Category Archives: Nigeria

Italian police arrest alleged Black Axe Nigerian mafia members over trafficking

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Four arrests of cult-like criminal gang members made in southern Italy after Nigerian woman forced into prostitution comes forward

Four alleged members of the Nigerian mafia have been arrested in southern Italy after a young sex trafficking survivor spoke out against them.

The men, who were arrested in Palermo and Taranto in the early hours of Tuesday, allegedly belong to the feared Black Axe, a cult-like criminal gang that emerged in the 1970s at the University of Benin, according to police.

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Women behind the lens: ‘She was too beautiful not to be photographed’

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Etinosa Yvonne recalls a chance encounter with a Fulani woman in northern Nigeria

I met this woman in Machina, in Yobe state, when I was on assignment in northern Nigeria 2020. It had taken us seven hours to get there – it’s right on the border with Niger – and it was already late afternoon, early evening.

We were waiting for people to come and collect water from a solar-powered water pump when I saw her: this extremely beautiful Fulani woman. I was particularly drawn to the marks on her face. I knew Fulani women always like to look good, but it was really beautiful to see up close. There was a bit of a language barrier as I don’t speak Fula and she didn’t speak English or Hausa, but she agreed to have her photo taken.

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Driving change: the all-female garage shifting attitudes in northern Nigeria

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The NGO Nana is upending gender norms in conservative Sokoto state, where one in 20 girls finish secondary school

The green-and-red Nana Female Mechanic Garage sign is visible from the main road into Sokoto city. Behind its sliding iron gate, Zainab Dayyabu stomps around in heavy work boots and a blue jumpsuit, her hands callused and oily.

“I love the job I’m doing,” says the 23-year-old, as she opens the bonnet of a Peugeot van to test its battery.

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At least 200 villagers killed by bandits in north-west Nigeria

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Militants opened fire and burned homes in Zamfara state after military airstrikes on hideouts

At least 200 people are believed to have been killed in villages in the north-western Nigerian state of Zamfara, in some of the deadliest attacks by armed bandits at large in the region.

Gunmen, themselves fleeing from airstrikes by the Nigerian army, attacked villages for days, opening fire and burning homes between Tuesday and Thursday. Some residents who fled returned to the villages on Saturday after the military organised mass burials. The state government said 58 people had been killed during the attacks, yet distraught residents reported far higher death tolls.

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More than 100 people killed in northern Nigeria, say survivors

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Authorities say they are searching for bandits who terrorised areas of Zamfara state for three days

More than 100 people have been killed in Nigeria’s troubled northern region, survivors have said, as authorities continued to search for bodies and for suspects after three days of violence.

Bandits arrived in large numbers in the Anka and Bukkuyum local government areas of Zamfara state on Tuesday evening, shooting and burning down houses until Thursday, according to Abubakar Ahmed, a resident in Bukkuyum.

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Nearly 100 Nigerian hostages rescued after two months of captivity

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Weary abductees including children and babies ‘freed unconditionally’, say police in troubled northern states

Nearly 100 hostages, most of them women and children, have been rescued more than two months after they were abducted by armed groups in northwest Nigeria.

Among the 97 freed hostages were 19 babies and more than a dozen children, Ayuba Elkana, police chief in Zamfara state, said on Tuesday.

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Engineering the future: meet the Africa prize shortlist innovators

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Turning invasive plants into a force for good and powering healthcare with solar – here are three of the 2022 nominees

From a solar-powered crib that treats jaundiced babies to fibre made from water hyacinth that absorbs oil spills, innovators from nine African countries have been shortlisted for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2022 Africa prize.

This year half of the shortlist of 16 are women, and for the first time it includes Togolese and Congolese inventors. The entrepreneurs will undergo eight months of business training and mentoring before a winner is chosen, who will receive £25,000, and three runners-up, who win £10,000 each. All the projects are sustainable solutions to issues such as access to healthcare, farming resilience, reducing waste, and energy efficiency. The Guardian spoke to three of the shortlisted candidates.

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Central Africa: fighting kills six soldiers and 22 jihadists in Lake Chad region

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Three-week operation by troops from Niger and Nigeria targeted area that has become a bolthole for Boko Haram and Isis-linked militants

Six soldiers and at least 22 jihadists have died in fighting in the Lake Chad region of central AfricA, a joint force deployed to the area said on Friday.

The force described the operation, conducted by troops from Niger and Nigeria backed by fighter planes, as a “success” and said it had benefited from “decisive support by American partners”.

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The world on screen: the best movies from Africa, Asia and Latin America

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From a Somali love story to a deep dive into Congolese rumba, Guardian writers pick their favourite recent world cinema releases

The Great Indian Kitchen

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‘We don’t have a limit’: Yasuyoshi Chiba – agency photographer of 2021

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Yasuyoshi Chiba has been chosen by the picture desk as its agency photographer of the year. We hear from the AFP photojournalist

In 2021 Yasuyoshi Chiba’s work consistently stood out to the Guardian picture editing team. From his coverage of the elections in Uganda at the start of the year, through to his images from the Kimana Sanctuary in Kenya and the harrowing work in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

Yasuyoshi Chiba

The year has been a reminder that my work is dealing with an unexpected future. Thanks to the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccines, the world has slowly resumed, and I also again feel the value of being in the field for photography.

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Books that explain the world: Guardian writers share their best nonfiction reads of the year

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From a Jacobean traveller’s travails in Sindh to the tangled roots of Nigeria, our pick of new nonfiction books that shine a light on Asia, Africa and South America

• Share your top recommendations for books on the developing world in the comments below

You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Works 2011-2021
By Alaa Abd El-Fattah

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Arrival of 1bn vaccine doses won’t solve Africa’s Covid crisis, experts say

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Concerns over equipment shortages, bottlenecks and hesitancy on continent with 7.5% vaccine coverage

With 1bn doses of Covid vaccines expected to arrive in Africa in the coming months, concern has shifted to a global shortage of equipment required to deliver them, such as syringes, as well as insufficient planning in some countries that could create bottlenecks in the rollout.

After a troubled start to vaccination programmes on the continent, health officials are examining ways to encourage take-up as some countries have had to throw away doses.

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‘If you run, you will die’: fear stalks Nigerian state as jihadists gain foothold

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Niger state has been wracked by banditry for years. Now jihadists have moved in to communities just a few hundred miles from the capital, Abuja

“They ordered everyone to come around, saying if you run, if you cry, you will die,” said Bala Pada, recalling the moment in April when jihadists rounded up people at a market in his home town of Kaure to witness the execution of two alleged vigilantes.

Hundreds of jihadists have settled over the past year in Kaure and other remote communities in Niger state in Nigeria, according to displaced residents and local government officials. They began to arrive in November 2020, hoisting flags and declaring the communities under their control.

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UK travel firms call for state help after Omicron hits turnover

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Industry body warns that some operators won’t last the winter after return of strict Covid travel rules

Travel firms have called on the government to provide urgent financial help as fresh Covid-19 restrictions come in to force on Tuesday, hitting holiday travel just before the peak booking period.

Turnover has been at just 22% of normal levels for tour operators, according to figures from the travel association Abta.

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The world is watching: TV hits around the globe

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A Spanish trans woman’s memoirs, a Mumbai gangster drama, Israeli sisters in trouble… the Covid era is a rich moment for TV drama. Critics from Spain to South Korea tell us about the biggest shows in their countries

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Pandemic hits mental health of women and young people hardest, survey finds

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Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups

Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.

The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.

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Migrant caravan and Qatar’s tarnished World Cup: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Pakistan to Poland

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Oxford University identifies 145 artefacts looted in Benin raid

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Plundered items likely to be returned to Nigeria include plaques, bronze figures and musical instruments

The University of Oxford is holding 145 objects looted by British troops during an assault on the city of Benin in 1897 that are likely to be repatriated to Nigeria, a report has said.

More than two-thirds of the plundered items are owned by the university’s Pitt Rivers Museum, and 45 are on loan. They include brass plaques, bronze figures, carved ivory tusks, musical instruments, weaving equipment, jewellery, and ceramic and coral objects dating to the 13th century.

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How risk of kidnap became the cost of an education in Nigeria

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Abductions are rife in the north of the country, where armed gangs target schools and colleges with apparent impunity

When his two daughters were abducted from their university dormitories by armed men in April, Friday Sani volunteered to deliver the ransom. In two bags he carried banknotes to the value of more than 40m naira (£70,000), the price to free Victory and Rejoice, and 37 others taken from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Afaka, Kaduna.

In April and May more than 70 students were abducted from the federal college and the nearby Greenfield University. With little faith that police could help, a group of parents went to the kidnappers, through an intermediary, and paid to get their children back.

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A wealth of sorrow: why Nigeria’s abundant oil reserves are really a curse

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It is known as the resource curse: assets that should bring wealth and stability but instead lead to corruption and poverty. And for Nigeria, oil is the culprit

In Nigeria, oil has been more of a curse than a blessing. Weak institutions of state and poor governance in managing the vast revenues have led the country to fail to realise its full potential in a textbook example of what academics know as the “resource curse”.

First coined by Prof Richard Auty in 1994, the term refers to the inability of nations to use their windfall wealth to improve their population’s lot and bolster their economies. The rich natural resources bring corruption and poverty to a nation, rather than positive economic development and, counterintuitively, these countries end up with lower growth and development than those without natural resources.

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