterways, after the Gulf of Aden.

Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) Dr Dakuku Peterside also decried the scourge of maritime insecurity, especially in the Gulf of Guinea.

However, in an interview with The Nation on the matter, a security expert and chief executive of Trans-World Security System Ltd, Dr Ona Ekhomu, attributed spiralling cases of organised crimes in the area to the weak territorial protection of the Gulf of Guinea by member states. He added that the weak security situation has allowed foreign and local organised criminals to perpetuate their activities in the area. Ekhomu noted that the most active naval force in the area is the Nigerian Navy, lamenting that there is little that other naval forces from the Republic of Benin, Ghana, Togo and others could do.

West Africa accounts for three-quarters of tramadol seized globally

It has been discovered that West Africa accounts for three-quarters of tramadol seized globally on the sea. The amount of this banned substance seized in Nigeria – mostly at its ports – rose from less than eight tonnes in 2014 to close to 150 tonnes in 2018. In the whole of West Africa, more than 430 tonnes of tramadol have been seized in the period between 2014 and 2017, with tramadol seizures being recorded in Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Niger, Nigeria and Togo.

The steep rise in wildlife and forestry products smuggling

Another trafficking flow discovered to be on a steep rise border on wildlife and forestry products, which include ivory, pangolin scales and rosewood. According to media reports in 2018 and early 2019, more than 37 tonnes of mostly pangolin scales were seized. They allegedly originated from Lagos seaports. This marks a sharp increase from the less than eight tonnes of pangolin scales seized in 2016 and 2017 by all the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) collectively. Further, West African waters are abundant with high prized seafood and estimated to have one of the highest incidents of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing in the world, representing up to 37 per cent of the region’s total catch.

The massive gap in bringing arrested pirates to justice

Reports indicated that recent efforts taken by some countries to strengthen their legal, institutional and operational response are laudable, but are yet to show their full impact. A massive gap remains in terms of bringing captured pirates to justice, identifying their financiers and trace, seize and confiscate their illicit proceeds. This gap is most glaring when comparing the more than 1,400 convictions obtained against pirates off the Horn of Africa and in the Indian Ocean against none so far in the Gulf of Guinea.

According to the UN body, one of the fundamental stumbling blocks has been the inadequacy of the legal framework. Many countries in the region are yet to fully domesticate the relevant provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Legal assessments carried out by UNODC in 12 countries of Central and West Africa between 2014 and 2019 indicated that only a few national frameworks fully met the requirements of UNCLOS in terms of criminalising piracy and establishing universal jurisdiction. Thus, successful investigations leading to effective prosecutions remain rare, making maritime crime and piracy low-risk high reward criminal activities.

Attacks at sea in the Gulf of Guinea have passed through various transformations and are becoming increasingly complex and violent, similar and possibly exceeding what was previously experienced in East Africa.

The need for legal frameworks to tackle quick evolution of criminal offences

To counter this threat and improve criminal justice responses to maritime crime, the UNODC Nigeria Country Office said legal frameworks need to follow the quick evolution of criminal offences committed at sea by creating new regulations, improving the quality of existing legal instruments, as well as updating key definitions in line with the UNCLOS, in particular, its Article 101 on piracy and its Article 105 on universal jurisdiction.

The lack of harmonised legal framework across the region also presents a challenge to international cooperation. Dual criminality requirements may hinder countries to effectively cooperate and potentially create safe havens for pirates.

Need for international collaboration on military patrols

Dakuku said there was an urgent need for international collaboration to tackle the menace. He said: “Dealing with the issues of piracy and maritime crime requires inter-agency collaboration as well as regional collaboration between sister agencies in the participating countries.”

The Nigerian Navy (NN) has acquired more than 300 patrol crafts to combat maritime crimes in the country’s territorial waters. The Navy said it also arrested 206 vessels and barges as well as hundreds of suspects for various maritime offences in the last four years.

Military experts, however, said navies in the  Gulf of Guinea need to come together with the support of European countries to tackle the menace.

Ekhomu noted that despite the performance of the Nigerian Navy in patrolling the Gulf of Guinea, it still required advanced naval platforms to bring sanity to the area. He added that the cost of lifting platforms and patrolling the area would only be borne by the Nigerian Navy, since the other member-countries, who jointly owned the economic zone, are financially not capable.

The security expert said the Gulf of Guinea leaders can also reach out to European navies and other foreign powers to assist in patrolling the area. He advised the Nigerian Navy to acquired modern platforms than waiting for foreign navies to give it discarded or decommissioned platforms. According to him, modern warfare dictates that with Nigeria’s peculiar position, it must rejig its focus from being land-centric to maritime-centric in the acquisition of military infrastructures.

UNODC on the domestication of United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

However, the UNODC Nigeria Country Office has called on countries in the region to, as a matter of a priority, ratify and domesticate the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in particular, its Article 101 on piracy and Article 105 on universal jurisdiction, ensure that offences other than piracy, established under domestic law, meet the requirements of “serious offence” as defined by Article 2 of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime.

With the Fly Nigeria Act, Nigeria seems set to join the rest of the world in rising to the aid of local carriers to curb capital flight, KELVIN OSA OKUNBOR writes

 

BANKOLE Bernard, the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA) President, is worried. Reason: Nigeria stands to lose more revenue repatriated to other countries by airlines.

He said measures must be put in place to force government officials, contractors and others who do business with the government to patronise indigenous carriers.

Across the world, the survival of airlines is increasingly becoming topical. Investors, regulators, governments and other multilateral institutions are routinely evolving measures to save their carriers from death.

Rise in airlines’ collapse is stirring debate among investors and managers to consider options of either merger, acquisition, consolidation or better still, forcing governments to consider a string of measures to protect the operator.

Countries are enlisting in the global move to design a raft of measures, policies and initiative that will continuously protect their airlines.

Call it protectionism you are not far from the fact. The protectionist move is gaining traction, as countries are now working out instruments to save their airspace from foreign carriers’ domination.

In Nigeria, a coalition is growing to save struggling indigenous carriers from invasion by foreign carriers, which have taken over the market.

Over 30 foreign carriers operate in Nigerian airspace, courtesy of the 75 bilateral and multilateral air services agreements it signed with other countries.

Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) statistics put the total ticket sales of foreign carriers operating into Nigeria at over $3.1 billion.

The statistics stated that $1.4 billion was earned as ticket sales by foreign carriers in 2017, but rose to $1.7 billion in 2018.

The 21 per cent increase in revenue from foreign airlines ticket sales confirmed their dominance in the Nigerian market.

One of the ways to save local airlines, according to Bankole, was through a legislative instrument otherwise known as ‘Fly Nigeria Act’, which was already in place in other countries to drive the agenda of protecting indigenous carriers.

Chairman, House Committee on Aviation, Hon. Nnolim Nnaji, said the lower legislative chambers were set to curb the invasion of foreign carriers into the Nigerian market by urging the government to review the existing  air treaties signed between Nigeria and other countries.

Nnaji said the lower legislative chambers have concluded plans to work with the Senate on how to initiate laws and other measures that will assist indigenous carriers.

According to her, the House was set to review the policies that tend to hinder the growth of domestic carriers, which enabled the dominance of international carriers over the nation’s airspace.

He added that the House will partner the Ministry of Aviation to put together a policy framework for the development of the Nigerian Aviation sector as a major hub for the African continent.

Besides, he said efforts were on for the creation of an enabling environment that will support local airlines in addition to curtail foreign airlines’ domination in the Nigerian Aviation market.

Part of the ways to achieve that he said is the possibility of reviewing the multiple entry designations granted to some international airlines to protect the local industry and ensuring safe and quality service delivery by all agencies and organisations that operate in the industry.

He said:  “Our Aviation industry has great potential, which has over the years been unduly exploited by foreign airlines. My understanding is that several foreign carriers operate multiple flights out of Nigeria daily charging very exorbitant fares without any indigenous operator reciprocating same. These no doubt promote capital flights, unemployment and negatively impact on the economic growth of the nation, which should not be tolerated.”

Industry clamour

The dominance of foreign airlines in the Nigerian airspace is increasingly drawing the ire of stakeholders.

This is coming on the heels of billions of Naira carted away as tickets sales by the foreign carriers operating in the country.

Last year industry experts called on the federal government to introduce the Fly Nigeria Act to support the sector.

This, they noted would make it compulsory that anyone travelling on government expense must fly the local airline or its partners.

The experts under the aegis of Aviation Round Table said if the Fly Nigeria Act is introduced, foreign carriers would be forced to partner with local airlines in terms of code-share and other arrangements that would earn indigenous carriers revenue from such partnership.

Speaking in an interview, President, Aviation Round Table, Dr Gbenga Olowo said: “There is need to sign the Fly Nigeria Act legislation, to help protect the Nigeria travel market for both local airlines and travel agent.”

In the last few months, stakeholders in the aviation industry have relived the imperative of the Fly Nigeria Act to return the local airlines to profitability and saved them from collapse.

The Act has been in the works in the last two decades, and it is mainly to drive sufficient traffic to local carriers.

Specifically, the legislation is to allow Nigerian commercial operators a monopoly on the fares of government related travel in and outside the country.

All civil servants in the country or anyone on government funded air travel will be compelled to fly with the local carriers. The bill, according to an estimate, will generate N500 billion for local airlines.

Speaking further Olowo said: “The Airlines Operators of Nigeria (AON) need to ask themselves if they are making sufficient money in the business to cover the cost. That is why AON should go and put up a bill in respect of the Fly Nigeria Act because it is an indirect way to free business for the airlines and arrest market share.

“Sign the Fly-Nigeria-Act”

Zenith Travels Limited Executive Director Olu Ohunayo said the government must review the Bilateral Air Service Agreement (BASA) in order to create opportunities for Nigerian airlines to compete with their foreign counterparts by introducing Fly Nigeria Act, which would make it compulsory for foreign airlines to partner indigenous carriers and share revenues from ticket sales.

According to him, Fly Nigeria Act would make it compulsory for anyone travelling on government expenses to patronise Nigerian airlines or their partners.

Ohunayo said by so doing, local airlines benefit from revenues earned on ticket sales by international carriers.

He said the government can also back indigenous carriers by supporting them to operate international destinations by playing the inevitable aero politics on their behalf.

He decried the huge amount repatriated out of the country every year by foreign airlines.

Also speaking Managing Director of Overland Airways, Capt. Edward Boyo, agreed that the Fly Nigeria Act initiative was good for the industry, but the local airlines needed more from the environment to make headway.

He said: “The Federal Government sent an executive bill to the National Assembly, a bill called the Fly Nigeria Act. You cannot say because you are the government and not do the appropriate things. Take Julius Berger for instance, they have billions worth of contracts in this country. They have a flying budget for their workers. What percentage of that flying budget goes to the indigenous carrier? That is the only way indigenous carriers can survive. ”

Ministerial Drive

Minister of Aviation Captain Hadi Sirika said government was aggressively pursuing a Fly Nigeria Act, as part of measures to support indigenous carriers.

As the world marks the Mental Health Day, MOSES EMORINKEN examines the state of the mental health in the country and the verdict is: this all-important sector is far way from where it should be

 

THE tricycle undulated each time it climbed over a porthole. Passengers slowly swung from left to right as the rider stealthily applied his expertise in order to avoid the bad patches on the road and seek creative ways to evade the traffic jam.

It seemed like a fairly jolly ride for the four passengers – a nursing mother seated at the back with her two children aged 5 and 9 years, and a formally-dressed male passenger probably in his mid-thirties seated next to the tricycle rider in front.

And like a rain that torrentially beat down on you without warning signs of dark clouds and cold breeze, they had barely reached half the distance to their destination when the gentleman in tie started to scream at very high decibels and struggled vehemently with the tricycle rider for the steering wheel for no good reason.

This caused the rider to lose control, sending everyone to the ground with injuries, peeled skin and excruciating pains. It was a ghastly scene of sorrow, tears and blood.

The major culprit in this whole story quickly jumped to his feet like nothing happened. He grabbed the already injured rider by the jugular, and began to pummel the innocent man in the face. If not for the timely intervention of passersby, he would have murdered the rider.

He was overpowered and subdued by those around, who eventually tied and bundled him to God knows where. This was a man who looked very alright and put together on the outside but had a volcano erupting from his inside.

In March 24, 2015, the Airbus A320 airplane conveying 150 passengers and crew members from Barcelona to Dusseldorf was deliberately crashed into the French Alps by the first officer Andreas Lubitz, expert reports revealed. The pilot was said to have been battling mental challenges of depression and suicidal tendencies.

In fact, global statistics have it that at least 393 people have been killed in suicidal plane crashes in four years. If this does not make you sit up, then nothing will.

This is the kind of situation that a lot of us potentially have to deal with. Whether you are in an airplane, in a car, or on a bike; your mental health and that of everyone interacting with your space is very critical to your own survival.

Imagine entering an airplane and committing your entire life to a mentally unstable, depressed and perhaps suicidal pilot? Your guess is as good as the writer’s. This cuts across every sphere of profession from the teachers in classrooms, judges in courtrooms, to even doctors surgically operating patients in theatre rooms. Everybody needs their sanity to function.

That mental disorders like depression, anxiety, and substance abuse-related disorders, will have disabled more people than complications arising from HIV/AIDS, heart diseases, accidents, and wars combined by the year 2020 is a very troubling statistics.

The above is according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) report on mental health system in Nigeria, and it bears credence to the fact that as a country we are not even paying a ‘mustard-seed’ attention to issues of mental health.

Stories abound of lovers murdering each other with flimsy motives, celebrities taking their own lives for mundane and unfounded reasons, students downing full bottles of pesticides like snipper in the bid to end their depressed lives; in short our society is slowly choking on its neglect and nonchalance with regards to how mentally ill it really is.

It is a fact that mental health is a concern not only in Nigeria but the world over. However, the difference lies in the way, strategies, and systems put in place to mitigate its debilitating blows by countries of the world.

 Mental illness not the exclusive preserve of ‘mad people’

In Nigeria, an estimated 20% – 30% of our population are believed to suffer from mental disorders. This is a very significant number considering Nigeria has an estimated population of over 200 million.

Gone are the days when mental illness is attributable to someone who behaves consistently incoherent, walks about naked or almost naked, looks totally unkempt, and takes abode in dunghills.

Today mental illnesses disguise in shirts, ties and suits; lives, plays, and maybe takes care of your children when you are out seeking daily bread. You find people with innate and building mental illnesses cover up there struggles with Queens English and ‘gentle-manly’ manners.

Mental illness does not show on the face, and sometimes takes time to become fully manifested in behaviour. Like malaria and other kinds of sickness, mental illness can happen to anybody with the right situations and triggers.

Mental disorders or illnesses, according to WHO, comprise a broad range of problems, with different symptoms. However, they are generally characterized by some combination of abnormal thoughts, emotions, behaviour and relationships with others.

According to the President of the Association of Psychiatrists of Nigeria (APN), Prof. Taiwo Lateef Sheikh, “Mental illness is the cause of certain impairments or disability or handicap that can be attributable to the functioning of your brain. When it is not allowing you to fulfil your role within your socio-cultural setting, then we say that the individual is mentally ill.

“While mental health is about looking after the totality of your wellbeing in terms of physical, emotional and social in relationship with the adjustments in your life, mental wellbeing is not the same as freedom from mental illness.

“It means the ability to be able to relate in a very good equilibrium with your environment; to be able to have your own aspirations, pursue them in a very meaningful manner and contribute effectively to the society you are living.”

Speaking with The Nation reporter, Prof Sheikh said, “Truth is, you may not enjoy good mental wellbeing even in the absence of mental illness.

“A lot of people are carrying this around even if they have not broken down to be mentally ill. This can degenerate to mental illness because it predisposes you to a very high level mental disorders.”

“A person may be meeting up with his or her family, relational or occupational roles but with a lot of struggles.

“The fact that an individual has not broken down, be admitted to a psychiatric ward, or showing signs of mental illness, does not really mean they are enjoying adequate mental wellbeing. It is a danger because people don’t know you have a problem.”

There are more than 200 classified forms of mental illnesses. Some of the more common disorders are depression, bipolar disorder, dementia, schizophrenia and anxiety disorders. Symptoms may include changes in mood, personality, personal habits and/or social withdrawal.

A tale of unimplemented policy and pending bill?

In 1991, Nigeria formulated a Mental Health Policy document which was to addressmental health issues, and its components include advocacy, promotion, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. It was later revised in 2013. Till date, the policy on mental health is seated somewhere in the ministry of health gathering dust.

According to Prof Sheikh, “We have a policy of 1991 which was revised in 2013. So we are using that 2013 revision. It is there on the shelf of the federal ministry of health and some state ministries, nobody has touched it.

“All the things incorporated in the 2013 policy that was adopted by the federal government of Nigeria has not been implemented. So we have a 2013 national mental health service policy and everything contained in that policy has never been implemented.

“No desk exists in the ministries at any level for mental health issues and only about four per cent of government expenditures on health is earmarked for mental health.”

For the President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Dr. Francis Faduyile, “We do not have any mental health policy in Nigeria, and it is because Nigeria’s health system is still in its rudimentary stage. Up till 2014, there was no particular policy of what the government needs to do in terms of health generally for Nigeria.

“It was the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) who fought and got the National Health Act in place. And that is the only thing that stipulates what the government needs to do in terms of health generally.”

Over twenty years now, no passage of Mental Health Bill

Concerning the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Bill, the APN President told the Nation reporter that: “We are pushing for a bill – Mental Health and Substance Abuse Bill for Nigeria.

“The mental health and substance abuse bill is a bill that seeks to address the problem of universal access to mental health care. It seeks to establish the national agency for mental health and substance abuse.

“To increase funding for mental healthcare. To create integration of mental health care into various levels of healthcare delivery services. To guarantee the human rights of the mentally ill. To protect the properties of the mentally ill. To treat the mentally ill in a very humane and compassionate manner such that there will be stringent measures on who is to do what where for who. If you abuse the mentally ill, then you will be culpable.

“It is a comprehensive bill that is supposed to address the issues of lack of care for the mentally ill and our young people who are under the burden of substance abuse.

“The bill is likely going to enforce the policy. So the policy comes with strategic plan and implementation plan whereas the bill commits the government to implement that policy.”

He further said, “We have been on this for the past 20 years and not 5years. Last year we got a Senator who sponsored the bill and it got two readings but couldn’t get through the third before the end of the last Assembly.

“We have gotten Dr. Ibrahim Oloriegbe who is the Chairman of Senate Committee on Health. He has taken over the championing of that bill and has assured us that it will get to their legislative agenda and we hope that this particular national assembly will be able to pass the bill to the president for acting.”

Dr. Francis Faduyile added: “The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and the Association of Psychiatrists of Nigeria (APN), are pursuing the mental health bill, which will now give a policy towards how we treat mentally challenged people, how we take care of them, what we need to put in place, and how the government needs to interact.

“It is until we have that, that we will say we have a policy about the treatment or management of mental health in this country.”

Hemorrhaging number of Psychiatrist in Nigeria?

In the ongoing struggle to rescue the wandering minds of Nigerians away from the deadly claws of mental illnesses, the numbers of our frontline soldiers are increasingly becoming smaller. Our mental health soldiers include Psychiatrists, Clinical Psychologists, Mental Health Nurses, Mental Health Social Workers, etc. Their combine strength is still less than 1,000 personnel. This is very ridiculous, and no thanks to the infamous ‘brain drain’.

Prof Taiwo Lateef Sheikh, while speaking with the Nation Reporter, explained that for a population of about 200 million, we have just about 250 psychiatrists in the whole of the country. Which means it is one psychiatrist to about 800,000 people. This is about the greatest disparity in the world. It is a huge problem.

According to him, “We have triple number of psychiatrist of Nigerian extract outside the country today. In America alone we have over 300 psychiatrists that are Nigerian born. In Europe, Australia we have the same. We have more than three times the number of psychiatrists outside the boundaries of Nigeria than in Nigeria.

“Over 90 per cent of the psychiatrists you have outside Nigeria were trained in Nigeria; they were trained in our primary, secondary, university, and residency to specialisation in Nigeria, mostly using public money. Yet we allow them to go. It is as a result of brain drain.

“They are leaving because of economic matters; when there are no incentives to keep them here. Psychiatrist are not enough all over the world, so other countries readily absorb them.

“Psychiatrists are not the only mental health providers. We also have clinical psychologists, mental health nurses, and mental health social workers who are even less in number compared to psychiatrists. In fact, if you qualify as a mental health nurse today it is like a visa to go to Australia.

“We have serious dearth of professionals. That is why a lot of our people who have problems end up in the hands of quarks or traditional or spiritualists – unorthodox medicine. Manpower is a serious problem.

“The way forward is to integrate mental health into all levels of health care service. We want every Primary Health Care centres to be able to render some mental health services. We want every general hospital to render mental health service.”

Stigmatisation and human rights issues abound

It is not a rare thing to see people being chained, beaten, and manhandled because they are mentally challenged. All these are things that should not be.

“There is so much stigmatisation on those who are mentally challenged. In developed climes, that you are mentally challenged does not mean you cannot function in the society.

“It does not mean that you have to be stigmatised or segregated from the general society. Mental illness is taken as anybody who has malaria or any other form of diseases that you use drugs for and you can work effectively within the society,

“There is a lot of stigma and discrimination towards the mentally ill. There is a lot of stigma that embedded even at the highest level of policy making in Nigeria. This is reflected in budgetary allocation to mental health, even within the federal ministry of health.

“Today we don’t have an agency that looks after mental health in Nigeria. It is a shame.

“Ghana has mental health authority which is a stand-alone agency that is responsible for mental health to the country and advices the government on issues of mental health. We forget that mental illness has no vaccine. Our policy makers tend to forget this because of the issue of stigma and discrimination,” Prof. Sheikh explained.

Also, Dr. Faduyile decried the lack of attention that mental health is facing as evident in its exclusion from the Nation Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). According to him, “Mental health is not included in the NHIS. A lot of things that should be included are not there, until we do a review of the Act.

“The first thing we need to do is to have the Mental Health Bill. When we have this then we can now ask for a particular budget to take care of mental issues and mentally challenged people. The bill is currently with the National Assembly and we hope they will be able to pass it.”