Is there nobody that can help on this request? Please, anybody?

ogabentley:
So many peeps here just follow the bandwagon just to tanish the image of a company if you dont like a product look else where
you guys bashing Transsion mobility how many of your so called Samsung,Apple,Xiaomi,Oppo,Huawei e.t.c do have an affordable phone under 30k the answer is NO
everyone has his/her financial capacity. you think if they have the money they will not buy the quality samsungs and iphones biko you people should reason with your sense and not your Anus...
-ogabentayga- say so

I find it fascinating that many comments so far make it seem as though the article is "bashing" Transsion. On the contrary, the article knows that they are doing so well and even mentioned that they grew their profits from around around $100m to $334m in just one year. That tells you they have strong market reach that won't go away all of a sudden. But what that revenue base also tells you is that the market for budget phones is now quite big and is going to grow even bigger.

Big companies are spotting this and in 2020, many of them are looking to target it more. Samsung recently announced two Samsung Galaxy Lite devices that are going to target the mid-range and low end class. It also announced more Samsung A series devices. The A series are budget devices somewhat when compared to Samsung's premium devices. Meanwhile Apple also announced an iPhone SE2 which would cost less than $400. Then there is Nokia that has only ever produced one premium device ($500+ device) since 2016.

If this trend continues, Transsion may see more budget friendly devices from these guys that would rival theirs in terms of pricing and quality. That is the real crux. It doesn't matter whether Transsion has haters or lovers, if these big brands enter their market segment the competition will be fierce.

Hi guys,

I am working on an important technology series and I'll like to speak with Nairaland moderators and if possible Seun Osewa. I know it's not going to be easy, I've already sent a couple of emails.

Who knows the best way to contact Nairaland mods like Seun, Lalasticlala, Mukina2, Fynestboi, OAM4J, lordZOUGA, Mynd44, Javanian and kodewrita?

And if any moderator is reading this, please respond to my email. Thank you so much!

Nigerian fintechs move quick, banks move slowly; yet banks still win.

Nigerian banks don’t give out a lot of loans, especially to individuals and small businesses (retail lending). According to data from Proshare, big banks like Union Bank, First Bank, UBA and Zenith Bank provided less than 51% of their deposits as loans in the first quarter of 2019.

This reality is why fintech startups have emerged over the last couple of years. Growing at a period when the Nigerian market dipped into a recession, these startups have simplified the lending process, allowing people to secure loans within a few minutes.

Their rising number and innovative digital approaches have fueled speculation about what disruption could mean for banks.

Now, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) wants banks to lend more. This time it’s not just talking. It is compelling them, somewhat. But the new policy it has issued could set the stage for the first real tussle between banks and fintechs.

But hold up briefly; why do banks shy away from retail lending?

Why banks don’t do much retail lending

There are different answers to this.

“Retail lending [in Nigeria] is very terrible,” said a finance analyst at a top consultancy firm in Nigeria who requested anonymity. He explained that the underdeveloped nature of the retail space makes it very difficult for banks to provide loans to the mass market with a very high risk of defaults.

So banks are quite selective of the kind of people they give loans to. In the absence of credit ratings, banks target high-quality borrowers, “people with very solid places of employment,” the analyst said. They do this, he shared, because they can see your salary history and because it is easy to trace loan defaulters if they work in credible places.

“What banks are trying to avoid is the high cost of recovery,” the analyst said.



Agreeing with this, Abubakar Suleiman, Managing Director of Sterling Bank told TechCabal that there are three reasons why many banks don’t play in the retail market.

“First of all, if you [the bank] have not digitized the lending process, it is very expensive to lend manually to individuals because the workforce you need would have to be sizeable,” he said. Meanwhile, even while manual, the same workforce could be used to do large corporate lending at a cheaper cost per unit.

The second reason he said was data, which is obvious. “We [banks] just did not have authentic data, we just did not have identity [system] – and all of these are critical to lending,” he explained.

And third, Suleiman shared that the absence of bankruptcy laws for individuals makes it hard to recover retail loans. “So if somebody were to take a loan and not pay, the process of trying to recover the loan is so tedious,” he said.

But he explained that issues like credit rating, data integration and identity have been solved with the creation of the Credit Rating Bureau and the Bank Verification Number (BVN). Yet, the technological gap between fintech lending and bank lending remains.

“It is very hard to assess the risk of a retail lender,” said Julian Flosbach, General Manager Nigeria at FairMoney, an online lending platform. He adds that “traditional banks don’t have the technical capabilities to assess these risks outside their existing customer base – ergo, profitability from lending to large companies or the government/treasury bills is much higher for banks.”

“Rather than the banks lending to people, they are putting money into treasury bills because it is a convenient place to earn interest,” said the financial analyst.

So how does the CBN want to correct this?

What is the new CBN lending policy?

In the first half of 2019, the CBN began contemplating ways to get banks to lend more. With the banking regulator fighting hard to prop up the economy, it wants banks to complement its efforts by providing more credit that will stimulate the economy. In the first half of 2019, the CBN began contemplating ways to get banks to lend more. With the banking regulator fighting hard to prop up the economy, it wants banks to complement its efforts by providing more credit that will stimulate the economy.



“For us to achieve growth those whose responsibility it is to provide credit must be seen to perform that responsibility,’’ CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele said in May.

By July, it issued a new policy. It ordered banks to increase their loan-to-deposit (LDR) ratio to a minimum of 60% by September 31, 2019. The LDR ratio is the total amount a bank has issued as loans from consumer deposits. Any bank that failed to comply will be forced to keep more cash with the CBN and earn no interest on them.

This may not sound like much of a penalty. But when the September deadline passed, the CBN forced erring banks to give up N499.1 billion ($1.4 billion).

It has since revised the LDR policy to 65% and extended the deadline to December 31. (It reviews the LDR policy quarterly.) Although it refunded the $1.4 billion, banks will be wary of the new deadline for LDR compliance. And this could increase competition in the retail lending market, a market fintechs want to dominate.

“If we don’t have that kind of thing as sanction coming from the central bank, what you will find is that most banks will not do it,” said Herbert Wigwe, CEO of Access Bank, Nigeria’s biggest bank by deposits.

How will banks meet the LDR target?

According to Suleiman, there are literally only two strategies banks can use to meet the LDR target: reject customer deposits or lend more.

“The implication is that banks will have to aggressively lend or aggressively reject deposit which they might not want to do,” said the financial analyst.

But the lending strategies many banks could adopt to meet the LDR target could lead to direct competition with fintechs.

Fintechs vs banks: Fight

Banks could refinance loans, Sterling Bank’s Managing Director, Suleiman alludes. With 79% of its deposits already given out as loans, Suleiman said his bank is no danger of the LDR penalty. But he said banks could try to attract loan customers from “other banks that are sleeping”.

“There will be competition in the market for who gets a higher amount of loans because everyone is trying to grow their loan books,” said the analyst.

But if banks lend more, it could affect the business of digital loans platforms for different reasons.

To begin with, banks already offer lower interest rates than digital lenders. Many fintechs offer loans with interests as high as 30%. But some banks like Guarantee Trust Bank (GTBank) offer loans as low as 21%.



If banks leverage this, it could cause fintechs to lose customers.

“I think that the first set of people that would migrate into borrowing from banks are the high-quality borrowers that are paying fintechs 5% per month,” Suleiman said.

“It provides this class of borrowers the same loans for less interest. If I were a high-quality borrower, I would migrate.”

But fintechs are betting that even with the push to lend more, banks will continue to focus on current customers. Flosbach, the General Manager for FairMoney admits that bank loans “would cost online lenders to lose some customers.” But he said banks are “very old-school and don’t focus on the average Nigerian.”

He predicts that “banks will try to lend more aggressively to corporates… [and] will enter the retail loan segment more and more.” “However, [they will] mainly focus on their existing customers, where they have visibility of their cash flows,” he added.

Could banks acquire fintechs?

Another way increased bank lending could have an impact on fintechs is how banks begin to leverage technology to reach new customers. “A lot of banks don’t have the capacity or the technology to do extreme retail,” said the financial analyst. Compared to banks, “we [fintechs] have an advantage and the technological advantage we have is huge,” said Flosbach.

Meanwhile, the next LDR deadline is in less than 10 weeks and subsequent ones could follow every three months. The timeline is too short for many banks to develop a market-ready consumer loan product.



They may have to acquire fintechs and co-opt their technologies for faster growth on the lending front.

“It is not impossible that banks will acquire fintechs,” Suleiman said, whose bank has built different digital platforms targeted at a host of consumers. He says acquisitions are possible “as long as they [banks] can transparently audit the logic of the fintech product to be sure it is something they are okay with.”

But he believes that regardless of the routes banks follow, all of them would have to build their own financial technology platforms. “Absolutely, they will all have to do it,” he said.

“It makes the cost of processing credit more viable for the borrower, removes the human element from the traditional system and improves the quality of user data banks can analyze.”

A few banks, like GTBank and Sterling, have already developed their own digital lending platforms. In 2018, GT Bank unveiled QuickCredit, a platform that offers instant loans with an interest rate of 1.75% monthly (21% annually).

In February 2018, Sterling Bank announced Specta, its own digital lending platform. Specta uses its own credit scoring engine to calculate the creditworthiness of borrowers and issues loans and accompanying interests based on that engine. It provides loans for tailored needs ranging from payday loans to rent and even wedding loans. Its loans typically carry interest of around 22% and 28%. Like regular lending platforms, Specta works for customers of any bank.

According to Suleiman, Specta has provided over N40 billion ($100 million) loans to customers across the country since it launched. “We are currently lending about N8 billion a month and we are projecting N10 billion per month,” he told me over the phone.



In another example, the Nigerian subsidiary of Standard Chartered has largely focused on corporate finance for over 20 years. But in September, it announced plans to increase retail banking from 6% to 15% of its revenue in the next two years. The company wants to also grow lending by 5%-10% by the end of 2019. “Retail is where we’re going to see exponential growth,” said Lamin Manjang, chief executive officer for Standard Chartered in Nigeria.

What this means is that banks could re-enter the lending market in different ways that could threaten online lenders.

Regardless though, many banks, for now, don’t have the technology that is required to be successful at retail lending. In addition, millions of people remain excluded from accessing financial services in Nigeria. According to Flosbach, “the amount of customers in Nigeria that is not (and never will be) served by traditional banks is huge.” His company, Fairmoney, and other digital lenders will be aiming to reach this group before banks can.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2019/11/07/the-battle-between-banks-and-fintechs-is-just-getting-started/

Joeboy’s Baby is easily one of my favourite songs from 2019. The lyrics are catchy and Joeboy performed it to absolute perfection. But the first time I played it, just when I was processing it, the song ended. At two minutes and forty-six seconds (2:46), Baby is short.

Another Joeboy hit single, Beginning, is even shorter. The song clocks in at two minutes and thirty-eight seconds (2:38). Both songs are in the top 10 of Boomplay’s hot 100 Nigerian songs. Combined, the two songs have accumulated over 5.5 million streams on Spotify alone.

In fact, Baby is Joeboy’s longest song from his last five. The rest are below two minutes and forty seconds. But Joeboy is hardly the only one doing this.

Am I a Yahoo Boy and Soapy, both hit songs by Naira Marley, the controversial artist, are under three minutes; the former was two minutes and thirty seconds. Kizz Daniel has released seven songs in 2019, only one is above three minutes.

Alternative music artist, Adekunle Gold’s last three songs are under three minutes. His recent hit songs, Before You Wake Up and Kelegbe Megbe are just under three minutes. Both songs have been played over 3 million times on Spotify.



Mr Eazi’s 2019 hit song Doyin which has over 2.4 million streams on Spotify is just two minutes and thirty-four seconds. In fact, his 2018 album Life is Eazi Vol 2, he had 15 songs, but only three songs are more than three minutes long.

Burna Boy is arguably one of Nigeria’s biggest artists presently. African Giant, his hugely successful album, was released in July. The 19-track album averaged three minutes per song (3:04). But it was shorter than his 2018 album, Outside, a 12-track album that averaged three minutes and twenty-one seconds (3:21).

So is this a new trend? Why are Nigerian songs getting shorter?

Shorter Attention Spans

The first explanation has to do with attention span.

A general problem on the internet, people’s attention span is reducing as the digital era continues to overwhelm them with content. According to research by Microsoft, people now lose concentration after only just eight seconds, down from 12 seconds in the year 2000.

“Before the streaming era, what we had was something I call ‘physical music’ which was that you had to buy physical CDs,” said Sess, a popular Nigerian music producer who produced Adekunle Gold’s recent hit singles: Before You Wake Up and Kelegbe Megbe.

Back then, “you were at the mercy of the radio stations and the DJs, and your exposure to music was limited,” he added. This scarcity helped to create loyal fans, “people that were fans of artists because they buy albums, they are attached to albums.”

He explained that in the past, “people had the patience to listen to albums, to listen to a body of work and to actually follow artists.”

But with streaming and the digital era, everything changed. “With streaming, you had millions of songs at your disposal and this shortened the attention span of the average listener,” Sess explained. “Nobody has the time to listen to three, four minutes of music anymore.”

In Burna Boy’s last album, the longest song, Another Story (four minutes long) had the least number of streams (1.7m streams); that’s excluding a one minute skit which had 992,000 streams.

This reality, Sess explains, has affected how he produces songs too. “How do I capture the essence of a song as quickly as I can?”

“I don’t believe there’s a set rule or structure [for music],” said Daniel Orubo, senior editor at Zikoko “but I’ve realised that the longer a song is, the more likely it is to lose steam towards the end.”

So “artists tend do dive right into the verses for shorter songs, instead of kicking off with the chorus,” he concluded.

Which brings us to the second reason some Nigerian artists may be shortening their songs: streaming.

Shorter Songs = More Streams and Revenues?

To gain more streams and more streaming revenue, Nigerian artistes may want to shorten their songs. To be clear, the economics of streaming is relatively complicated and different across streaming platforms. But universally, a 30-second play counts as a stream.



Different platforms pay artists different amounts based on a number of factors including users’ location, free or paid subscriber, and the stature of the artist. Depending on the platform, Sess estimates that one million streams could fetch an artist between $8,000 and $10,000.

Burna Boy’s album, African Giant, has been streamed 117 million times on Spotify alone. His single, On The Low, recorded the most streams with a whopping 33 million plays. The song is just a little over three minutes. In fact, his most streamed songs are under three minutes and fifteen seconds (<3:15) each: On the Low (33m streams), Gbona (14.6m streams), Anybody (11.8m streams) and Gum Body (10.8m streams).



Estimates say Spotify pays between $0.004 and $0.008 per stream. If we use that calculation, Burna Boy’s album has earned at least N169 million ($468,000) so far from just Spotify. Other platforms offer higher rates: Napsters ($0.0190), Tidal ($0.0125), Google Play ($0.0068) and Deezer ($0.0064). African Giant is available on all of them.

This is stunning, especially for Nigeria where piracy has affected the creative industry. Whether it’s a book, a movie, a software or an album, pirates including websites that support free downloads have made it difficult for creatives to earn from their work.

Because of this reality, record sales are not a major revenue stream for the typical Nigerian artist; instead, their money comes from concerts and endorsement deals. Unfortunately, these are limited markets, and concerts are quite stressful and are a financial gamble.

Streaming offers an entirely new opportunity for Nigerian musicians. “Streaming is the future,” Sess shares, “for an artist to survive in this age you have to look at streaming.”

But should the focus on streaming make songs shorter? Sess says no. “I don’t think that the streaming platform should determine how long your song should be.”

He shares that while artists should consider the playback value of their songs, the length of their music should be at their own discretion and what they want to achieve.

Sess explains that: “if you are an alternative artist, your music is different. You may want to create an experience, a 5 minutes song that tells the story. So it all depends on what you want to achieve and you might still get millions of streams on that.”

“And trust me, Nigerian artists are making money off this,” he added.

This is true for big Nigerian acts like Wizkid and Davido who have the clout and the fan base willing to listen to all the lyrics of their songs. But for others, shorter songs is a rewarding creative effort that could earn them more streams.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2019/12/03/why-your-favourite-nigerian-songs-are-getting-shorter/

Nokia and Samsung are Coming for Transsion’s Smartphone Market in Africa

For many Africans, their first contact with a smartphone was a Transsion Holdings device. The company owns the Tecno, Infinix and Itel phone brands. Most of these devices are quite affordable (read cheap). One of Transsion’s oldest smartphones, the Tecno N3 released in 2012, retailed for just $81 or N12,956 ($1 equalled N159.95 in 2013).



Considering that Africa is a low-income region, Transsion concentrated its effort on the low-end market. Its smartphones typically retailed for less than $400. Their devices mirror premium ones in terms of design and size, offering users the perception of elegance at a good price.

Thanks to their low cost and early adoption of the Android OS, Tecno, Itel and Infinix showed people the power of the smartphone and helped to usher in the high smartphone adoption rates on the continent.

Over the last eight years, Transsion has established itself as the biggest smartphone company on the continent. It controlled 34.4% of the African smartphone market in 2018. For the first 9 months of 2019, it posted revenue of $2.4 billion. The company said it has made over $334 million in profits, this is three times what it made in 2018.



According to the latest smartphone data from the International Data Corporation, 22.65 million smartphones were sold on the continent in the third quarter of 2019. Transsion accounted for 36.2% or 8.2 million smartphones sold during this period, 100,000 more than the previous quarter.

Its closest rivals, Samsung and Huawei sold 5.41 million and 2.49 million devices respectively.



But Transsion’s lead in the market is being threatened as big brands are now adopting its strategy of selling low-cost devices.

It focuses on three markets: ultra-low end (<$100), low-end ($100 – $200) and the mid-range ($200 – $400). So it’s not surprising that Transsion’s most expensive device is the Tecno Phantom 8 retails for around N140,000 ($386.21). By comparison, the high-end Samsung Galaxy S10 is sold for between N280,000 ($777) and N380,000 ($1,048).



But since 2018, big brands are increasingly trying to break into Transsion’s stronghold. They are flooding the market with powerful devices that are sold for less than N90,000 ($250).

Xiaomi has the budget and midrange devices under its Mi and Redmi series. Samsung 2019 A series include the A10, A20 and the A30.

Meanwhile, Nokia is mostly focused on the budget phone market. Since HMD Global acquired the Nokia brand in December 2016, it has produced over 20 devices, but only one, the Nokia 9, retails for more than $600. The Nokia X6.1, a popular device which has 64GB storage, 6GB RAM, and runs on Android One, sells for just N52,000 ($143).

But here’s the thing, even though these devices are low cost, they are very powerful and pack a number of impressive features.

Here’s an example. The Nokia 3.2 was released in 2019. It comes with a 6.26-inch thin bezels screen, 3GB of RAM, 13 megapixels rear camera, 32GB of storage, 4G LTE, a Snapdragon processor.

Perhaps more importantly, the device runs on Android 9 and is part of the Android One programme, meaning it will receive periodic OS updates including critical security patches from Google when they are available.

Now let’s compare this with Transsion’s Tecno Pouvior. Also released in 2019, the Pouvior comes with a 6.2-inch screen, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, 4G LTE, 13 megapixels cameras, 1.28GHz processor speed and uses the Mediatek processor. It runs on Android 8.1.

The Nokia 3.2 is sold for ~N40,000 ($110.34) while the Tecno Pouvior sells for $107.59.



Xiaomi’s Mi series and Samsung’s A Series also offer good examples. The Xiaomi Mi A3 is also a powerful device which retails for ~N80,000 ($220). Samsung A20, another somewhat premium device, retails for N54,000 ($148.97).

So it’s not surprising that the availability of premium devices at affordable prices is beginning to make an impact. According to the IDC, more people bought low-end devices ($100-$200) in Q3 than Q2.

“Samsung shook the market up this year with the launch of its new A series of devices,” said Taher Abdel-Hameed, a senior research analyst at IDC. In Q3 2019, Samsung recorded 61.4% growth in the sales of its low-end devices.

Nokia is also growing. According to research by Counterpoint, Nokia was the fast-growing brand in Nigeria in Q2 2019. “The growth came from sales of Nokia 2.1, 3.1 Plus, and Nokia 6.1 Plus”, Counterpoint said.

So why are people now willing to buy phones from more expensive brands like Samsung? Isn’t obvious?

People want premium but can’t afford it. They want innovative designs, bigger screens, better cameras, 4G support, software updates, stronger brands, better experience and other trendy features that Transsion may not be big on. Big brands have latched on to this and now produce high-quality devices at affordable prices.

Going forward, this consumer trend may continue. It will be up to Transsion to tweak its plans and offer people better options. If it doesn’t, other companies may squeeze it back to focus on the feature phone market.

Source: https://techcabal.com/2019/12/27/watch-out-transsion-samsung-and-nokia-are-coming/

Can anybody share links to Nairaland threads for Air Force DSSC and Navy DSSC similar to this one?

Prospect048:
it is mandatory you have the certificate and to the other question, I don't have the idea. Thanks

Thank you!

Good evening guys,


I have two questions.

1. For anybody looking to apply under the Army's education corps, is it mandatory to have Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN) certification?

2. Can a history graduate apply for under the Intelligence corps?

In a shocking move, Whatsapp is finally cracking down on unofficial versions of the app. The company has announced it will temporarily ban all accounts using third party versions of the app. The ban importantly targets users of apps like GBWhatsapp and Whatsapp plus.
According to the Facebook-owned platform, these apps are altered and unsupported versions of its instant messaging service. On one hand, Whatsapp disclosed that the use of these apps violates its terms of service.


On the other hand, the platform emphasized that it couldn’t guarantee the safety of users on these third party apps. According to a post on its website, “WhatsApp doesn’t support these third-party apps because we can’t validate their security practices.”

Users of these third party apps should therefore expect in-app messages informing them they’ve been “temporarily banned.”

To lift the ban, users are advised to switch back to the official and supported Whatsapp version. Users of these third party apps have also been asked to backup their chats and Whatsapp has provided detailed explanation for GBWhatsapp and Whatsapp Plus users on how to go about it.

Nevertheless, it’s not clear whether Whatsapp has already started banning users of these third party apps. When it does, we expect the disruption to be huge.

GBWhatsapp and Whatsapp Plus are two of the biggest and most used alternative apps for Whatsapp.

According to XDA developers, these apps help to unlock “some additional Whatsapp features that improve the user experience.”

For instance, these apps are highly customizable and they also carry way more privacy features than the regular Whatsapp app. With GBWhatsapp, users can go completely anonymous. They can hide their online status completely and even view other users’ Whatsapp Statuses without them knowing.

However, as said earlier, nobody knows how secure these apps are. Plus, they don’t exist on the app stores, which also adds an extra layer of suspicion.

In a world where users are highly concerned about data privacy, GBWhatsapp and Whatsapp Plus could very much be spying on users and monetizing user data in different malicious ways. There’s no way to tell of course, but safety first.

https://technext.ng/2019/03/12/whatsapp-set-ban-users-unsupported-versions-including-gbwhatsapp-whatsapp-plus/

Two U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal specialists have been indicted over allegations they tried to sell firearms and C-4 explosives bound for Mexico—an issue the U.S. Army attempted to keep quiet since their arrest last November, according to sources.

Former U.S. Army soldier Tyler J. Sumlin and Sergeant First Class Jason W. Jarvis were charged with eight felony counts after trying to sell multiple firearms, military grade equipment, and C-4 plastic explosives and detonators to undercover agents with Homeland Security Investigations, an investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, in El, Paso, Texas, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by Newsweek.


For months, rumors of the arrest and the attempted sale of weapons and explosives to Mexican Cartels circulated the Defense Department’s explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) community, but with no official press releases from Army brass or news articles, the incident was chalked up to fabricated stories told between service members.

Former EOD technicians, who were granted anonymity in order to speak openly about the investigation, told Newsweek that U.S. Army commands at Fort Bragg wanted to keep the story out of the news cycle if they could. Newsweek on Thursday contacted both Fort Bragg and the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C., who said they are working on providing additional information.

But late Wednesday night, the rumor was given substance when an EOD specialist found the charge sheet and indictments in the Public Access to Court Electronic Records database, known to lawyers and journalists as PACER.

The charge sheet was dropped into a secret Facebook chat room for current and former members of EOD community. The room boasts a membership of more than 3,000 followers.

Sumlin indicated that there are six other people involved in the conspiracy to sell weapons and explosives. It is not known if the six individuals include Jarvis and Sumlin, according to the Facebook thread obtained by Newsweek from the secret chat room.

Former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal specialist Tyler J. Sumlin (above) and Sergeant First Class Jason W. Jarvis were charged with eight felony counts after trying to sell multiple firearms, military grade equipment and C-4 plastic explosives and detonators to undercover agents with Homeland Security Investigations,FACEBOOK

“As far as I know they are in the clear as long as they don’t say anything,” Sumlin wrote. “And even if there was a docket, I wouldn’t ever think of telling anyone the [case] number so it could be posted. I don’t care about mine. I f***ed up huge. No changing that. I’m gonna do some time and hopefully move on with my life. I figured this shit had been posted months ago.”

When another EOD specialist asked Sumlin why he was protecting the other individuals involved in the scheme, he said, “I’d like to hope they learned from what’s going to happen to me. By all means, if this would have happened to one of them, it would have changed my life that’s for sure.”

One EOD specialist in the chat room told Sumlin, “F*** you AND your service. You’re a piece of shit. You betrayed everyone you ever worked with as soon as you tried to sell weapons and explosives to a cartel.”

Another person asked Sumlin why he was talking about his case and about the involvement of other individuals in an open forum. Sumlin replied, “Ummmm haven’t you been paying attention, I’m an idiot duh.”

The case against Sumlin and Jarvis has been continued until April, according to the latest docket filing.

For the two soldiers, the plot allegedly began on or around June 6, 2018, when they planned to drive a cache of weapons to El Paso, Texas, in order to sell them to a buyer who would transport them over the U.S. southern border. Sources familiar with the situation told Newsweek they believed the intended goal was to supply the Mexican Cartel.

Jarvis, an active-duty EOD soldier with the 52nd Ordnance Group and assigned to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, is then said to have rented a Chevrolet Tahoe and driven from the Tar Heel State to Inverness, Florida, to meet with Sumlin, a former EOD team leader, according to his Linkedin profile.

The vehicle was packed with firearms, explosives and other military equipment swiped from the Army base, according to the indictment.

The two Army soldiers allegedly met at an Airbnb residence in Florida and combined their respective stolen weapons and explosives together, placing them in storage containers after wiping the firearms clean to remove their fingerprints in preparation for the trip to El Paso.

Once everything was packed in the Chevrolet Tahoe, the two men drove from Florida to Texas and on November 14, 2018, met with undercover agents at a local truck stop in far east El Paso, according to the criminal complaint. Sumlin and Jarvis followed undercover agents to a nearby warehouse to exchange the money for the goods, but upon their arrival, the two Army soldiers were taken into custody without incident. The men were accused of agreeing to sell the stolen firearms, explosives and hardware for $75,000.

In the Facebook chat room Wednesday night, Sumlin told one user that he asked for $250,000, but was talked down to $75,000, and that both he and Jarvis could have received additional charges from the U.S. government.

The criminal complaint says that agents seized 32 rifles of various makes and models and three handguns of different varieties. Silencers, 5 pounds of C-4 explosive and a hand grenade were also among the items seized.

A Defense Department source with knowledge of the serious incident report told Newsweek under the condition of anonymity that among the weapons included M4 carbines; M107 Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifles; a Browning .50 caliber machine gun; night vision goggles; and igniters and blasting caps for the C-4 explosives.

After their arrest, both individuals agreed to make statements without legal representation. The men, according to the indictment, said they both coordinated the sale of multiple firearms with a buyer in El Paso and admitted that they were aware the weapons and explosives were to be exported to Mexico.

Sumlin was slated to make $12,000 from the transaction, while Jarvis’s take on the deal was $2,000 for his participation in the transaction. Law enforcement database found that neither individual possessed a federal firearms license.

“The fact that former and active members of the U.S. military were prepared and attempted to smuggle out of the country this considerable array of equipment and firepower is distressing, in and of itself,” said Brad Moss, an attorney specializing in matters of national security and based in Washington, D.C.

“What is immensely concerning, however, is that they were apparently able to get this equipment out of a U.S. Government facility without anyone originally noticing,” Moss told Newsweek via email after reviewing the indictments. “This speaks to a far greater physical security breach than is made clear by the mere actions of the criminal defendants themselves. Somewhere someone did not properly do their job.”

https://africanjotter.com.ng/two-us-soldiers-trouble-allegedly-trying-sell-weapons-c4-explosives-mexican-cartel/

The word millennial has been tossed around in recent years. But what does it mean exactly?

The word millennial is used to describe people of a certain age bracket; between early 1980s and the early 2000s. Several studies, observations, trends and factors have come forth to suggest that people of born during this period are behaviourally different than the generations before them.

www.nairaland.com/attachments/8597997_1jdyp76wkto9p4e6zztgig_jpeg_jpeg490797f5ce0b6ab4b51c13ba73dbd7d7
Studies point to the fact that millennials were born at a time when the world was witnessing significant changes in politics, economics, culture. But the most important change that occurred to bring about the striking millennial classification has been technological.

Millennials were born around the same time when the internet was created. And over the last 30 years, millennials have grownup to interface and appreciate technology. They have constantly helped develop new ways to use technology.

They have also helped to usher in the digital economy by exploring and pioneering news ways of monetizing on the internet. Over the last decade, millennials have become richer quicker and easier thanks to the internet.

The Rise of the African Millennials


But regardless of global inequalities, millennials are not only found in the developed world. Africa’s young population, is importantly one of the largest millennial population in the world.

Yet there are a few attributes found in African millennials.

Love for Technology


African millennials are extremely tech savvy. Despite the relatively low income of the continent, Africa’s young people appreciate and embrace technology just as much as their foreign counterparts. Especially over the last decade, African millennials have come to co-opt technology quickly. Thanks to cheap android devices, and fairly used laptops being relatively widespread in urban areas of the continent, African millennials have latched on to the benefits of technology and trends to create new opportunities for themselves.



For instance, just as the developed countries have YouTube and Instagram celebrities, Africa has developed its own homegrown stars too. Household names like Craze Clowns and Emmanuella emerged and grew their following from within the continent.


African millennials are increasing apolitical. Due to the harsh realities and failure of democracy in most African countries, the African Millennial have become increasingly hesitant to take politics seriously. Regardless of the videos and images of large number of persons at political rallies, many young Africans are increasingly suspicious of politicians.

African millennials love news and information. In the new digital world, information is crucial and African millennials agree. Daily, African millennials share and read millions of informational content. But what’s more interesting, African millennials read contents in various formats. Beyond articles, millennials consume videos, images, infographics and podcasts.



Due to the fact that millennials consume a lot of information, they’ve become highly politically conscious. African millennials follow political news and have high political intelligence. They know and understand the political terrain, but feel they have limited capability to wrestle power from the corrupt political class.

Struggles African Millennials Face

However, the intelligence of African millennials is not matched by the quality education in society. Across the continent, quality education is not as accessible as it should. Universities are increasingly providing retarded knowledge. While secondary and primary school curriculum are not evolving as quickly as they should. This inadequacy affects the sort of skills millennials develop.



Many African millennials are increasingly turning to the internet to acquire skills and knowledge that schools are not providing. From YouTube to Coursera, Udemy and other MOOCs, African millennials are lurking and signing up. Frequently today, African millennials are developing new and relevant skills such as programming, graphics design, video production, among others.

But because jobs are scarce within Africa, millennials are increasingly embracing the digital economy. African millennials with moderate skills are cashing out on platforms such as UpWork, Fiverr, Freelancer and Guru.com.

Yet due to high level stereotypes by foreign buyers, African millennials are increasingly frustrated in the digital economy. Nigerian digital workers increasingly struggle to receive their payments because PayPal blocked the country’s users from receiving payments. Likewise, foreigners are less willing to trust and give jobs to African millennials regardless of how good they are. And in cases where they choose to give jobs to African millennials, they try to undercut them, offering to pay lesser than they should typically pay.

These frustrations have increasingly forced African millennials to consider migrating out of their countries. Majority of African migrants (PDF) crossing the Sahara and the Mediterranean to Europe are millennials. Other migrants consider moving through scholarships and job offers.

Meanwhile due to the tension and struggle to survive the harsh conditions on the continent, African millennials are increasingly vulnerable to depression and suicidal thoughts.



Coupled with this, the African continent is notorious for celebrating successful individuals regardless of the source of their wealth. This trend has continued and has created dangerously huge income inequality between young people.

Social media universe created by technology helps to torment young people and raises the anxiety to make money quickly. Today, many African millennials increasingly consider illegal ways to make money. From ritual practices to financial fraud, young Africans are increasingly money crazy.

So in conclusion, the millennial nametag does not belong to Americans or the Western world alone. African millennials exist and they face their own unique reality that makes them strikingly different.

https://africanjotter.com.ng/who-are-the-african-millennials/

After nearly nine years of battling the dreaded Boko Haram sect, Nigeria appears nowhere close to ending their reign in its northeast region. Yearly, the sect is responsible for the death of thousands in Nigeria and other West African countries located in the Lake Chad Basin. The menacing activities of the group have also displaced millions of people in that region. And since 2009, the group has killed over 20,000 people and has displaced over 2 million.

Boko Haram is a top tier State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization founded in 2002 by Muhammed Yusuf, a cleric from Borno State. Boko Haram according to Nigeria’s Hausa local language translates into: western education is a sin or is forbidden.

Boko Haram seeks to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state governed by Sharia law in Nigeria. Boko Haram benefits greatly from deep religious divisions and tensions in Nigeria. The high level of poverty particularly in the Muslim majority Northern Nigeria helps to grow the membership of the terror group. The group uses of asymmetric attacks, such as guerrilla warfare and suicide bombings, on soft targets in Nigeria and neighbouring countries.

Since 2009, the sect has been responsible for the spate of suicide bombings, killings, and kidnappings in the Northern part of the country, particularly the North-East and Abuja. And in 2014, it’s most violent year, the group killed over 2000 people between January and July alone and went on to control large territories in Nigeria’s north east. In the same year, the group kidnapped over 200 school girls, drawing international condemnation and leading to the viral “BringBackOurGirls” movement which forced the government to act.

By mid-2015, the Nigerian military, with support from regional forces, successfully fought back the terrorists briefly and took back control of territories they acquired. Nigerian forces have since also successful restricted the group’s operations from spreading beyond the country’s north east.

However, Nigeria’s security forces and intelligence operations have failed to effectively curtail their influence beyond Nigeria. And this has serious implications for the West African region, particularly countries in the Lake Chad Basin, such as Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Nigeria, Niger (PDF) and Chad are three key US allies and are quite important in controlling jihadi movements into Sub-Saharan Africa.

Boko Haram has known ties to both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In 2015, it openly pledged allegiance to ISIS and this makes it a viable player in the spread and support for jihadi networks (PDF) across West Africa.

With the north east fringes of Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin serving as its base, Boko Haram is strategically poised to help hide, recruit and organize other terror groups. As a result, Boko Haram now poses a huge threat to countries in West Africa and US interests in the region. These interests include support for democracy in Africa, economic partnership for development, aid to counter climate change, and counterterrorism agenda as part of the global war on terrorism.

Addressing the Boko Haram threat and its underlying causes should be of utmost importance to US National Security efforts.

Boko Haram Quickly Claiming the Chad Basin For Itself
At first, Boko Haram insurgency appeared to be local issue and was restricted to Nigeria. However in reality, the activities of Boko Haram led several humanitarian issues, largely displacing people (PDF) and forcing them to seek refuge in neighboring countries. And over the last four years, the group has played a transnational role in by spreading jihad to countries beyond Nigeria. Principally, Boko Haram has focused heavily on countries in the Lake Chad Basin: Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon.

One reason for this is due to the porous nature of African borders, and the strategic importance of the Lake Chad. The Lake is an important lifeline to more than 20 million people. It is important for water, farming, fishing and supports transportation for people living in the semi-desert region. Boko Haram has taken advantage of these facts, solidifying its base of operations here (PDF) over the last few years. From this location, it has launched several devastating attacks against governments and people in the Chad Basin, leading to a humanitarian crisis here.

Also, the sect has drawn supporters from these countries suggesting that its appeal is going widespread. Several experts have suggested that its support base is as a result of discomfort with current Islamic practices in some states. Others attribute that widespread poverty, unemployment, and underdevelopment widespread among Lake Chad Basin countries is a significant reason why Boko Haram appeals to some quarters, particularly the young and underprivileged population, in these countries.

In 2013, the group increased transnational attacks beginning with attacks in Northern Cameroon. In partnership with a splinter group, Boko Haram successful carried out several operations including kidnapping on Cameroonian soil. In 2014 the group also launched several offensives against Niger and began offensives against Chad in early 2015.

Although its boldness to carry out such attacks is waning as countries in the region utilise the Multi National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), a regional security arrangement, to suppress it. However, the MNJTF only succeeded in weakening its offensive capability, but it has had little effects on its transnational terrorist network.

In 2016, just a year after MNJTF efforts successfully helped Nigeria win back large areas from the insurgents, a faction of the Boko Haram sect pledged allegiance to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The new faction was called Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and is being led by Abu-Musab al-Barnawi, son of Muhammad Yusuf. The emergence of the ISWAP faction only rubberstamps the belief that Boko Haram has sophisticated network and capabilities, but had refused to spread its tentacles.

The allegiance allows each other to benefit from the other as they face crucial assaults from various forces. With ISIS facing heavily assault in Syria and Iraq, it has sort to internationalize itself to gain more territories and more bases of operations. With its relatively large territory, Boko Haram appeared a likely ally. And ISIS sees the group and its territory as pivotal to plans to support more terror groups, offering them training, finance and leadership.

Meanwhile for the Boko Haram faction, the defeats inflicted by the MNJTF sent a negative note about its capabilities and posed a threat to its existence. It significantly weakened the group and its hold across the region. The allegiance with ISIS allows it to access better terror financial networks and also to recruit more fighters and better weaponry.

Indeed, this reality is beginning to manifest. Over the last few months, Boko Haram attacks have become much bolder than they were a year ago. In February 2018 for instance, the ISWAP faction kidnapped over a 100 school girls from Dapchi in Yobe State, Nigeria, just 275 km from where the Chibok girls were abducted in 2014. It did however release 106 of the kidnapped Dapchi students, but held on to the lone Christian among them, Leah Sharibu.

And recently too, the ISWAP faction of Boko Haram has focused heavily on attacking Nigerian and other military outpost and operations in the region, killing hundreds of soldiers. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the terror group has made at least 17 attempts since July 2018 to attack military bases in Nigeria alone. In October 2017, an ISWAP ally led a deadly assault on US soldiers while were tracking down a terrorist leader in Niger. The assault caused the death of four US personnel.

In November 2018, the terrorists successfully attacked a military base in Metele Village in Borno State. It leveled the base within minutes according to sources and killed about 100 soldiers.

Also, the ISWAP faction of Boko Haram is working hard to win over the trust of local communities. In Nigeria and Niger, the faction is capitalizing on fear of Boko Haram to provide protection for people. Borrowing from the ISIS model, the faction offers locals protection in return for tax and recruits for its cause.

With the high level of poverty in West Africa, alongside the government negligence, this new network model by ISWAP could allow the group garners more grounds across the region.

Of course, the US is not at war in Africa, but its partners like Nigeria, Chad and Niger, are. And these partners serve as important players in the war against jihadi networks in Sub-Saharan Africa. So over the years, the US has stepped up its support for these countries to tackle the Boko Haram menace. The US has provided military funding of over $400 million (PDF) over the last decade to countries West African countries, particularly those in the Chad Basin, to counter Boko Haram. The US military has also provided technical advice and trainings for West African militaries, especially those participating in the MNJTF multilateral front.

Aside military funding and trainings, the US has also supported initiatives to address radicalism in the region. Through the USAID, the US has provided over $30 million in funding for such initiatives, as well as $168 million in humanitarian assistance (PDF).

Yet, these measures are not enough to counter Boko Haram and its network in the region. As a matter of fact, countries in the Lake Chad region are performing poorly in the face of the terrorism challenges they face. Their continued failure to address these challenges effectively not only raises questions about their capabilities as partners in this effort, but poses the risk that their failure could significantly affect US interests to tackle terrorism globally. With ISIS firmly in their soils, these states are in danger of serious crisis from ISWAP/Boko Haram if immediate actions are not taken to address the matter.

https://medium.com/@idrisabubakar/the-boko-haram-sect-and-growing-terror-networks-in-west-africa-part-one-a6e0345e03c0

2018 was a very eventful year for the African continent. Not the obnoxious coups and violent outbreaks typical of Africa in early 2000s. 2018 saw real developments on the continent.

On the political side, we saw instability and power shift rock South Africa in the south. To the east, Ethiopia sprouted high levels of confidence following the emergence of Abiy Ahmed as Prime Minister. And to the north, Morocco continues to make a comeback to continental affairs. To the west, terrorism is crippling activities in the Chad Basin. And in Congo in Central Africa, Kabila’s decision not to contest elections the 2018 gave hope to the country’s struggling democracy.

And on the continental level, China was alleged to have spied on AU activities thanks to the fact that it built the AU headquarters. In addition too, we saw Africa bandwagon together to create the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

Yet 2018 was also the year Africa unknowingly slipped back into the arms of cold war intrigues. With Russia making a comeback into the continent, clawing its way into some of the continent’s deprecated conflicts spots. The US has taken notice and has made a drastic change to its stale policy on the continent.

All these issues are key drivers of what to expect in political Africa in 2019. However, they are not the only issues to consider.

Political Africa in 2019 will see a lot of changes across many of Africa’s most powerful countries. It will also be the year, Africa gets to understand what the new US policy towards the continent actually looks like.

So without further ado, here are the five (5) issues that will define political Africa in 2019.

Ratification and Implementation The AfCFTA Treaty

The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) was signed last year in March. The agreement is expected to chart the way to help foster deeper economic integration on the continent. However, I have always felt the agreement was both rushed and unrealistic. Modeled after the sort of customs union already in practice in the EU, the AfCFTA makes unrealistic projections and assumptions that all African countries are okay with the negotiations and will thus sign the agreement. However, this is far from reality.


The AfCFTA requires ratification by just 22 African nations for it to come into effect. But only 15 have done so since March 2018. Nigeria, the biggest economy on the continent, did not even bother to attend the official declaration of the Treaty in March. This creates doubt about the actual realization of the agreement.

Yet, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa did not disregard the agreement entirely. Rather, they said it needed more domestic consultation before finalization. Hopefully, 2019 will decide whether or not the agreement will be ratified.

Important African Elections in 2019

Atiku Abubakar aims to unseat Nigeria’s current president in the 2019 election in February
Nine African countries are going to hold elections in 2019. It’s a significant figure. In fact it’s now 10, considering that Congo’s election is yet to be concluded. The most important elections will however hold in Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Senegal, Algeria and Tunisia.

These countries represent some of the continent’s most powerful and, some, most stable countries. The whole world will be keen to see the results of these elections.

New US Policy Towards Africa Takes Effect
Many people are yet to realize it, but the US has significantly altered its Africa strategy.

John Bolton, Donal Trump’s National Security Adviser, believes the US should stop wasting taxpayer money on non-responsive issues in Africa
For years, stretching back to Clinton, US policy towards Africa has been cooperative. Unlike the direct approach it uses in Asia and the Middle East, the US has given so much support and even free hand to activities and countries in Africa. It has supplied various countries with aid and has been less confrontational with even the most aggressive regimes.

However, Trump promised to end this, quite frankly, unproductive engagement. He considers US aid to many African countries as largesse that has made them lazy and “shitholes”.

So in December 2018, hawkish US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, issued a statement describing the new US stance on Africa. And it’s quite scary.

According to Bolton:

the US will no longer provide indiscriminate assistance across the continent, without focus or prioritization.
“Unfortunately, billion upon billion of US taxpayer dollars have not achieved the desired effects… They have not stopped the scourge of terrorism, radicalism and violence.”

So judging by these statement, expect a lot of things to change in political Africa in 2019. For instance, the US Agency for International Development doled out $8.7 billion across Africa in 2017. That sum could reduce drastically in 2019.

Russia in Africa Reignites Cold War Mentality
2018 was the year Russia made its full comeback into the African continent. Before then, the last time Russia had serious relations with Africa was before the crash of the Soviet Union. It has now began courting relations in places like Zambia and Congo.


The president of the Central African Republic shakes hands with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia.
Importantly, many of the locations it now engages with are low-level countries, with less foreign interest to attract suspicion, especially from the French. This has helped it stay off the radar.

However, the death of a Russian journalist in CAR last year, brought the spotlight back on Russia and its activities on the continent. And it was one of the key pointers that forced the US to change its policy towards Africa.

In his statement last year, John Bolton criticized Russia and China directly. He called their practices “predatory” and that they risked the growth and independence of African countries.

Note, the US has always had reasons to worry about China’s presence in Africa. But the entry of Russia is the main reason it now worries about trends on the continent.

With the policy change coming so late in December last year, 2019 will definitely show the new US practice in Africa.

Boko Haram Terrorism Across the Chad Basin

Although ISIS has lost in the Middle East, its ally in West Africa, Boko Haram, are still causing so much destruction in the Chad Basin. In 2018, Boko Haram made several bold assaults across the region, but surprisingly, many of them were against the military itself.

In 2018, the group strategically attacked Nigerian military personnels and was responsible for the death of hundreds of soldiers.

This bold attacks are not going to recede in 2019. But unfortunately, the Nigerian military is losing the battle with several soldiers retreating and complaining of inadequate weaponry.

Yet, the Nigerian government is lax about the terror groups and the issue is not even the most significant talking point in the country’s election in February.

Nevertheless, the US is determined to stamp them out, and is working with countries like Chad and Niger to accomplish this. But it requires willingness from Nigeria to fully rout the terrorists, a feat that will only be possible if the US ignores Nigeria’s terrible recent human rights violations.

Source: https://medium.com/the-internationalists-journal/five-issues-to-look-out-for-in-political-africa-in-2019-15908b7cab44

PayPal users can now seamlessly move money to their MPesa accounts following an integration that will ease movement of funds between the two platforms.PaypalPayPal users can now seamlessly move money to their MPesa accounts following an integration that will ease movement of funds between the two platforms.

To link the M-Pesa and PayPal accounts, users will be required to register and log in with their PayPal credentials at www.paypal-mobilemoney.com/m-pesa to start using the service.

An SMS confirmation code will be sent to the user's phone to complete the registration and the linking of the two accounts.

The integration comes after M-Pesa released an updated API in 2017 that allows businesses and online payment platforms to easily integrate with M-Pesa.

A statement from Safaricom states that 'qualifying' M-PESA customers in Kenya can link their PayPal accounts to their M-PESA wallets, enabling them to easily and securely buy goods and services from merchants around the globe.

Safaricom's Director of Strategy, Joseph Ogutu said this development injects speed and convenience, "through which more entrepreneurs and consumers can benefit from the growing eCommerce industry."

The PayPal - M-Pesa tie-up will likely be a blow to Equity Bank which has been the only local merchant for the international payment getaway.

According to its 2017 end of year Financial Results, Equity Bank recorded a 132 percent increase in the volume of transactions across its international money transfer platforms. 70 percent of income generated from online transactions from the diaspora came from PayPal.

Equity - PayPal users in Kenya increased by 47 percent between December 2016 and March 2017, indicating the increasing number of Kenyans receiving and sending money through PayPal.

While announcing new tiered PayPal to Equity Bank withdrawal rates, Equity Bank Group CEO Dr. James Mwangi had said online transaction fees will continue to be a key revenue stream for the bank.

The new rates charges users between 1percent and 1.5 percent depending on the amount withdrawn.

PayPal's volume of transaction increased significantly in the past year as well. PayPal withdrawal time was last year reduced from 8 days to 3 days.

https://africanjotter.com.ng/kenyan-paypal-users-can-now-move-funds-easily-to-m-pesa-accounts/

New information on the operations of embattled data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica suggests it had a controversial role in Nigeria’s presidential election in 2015.

A report by The Guardian says Cambridge Analytica, hired by an unnamed Nigerian billionaire to work on the re-election campaign of then-president Goodluck Jonathan, “was paid an estimated £2 million ($2.8 million) to orchestrate a ferocious campaign” against Muhammadu Buhari, the leading opposition candidate at the time. Buhari went on to secure a historic election win in 2015. Before that however, Cambridge Analytica reportedly attempted to furtively use hacked personal emails of Buhari which were provided by Israeli hackers.

Cambridge Analytica staff working on the Nigerian elections reportedly met the Israeli hackers in the firm’s London offices after which Alexander Nix, the recently suspended Cambridge Analytica CEO, allegedly asked staff to search the hacked emails for damaging information to be used against Buhari. But, as The Guardian reports, “alarmed” staff members refused to do so believing that the data was possibly obtained illegally. For its part, SCL Elections, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, confirms it was hired “to provide advertising and marketing services” for the Jonathan campaign but denied receiving or using hacked information during the campaign.

In the build-up to the elections, the Jonathan campaign notably focused on social media and public messaging questioning Buhari’s educational qualifications and also, contentiously, his health status, setting off intense rumors and speculation. The hacked emails are believed to have contained or referenced Buhari’s medical records. Those rumors apparently had an element of truth as Buhari spent over 150 days on medical leave in the UK last year treating an undisclosed illness.

Elsewehere in Africa, Cambridge Analytica has confirmed working on Kenya’s elections in 2013 and 2017. In a sting operation by UK’s Channel 4 News, Mark Turnbull, managing director of Cambridge Analytica’s political division, says the company managed “every element” of president Uhuru Kenyatta’s campaigns. Kenya’s 2017 elections were notably characterized by fake news and attacking commentary on opposition candidates mainly through Facebook and Whatsapp.

Beyond the continent, Cambridge Analytica is facing severe accusations of illegally harvesting millions of personal profiles on Facebook with its controversial methods linked to the UK’s landmark Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election win in the US. The social network is also facing questions of its own over its data and privacy policies.

It is unclear how much of Cambridge Analytica’s work was based in Nigeria, Facebook’s largest African market, was based on profile data of local voters mined on the social network.

Sources:
https://africanjotter.com.ng/cambridge-analytica-tried-sway-nigerias-last-elections-buharis-hacked-emails/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/cambridge-analytica-offered-politicians-hacked-emails-witnesses-say

Quartz Africa

The new headquarters for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will be built by China, the group confirmed in a press statement on Wednesday March 14, 2018.

The political bloc and China have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the project that is expected to cost $31.6 million.

“The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Jean-Claude Brou and the Ambassador of China to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr. Zhou Pingjian signed for both parties in a bilateral meeting held at the ECOWAS Commission headquarters, Abuja,” the statement read.

The idea of a new headquarters was initiated in 2012 but action on the said project takes immediate effect from the date of the signing of the deal.

The project is expected to cater for a facility comprising offices and conference complex building, as well as road facilities, electrical equipment, parking lots and security posts within the proposed site of the project.

ECOWAS currently operates from three different building in Nigeria’s administrative capital, Abuja. According to the President of the ECOWAS Commission that situation was necessitated by the increasing numbers of staff.

“An ECOWAS designated authority and the China Development Bank Corporation will work together to verify records of account payments at regular intervals,” the statement further clarified.

Why China Again?
According to original reports, the development emphasizes China’s political and diplomatic investment in Africa. But is that all there is to it?

China built the African Union (A.U.) headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. They are also building a new parliament for Congo Republic and rebuilding the burnt premises in Gabon.

China is doling out the cash for these “investments”, and African nations are just comfortable doing nothing. It’s not that China is an imperialist, of course they are not. But they do have their own goals.

This year, China was accused by French newspaper, Le Monde, of spying on the African Union. The repor said China had installed hidden microphones in the AU building. And had been using it to transfer sensitive information at night time.

The A.U. and China jointly rubbished the report with China describing it as preposterous and meant to damage relations between the two partners.

https://africanjotter.com.ng/china-build-ecowas-headquarters-chinese-domination/

FreshBoss007:
ibo must harness the vibranium...
ndewo

Chesus! I nearly fell off my seat laffing at this!!!

TAGf:
Who dey shocking agbada for skinny?? Op does this Sound well

Eh get as this one dey sound for ear ooo...

imstrong1:
And pidgin is the only language that the question means almost the same thing with the answer eg
Question:they don come?
Answer :they don come
Question:she clean house?
Answer :she clean house
Question:na you be this?
Answer :na me be this

Lol!!!

This is so true!!!

The ever witty and creative Nigerian movie industry, Nollywood, just released a spin-off of the global phenomenon, Black Panther. The Marvel film which recently crossed the 1 Billion gross mark is set in the fictional African nation of Wakanda. Wakanda Forever is the salute of the people of Wakanda and has become a global symbol of Black power and solidarity.

Released just two days ago, Nollywood’s Wakanda Forever is set in a village in Nigeria and weaves traditional storytelling with juju/voodoo and comedic special effects to explore family and lineage in an African society. It has already garnered thousands of views on YouTube, winning the attention of a global audience desperate to connect with the African continent.

Check them out below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ3567rqBp8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBbOcBgQKeA
https://africanjotter.com.ng/nigerians-produce-wakanda-forever-parts-12-month-black-panther-release/

These are the kind of stories we’ll like to see more often.

US-based rapper, French Montana has been doing some pretty inspiring philanthropic work. The rapper posted a picture on Twitter that said he donated $100,000 to Uganda’s SuubiHealth Care Center last year.

The health center is now reported to be serving 300,000 people! That’s super impressive!!!

French Montana visited Uganda when he shot the video for his hit song”Unforgettable” with Swae Lee. And decided to donate the $100,000 in support of the country’s healthcare system. He built the hospital and got his Bad Boy label boss, Diddy, Ciroc Foundation and The Weeknd to match his six-figure donation.

And according to TMZ, the Moroccan rapper was honored as a Global Citizen Ambassador for his charitable donations to the African country of Uganda.


Good Job Montana!

https://africanjotter.com.ng/us-rapper-french-montanas-health-center-helps-300k-people-uganda/

internationalman:
What are you saying OP?

Pidgin English doesn't have correction that's why it's lovable by majority of Nigerians.

It only has two rules...

1 The If you claim to speak it better, you are only diverting to pure English.

2 The more badly you speak it the better you are at speaking it.

Let me bust your bubble. Read this:

"If I catch my husband dey sexing with another woman, what I do him?"

That's a combination of Jenifa's English ("What I do him" and pure wrong use of Pidgin English ("sexing".

If you SERIOUSLY dare speak this one outside people go laff you die.

Do you know that Pidgin English is one of the most popular languages in the world? In Nigeria, it is spoken by at least 70 million people. In the South South region of Nigeria, it is the first language of a lot of people. Pidgin is also spoken in Ghana, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, and beyond.

Pidgin English is the most popular language used in Nigerian songs. At least 5 in every 6 Nigerian songs contain a fairly large amount of Pidgin. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the late famous musical legend, sang most of his songs in Pidgin. And he was still extremely popular!

At one point, Nigeria almost made the language one of its official languages.

Despite its popularity, a lot of people still get a lot of things wrong about Pidgin English. The main thing is that Pidgin also has its own basic rules too. And I share 3 of those basic rules below. But first, why is the language so darn popular?!

Why is Pidgin English So Popular?
The popularity of Pidgin English can be traced to its simplicity and usage. Although Pidgin is usually blended with local languages, it is somewhat easy to learn and understand if you can speak English.

This is the chief reason why Pidgin English became popular. It is a language that synthesizes English and other native languages to make communication easier. But it doesn’t mean it is extremely easy to speak though.

Over the years still, Pidgin English has evolved greatly. Speaking Pidgin English is not just about meshing two languages together for the sake of communication. Pidgin English now has its own form, its own structure and, yes, its own “grammatical errors”.

And lately, I found out that a lot of people don’t know this.

Sometimes I hear people say sentences in Pidgin English, and I’ll be like: “which kain Pidgin be this again?” That is not a joke; I get quite stupefied by how some sentences sound.

In the past, though, I had no idea what made them wrong. So I started checking.

Rules of Pidgin English
First Rule
While checking, I discovered the first rule of Pidgin English: Always speak in English present tense.

Let’s always keep in mind that Pidgin English is, hmmm, a “fork” (Github?) of the regular English language. And the most important thing that Pidgin English forked from regular English is present tense.

Pidgin English must always be spoken in present tense. Anything else just sounds plain wrong.

Here’s an example. “I dey cum now now.”

Translated to regular English, this is “I will soon be back”.

Other examples are: “Oga show quick”, “I don dey go oo”, “You don dey come?”, “You dey count money?” among others.

You can say these in several types of Pidgin you like, but they must always be in the present tense. Failure to observe this rule will let you make a fool of yourself. And that sucks.

This rule may not be fixed though, even though the language is so widely spoken and undocumented. The only word I can remember for now that breaks this rule is “whine”. You can say “Your whining don dey too much.” Its present continuous and it passes the first rule.

Second Rule
A second rule of Pidgin English is that you must use real words. For any word you use, make sure it exists in the English dictionary, exists in a local language or is slang. Anything outside of these is just damn wrong.

Words like wakaa, shege, collat, oga, padi, shebi, nna, abi, pesin, oyinbo, trafficate and others, may or may not be in the English dictionary. But we use them because they are either in our local languages or they are slangs.

Keep this rule in mind.

Third Rule
A third rule, or principle, in Pidgin English is that the language is very flexible, or rather, extendable. That is you can create your own words and if they go viral enough, then congratulations, you’ve invented a new word.

A word like “yori-yori”, was never in the popular Pidgin English dialect until the music group, Bracket, used it as the title of their popular song some years back.

“Science students” has always been there as a harmless phrase. But when Olamide used it as the title of his song, the phrase got a whole new meaning.

“Shaku Shaku”, is another word that just went popular recently.

Bonus: There's also a very interesting principle that may or may not count. Pidgin English is usually spoken with an accent! And there are so many accents. For instance, you've got the Warri Pidgin accent, the Igbo pidgin accent and the regular Lagos pidgin accent.

A lot of people don't immediately realize how important this is, until they remember Warri jokes.

And I dare say that this is the hardest part about speaking Pidgin. The language get as eh dey roll for tongue, if you no grab am well eh go hard to speak.

Conclusion
So yeah, Pidgin English is alternative language. It is popular amongst illiterates. But it is also popular amongst business men, academics, presidents, wives of presidents (Patience Jonathan), and pretty much everybody that wants to broaden their communication outreach in West Africa.

But Pidgin English is not a silly language that can be spoken anyhow. It has evolved and now has its own form and maybe structure. Understanding the three basic rules above will help you understand how to speak and understand the language easily.

https://africanjotter.com.ng/pidgin-english-basic-rules/

Tajbol4splend:



If that's the case, then OP didn't do her homework well

Why do you say so?

Tajbol4splend:
I can't skim something meaningful, I see phrases that don't bond to any meaningful end

She describes some traits that quite a lot of Yoruba people have, to explain why ladies easily misunderstand their behaviour or fall for it.

In a nut shell, Yoruba culture has a tendency to turn guys into players...

This question was asked on Quora, and I felt Toyin Olamide Obire gave the most interesting answer to it. I shared it here for that sake. I hope you like it...

Who is a Yoruba Demon?

He lies down flat on the floor in his fancy suit just to tell your aunt good evening because he is trained to do so for anyone who is more than one hour older than he is, but you don't know this. You imagine how he will greet your parents…

He immediately starts to call your parents mummy and daddy because that's what he and all of his friends call each other's parents; even the unwed and childless twenty-something year old youth pastor at his parents' church is called Daddy by church members, but you don't know this either. Instead, you think: he already sees them as his parents-in-law!

When he visits you at home, it is never without gifts for you, your parents, your siblings, your gateman and your pet dog (if you still live with them) because woe betide him if he visits his own mom, uncles, aunts and sisters empty-handed; he’s wired to buy gifts with every visit, but you think he is so thoughtful.

He introduces you to his sisters who treat you like their own sister, call you Iyawo and put you on their family Aso-ebi lists. Guilty here. But I really thought it was going somewhere.

He attends and plays prominent roles at your distant relations' weddings without complaining: he has undergone years of training in this area from accompanying his mom to weddings of kinsmen that he has never heard of and knows firsthand the futility of saying no to invitations to such events.

He’s been wearing his traditional Agbada to occasions and events long before he could walk or talk; it has always been a part of him, but you swoon over what you see as his fantastic sense of style. Everybody asks when you two will be tying the knot and he smiles politely while shrugging it off inwardly; no big deal here as all of his mom’s friends who have daughters have jokingly asked him the same question before, starting from when he was a child. He's extremely courteous, caring and very protective of you…

…but he acts surprised when you too start getting territorial and wonders why you are shocked that he is getting married to someone else tomorrow.

Hence, Yoruba demon

That caring and well-behaved persona isn't always a facade that is designed to deceive, though. Thanks to my mom, my three brothers can prostrate for the world and will rush to help the neighbourhood Agege bread seller carry her bread palette on their own heads simply because “mummy likes her.”

Many Yoruba men treat their mothers with a lot of respect. They tend to treat the women in their lives with the same deference; even those that young people call side chicks get the same special treatment. Many ladies (usually those that are not of Yoruba extraction) interpret their extreme dedication as love but it is just your average Yoruba man being himself. He's overly respectful like that with everybody.

https://africanjotter.com.ng/yoruba-men-called-yoruba-demon/

A funny story...

Two Burundi officials have been arrested after their town’s football team allegedly “roughed up” President Pierre Nkurunziza who was playing during a match with his personal team, legal sources and witnesses said Friday.

A legal source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the administrator of the northern town of Kiremba as well as his deputy, who is in charge of sport, had been charged with “conspiracy against the president” on Thursday.

It all started when the Kiremba team played a match earlier this month against Nkurunziza’s Allelua FC team, which includes the president.

Several town residents told AFP that the administrator Cyriaque Nkezabahizi and his deputy Michel Mutama had recruited players among Congolese refugees living in a camp in the town.

“These Congolese obviously didn’t know President Nkurunziza because they roughed him up during the match, attacking each time he had the ball and making him fall several times while the Burundian players were careful not to get too close to him,” one witness said

Nkurunziza, who is a “born-again” evangelical, spends at least half of every week travelling with his team Allelua FC and his choir “Komeza gusenga” which means “pray non-stop” in the local kirundi language.

He also participates in community development projects, in which he can be seen lugging around rocks or mixing cement.

The 54-year-old president, a former sport professor at the University of Burundi, continues to practice swimming and cycling and plays up to three football matches a week.

He built a 9 000-seat stadium in his home town and dozens others across the country.

Critics say he is allowed to score several “bogus” goals during each match, with no player daring to seriously take him on.

In power since 2005, Nkurunziza is leading a push for a referendum in May on changes to the constitution that would allow him to run in elections in 2020.
Source: https://africanjotter.com.ng/burundi-arrests-two-people-rough-play-president-football-match/

Global smartphone sales fell for the first time in 14 years according to a research firm, Gartner. Recent statistics indicate that in Q4 2017, 407 million units of smartphones were sold globally. That represents a 5.6 drop in compared to that of the same quarter in 2016. This is the first time smartphone sales would drop since 2004 when Gartner started tracking it.

On the African continent too, data reveals that smartphone sales have been falling. And more interesting, feature phones have taken a greater share of the African market.

3 Reasons Africans Bought Less Smartphones in 2017
Feature phones have remained quite popular in Africa

Feature phones are mobile phones that incorporate features such as the ability to access the internet and store and play music but lack the advanced functionalities of a smartphone. These devices were the king a few years ago.

Gartner data shows that smartphone sales dropped by 8.3%, while feature phone sales dropped 9.8% in Q4 2017. However, data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) reveal that the market share for smartphones dropped to 39% in 2017, down from 44% in 2016. Meanwhile, feature phones witnessed some leap, rising from 55.4% in 2016 to 66% in 2017.

Transsion Holding, Reasons Africans Bought Less Smartphones in 2017
Transsion Holdings is the owner of popular brands such as Tecno, Infinix and Itel

And interestingly too, Samsung lost the title of “biggest smartphone maker” on the continent to Transsion Holdings. Transsion is the manufacturer of brands like Tecno, Infinix and Itel, all of which are hugely popular on the continent. Putting it together, these three brands give Transsion a market share of 28% in 2017, up from 17% in 2016. Meanwhile, Samsung witnessed a slight decline; its market share dropped 27% from 29% in 2016.

That’s some pretty impressive gain for Transsion, whose low-end devices helped to make the Android OS hugely popular in Africa.

Reasons Africans Bought Fewer Smartphones in 2017
But the real bone of contention is the decline in smartphone sales. and why they are losing to feature phones!

3 Reasons Africans Bought Less Smartphones in 2017
Smartphones are losing market share to feature devices for interesting reasons

10 years ago, feature phones sold for roughly the same price as a lot of low-level smartphones today. Yet they didn’t offer much. FM Radio, MP3 player, average camera, lots of apps and games though, but low computing power, are pretty much all they offered. So when android came out it was pretty clear that they were done for but that has not happened.

Why is the smartphone market share reducing in recent times? What is keeping feature phones strong on the continent? Why are people not rapidly upgrading to smartphones from feature phones?

We looked into this, and we discovered three pretty interesting things.

Economic Challenges on the Continent Has Affected Purchasing Power: The economy of African countries have been unstable in the last few years. Most African economies are commodity exports, but with falling prices of commodities such as Oil and other commodities, it is not surprising that quite a lot of Africans have steered clear of buying smartphones as a way of reducing excesses.

A scarcity of “Ultra-Low-Cost” Smartphones Makes People Stick With Their Feature Phones: According to Gartner research director, Anshul Gupta, another reason upgrades from feature phone have been slow is due to the scarcity of “ultra-low-cost” smartphones. What this means is that people do actually want to move to smartphones, but they have not found a smartphone that is both powerful and cheap.

And that is understandable. During the first years of Android on the African continent, most “low-end devices” had impressive specs, and they were quite affordable too. Tecno for one released a lot of Android devices that delighted people.

3 Reasons Africans Bought Less Smartphones in 2017
Flagship devices like the Tecno Phantom 6 are more expensive than previous tecno phones

But all that has disappeared. Companies have since begun releasing “high end” devices; devices that they hope would allow them to compete somewhat with big names like Samsung and Apple’s iPhone. For instance, in 2016, Tecno launched its flagship device, Tecno Phantom 6. It came with a high-end version, Phantom 6 Plus. With Tecno Phantom 6 was selling for N88,000 and 6 Plus selling for N130,000, the price difference was jeering!

As a result, low-end devices have received less priority and seemed to have fallen out of favour in the market somewhat. Transsion, the biggest smartphone maker on the continent, rarely releases “ultra-cheap-devices” anymore. It instead releases lower versions of it its high-end devices, neither of which are affordable compared to previous times.

Meanwhile, feature phones have not been that bad. They are not as great as they use to though, during the hay days of J2ME. But some are capable of running few important apps. Whatsapp, for instance, is hugely popular, and some Nokia, Tecno, and Itel feature phones have been capable of running it. So according to Gupta, people see them as good enough to stick with till they get money to upgrade.

New Smartphones Come With Much Glitters, But No Gold: This is another important reason for the slump in African smartphone sales recently.

3 Reasons Africans Bought Less Smartphones in 2017
Samsung’s recent Galaxy S9 comes with a lot features that make it similar to the older Samsung S8

Smartphones produced these days are not as feature rich as people would expect. They bear too much resemblance with older models, and even the supposed new features are not worth the upgrade. And this issue has been felt by Apple with its iPhone X, and more recently by Samsung with its recently launched Galaxy 9 devices.

With tighter economic constraints and expensive phones, it is going to take a lot more for tech companies to convince customers to upgrade.

https://technext.ng/2018/03/02/3-reasons-africans-bought-fewer-smartphones-in-2017/

Truthfully, I rushed into this thread looking for something, you know, more explosive. I am not disappointed though.

But my interest in IB have led to me to discover quite a lot of things that I am shocked are not captured here.

The most import thing I want to share is that the easiest way to get into IB is specialization. There are multiple sides to Investment banking. You got traders, risk managers, asset managers, analysts, researchers, among a few other areas. Developing understanding of how either of these work, will set you up nicely for an investment banking career.
And if you take it up a notch, having high knowledge about specific industries would make a valuable asset. Investment banks need people who understand important and emerging markets. Good knowledge of the oil industry, tech industry, clothing/fashion industry, or similar industry is always an advantage!

At least seven people have been killed after masked gun men launched an attack in Burkina Faso capital city, Ouagadougou, the government have said. The attacks were targeted at Burkina Faso’s military Headquarters and the French embassy located in the capital. The attack follows the suspension of the trial of 2015’s coup plotters this week.

The attacked was launched a few hours ago by the unknown gunmen. It started with an explosion at the headquarters that filled the sky with black smoke. At first, it was not immediately clear what caused the blast. But a witness at the scene told Reuters that masked gunmen with backpacks attacked the army headquarters after the explosion.

Another witness said other smaller explosions came from the headquarters after a first larger blast and that security forces were converging on the scene.

France’s special envoy to Africa’s Sahel region, Jean-Marc Châtaigner, urged people to avoid the city center in a tweet referring to a “terrorist attack.”
Rémi Dandjinou, Burkina Faso’s minister of communication, told CNN that an explosive device was used in the attack at the General Staff of the Armed Forces. At least five people were killed and two attackers “neutralized” there, he said.

Four attackers were also “neutralized” and two Burkina Faso security members killed at the French Embassy, according to Dandjinou.
He cautioned that the death toll might change.
A spokesman for the French Ministry of Defense told CNN the situation at the embassy was under control.
Freelance journalist Yacouba Ouédraogo, who is in Ouagadougou, told CNN the shooting had stopped and that the people who attacked the army headquarters wore Burkinabé army clothes.
A government statement urged people to keep calm and avoid areas where there might be gunfire.

The French Embassy earlier said on Facebook that attacks were underway there and at the French Institute, a cultural organization about a mile away.
France’s ambassador to Burkina Faso, Xavier Lapdecab, urged people via Twitter to act with “absolute precaution” as the attack was ongoing.
Burkina Faso’s national police warned people to move away from areas around the “vicinity of the Prime Ministry — and the United Nations roundabout” in a post on its Facebook page. “The specialized units of the defense and security forces are in action,” it said.

The Prime Minister’s office later posted on Facebook that it was not affected by the attack.
The US Embassy urged people to seek shelter.
“Attacks are reported to be ongoing in downtown Ouagadougou, in the Koulouba area. The affected area includes the Chief of Staff Headquarters. Avoid downtown Ouagadougou. Shelter in place. Monitor local media for updates,” it said on Twitter.

France has a military presence in Burkina Faso as part of Operation Barkhane, which was launched in 2014 to combat jihadist activity across the Sahel region.
The West, particularly France, considers Burkina Faso a key ally in the fight against al Qaeda in the region.
The country was formerly known as the Republic of Upper Volta when it was established in 1958 as a self-governing colony under France. It gained full independence in 1960.
It’s not the first time that sites in the capital have come under attack.
An attack by gunmen last year on a restaurant in Ouagadougou left at least 18 people dead, including two attackers. The victims were of several different nationalities.
That assault echoed a similar one in 2016 on a cafe and hotel popular with Western diplomats in the same district of the city that left 29 dead. Responsibility for that attack was claimed by an al Qaeda affiliate, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Later that year a jihadist assault on the Grand-Bassam beach resort killed 16 in neighboring Ivory Coast.

https://africanjotter.com.ng/attack-burkina-faso-military-hq-know/

Tanzanian Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) has banned several songs by the country’s top musicians including hits songs from Diamond Platnumz.

A statement from the ministry said that the list of banned songs was compiled by the state’s body in charge of arts and culture for depicting videos that promoted suggestive dancing and sexual innuendo, which is contrary to the cultural practice of the country.

Tanzania Bans Hits From Its Biggest Artist, Diamond Platnumz
Diamond Platnumz’s hit song featuring Rick Ross has been banned by the government.
This is a big blow to popular act Diamond Platnumz who had two of his songs banned. He has put out several impressive songs over the past few months and even featured US rapper, Rick Ross, in one of them. The first song one is ‘Hallelujah’, a collaboration with Morgan Heritage as well as ‘Waka Waka’ which features Rick Ross. The two are among 13 Tanzanian songs that the commission proscribed for containing illicit content which is a violation of Tanzania’s code of conduct.

In a statement on Wednesday, 28th February, TCRA urged Tanzanian media houses to give the 13 songs complete blackout.

The mega star is readying to broaden his wings with Wasafi FM and Wasafi TV, named after his hugely successful Wasafi Records.

Diamond was officially handed broadcasting permits for the radio and television stations by the Zanzibar’s Minister of Information, Culture, Tourism and Sports.

https://africanjotter.com.ng/tanzania-bans-hits-biggest-artist-diamond-platnumz/