Economic situation for commercial sex workers is getting tougher these days with many of them in critical condition. In Uganda, they are in a financial straitjacket. An advocate for sex workers’ rights told United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA) that in Uganda, “sex workers are left helpless with no income.’’ This is coming as UNPFA says experts are already saying that marginalised groups with high vulnerability to HIV infection, commonly known as “key populations”, are facing significantly increased risks as the COVID-19 pandemic persists. Last year, key populations – who including men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers…
Author: Akanimo Sampson
National Democratic Institute’s (NDI) Senior Programme Manager for Global Governance Programmes, Frieda Arenos, says peaceful transitions signal a government’s commitment to respect the people’s will in electing their next leader. NDI is, however, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental organisation that has been supporting democratic institutions and practices in every region of the world for more than three decades. Since its founding in 1983, NDI and its local partners have worked to establish and strengthen political and civic organisations, safeguard elections, and promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government. According to Arenos, elections across the globe have highlighted the importance of peaceful transitions,…
International Labour Organisation (ILO) Director-General, Guy Ryder, has cried out on the worsening global poverty, pointing out that the inequality created by the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening a devastating economic instability. According to the ILO big boss, ‘’the growth in inequality created by the COVID-19 crisis threatens a legacy of poverty and social and economic instability that would be devastating. Our recovery strategy must be human-centred. ‘’We need adequate wage policies that take into account the sustainability of jobs and enterprises, and also address inequalities and the need to sustain demand. If we are going to build a better future…
Leaders of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and South-South Peoples Conference (SSOPEC) have urged communities to brace up for their defence and protection as the security situation in Nigeria is taking a turn for the worse. At a top-level meeting in Abuja on Friday to renew their age-long working cooperation and political alliance concerned leaders from the two blocs argued, ‘’if the government cannot protect the citizens, it means an abdication of its responsibility. This implies that the communities should defend and protect themselves’’. Political alliance between the North and the peoples of the Niger Delta predates the country’s independence. In a seeming frantic…
A global rights group, Human Rights Watch has challenged the Buhari administration to prioritise civilian protection, and also stop forcing people to return to areas where they risk further harm. According to the rights group, ‘’too many civilians are dying, and it’s time the Nigerian state worked harder to protect them.’’ The group’s Africa Division Researcher, Anietie Ewang, says Boko Haram insurgents reportedly at least 70 civilians the previous weekend, many of them farmers working on a rice field. ‘’The attackers tied up many of the victims before slitting their throats, according to media reports. This latest gruesome attack took place in Jere,…
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank that is concerned with offering global decision makers independent, and strategic insight and innovative ideas that advance international peace says the COVID-19 crisis is decreasing women’s economic security and increasing their unpaid domestic and care work. According to the think tank, women around the world are disproportionately employed in the informal economy and in jobs with fewer social protections, pointing out, ‘’as a result, they have been severely affected by public health orders that have curtailed consumption and restricted mobility.’’ In South Africa, the group says women made up two-thirds of the three million…
Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed, has said that despite ongoing calls for President Muhammadu Buhari to quit office as the Nigerian leader, the president will not yield to the demand of the political sovereigns He said Buhari was elected in 2015 for a four-year term and re-elected in 2019 for another four-year term, adding, ‘’no amount of hysterical calls for resignation will prevent him from serving out his term’’. Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has been advancing reasons why the group wants President Buhari to step aside, citing worsening insecurity and looming famine in the country. Northern Elders’ Director of…
The senator representing Kano central, Ibrahim Shekarau, has said President Muhammadu Buhari is breaking the law, by keeping the service chiefs beyond their years of service. There have been fresh calls for Buhari to sack the service chiefs amid growing insecurity across the country. Speaking on a Television programme on Thursday, Shekarau said the service chiefs ought to go when they are 60 years of age or when they complete 35 years of service. He also described them as public servants and insisted they must be treated as such. “He (Buhari) is breaking the law. The law says if you…
Nigeria and 44 other countries are in need of external assistance for food as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Food Price Index rose sharply in November. The other countries are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, and Guinea. Others include Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Niger, Pakistan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Forty-five countries, 34…
A damaging sex scandal has kicked out the immediate past Vice-Chancellor of University of Uyo (UniUyo), Professor Enefiok Effiong Essien, from a hall of fame of 60 eminent persons who were born in the year of Nigeria’s Independence. The Compendium, an initiative of Project60@60.org mirrors nation-building through the administrative, arts & culture, economic, professional, political, philanthropic, religious, security, and scholarly contributions of the eminent persons so chronicled. The Nation Builders at 60 is a special publication which aims at celebrating outstanding individuals who have distinguished themselves in various fields of endeavour and contributed immensely to the Nigerian project. The 60 individuals share…
Director-General of International Labour Organisation (ILO), Guy Ryder, will be discussing the future of work at an event this Friday organised by a new open forum platform hosted by the Graduate Institute in Geneva. The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies is an institution of research and higher education dedicated to the study of world affairs, with a particular emphasis on the cross-cutting fields of international relations and development issues. Through its core activities, the Institute aims to promote international cooperation and make a contribution to the progress of developing societies. More broadly, it endeavours to develop creative thinking on…
Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has advanced reasons why the group wants President Muhammadu Buhari to step aside like former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida. The obviously disappointed Northern elders are citing worsening insecurity and looming famine in the country. The lingering June 12, 1993 election crisis led to the resignation of Babangida in August 1993. Babangida signed a decree establishing an Interim National Government led by Ernest Shonekan. The former military strongman announced on August 17, 1993, that he was willing to relinquish power as ‘’my own personal sacrifice’’, but stopped short of saying he will do so. ‘’I wish…
National Democratic Institute (NDI) has started a new initiative aimed at changing the face of politics by shifting the focus from being exclusively on women as the sole agents in their own empowerment. The initiative is known as Men, Power and Politics. It seeks to engage male political leaders as transformative agents of change for gender equality. According to NDI, women in politics face both formal and informal barriers to their participation, but one of the greatest obstacles facing women in politics is ideas about gender, and the social expectations and personal attitudes and behaviours to which these ideas give rise.…
International Organisation for Migration (IOM) is appealing for $22 million to contribute to collective preparedness efforts ahead of the humanitarian response to the situation in Northern Ethiopia. Internally displaced populations are in dire need of humanitarian and recovery assistance following the reported cessation of military operations on November 28, after more than three weeks of combat in the northern Ethiopian regional state of Tigray by the Ethiopian National Defence Forces. Ahead of the inter-agency needs assessments underway this week, the UN migration agency is scaling up its operational and technical capacity to respond. Military operations led by the Ethiopian Federal…
He simply identified himself as Djamal, 22. He arrived in Chad from the Central African Republic with his mother and seven of his siblings in 2014. His testimony: ‘’I was 16 years old then. We fled because of the violence in our country. When we arrived, we had nothing. We had no money, and we knew no one. ‘’We first went to Moundou [Southern Chad]. From there, international organisations helped us contact family members. Afterwards, we went to the Doholo refugee camp [near the border with CAR] to be registered as refugees. ‘’It was not easy. In the camp, my mother learnt about…
The defection of Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State to the All Progressives Congress (APC), President Muhammadu Buhari’s party, is unsettling the relative peace of the state. Former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, is saying that Umahi, who Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State claimed dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because of his 2023 presidential ambition, is under a spell. Anyim is also accusing the new APC governor of plotting to eliminate PDP big wigs in the state. It appears, the politics of Ebonyi will not remain the same again because of the ambition of one man. It also…
With around two million people including women and children currently being threatened by the fangs of death because of famine ravaging Southern Madagascar, the country without the doubt, is indeed, in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe. This African country that was previously known as the Malagasy Republic is in need of immediate emergency food assistance. Already, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is warning that if nothing is done urgently hunger will short-circuit the lives of that number of people. Three straight years of drought have wiped out harvests and hampered people’s access to food and COVID-19 is compounding…
Currently, Rwanda is cultivating about 200,000 hectares of cassava country-wide and an approximate average yield of 14.5 t/ha. The country, according to its Agriculture Minister, Jean Chrisostome Ngabitsinze, is hoping to achieve increased production from 14.5 t/ha to between 30 and 40 t/ha. New varieties are promising since they are reported to be yielding between 35 and 45 t/ha. In 2007, the government of Rwanda started the crop intensification programme, with cassava among the prioritised crops. However, it has been facing many challenges, including two deadly diseases: CMD (locally known as Ububembe) and CBSD (locally known as Kabole), which have disrupted cassava…
Embolden by the latest development in Peru, concerned environmental rights activists in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s vastly polluted oil and gas region, are currently seeing an emerging zero tolerance for ecocide. Like the Niger Delta situation, ecocide is a mass damage and destruction of ecosystems – harm to nature which is widespread, severe or systematic. The harm which oil and gas supermajors like Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Total and Eni has been committing in the region over the decades, has created the climate and ecological emergency that we now face. For Stop Ecocide for instance, its mission is to support…
Worried by the worsening insecurity in the country, the daring opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says Nigeria is currently facing the consequences of a leadership failure. According to the party, the seeming nervous outburst by the Buhari administration on the Saturday bloodletting in Borno State by the menacing Boko Haram terrorists, ‘’is the height of leadership failure of the lazy, lethargic and incompetent Buhari administration’’. The political attack by the PDP is coming as the Defence Headquarters (DHQ), on Monday, said the military is restrategising to combat terrorism in Borno and other North-East states. Defence Media Operations Coordinator, Maj. Gen.…
Deputy Director-General of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Kenton Dashiell, says when the private sector is fully engaged in African agriculture, smallholder farmers will have easy access to technologies to enhance production and profit. In his opening remarks at a webinar organised to connect partners and deliberate on ways to increase private sector engagement in African agriculture, Dashiell highlighted private sector’s importance and role in the entire agriculture value chain. He notes that he encouraged participants to envision a productive agricultural environment that is driven and powered by the private sector. The webinar, a collaborative activity of the African Union…
International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has provided over 150 Ghanaians with Voluntary Humanitarian Return Assistance from Libya. It is the first charter flight since the reopening of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA), in Accra, following COVID-19 related border closures. The charter flight was made possible through funding from the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration, the first comprehensive programme of its kind launched in May 2017 to save lives, protect and assist migrants along key migration routes in Africa. Before boarding the flight in Tripoli, all 157 Ghanaian migrants received consular assistance, medical screening, and personal protective equipment including…
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has restated its demand for the amendment of relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to allow states more control of security issues in their respective domains. The party is also demanding for a comprehensive investigation into the Saturday’s explosion attack on the Christian Universal Church, Port Harcourt, River State capital, steered by father of Governor Nyesom Wike. PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement says his party condemns the dastardly attack on the church, which it believes was well planned and targeted to causing harm to worshippers and persons close…
The undying Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria is currently compounding the many headache of the Buhari administration with the latest attack on farmers threatening to throw the country into a severe humanitarian crisis in terms of food need. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Nigeria (OCHA) says it is the deadliest attack on civilians this 2020 by the terrorists in the bleeding North-East axis of Nigeria. While OCHA is saying no fewer than 110 Nigerians were slaughtered by Boko Haram on Saturday, farmers from Borno State are saying that the brutal murder of over 43 farmers…
Some five million African migrants are currently living and working outside the continent. Interestingly, the entirety of humankind’s history begins in East Africa, with early Africans’ outbound migration towards Europe and the Middle East. Yet, migration within Africa remains the more dynamic trend. Over 21 million African migrants—more than five times the number of those in Europe, Asia or the Americas—are migrants to each other’s countries. That movement continues. Their movement and growing presence in their neighbours’ cities and towns, are turning their countries’ economies into components of each other as well. Moreover, by sharing access to things like complementary trade…
A new report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses shows that their greatest challenges have been insufficient cash flow to maintain staff and operations, supplier disruptions and access to raw materials. With businesses already undergoing significant competitive pressure prior to the crisis, government restrictions, health challenges and the economic fall-out brought by COVID-19 further set back many enterprises. Interrupted cash flow was the greatest problem, the survey found. More than 85 per cent reported the pandemic had a high or medium financial impact on their operations. Only a third said they had sufficient funding for recovery. Micro and small…
In the coming years, agriculture is pegged to be the fastest growing sector outside of Guyana’s nascent oil-and-gas industry, which is expected to catalyse widespread growth. Guyana Chronicle reports that interest in this area has already started to “pour in”, with Chilean investors being the latest to signal their intention to invest in large-scale farming there. The investors’ intentions were communicated by Chile’s Ambassador to Guyana, Patricio Becker to Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest), Dr. Peter Ramsaroop during a meeting at Go-Invest at the weekend. Majority of investors over the past few years have gravitated towards…
A repentant Niger Delta militant leader, General Para Ekiyes, has cautioned the restive youths in the oil and gas region against taking laws into their hands by engaging in acts that will be detrimental to the wellbeing of Nigeria. The repentant armed rebel who was speaking in a telephone chat with this reporter on latest developments in the environmentally despoiled oil region, applauded the recent seven-points demands made by governors and leaders of the area during a parley with a presidential delegation in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. According to him, ‘’only peace-building activities in the region will create…
One of the 60 eminent Nigerians who were born in the year of Nigeria’s Independence is Muhammad Murtala Aliyu. He is one of those featured by Project 60@60 in a compendium of eminent citizens. Aliyu is the Secretary-General of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), (a political and cultural association of leaders in Northern Nigeria formed in 2000 which has considerable influence in the political scene. The Forum is a successor to the Northern People’s Congress, which collapsed after the coup of 1966. He was born in the Dawaki Quarters of Gombe in Gombe State on April 11,1960. He is married and the marriage is blessed with children. He was conferred the title of Matawallen Gombe,…
Founder, and President of Women Everywhere Can Lead (WE), Isha Sesay, has joined the sexual and reproductive health agency of the United Nations to raise awareness about the global scourge of violence against women and harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation. WE is, however, a non-profit organisation working in Sierra Leone, to nurture and empower teenage girls to become Africa’s next generation of dynamic female leaders. Sesay, an acclaimed journalist, activist and writer is currently a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), a sexual and reproductive health agency of the global body. As the daughter of…
