₦airaland Forum

Latin America refers to all the countries that once belonged to the empires of Spain and Portugal during the discovery of the American continents and as such can be characterised by speaking languages classified as romance languages (those derived from Latin).

Taking the term in its strict sense results in 20 countries to be considered Latin American: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaraqua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruquay and Venezuela.

Spanish is spoken as a first language by about 60% of the population, Portuguese is spoken by about 34% of the population and about 6% of the population make up a large variety of different languages.

1. SPANISH
Spanish is the official language of most of the countries on the Latin American mainland, as well as in Cuba, Puerto Rico (where it is co-official with English), and the Dominican Republic.

The Spanish spoken in Latin America is not the same as the Spanish spoken in Spain. A lack of connection with Spain and the huge influence the native speakers had on the language in Latin America has impacted it to make two different dialects. However the Spanish spoken in Latin America and Spain is not so different that they would have difficulty understanding each other.

2. PORTUGUESE
Portuguese is spoken throughout Latin America, but there is only one country where it is recognised as the official language, Brazil. Although Portuguese is the official language of only one country, Brazil is the largest and most populous country of Latin America.

3. NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGES
Native American languages are widely spoken in Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia, Paraguay and Mexico, and to a lesser degree, in Panama, Ecuador, Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile amongst other countries. Mexico is possibly the only country that contains a wider variety of indigenous languages than aanother. Latin American country, but the most spoken language is Nahuatl.

In Peru, Quechua is an official language, alongside Spanish and any other indigenous language in the areas where they predominate. In Ecuador, while holding no official status, the closely related Quichua is a recognised language of the indigenous people under the country’s constitution; however, it is only spoken by a few groups in the country’s highlands.

In Bolivia, Aymara, Quechua and Guaraní hold official status alongside Spanish. Guaraní, along with Spanish, is an official language of Paraguay, and is spoken by a majority of the population (who are, for the most part, bilingual), and it is co-official with Spanish in the Argentine province of Corrientes.

In Nicaragua, Spanish is the official language, but on the country’s Caribbean coast English and indigenous languages such as Miskito, Sumo, and Rama also hold official status. Colombia recognises all indigenous languages spoken within its territory as official, though fewer than 1% of its population are native speakers of these languages.

4. OTHER LANGUAGES
French is the primary language of Haiti and French Guyana. English is not a primary language of any Latin American nation but is widely spoken in areas that are popular tourist destinations.

Dutch is the official language in Suriname, Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. As Dutch is a Germanic language and these were not part of the Spanish or Portuguese empires, these territories are not technically considered part of Latin America.

SOURCE: https://thelanguagefactory.co.uk/2019/03/21/1874/

Ijeoma Ndukwe is the transformational clarity queen and Lead brand strategist at Leap to Limitless Global and MD of Bubez Foods Ltd, a competitive player in Nigeria’s food processing and packaging industry established in August 2012.

She began Bubez Foods (www.bubezfoods.com) on a very low scale from her home with N200 (then less than $1) and her blackberry contacts. At the end of 2016, it recorded 9 figures in investments and 7 figures in sales. A 343% increase in sales within 18 months of opening its factory in June 2015 and a growing network of 80 selling vendors in states in Nigeria and occasional deliveries to the United Kingdom and other countries.

In 2019, Bubez Foods exported a 20ft container of Bubez Pap to the United States of America and today are in the market to raise $5m for expansion through their investment bankers in New York.

As a seasoned entrepreneur, Ijeoma’s passion for business, clarity, and knowledge has also made her a sought-after speaker at business events organised by different communities across the country, including the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), several organisations and churches, where she ignites a mindset shift in her audiences. She has also been a guest on multiple Television platforms such as CNBC Africa, EbonyLife TV, Channels TV, AIT and more.

Her goal is to create a widespread impact that teaches people, especially women, to unlock and maximize their fullest potentials and to move to the next phase of their life through clarity and hard work. Ijeoma Ndukwe is also the author of the business inspirational book, Your Dream, Your Seed, a 365 day abundance journal, a 90 day affirmation calendar, and she is currently working on 2 new books.

IN THE BEGINNING
As a child, I always dreamt of the different businesses I would co-own with my siblings. I got into the University to study medicine and surgery, after 2 years, I knew that life wasn’t for me. I hated the sight of blood and still do till date, flunked out of medical school after 4 years and graduated with a B.Sc in Human Physiology.

GOING INTO YOUR LINE OF BUSINESS
In answer to my childhood dream of different businesses, I have dabbled into different businesses from bead making, sales of skincare products, luxury lifestyle retail store and so on. In 2012, after my third child, I knew I could be more and had the burning desire to be and do more.

While searching in my quiet time, I got the answers. I would always give my kids pap/akamu/ogi, a traditional cereal, as their weaning meal and I imagined selling the same product to other working mums who didn’t have the time to process pap and would also worry about hygiene. I decided to bridge the gap between hygiene and convenience and presented Bubez Pap to them. That began my foray into starting Bubez Foods.

FROM N200 TO 9 FIGURES IN INVESTMENTS AND 8 FIGURES IN SALES, WHAT IS THE STORY?
This didn’t happen overnight, it was bordered with challenges and obstacles but I was determined to overcome to see the fulfillment of the dreams I have for Bubez Foods. I borrowed funds at ridiculously high rates sometimes 12 -15% monthly (not advisable). I love things that challenge me and my creativity.

I’m not passionate about pap but I’m extremely passionate about starting and growing a business from scratch. That was all the motivation and drive I needed to prove that my dreams are valid. I sold 98% of my jewelry and luxury handbags, cut off every form of socialising and stayed focused on my dreams. What changed was my mindset. I am a student of the mind because I believe absolutely in the limitless power of the mind. I constantly and regularly feed my mind with books and mind empowerment programs.

MANAGING 80 VENDORS, ENLARGING THE BUSINESS
One of my core strength is strategy. I can create strategies even in my sleep, yes, it is that deep. One of my problems is the inability of my mind to shut down because it’s always churning strategies. As the CEO of Bubez Foods, strategy creation and execution is how I ensure we consistently enlarge our territory.

Marketing our product happened naturally at the early stages because it was a need and we had provided a solution so people were coming to us, they were interested. Curiosity and admiration made them buy into the vision. The curiosity of how we created a powerful brand out of a local, traditional meal that is normally seen as a meal for the lower class and the intrigue that we took pap, created the strawberry and vanilla flavours, made it cool and appealing, got a large buy-in.

WHAT MAKES BUBEZ FOODS TICK?
Until 2012, not very many people were selling pap; they were selling the powdered pap. We decided to stay in our niche of the raw, paste pap to create brand awareness and gain brand acceptability. As a brand strategist, creating a brand that stands out comes from brand authenticity. Anybody can copy or imitate your product but they can’t copy your unique abilities.

The challenge is that, most businesses are creating brands outside of themselves when all they need to do is bring 100% of themselves into the business. For example, I had a failed marriage and I love family, I can’t do anything about my failed marriage because it’s in my past but I can create a product that will create and deepen family bond at meal time. So, I put all my passion into creating a quality product. Brand is intangible and it is all about perception, you don’t need to know me or my story but you can feel the love in how Bubez Pap is packaged.

MOVING A 20FT CONTAINER OF BUBEZ FOODS TO THE US
This was the most daring thing I had done in Bubez Foods. I made a few trips to the U.S prior to us shipping the product for market research and testing. The products were already in a container at the Apapa ports before I made another trip to find a buyer for the product…yes I found a buyer to buy the entire products. Because our product is in the ready-to-cook and paste form, we use cold-supply chain for logistics; you can imagine what that means. Our products survive within certain temperatures; it spent 5 weeks at the ports and 7 weeks on the sea before landing safely in Houston Texas.

For everyday it spent in that container was meant to be a worry about the freshness and preserved quality. The 12 weeks it spent and our production time meant it arrived 2 months before the best before date. We had to devise a means to ensure the entire 9 pallets were distributed. We sold Bubez Pap out of 5 stores within Texas, which was a dream come through for me. We used 1 pallet for research and development in Massachusetts and gave out free pap as experiential marketing.

BEING IN THE MARKET TO RAISE $5M FOR EXPANSION THROUGH INVESTMENT BANKERS IN NEW YORK
The research and development in Massachusetts was one out of four, we did another one few months after in Denmark. All of that R& is geared towards the realisation of our dreams, to set up a fully automated food processing and packaging factory and eventually become listed on the stock exchange. The equipment we’re trying out and testing aren’t exactly very cheap and we need investor’s funds to achieve that. We got introduced and engaged investment bankers in NYC to lead the advisory and fundraising rounds for us. We’re receiving some interests and believe that very soon, we’d get term sheets and the funds to execute this strategy that we documented 4 years ago.

HELPING WOMEN UNLOCK AND MAXIMIZE THEIR FULLEST POTENTIALS
I have had to set up a new company, Leap to Limitless Global to teach people especially women, how to create powerful brands by upgrading their confidence, gaining clarity in their lives and having cash to do things that will help them support their families. Powerful brands are not just for businesses, as a person, you’re a brand, as a stay-at-home mum, you want to create a powerful brand and be a strong voice of influence in your children’s lives. I do this by sharing my processes and systems with them through a coaching program called THRIVE. Currently, we have 65 women signed up for the pilot phase of the program.

EFFECT OF CURRENT LOCKDOWN ON YOUR BUSINESS
With the current lockdown, I shut down production because I care about the wellbeing of my employees but the sales team is still supplying the stores. We had three of our key people in production and sales do a food distribution program to feed 260 families. We gave out a monthly supply of single-use, powdered extra-fortified Bubez Pap with Soybean to each of these families. Also there are opportunities opening and that will open in various ways, my question to everyone reading this is “How are we preparing for the multiple opportunities that will open up post COVID-19?”

ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS AT THIS TIME
Prepare, prepare, prepare. Revise your strategies and find creative ways of earning income. Increase your capabilities and capacity, stay ready. This is not the first crisis period known to humanity, this too shall pass.

ON YOUR FRONT BURNER
On my front burner for me aside Bubez Foods, is putting the adequate structure in place for Leap to Limitless global to reach and equip more women.

STAYING POSITIVE AND GUARDING YOUR SANITY AT THIS TIME
I can’t emphasize the importance of maintaining your sanity enough. Without a sound mind, your life almost comes to a halt. Don’t dwell on negative news. Reduce every form of negativity around you and keep your hopes up. I’m a Christian and the word of God is all the harbinger of hope I need.

MY WISH
I wish for a world where people will stop playing victims with an elevated entitlement mentality and take absolute control of their lives and its outcome.

FINAL WORDS
I believe that everyone’s dream is valid and we will all thrive!

SOURCE: https://businessday.ng/women-hub/article/ijeoma-ndukwesimply-because-she-dared/

A recent report released by Dailyfx (a forex research firm) in 2020, stated that Nigeria’s forex traders deal currency positions worth as much as $1.25 million on average, daily.

Forex trading happens around the globe and is open 24 hours a day for 5 1/2 days a week. It means you can trade forex whenever you want, which offers you time flexibility. You do not have to wait for an opening bell or struggle to run your order before a market daily close. So, you have the option of either being aggressive or passive, as you choose to trade at your desired schedule.

Some experts interviewed by Nairametrics broke down the reasons why forex trading is becoming popular in Nigeria.

Mr Abdul-Rasheed Oshoma Momoh, Head, Capital Market in TRW Stockbrokers Ltd, a veteran in forex trading spoke with Nairametrics on the need for every discerning investor to diversify by asset classes and sectors According to him, Forex trading is a reliable option. He said:

“Forex trading is among the most rewarding asset classes for traders and investors. Although Forex has a reputation of being for short-term high-risk speculators, there are trading styles suitable for both short-term and long-term traders. Forex trading allows you to earn a steady income from various kinds of currency trades or from investing in bonds, dividend stocks, and other income vehicles.”

Forex trading offers one of the highest amounts of leverage compared to other financial markets. Small trading accounts offer higher leverage because of small deposit requirements,

Adegbotolu Kehinde Erastus, a professional currency trader with over a decade’s experience of trading currencies buttressed the advantage that leverage brings in the forex market. He said “Forex trading gives you access to currencies and commodities which you can trade with high leverage, unlike the stock market. This means you can actually trade with bigger sums of money than the capital invested. Note that this varies across various brokers.

“Over leveraging increases your profit; however, any move against you will result in bigger losses. With proper risk management, the Forex market is very lucrative.”

Nairametrics research dug deep to find out why those who embark on forex trading do so and we came up with the following:

1. LIQUIDITY
The most liquid financial market has always been the forex market. With trillions of dollars exchanged daily, you do not have to worry if your trade will be processed when trading any of the major currencies which include the American dollar, Euro or British pound sterling.

In recent years, the forex trading market has surged to one of its highest-ever levels, with $6.6 trillion transactions a day averagely in 2019, according to the Bank for International Settlements. Ayodeji Edordu a Global Market Analyst at Alphagold Capital told Nairametrics how forex trading builds an individual’s personal character. He said:

“As a forex trader, you are in control of your finances. It is also an avenue to earn extra income. With a ‘small’ amount invested, a trader can earn some good income while trading. Trading also exposes one to the financial markets and current events. It also teaches a trader to be disciplined. A lot of opportunities abound, as the market is very liquid with a lot of volumes. With a click you can buy and sell as you please since there will usually be someone on the other end willing to trade back.”

2. ABILITY TO BUY OR SELL ANYTIME
In forex trading, you trade currencies in pairs; when you are bearish (short) on one currency, you are bullish (long) on the other. For example, if you are bearish on USD/NGN, you go short by buying naira and selling dollars at the same time.

If you are bullish (long), you can go long by selling the naira and buying American dollars. This is different from equities markets where you are only allowed to short-sell during an uptick. This is a great advantage for forex, trading as you can profit from both bullish (upward) and bearish (downward) trends anytime.

Funmilola Olajide, a professional forex trader and tutor, spoke to Nairametrics in a phone chat interview and explained the flexibility that forex trading brings. According to her “Even if the market is rising or falling, you can trade, and some forex trading strategies even depend on the latter. You can find opportunities in any market condition and you can trade when you believe the price of a currency pair is going up or when you anticipate it going down. Some traders even thrive on high volatility periods.

“Although carrying more risk, these sudden price changes can be helpful if timed right. Whether you are following longer market trends or trading day to day movements, there is plenty of trading opportunity to be found.”

3. LOW TRANSACTION COSTS
Currency transactions are completed using the over-the-counter method, with currency traders directly dealing with market makers and market participants like banks.

As such, there are no exchanged fees or clearing charges that you experience when trading stocks, ETFs, or bonds. With forex trading, such charges do not exist. Typically, forex market makers will not charge commissions on currency trades you process through their currency trading platforms.

4. NO REGULATORS
Forex trading in Nigeria is still not regulated, even though the current market is one of the most active across Nigeria.

Trading the forex market, unlike stock trading, does not attract any charge. Nobody has regulatory oversight on it, and the current pricing is carried out based on the supply and demand of currency traders. This is unlike Nigeria’s stock market, where local stocks can’t go up or down beyond 10% of its present value for that day.

SOURCE: https://nairametrics.com/2020/05/14/why-forex-trading-is-becoming-popular-in-nigeria/

Lilian Ajayi Ore: Founder /CEO of the Global Connections for Women Foundation (GC4W)

Lilian Ajayi Ore is an award-winning humanitarian and an international women advocate. She is the Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Connections for Women Foundation. The GC4W, is an award-winning not-for-profit organisation headquartered in New York City, with a reach of 3.5 million people worldwide, and is one of the leading international non-profits of the millennium in the areas of gender equality, women empowerment, and youth empowerment.

Lilian is a resident of Manhattan New York, with origins in Africa. She is currently a University Professor of Global Marketing and Web Analytics at New York University-SPS. She is a Global Contributor for The Huffington Post, a Harvard graduate and a former member of the Harvard Club.

She sits on several boards including NAAEP, a Nigerian American Agricultural Empowerment program that trains and empowers farmers through a mechanized farming program. She was awarded the Ambassador of Goodwill of the State of Arkansas and the rest of the World, by Governor Mike Bebe.

Lilian is the Executive Producer and Host of the television broadcast series “Path to Passion,” where young women entrepreneurs are profiled and interviewed. The show aims to inspire and empower other women to follow and live out their passions.

Ajayi Ore debuts her 1st editorial feature on Diplomatic Courier: A Global Affairs Magazine and she joined as a regular contributor for the international magazine. She has been invited to speak at several leadership panels including Columbia Business School and Columbia Law School Economic Business, and NYU-Stern Business Economic Forum.

Ore was invited to give the keynote remarks at the Trinity International Development Initiative (TIDI), Trinity College Dublin University of Ireland during the “Inspiring Change: Empowering Women’s Futures in Africa” Africa Day event in Dublin, Ireland, to name a few.

She was invited to address the United Nations President of the General Assembly and other international delegates at a two-day meeting on climate change, where she spoke of the impact of climate change on the rural women in Africa.

Lilian led the first workshop on the status of Women and Girls in Africa and Rest of the World and spoke on a “UN Women” panel during the United Nations Youth Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York. She also created the first Microsoft education certificate to teach gender equality in the classroom.

Ore has interned for Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Mayor Anthony Williams, and at the American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO), serving their constituents as a political representative in Oakland, CA and in Washington, DC. She has been recognised for her dedication and commitment to community service and is a recipient of several congressional awards.

She spent a portion of her career working at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, representing the Mission of Nigeria to the UN, and served on the Social Economic Committee as the economic development policy negotiator. Lilian Ajayi-Ore is currently working on her first fictional Novel and has led digital marketing strategy, online marketing campaigns and data intelligence analytics efforts for numerous Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 companies.

More recently, Lilian was invited to create the very First ‘Teach Gender Equality’ course and ‘Planet 50/50’ project on Microsoft education, and the programs are made available to over 2 million teachers in 130 countries worldwide.

With GC4W, Lilian Ajayi-Ore hopes to create one of the largest global networks for women and girls, where women and girls can feel connected, educated and empowered to live out their best lives. “My mission is to help leading brands and organisations identify key market trends, implement a winning marketing strategy, gain market intelligence, and explore new business opportunities to ultimately achieve their enterprise goals.” She said.

As a digital marketing executive and data scientist, Lilian consults with small to large business enterprises to identify new market opportunities, develop their data analytics and reporting strategy, and to create winning digital marketing campaigns to drive sales and customer engagement.

SOURCE: https://businessday.ng/women-hub/article/women-in-business-lilian-ajayi-ore/

Gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen on Saturday 16 May kidnapped a woman, Mrs Muna Ezeudu, popularly called ‘Mama Enugu’ by locals. A relation of Ezeudu, Mrs Nwanneka Agbo, told Sunday PUNCH that Ezeudu was kidnapped at her residence in Eziam Nike, Enugu East Local Government Area of the state in the early hours of Saturday.

Agbo claimed that the kidnappers were Fulani herdsmen. She said, “My sister sent us a text message that read, ‘Herdsmen kidnapped us and kept us at Eziam Nike Forest Hills.’” Our correspondent learnt that Ezeudu’s abduction happened barely a week after another woman, one Mrs Eneh from Eziam Nike community, was kidnapped and released after parting with some money as a ransom.

A security source said Eziam Nike had become a hotbed of kidnapping in the state recently. “The Abakpa Divisional Police Officer, SP Azubuike Fred, led a squad to track the kidnappers at their hideout,” the source said.

Efforts to get the reaction of the state Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Daniel Ndukwe, failed as he neither picked calls nor replied to the text message sent to his phone.

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/suspected-fulani-herdsmen-kidnap-enugu-woman/

British Physician and former Director at the World Health Organisation, Prof Karol Sikora, says there is a “real chance” that coronavirus will peter out before any vaccine is developed. Sikora, who made this known via Twitter on Saturday, however, stressed the need to keep maintaining social distancing and following all precautions outlined by health experts to curb the spread of the pandemic.

He said, “There is a real chance that the virus will burn out naturally before any vaccine is developed. We are seeing a roughly similar pattern everywhere – I suspect we have more immunity than estimated. We need to keep slowing the virus, but it could be petering out by itself. It is my opinion that this is a feasible scenario. Nobody is claiming to know what will happen for sure – I believe in an unknown situation this is a possibility.

“We need to continue to keep our distance and hope the numbers continue to improve.”

The PUNCH reports that over 4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 including more than 300,000 associated deaths have been recorded globally, according to WHO.

See tweet:
"There is a real chance that the virus will burn out naturally before any vaccine is developed. We are seeing a roughly similar pattern everywhere – I suspect we have more immunity than estimated. We need to keep slowing the virus, but it could be petering out by itself."
— Professor Karol Sikora (@ProfKarolSikora) May 16, 2020

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/covid-19-may-burn-out-naturally-who-ex-director/

Hadiza Bala Usman: Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)

Hadiza Bala Usman (born January 2, 1976) is a Nigerian politician who since 2016 is serving as the MD of the Nigerian Ports Authority. She was previously the chief of staff to the Governor of Kaduna State from 2015 to 2016. She is one of the co-founders of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, and is also a founding member of the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Usman was born in Zaria to a Fulani ruling class family of the Sullubawa clan. Her father, Yusufu Bala Usman, was a prominent academic and historian. He later founded the Centre for Democratic Development, Research and Training in Zaria. Her maternal great grandfather, Abdullahi Bayero, was the 10th Emir of Kano from 1926 to 1953.

She grew up on the campus of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, where her father worked. She started her education at the university staff primary school and went ahead to complete her secondary education. In 1996, she enrolled at the university and received a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 2000. She later received a Masters degree in Development Studies from the University of Leeds in 2009.

In 1999, she spent a year at the Centre for Democratic Development and Research Training in Zaria as a research assistant. Hadiza then worked at the Bureau of Public Enterprises from July 2000 to August 2004 as an enterprise officer. From October 2004 to January 2008, she was then hired by the UNDP for the Federal Capital Territory Administration as a special assistant to the Minister on project implementation.

In 2011, she campaigned and lost for the federal constituency of Musawa/Matazu as a candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change. She then joined the Good Governance Group in Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation, as the country director of strategy from 2011 to July 2015.

In 2014, following the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping by Boko Haram, Hadiza Bala Usman co-founded the Bring Back Our Girls campaign group to advocate the rescue of the abducted schoolgirls. Hadiza Bala Usman has helped coordinate meetings with the parents of the kidnapped girls and members of the Nigerian government.

In 2015, following his election, Governor Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai appointed her as Chief of Staff to the Governor of Kaduna State. She was appointed as the Managing Director of Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) in July 2016 by President Muhammadu Buhari. Her appointment generated a lot of controversies as many saw her nomination as ethnically based and questioned her qualification for the specific role.

Hadiza is from the Northern part of Nigeria where there are not enough women involved in politics and there are some not even allowed at all in most cases. Nevertheless, she chose to be different. According to her, “Where I come from in the north, women are conditioned to think that they’re not meant to be out there. But I’m a woman who will take what’s mine. I serve as an inspiration to young women out there. So I encourage all of us, young women, older women to just think of who we are and what we want to achieve and push the boundaries and refuse to be defined by anyone else.”

“We refuse to allow ourselves to fit into a box. There’s a particular narrative that’s around who you are as an African woman. For me as a northern woman, the case is that you’re required to stay in that nice ‘happy box’ that they’ve put you in, and I refused to do that. I wouldn’t stay in that place they put me in and what happened is that I turned out to be the MD of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).”

Hadiza Bala Usman was married to an economic analyst, Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi who served under the former (Late) President Umaru Musa Yar’adua as economic adviser and together they have two boys.

SOURCE: https://businessday.ng/women-hub/article/women-in-business-hadiza-bala-usman/

Chinwe Esimai: Managing Director, Chief Anti-Bribery & Corruption Officer at CitiGroup

Chinwe Esimai is a Thought leader and trailblazing corporate executive, inspiring immigrant women leaders to greatness. She is the first person to hold the title of Chief Anti-Bribery Officer at Citigroup and she is the Chair of the board of Harambee USA, a non-profit foundation dedicated to supporting education and sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

She is a Law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law where she taught Securities Regulation, Law & Finance in Emerging Markets, and Business Associations.

At Goldman Sachs, she served in various risk management roles, including anti-bribery and regulatory audits and inquiries. As Managing Director at Citi within three years, she oversees anti-bribery risk management in over 160 countries. She is a Harvard Law School alumnus, Juris Doctor.

On her role at Citi, she says “I run our anti-bribery program, which is ensuring that we comply with all of the laws and regulations around bribery and corruption. So making sure that when we do business (because we do business in over 160 countries), that we’re not offering anything that could be considered a bribe. And because we have very high-risk jurisdictions for bribery, it’s a very interesting job, I think.”

On the challenges of work and motherhood, she says “I think one of the biggest things, especially if you’re a working mom and have kids, there are expectations around what you do at home, whether it’s cooking for the family, taking care of the kids, helping with homework, and none of that goes away.”

She further admits “Being an executive is a full-time job, being a mom is also a full-time job, and then being a wife is at the minimum a part-time job. So it’s a lot of jobs, and the expectations don’t go away. So I think being able to accept that whatever situation you have, it is probably for a season, and you just have to navigate that as best as you can”.

Her view on role models is quite intriguing. I say so because she admits that for a long time, she felt like she was on her own because she thought she needed to be someone else. More so, a lot of the women she had worked with, for whatever reason, just had different personalities that she couldn’t identify with. She, therefore, found it really difficult to find someone to look up to. It became paramount for her to figure out what she was really interested in and passionate about.

Worthy of mention is that Esimai believes that the utmost responsibility lies with African countries to take the lead in ensuring the integrity of their own markets. “They will have to do this if they want to assume their place as architects of their own destinies and leaders in the global economy. In the longer term, Africa would benefit from choosing a path of growth through integrity.”

Chinwe predicts that we can expect the trend of U.S. authorities investigating and prosecuting bribery allegations involving Chinese companies doing business around the world. Linking this with Nigeria, she says “beginning in 2017, U.S. authorities initiated a probe into whether CPCC paid Nigerian officials more than $100 million in bribes in connection with a business dispute”.

On defining the future of doing business in Africa, Chinwe believes that combating corruption represents a defining leadership question for Africa because, African countries cannot rely on the U.S., the U.K., or China to fight Africa’s anti-corruption battles.

“Will Africa rise to the challenge? How will Africa choose to engage in the global economy? Over the next few years, the unfolding saga of this historic alliance will either replicate old bribery patterns or create new, unparalleled examples of integrity and excellence. It is up to Africans to decide” she said.

SOURCE: https://businessday.ng/women-hub/article/women-in-business-chinwe-esimai/

The International Monetary Fund “IMF” on Tuesday, April 28 approved $3.4 bn as financial assistance to Nigeria. This is the first time in recent history that Nigeria is obtaining funding support from the IMF.

IS THIS A LOAN OR A GRANT?
The Financial Support of $3.4 bn obtained by Nigeria from the IMF is a loan. The IMF has various loan types for member countries depending on the reason for needing finance. In this case, the loan was issued as an “Emergency Support” under its Rapid Financing Instrument facility.

Nigeria being a member country has what they call Special Drawing Rights, which allows us to draw money in times of need to the maximum of our contribution to the fund. Think of it like a cooperative where you contribute money and can draw from it. In this case, the loans are provided via the Rapid Financing Instrument.

The Rapid Financing Instrument is an IMF facility that is usually tied to funding arising from commodity price shocks, natural disasters, conflict and post-conflict situations, and emergencies resulting from fragility. As such, it is rapidly approved. It is also available to member countries who have a major balance of payment problems.

Balance of payment refers to a situation where a country’s dollar inflow (supply)can no longer pay for its dollar outflows (demand). Nigeria’s balance of payment is estimated at $17 billion.

DOES THE LOAN COME WITH AN INTEREST RATE AND ARE WE MEANT TO PAY BACK?
The loan comes with a concessionary interest rate and is expected to be paid back by Nigeria. According to data from the website of the IMF, the interest charged is not flat and applies to several factors. The IMF charges a lending rate, annual commitment fees, and service charge.

The commitment fee can be as low as 0.15% and as high as 0.6%. The service charge is about 0.5% for each amount that is withdrawn. The lending rate is 0.05% (also called the Special Drawing Rights) plus a margin of 1% totaling about 1.05%. The higher a country draws on the loan beyond its quote the higher the margin it pays. Margins can go as high as 3%. Nigeria is taking 100% of its quota so we expect the interest rate to be about 1.05%.

Based on the terms of the Rapid Financing Instrument, Nigeria is expected to pay back the loan between within 3¼ to 5 years.

WHY IS NIGERIA SEEKING AN IMF LOAN?
The Nigerian government faces a major revenue crisis due to impact of the fall in oil prices and lock-down of the Nigerian economy due to the Covid-19 situation.

The government relies heavily on oil for about 85% of its revenue and because of the crash of the price of oil from its target $57 to under $20 it no longer has money to fund its budget. This means the government will struggle to pay for salaries of civil servants, take on capital projects and even more importantly, combat the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic which is ravaging the economy bit by bit.

Government needs money to pay for testing equipment, treat victims of the virus, and provide palliatives for millions of Nigerians who may have lost their jobs or face business losses due to the pandemic. It is based on the above that the government had no choice but to approach the IMF for funding support.

WHY IS THE IMF GIVING NIGERIA THE LOAN?
According to the IMF, it has also looked at issues we highlighted above as well as other reasons in deciding whether to give Nigeria a loan. The IMF explains that the immediate economic impact of COVID-19 is expected to be severe in Nigeria especially as things have been bad even before the twin calamity of the COVID-19 and the fall in oil prices.

It also remarked that the pandemic—along with the sharp fall in oil prices has made Nigeria even more vulnerable and this could lead to a recession and a huge funding gap. The IMF also explains that the current situation could make the average Nigerian even poorer and so the need to extend the financial assistance.

One other major reason for this loan, which we had mentioned above was to help the government meet its balance of payment obligations.

ARE THERE STRINGS ATTACHED?
Due to the type of loan accessed by Nigeria, there are no strings attached to this loan. According to the IMF’s definition, Rapid Financial Support “provides rapid and low-access financial assistance to member countries facing an urgent balance of payments need, without the need to have a full-fledged program in place.”

This suggests there are no strings as loans requiring a “full-fledged program” are typically tied to major reforms. Should Nigeria in the nearest future go for a different loan from IMF it may have to meet the IMF’s reform requirements.

DOES THIS LOAN SOLVE ALL NIGERIA’S ECONOMIC ISSUES?
It does not solve all of Nigeria’s economic challenges. In Naira terms, assuming an exchange rate of N360/$1, the loan is about N1.2 trillion. Nigeria’s initial 2020 budget was N10 trn and included revenue targets of about N8 trn.

This is the first of many steps the government needs to take to plug the revenue hole that the crash in oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused.

The IMF explained it as follows; “The emergency financing under the RFI will provide much-needed liquidity support to respond to the urgent BOP needs. Additional assistance from development partners will be required to support the government’s efforts and close the large financing gap.”

So, to solve Nigeria’s revenue challenges, the government will still need to rely on a combination of more foreign currency loans, local bonds, increased revenue, and economic reforms.

WILL THE MONEYBE DISBURSED TO STATE GOVERNMENTS?
The money is not available to State governments. It is a loan to the Federal Government and will be used for Federal expenditures. States will probably seek funding support from the world bank and other multilateral institutions.

WHAT WILL THE MONEY BE USED FOR?
The funds are expected to be used for meeting government expenditure related to the fight against Covid-19. It is also expected to aid Nigeria’s balance of payment needs, allowing the economy to pay for import for critical procurements required to get businesses back to work.

In fact the IMF explains that it expects Nigeria to “implement proper governance arrangements (including the publication and independent audit of crisis-mitigating spending and procurement processes) which is crucial to ensure emergency funds are used for their intended purposes.”

WILL THIS LOAN GET NIGERIA OUT OF RECESSION?
As mentioned above, the loan is not expected to solve all of Nigeria’s problems. It is therefore not expected to singularly avoid Nigeria from getting into recession or get Nigeria out of recession. However, loans like these if applied appropriately can provide a major cushion for the country’s revenue shortages and be a major bridge until we secure more funding support and the economy bounces back.

SOURCE: https://nairametrics.com/2020/04/29/imf-loan-to-nigeria-explained/

Mexico is cremating bodies on an "industrial scale" as the country reels from the coronavirus pandemic which is quickly overwhelming its public services in Mexico City. Disturbing footage has shown thick black smoke running "non-stop" from a crematorium as the coronavirus pandemic overwhelms Mexico City.

In the video report by Sky News, horrifying clips show coffins piling up outside funeral parlours and body bags on trollies filling up unrefrigerated storage rooms. There is a three-day waiting list before Covid-19 fatalities can be taken to the crematorium, according to the report. In another clip, crematorium workers in white hazmat suits unpack a coffin which is wrapped in plastic.

Outside the crematorium, coffins pile up after a busy morning and – despite being removed daily – there are already many in the queue to be destroyed. The fridges are "full" and bodybags have to accumulate on gurneys, according to Sky News. It's impossible to use the investigation tables in one autopsy room that the TV crew filmed – because there are so many bodies there is simply no standing room.

The official number of coronavirus cases in Mexico is 36,327, with 3,573 deaths, according to statistics from the World Health Organisation published today. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has promised that he will re-open Mexico's economy next week.

"What the world knows about Mexico is that we are taming the pandemic and we are basically doing this because Mexican people are making a conscious effort,” Obrador said in a recent press conference.

But footage like this has led to speculation that there are many more coronavirus deaths than reported in the North American country. According to Sky News, data from 30 crematoriums in Mexico City indicates that roughly 600 bodies are being burned every day with a three-day backlog in the city

SOURCE: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/smoke-billows-non-stop-crematorium-22023980

Unknown gunmen have abducted Shuaibu Idris, Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress in Kaduna State, alongside his daughter. A source, who is a close friend of the victim, said the APC chairman and his daughter were kidnapped at the wee hours of Wednesday around 1.30am

The source, who did not want his name mentioned, said “the Vice-Chairman was kidnapped alongside his daughter in his house at Kwanar Zango along Zaria-Kaduna expressway.” He said their whereabouts remained unknown as the abductors had not established contact with the family or made any demand for ransom.

Meanwhile, the Police Public Relations Officer, Kaduna State Command, ASP Mohammed Jalige, could not be reached as his phone was switched off at the time of this report. Jalige did not also respond to a text message sent to him.

SOURCE: https://dailypost.ng/2020/05/14/apc-vice-chairman-daughter-kidnapped-in-kaduna/

With shops and factories closed nationwide due to the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all of the jobs created in the US economy in the last decade were wiped out in a single month.

An unprecedented 20.5 million jobs were destroyed in April in the world’s largest economy, driving the unemployment rate to 14.7% compared to 4.4% in March, the Labor Department said in its monthly report, the first to capture the impact of a full month of the lockdowns.

The United States is home to the world’s largest and deadliest coronavirus outbreak, with more than 75,000 fatalities and 1.2 million cases reported as of Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The economic damage has been swift and stunning.

In the two years of the global financial crisis, the world’s largest economy lost 8.6m jobs and the unemployment rate peaked at 10% in October 2009. During the recovery, from February 2010 to February 2020, 23m positions were created.

The plunge in nonfarm payroll employment last month was the largest ever recorded dating back to 1939, while the jobless rate saw its highest and biggest increase dating back to 1948, the report said. And job losses in March were worse than initially reported, falling 870,000 even though the business closures happened mostly in the second half of the month.

Employment fell sharply in all major industry sectors. Leisure and hospitality was the first sector hit and the one bearing the brunt of the impact of the lockdowns, and posted a loss of 7.7m jobs.

However, the Labor Department noted that some workers were misclassified in the report as employed when they should have been counted as laid off. Had they been listed properly, the unemployment rate would have been nearly five percentage points higher.

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/us-suffers-biggest-job-losses-in-history/

Saudi Arabia’s finance minister on Monday said the kingdom will triple its Value Added Tax and halt monthly handout payments to citizens in new austerity measures amid record low oil prices and a coronavirus-led economic slump. The measures, which could stir public resentment with the cost of living rising, come as the petro-state steps up emergency plans to slash government spending to deal with the twin economic blow.

“It has been decided the cost of living allowance will be halted from June 2020 and VAT will be raised from 5% to 15% from July 1,” Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said in a statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency. Jadaan insisted the measures were necessary to shore up state finances amid a “sharp decline” in oil revenue as the coronavirus pandemic saps global demand for crude.

The government was also “cancelling, extending or postponing” expenditures for some government agencies and cutting spending on major state projects introduced as part of an ambitious reform programme to diversify the oil-reliant economy, the minister added. Jadaan last week warned of “painful” and “drastic” steps to deal with the double shock of the novel coronavirus and record low oil prices.

Saudi Arabia, the top crude exporter and the Arab world’s biggest economy, has shut down cinemas and restaurants, halted flights, and suspended the year-round umrah pilgrimage in a bid to contain the deadly virus. Saudi Arabia, along with other Gulf states, imposed a 5% tax on goods and services in 2018 in a bid to generate additional revenue. The petro-state had also introduced handouts worth billions of dollars to citizens, known as the cost of living allowance, to cushion the impact of rising costs.

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/saudi-triples-vat-suspends-monthly-payment-to-citizens/

jlinkd78:
Prebandelism

Quite sure you meant prebendalism ( a noun which means a system of political patronage employment).

ORIGIN OF THE WORD PREBENDALISM
Richard A. Joseph, director of The Program of African Studies at Northwestern University, is usually credited with first using the term prebendalism to describe patron-client or neopatrimonialism in Nigeria. Since then the term has commonly been used in scholarly literature and textbooks. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines a prebend as the "right of member of chapter to his share in the revenues of a cathedral."

Joseph used the term to describe the sense of entitlement that many people in Nigeria feel they have to the revenues of the Nigerian state. Elected officials, government workers, and members of the ethnic and religious groups to which they belong feel they have a right to a share of government revenues.

Joseph wrote in 1996, "According to the theory of prebendalism, state offices are regarded as prebends that can be appropriated by officeholders, who use them to generate material benefits for themselves and their constituents and kin groups..."

As a result of that kind of patron-client or identity politics, Nigeria has regularly been one of the lowest ranked nations for political transparency by Transparency International in its Corruption Perceptions Index. Other results include the corruption investigations into the activities of 31 out of 36 Nigerian governors, the frequent comments in the Nigerian press about the problems of corruption and the common defenses of prebendalism as necessary for justice and equality in government funding

...https://www.definitions.net/definition/prebendalism

Operatives of Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps, on Monday 11 May, intercepted an IVECO truck loaded with 30 Hausa youths known as Almajirai. The spokesman for TRACE, Babatunde Akinbiyi, disclosed this in a statement.

Akinbiyi said the truck with registration number Kano XG172 KNG, loaded with assorted pepper, was covered with tarpaulin. He said the truck which was meant to carry only goods, was intercepted at Joju area of Sango in the Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of the state.

According to him, what the truck was conveying came to light when TRACE operatives forced the driver to park and untie the tarpaulin.

“The Almajirai were packed together with various types of pepper which filled the truck to the brim. The truck was turned back and led to the tollgate from where they said they came in.”

When asked where the truck was coming from and where it was heading, Akinbiyi said it was coming from the Lagos axis. He added, “But we don’t know their final destination before they were apprehended at Ota by eagle-eyed Divisional TRACE Command, Ota, Ajibade Adekunle.”

He explained that operatives with an unbranded vehicle followed the truck till it left the boundary of the state. He said, “Another team at the toll gate was awaiting them for easy passage, even though a TRACE team was in another unbranded vehicle following them from behind.”

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/agency-intercepts-truck-with-30-almajirai-in-ogun/

The All Progressives Congress has described the choice of Oyo and Osun state indigenes as Chairman and Secretary of the caretaker committee of the Ekiti State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, as an indictment on PDP members in the state. The South West Zonal Publicity Secretary of the APC, Karounwi Oladapo, said this in a statement on Monday 11th May.

Oladapo said, “The caretaker chairman is from Oyo State, while the caretaker secretary is from Osun State. The PDP national body could not find trusted and capable PDP figures in Ekiti to manage the party affairs in the interim in Ekiti State. This is very demeaning! Anyway, this is the worth of Ekiti PDP before the PDP national hierarchy.”

The National Working Committee of the PDP had constituted a 7-member caretaker committee to handle the affairs of the party following the expiration of the tenure of the PDP State Executive Committee on May 10 and inability of the party to conduct council and state congresses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It named a former Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate, Hosea Agboola, as chairman and Diran Odeyemi as secretary.

The APC spokesman, who was reacting to this development alleged that with this action, the PDP national body had handed over its party affairs in the state to outsiders. He based his conclusions on the fact that the caretaker chairman hails from Oyo State, while the secretary hails from Osun State.

Oladapo further said the Ekiti State chapter of the PDP had pushed “itself into a horrible hole.” He further said, “I will encourage those who can no longer stand the heat in Ekiti PDP to come over to APC. We will be happy to welcome you. We are very peaceful, organised and accommodating. The more, the merrier for us in APC.”

However, a former Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly who is also a member of the caretaker committee, Tunji Odeyemi, dismissed Oladapo’s comments as “pure personal opinion” noting that “Ekiti PDP has reliable, competent, capable and trusted hands.”

Odeyemi explained that the APC spokesperson was incapable of understanding the internal workings of the PDP. He said it was the tradition of the PDP to bring in neutral members from outside states to serve as chairman and secretary of caretaker committees, adding that, “In this situation to oversee the affairs of the party until a new executive committee is elected.”

The former speaker, said, “There is no way APC will ever be an alternative to the PDP. We know what is happening. People can compare between when PDP was in government and when APC is there now.

“People can compare the state of the economies then and now. People are not blind and deaf to the present hardship. We all saw what happened during the 2018 governorship primaries in Ekiti which produced Dr. Kayode Fayemi as candidate. APC can never be an alternative to PDP.”

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/apc-mocks-pdp-over-ekiti-caretaker-exco-composition/

Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation on Sunday said the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System had saved over N361bn for the Federal Government despite opposition and sabotage from some quarters.

Created in 2007, the IPPIS secretariat is a department under the OAGF responsible for payment of salaries and wages directly to government employees’ bank accounts with appropriate deductions and remittances of third-party payments such as taxes and health insurance.

There were reports that the April 2020 salaries of Nigerian Armed Forces personnel were delayed as a result of “incapability and inexperience” of the operators of the IPPIS. However, the OAGF refuted the reports in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja on Sunday.

The statement, signed by Director, Information, Press and Public Relations, Mr Henshaw Ogubike, said the delay was caused by the lockdown ordered by the Federal Government to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country. The lockdown “led to late submission of variations by the agencies concerned and the need to accommodate their input in the April payroll accordingly”, the OAGF said.

Faulting the reports, the statement said, “Suffice it to state that the staff of the OAGF and the IPPIS are competent professionals who have demonstrated the will and capacity to get the job done in line with the presidential directives, despite distractions and opposition from some quarters whose objective is to sabotage the government policy that has saved the nation over N361bn.”

The OAGF, in the statement, disclosed that the Federal Government had completed payment of the April 2020 salaries of Armed Forces personnel in the country. According to the statement, the IPPIS department in the OAGF confirmed that as of May 8, 2020, the Armed Forces personnel had been paid.

“According to the IPPIS office, the delay in the salary payment was due to the unexpected lockdown in the country. This explanation became necessary in view of a report which alleged that the April 2020 salaries of military and paramilitary personnel were delayed as a result of incapability and inexperience of the operators of the IPPIS.

“As mentioned in the report, officials of the IPPIS had given assurances that the salaries would be paid between 4th and 8th May. This was promptly carried out as noted earlier,” the statement said.

The OAGF claimed that the said report was a deliberate attempt to misinform and mislead the public with a view to achieving an unholy objective. “Such report has the potency to incite the Armed Forces and the general public against the operations of the IPPIS,” the statement said.

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/integrated-payment-system-saved-n361bn-despite-opposition-says-fg/

The police in Niger State recently apprehended Fatima Sani, 36, for stabbing her mother-in-law, Aishatu Umaru, 70, to death in the Mashegu Local Government Area of the state following a misunderstanding. Sani, who is pregnant, tells ENYIOHA OPARA her account of what happened

Q: How did the misunderstanding between you and your late mother-in-law start?
A: The misunderstanding started on the day I got married to her son, Sani Umaru, in March 2009. His mother did not hide her objection to her son’s marriage to me. Although my husband was madly in love with me, his mother swore never to allow the marriage to work. In fact, from the time my husband defied his mother’s threat not to marry me, there was no love lost between me and my mother-in-law.

Every small matter was easily amplified into a major issue, resulting in a quarrel and physical combat in many cases. She mounted pressure on her son to take another wife. She described me as a good-for-nothing woman so that her son would leave me for another woman. She even threatened to curse her son if he failed to end his union with me.

Q: How many children do you have?
A: I got married to my husband in 2009 and we have three children. I am six months pregnant now. I was living in peace with my husband’s two other wives. I am his last wife and his other wives accepted me and helped me when I came and that helped to move the family forward. All of us were happy as one family. But the greatest problem I had in my marriage was my mother-in-law, who did not want me in that family. My greatest joy was that my fellow wives were giving me support to deal with my mother-in-law’s hatred for me.

Q: Why did you stab her to death?
A: Since I came into that family, I had not known anything called peace; every day was spoilt by my mother-in-law’s trouble. There was nothing I did that pleased her so I decided to stab her to death so that the problem would be over.

What led to her death started when she accused me of calling my first son a bastard. I was shouting at my first son to go to Islamic school as he was almost late and the teacher would not tolerate that; even my mother-in-law was aware of it. She called my husband on the phone and said I was calling his son a bastard. Out of anger, my husband sent me out of the house without hearing from me and I went to stay in my father’s house for two months. During the period, I did not hear from my husband and I kept thinking about it every now and then.

My mother-in-law had a pathological hatred for me; she swore that my marriage to her son would not work. Even my parents had reported the matter to our village head, telling him to contact my husband to find out from him if he was no longer interested in the marriage so that he could divorce me and I would be able to move on with my life.

On April 23, 2020, around 3pm, something came upon me; I took a knife and went to her room. I saw her sleeping; she was on the bed with my third son, Naziro. I shifted my son away from her and stabbed her to death. It is unfortunate.

Q: What were the reactions of the other wives?
A: They knew that my mother-in-law never liked me and she instigated her son, Sani, to divorce me. They did not show much reaction because they knew what I had passed through in the name of marriage. In fact, they were sorry for me. For 11 years, I knew no peace in my marriage just because of somebody who did not want my marriage to succeed. It is too bad we have found ourselves in this society; may Allah help us.

Q: Did your husband eventually divorce you?
A: Despite what happened, my husband has refused to divorce me because he loves me a lot. He even ignored my family’s quest to end the marriage if he was not interested. He feels sorry that I am still in detention despite my condition (being pregnant). I know he is taking his time to sort things out at the appropriate time.

Q: Do you regret stabbing your mother-in-law to death?
A: Yes, I regret my action; I feel like killing myself. Irrespective of what had happened, I shouldn’t have done that. I know I have done something that even Allah will not forgive me for. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine myself committing such a wicked act. I didn’t believe that I could stab my mother-in-law over our misunderstandings. I pray the family finds it in their hearts to forgive me; it was done because of extreme provocation.

Q: Will you go back to your husband’s house if his family forgives you?
A: Of course I will because I have my children to look after. After all it has happened; all we have to do now is to find a way to move the family forward and pray to Allah to forgive everybody. It was a mistake; it can happen to anyone that is pushed to the wall like me.

Q: Do you know that you can be sentenced to death?
A: I know it is a murder case and I know the implications of what I did. The law can take its course. The truth is that my mother-in-law did not want me to have peace in my matrimonial home; Allah should settle everything and may Allah be praised. I am begging the state government to temper justice with mercy and consider my condition. When I deliver my baby, if she is a girl, I will name her after my mother-in-law. I will name her Aishatu; that was my mother-in-law’s name. It will show I’m remorseful.

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/ill-name-my-baby-after-my-mother-in-law-i-stabbed-to-death-pregnant-wife-who-killed-husbands-mum/

The most popular digital coin in the world, Bitcoin, recently broke the resistance level of $7500 after re-entering the bullish level above $7000. This development has made a lot of Nigerians inquisitive about how to invest in the Bitcoin market.

Just in case you are one of those contemplating this, it is imperative to learn how to keep your investment safe in this market. This is because thousands of Bitcoin investors have, over time, been defrauded of their hard-earned money around the world. The fraudsters use both old and new tactics to defraud their targets in schemes based on Bitcoins exchanged through online ledgers known as blockchain.

Have you been approached by an unqualified investment professional asking you to invest in the Bitcoin market, without doing any professional analysis about the Bitcoin market? Perhaps this unqualified investment professional asked you to invest without even without showing you evidence of his accomplishments?

Have you been receiving email messages about investing in bitcoin with the promise of too good to be true returns on your investment in a brief time? Have you ever been asked for your private Bitcoin wallet login details? If yes to any of these questions above, you might need to be incredibly careful. Bitcoin fraudsters use tactics such as:

1. AGGRESSIVE MARKETING
Aggressive marketing tactics are often used by Bitcoin criminals to make you invest your funds in their scheme without conducting enough due diligence about them, like checking if they are regulated in their respective jurisdictions for such services.

If you’re being pushed hard to invest your funds quickly via unsolicited emails, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, without carrying out due diligence about the company or fund you are investing in, be cautious; there is a high chance that you will end up losing your funds.

Recently, a hacker compromised multiple accounts of YouTube users to broadcast a video of Bill Gates talking about investing in a cryptocurrency fund. Details revealed that the hacker had taken an excerpt from the original speech and stratified it with details of a Ponzi scheme, deceiving individuals to invest in the scheme.

2. UNREALISTIC RETURNS
One of the most peculiar characteristics of financial scams is the promise of unrealistic high returns. An investment firm that promises you 100% returns within a brief period is a Ponzi scheme.

They use too-good-to-be-true tactics to lure victims into their Ponzi scheme nets. These financial criminals promise unrealistic returns to investors, returns never again seen (like the bull run of 2017) in the Bitcoin market.

3. IDENTITY THEFT
Recently, a bitcoin exchange known as Bisq found out that a hacker took advantage of a flaw found on its trading software and stole money directly from its users. These cryptocurrency thefts were executed when the attacker managed to compromise users’ accounts without their knowledge.

Using cold wallets or a proprietary smartphone is recommended. These are specifically designed tools to keep your bitcoin from falling into the hands of hackers on the internet.

Next time you are thinking of investing your funds in a bitcoin fund or firm, consider the promised returns versus the performance of the cryptocurrency market. A fund cannot promise 100% returns, while Bitcoin is only seeing 9% increases weekly.

SOURCE: https://nairametrics.com/2020/04/28/dear-nigerians-beware-of-bitcoin-fraudsters/

The Genesis ll Church of Health and Healing has come under fire in Australia for trying to sell a 'coronavirus cure' substance laced with industrial bleach that has already been banned in America. The church was slammed for trying to cash in on the coronavirus crisis by offering a “cure” to the disease – which is actually a deadly bleach substance.

The controversial church – which has been banned by YouTube, Facebook and Twitter since 2019 – is selling products laced with an industrial bleach called chlorine dioxide (also known as sodium chlorite when in powdered form).

It is selling the product called HCL-MMS1 in 140ml bottles for $32 Australian Dollars (£17 or NGN8,225) while their website show buyers how to mix and drink the product, suggesting it is a “water purification treatment”.
Australians are outraged that the products are available in their country after being banned in the USA.

The products have were banned in the USA after the FDA obtained an injunction last month to stop the sale of the “unapproved, unproven and potentially dangerous coronavirus (COVID-19) treatment product” in America.
Australia’s 7News reports that “the injunction noted that MMS was a chemical product which, when combined with the included activator, creates a powerful bleach solution.” If ingested, the product can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, severe dehydration, and even death.

With concern growing over the sale of the product in Australia, locals have blasted the Genesis ll Church as “morally bankrupt & deadly” online.

One Twitter user expressed outrage over the product being sold in Australia after it’s ban in America, tweeting: “Not here as well. Thick as s*** people being exploited by soulless, criminal scammers.”

Another tweeted: “I find this absolutely terrifying WTF is wrong with these people?”

While another tweeted about the dangers of using the poisonous product, writing: “Aside from the fact it will kill you, it doesn't actually cure f*** all... except for stupidity if you drink it and die.”

Australian academic, Professor Ken Harvey of Monash University’s Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, has petitioned the government to ban the sale of the product by launching a complaint with Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration. However, he fears action might not be swift, telling 7News: “The TGA is effectively impotent ... and it is being swamped with complaints about fake coronavirus treatments.” He also warned: “This is bleach and it’s dangerous.”

Use of bleach as a treatment for coronavirus has been in headlines since American President Donald Trump suggested investigating if injecting bleach could work as a cure. He said during a press conference last month: “I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? So it'd be interesting to check that."

SOURCE (abridged / updated): https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/church-slammed-over-coronavirus-miracle-21997728

With 4.1 million confirmed cases and 280,000 deaths worldwide as of this writing, the coronavirus pandemic has become a global tragedy unlike any in our lifetimes. But, as historians remind us, this is neither our first nor our most deadly war with an infectious disease.

A century ago, the flu epidemic of 1918 swept the globe, killing as many as 100 million people—5% of the world’s population—before social distancing helped curb its spread. In the early 1780s, smallpox ravaged the American West, ripping through indigenous communities with case fatality rates of 38% or higher and leading to the development of the world’s first vaccine less than two decades later.

Other outbreaks—from cholera in the 1830s to HIV-AIDS in the 1980s—brought xenophobia along with disease and revealed that fear and blame can distract from efforts to find a cure.

“Epidemics highlight the fault lines in our society,” says CU Boulder history Professor Elizabeth Fenn, a Pulitizer Prize winning writer, scholar of epidemics and author of Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82. “They reveal our weaknesses, but they also illuminate the profound kindness, generosity and cooperation we are capable of. We have a lot to learn from them.”

Here’s a look at some of those lessons:

1. LESSON No. 1: NAMES MATTER
Contrary to popular belief, the flu epidemic of 1918—commonly referred to as the Spanish flu—did not originate in Spain, but likely got its start at a military base in Fort Riley, Kansas. “It was designated the Spanish flu completely erroneously, only because Spain put out the first news accounts of it,” says CU Boulder history Professor Susan Kent, author of The Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919.

Spain was neutral at the time, she notes, so the country was free of the media blackouts that (in the spirit of wartime morale) prohibited warring countries like Germany, the United States and France from reporting on illness. Some scholars have since suggested that dubbing it the Spanish flu sent the inaccurate message that it was a distant threat, delaying steps to prevent it in the United States.

Similar themes resonate today, Kent notes, in the debate over terms like “Wuhan flu” and “Chinese flu” to describe coronavirus.

2. LESSON No. 2: SOCIAL DISTANCING WORKS
In 1918, as in 2020, travel swiftly spread the virus, with U.S. soldiers traveling to the East Coast and on to European battlefields and carrying it with them. “The reason it was so deadly and passed so quickly across the entire world was that it took place during wartime,” Kent says. “That’s not unlike this moment of massive globalization we are living in now.”

Without the luxury of today’s high-tech microscopes and genetic sequencing, researchers wrongly assumed it was bacterial, and efforts to treat it or vaccinate against it failed. With no other tools to rely on, towns ultimately closed schools, theaters and libraries. The National Hockey League called off the Stanley Cup. Military leaders quarantined troops, and public servants were urged to wear masks.

In all, 675,000 people died in the United States, more than died in World War II. But it could have been more.

“The only way to prevent its spread was to isolate people from one another. Some communities did that and fared well. Others did not and suffered high death rates,” says Kent. “That lesson for us now is crucial. If we don't learn from it, shame on us.”

3. LESSON No. 3: VIRUSES DON’T SPARE THE YOUNG
The influenza epidemic of 1918 was most likely to hit the young and healthy, felling people ages 15 to 45 with swift lethality. “They got sick so rapidly, some literally dropped in the streets,” Kent recalls, noting that their faces often turned bluish red due to lack of oxygen.

As it turned out, the patients’ own robust immune systems were part of the problem, unleashing a torrent of virus-fighting molecules called cytokines that latched on to lung tissue causing lethal damage.

While the demographics of coronavirus are very different—it’s hitting older populations and the immune-compromised the hardest—its behavior in the young and healthy is eerily similar to that of the virus a century ago. Recent news reports point to immune responses called “cytokine storms” as a likely cause of the collateral damage occurring in younger patients.

“Exactly the same thing occurred in 1918,” Kent notes. “Strong immune systems overwhelmed the other organs of the body, especially the lungs.” That realization is already sparking new ways of thinking about treatments for COVID-19.

4. LESSON No. 4: INOCULATION WORKS
During the smallpox epidemic that swept across North America from 1775 to 1782, Revolutionary War soldiers took an unusual approach to protecting themselves from the virus known as Variola major. In a process known as variolation (a.k.a. inoculation), they took virus-loaded material from an infected person’s smallpox pustule, carved an incision into the flesh of a healthy solder, and rubbed it in.

Recipients of variolation invariably got the disease, so were quarantined. About 5% died. But most got a mild version of the smallpox disease.

“There is no question that it worked,” says Fenn. “Assuming you lived through it, you would garner immunity and go about the world without worrying about smallpox.”

Years later, in 1796, Edward Jenner, who himself had been variolated as a child, would try a similar method, taking lesion material from a woman who had cowpox and rubbing it into the wound of an 8-year-old boy. When he later tried to infect the boy with smallpox, no disease developed.

The concept of vaccination—named after the Latin word for cow, or vacca, was born. Fast forward to today, and variolation has come full circle, as researchers explore the idea of using “convalescent plasma” (survivor blood believed to contain antibodies to COVID-19) as a treatment.

5. LESSON No. 5: DON’T BLAME THE SICK
With the spread of coronavirus has come a wave of anti-Asian backlash in cities across the globe, driven in part by the fact that the illness emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan and swept through the Chinese population first.

That’s nothing new, says Fenn. “We are very prone to blaming the people who get sick,” she says. “It’s happened over and over throughout history.”

During the cholera epidemics that hit from the 1830s to 1860s, white protestants shunned Irish immigrants as vectors of the scourge. In the 1950s, as polio swept the nation, African Americans and the poor were targeted. In the 1980s, blame was placed on the LGBTQ community for spreading HIV-AIDS.

“While people dithered around blaming (HIV-AIDS) on gay lifestyles or nightclub dancing, precious years of looking for pathogens were lost,” Fenn says. In contrast, Fenn notes, the World Health Organization in 1980 announced that smallpox was officially the first and only human infectious disease to be eradicated. How was that accomplished? Through collaboration.

“Today, we can learn and act upon the fact that global cooperation and sharing of knowledge will help us deal with these outbreaks, or we can shut ourselves away and insist on going it alone,” says Kent.

6. LESSON No. 6: THIS CAN END
As horrific as coronavirus is, Kent does not believe its death toll will reach the meteoric levels of the flu epidemic of 1918. Our public health systems, scientific tools and medical supplies (albeit in short supply) are far better.

In comparison to past pandemics, we also have a head start in tackling this one, adds Fenn. “This is the first pandemic of this scope where we have known what the pathogen is from the very start.”

The coming months will no doubt be painful, but with social distancing in place, herd immunity building and collaborative work underway to develop treatments and a vaccine, Fenn and Kent are hopeful.

Now, all we need is time. Says Fenn: “I would suggest that this is a time for us to pay attention and learn what this illness reveals about us, so we can take that knowledge forward.”

SOURCE (updated): https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/04/08/6-lessons-we-can-learn-past-pandemics

In the early hours of May 7, 1945, representatives from the Allied high command accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, marking the end of World War II in Europe. The following day, nations around the continent and the world celebrated the victory and the beginning of hard-won peace after years of war and hardship.

Since then, Victory in Europe Day, or VE Day has been celebrated and commemorated each year on May 8, with 2020 marking the 75th anniversary of the end of hostilities in Europe.

WHAT DOES VE DAY STAND FOR?
Victory in Europe Day was named to signify the end of combat operations in Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, Greece, the Balkan states and elsewhere on the continent during World War II. In the aftermath of Adolf Hitler's suicide on April 30, 1945, and the fall of Berlin on May 2, the end of the war was in sight. For this reason, celebrations to coincide with the expected imminent surrender of Nazi Germany had been planned for some time.

U.K. government cabinet minutes dated April 9, now held in the The National Archives of the country, refer to Prime Minister Winston Churchill's wish for the day of these festivities to be known as "VE Day." However, the date does not mark the official end of World War II, as Imperial Japan did not surrender until Aug. 15, 1945. This date would become known as Victory over Japan Day (VJ Day) or Victory in the Pacific Day.

EXACTLY WHEN WAS VE DAY?
At 2:41 a.m. local time on May 7, 1945, the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force (S.H.A.E.F.), led by future U.S. President Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower, received the Nazi government's unconditional surrender in Reims, France. The second clause of the surrender document (now kept in The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) ordered "all forces under German command to cease active operations at 23:01 hours Central European time, on 8 May." This set the official date for VE Day.

According to Martin Gilbert's book "Winston S. Churchill: Road to Victory, 1941–1945" (RosettaBooks, 2015), Gen. Alfred Jodl signed this Act of Military Surrender on behalf of the Nazi regime; Gen. Walter Bedell Smith represented S.H.A.E.F.; and Maj. Gen. Ivan Susloparov signed on behalf of the Soviet Union.

At the time, Susloparov had not received approval from his superiors, but he ratified the agreement anyway. However, the Soviet authorities in Moscow did not accept the surrender document. Stalin responded angrily to the news of the surrender, asking (in reference to Susloparov): "Who the hell is this famous Russian general? He will be punished harshly," according to journalist and historian Michael Dobbs' book "Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman—From World War to Cold War" (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).

Stalin demanded changes to the original treaty and insisted that a second ceremony be held in Berlin, with the Soviet Union represented by its foremost commander, Marshal Georgy Zhukov. This second surrender ceremony took place on the night of May 8, 1945 in the Karlshorst district, Berlin. The event was chaired by Zhukov, with Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel representing German forces and Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder standing in for S.H.A.E.F. News of the surrender was announced in Moscow on May 9.

HOW WAS VE DAY CELEBRATED?
Although S.H.A.E.F. had placed a strict embargo on reports of the surrender, the news was soon leaked and quickly spread around the world. Although this resulted in spontaneous celebration and parties, it was also received with grim reflection on the terrible cost of the war.

By 1945, Britain had struggled through six years of gruelling wartime rations and Nazi bombs, meaning many Brits were keen to relax and celebrate the long-awaited victory. The "Allied Victory had been inevitable for some time. The last few months of the war for British Civilians were exhausting," said historian and World War II expert Peter Caddick-Adams.

"For the previous 9 months, the Germans had been launching V1 and V2 rockets on London and the Southeast with lethal effect," Caddick-Adams told All About History. "Elsewhere, rationing and shortages added to people's woes, and there was a sense of war-fatigue on the one hand and a growing awareness of the horrors that had been perpetrated in Nazi-occupied Europe. With public morale at a low point, it seemed imperative that VE Day should not pass without some sort of national event."

In May 1945, the U.S. was still mourning the loss of President Roosevelt, who had died after suffering a stroke less than a month earlier on April 12. As part of the 30-day mourning period, Roosevelt's successor Harry Truman ordered that American flags around the country should remain at half-mast, and he dedicated the first VE Day to Roosevelt. The event also coincided with Truman's 61st birthday — he would later state that the victory made it one of his most enjoyable.

New York City in particular became packed with crowds of people wanting to join in the celebrations. According to the Imperial War Museums, 15,000 police officers were mobilized to one massive gathering in Times Square. Frank S. Adams, reporting for The New York Times wrote that the Times Square crowd numbered around 500,000 people, and celebrated with "the turbulent enthusiasm of New Year's Eve and Election Night rolled into one!"

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN VE DAY AND VICTORY DAY
In the Soviet Union, VE Day was instead known as Victory Day. It was first celebrated on May 9, when the second surrender in Berlin was announced. Because of the 2-hour time difference between Berlin and Moscow, the surrender took place during the early hours of May 9, though it had commenced on May 8.

Because two separate surrender ceremonies took place, Britain, the U.S. and most of Western Europe continue to mark VE Day on May 8, while the Russian Federation and many nations in Eastern Europe commemorate Victory Day on May 9.

On June 24, 1945, a grand Victory Day Parade was held in Red Square, Moscow, to honor the victory, with Stalin and Zhukov presiding. The spectacle also featured 200 captured Nazi banners, which were "piled up against the wall of the Kremlin," wrote historian Geoffrey Roberts in his book "Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov" (Icon Books, 2012). In 1995, another grand parade was held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Victory Day.

Events marking the 75th anniversary of Victory Day in 2020 were delayed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, The Moscow Times reported. Similarly, official U.K. plans to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day in 2020 were canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

SOURCE: https://www.livescience.com/ve-day.html

Super Eagles defender, Ola Aina, admits his slim chances at getting a call-up into the English national team, Three Lions, prompted him to switch to Nigeria. Aina is one of the few foreign players of Nigerian descent to commit their international future to the West African nation.

“England was never going to give me a chance to play for the senior team, that’s the difference. Nigeria gave me the pathway to play for their senior team,” Aina said in an Instagram Live chat with the Super Eagles Media Team. “I probably would have made it there at some point but Nigeria told me I can make it here now, it was a no-brainer.”

Another foreign import to switch international allegiance to Nigeria is Liverpool-owned midfielder Ovie Ejaria, who was born in London like the former Chelsea player. Ejaria’s switch seems to have Aina’s blessing.

“Yes, if you have the roots and from Nigeria, you should be welcomed to play for Nigeria, no one should feel like they are pushed aside.”

The defender picked Villarreal winger Samuel Chukwueze as his most difficult opponent in the Super Eagles training sessions. “I would say Samuel Chukwueze, he is a tricky player even in training, he is business-minded.”

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/aina-why-i-dumped-england-for-nigeria/

In the midst of a global pandemic, conspiracy theorists have found yet another way to spread dangerous disinformation and misinformation about COVID-19, sowing seeds of doubts about its severity and denying the very existence of the pandemic.

Since March 28, conspiracy theorists — "coronavirus deniers" — have been using the hashtag #FilmYourHospital to encourage people to visit local hospitals to take pictures and videos to prove that the COVID-19 pandemic is an elaborate hoax.

The premise for this conspiracy theory rests on the baseless assumption that if hospital parking lots and waiting rooms are empty then the pandemic must not be real or is not as severe as reported by health authorities and the media.

NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS
Of course, there is a simple explanation for why some hospital parking lots and waiting rooms might have been empty. As part of pandemic planning, many hospitals have banned visitors and doctors have had to postpone or cancel elective and non-urgent procedures to free up medical staff and resources. This is in keeping with expert advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health authorities.

In addition, to slow the spread of the virus and prevent cross infections with non-COVID-19 patients, the CDC also recommended that health-care facilities create separate intake and waiting areas for coronavirus patients and reserve emergency areas for emergencies such as heart attacks and broken arms. Furthermore, with the lockdown, fewer people are exerting and hurting themselves, which has resulted in fewer visits to the emergency department for heart attacks and strokes.

This empty-hospital conspiracy theory joins a parade of false, unproven and misleading claims about the virus that have been making the rounds on social media including allegations that 5G wireless technology somehow plays a role in the spread of the COVID-19 virus, or consuming silver particles or drinking water with lemon prevents or cures you of the virus. None of these are true.

HASHTAG THEORIES
At the Ryerson University Social Media Lab, some of our research investigates how misinformation propagates across different social media platforms. One of the first steps when examining trending topics on social media is to look for signs of social bots — social media accounts designed to act on Twitter and other platforms with some level of autonomy — and coordinated inauthentic behaviour that may include coordinated activities that attempt to artificially manipulate conversations to make them appear more popular than they are.

These two forms of social manipulation, when left unchecked, can skew the conversation, manufacture anger where there is none, suppress opposition or dampen debate. These tactics may undermine our ability as citizens to make decisions and reach consensus as a society.

This new conspiracy campaign against the media and public health officials, with hospitals and medical staff caught in the middle, started on March 28 with a simple tweet by a Twitter user posing a question: "#FilmYourHospital Can this become a thing?"

SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSIS
For our analysis, we collected a sample dataset consisting of nearly 100,000 #FilmYourHospital public tweets and retweets posted by 43,000 public accounts on Twitter from March 28, the beginning of this campaign, until April 9.

Our analysis suggests that while the #FilmYourHospital campaign on Twitter is full of misleading and false COVID-19 claims, most of the active and influential accounts behind it don't appear to be automated. However, we did find signs of ad hoc co-ordination among conservative internet personalities and far-right groups attempting to take a baseless conspiracy theory and turn it into a weapon against their political opponents.

Importantly, we found that while much of the content came from users with limited reach, the oxygen that fuelled this conspiracy in its early days came from just a handful of prominent conservative politicians and far right political activists like @DeAnna4Congress, @realcandaceo and @DonnaWR8. These power users employed the #FilmYourHospital hashtag to build awareness about the campaign and to encourage their followers to film what's happening in their local hospitals. After the initial boost by a few prominent accounts, the campaign was mostly sustained by pro-Trump supporters, followed by a secondary wave of propagation outside the U.S.

HEIGHTENED AWARENESS
In normal times, outlandish conspiracies like this might make us shake our heads, but as COVID-19 cases continue to fill beds in hospitals, it is harder to ignore such upsetting conspiracies from the dark recesses of the internet.

The rise of this conspiracy from a single tweet reminds us that while the spread of misinformation can be mitigated by fact-checking and directing people to credible sources of information from public health agencies, false and misleading claims that are driven by politics and supported by strong convictions and not science are much harder to root out.

SOURCE (abridged): https://www.livescience.com/conspiracy-theorists-claim-coronavirus-pandemic-hoax.html

A conspiracy theory claiming 5G can spread the coronavirus is making the rounds on social media. The myth supposedly gained traction when a Belgian doctor linked the "dangers" of 5G technology to the virus during an interview in January. Facebook group Stop5G Australia (with more than 31,700 members) has various posts linking the disease's spread to 5G technology.

Peddling such misinformation is not only wrong, it's destructive. The Guardian reported that at least 20 mobile phone masts across the UK have been torched or otherwise vandalized. Mobile network representative MobileUK published an open letter stating:

"We have experienced cases of vandals setting fire to mobile masts, disrupting critical infrastructure and spreading false information suggesting a connection between 5G and the COVID-19 pandemic."

Many outlets and people have rushed to debunk this myth. But myriad groups and public figures continue to perpetuate it. Actor Woody Harrelson and singer Keri Hilson have both shared content with fans suggesting a link between 5G and COVID-19.

HOW 5G RADIO SIGNALS (RADIATION) WORK
The difference between 5G and previous generations of mobile services (4G, 3G) is that the latter use lower radio frequencies (below the 6 gigahertz range), whereas 5G uses frequencies in the 30–300 gigahertz range.

In the 30-300 gigahertz range, there's not enough energy to break chemical bonds or remove electrons when in contact with human tissue. Thus, this range is referred to as "non-ionising" electromagnetic radiation.

Radiation can come into contact with the skin, for example, when we put a 5G mobile to our ear to make a call. This is when we're most exposed to non-ionising radiation. But this exposure is well below the recommended safety level. 5G radiation can't penetrate skin, or allow a virus to penetrate skin. There is no evidence 5G radio frequencies cause or exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus.

Also, the protein shell of the virus is incapable of hijacking 5G radio signals. This is because radiation and viruses exist in different forms that do not interact. One is a biological phenomenon and the other exists on the electromagnetic spectrum.

5G radio waves are called millimeter waves, because their wavelength is measured in millimeters. Because these waves are short, 5G cell towers need to be relatively close together - about 250 meters apart. They are organized as a collection of small cells (a cell is an area covered by radio signals).

For 5G to cover a larger geographic area, more base stations are needed in comparison to 4G. This increase in the number of base stations, and their proximity to humans, is one factor that may stir unfounded fears about 5G's potential health impacts.

HOW THE CORONAVIRUS SPREADS
COVID-19 spreads through small droplets released from the nose or mouth of an infected person when they cough, spit, sneeze, talk or exhale. Transmission occurs when the droplets come into contact with the nose, eyes or mouth of a healthy person.

So if an infectious person speaks through a phone held near their mouth, enough infectious droplets may land on its surface to make it capable of spreading the virus. This is why it's not advisable to share mobiles during a pandemic. You should also regularly disinfect your mobile.

WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE THE HOAX?
To many of us, it's obvious a human virus can't spread via radio signals, and such a conspiracy may be linked to a wider distrust of the government in general. Addressing this myth is critical as property is now being damaged, and individuals attacked. Physical and verbal threats to broadband engineers can be added to a long list of assaults on health workers.

At a time when millions are relying on fast internet to work and study from home, vital telecommunications infrastructure is at risk of being destroyed. Conspiracy theories have motivated arson attacks on 5G towers in Belfast, Liverpool and Birmingham.

Youtube has announced it will devote resources to removing content linking 5G technology to COVID-19. The announcement came after fingers were pointed at one video, published on March 18 (and viewed more than 668,000 times), in which an American doctor claims incorrectly that Africa is less affected by COVID-19 because it's not a 5G region. The video remained online at the time of publishing this article.

SOURCE (abridged): https://www.livescience.com/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-debunked.html

Hamda Ambah, Managing Director/CEO of FSDH Merchant Bank, is one of the leading women playing in the Nigerian financial services sector.

In the new era, FSDH Merchant Bank Limited was one of the first companies to be granted a merchant banking license in the country. Over the years, FSDH Merchant Bank has become a financial services supermarket that delivers expert financial services within Nigeria and to select clientele, in order to create long term sustainable wealth.

A strong voice in Corporate Nigeria and the wider economic space, Hamda became the CEO of the bank in February 2017 having previously served effectively as an Executive Director from September 2009 to January 2017. Since February 1, 2017, when she mounted the saddle as the head honcho, the story of her bank has been that of total transformation and ground-breaking achievements that speak to her quality as a corporate titan in a male-dominated sector.

Ambah is a well-grounded banker who has mastery of her craft. Before her current status, she was in charge of the bank’s marketing teams including corporates, multinationals, middle-tier corporations, telecommunications and the energy sector as well as the Port Harcourt and Abuja Regional offices.

Under her leadership, FSDH has continued to post impressive results and attain local and international recognition. In 2017 and 2019, the London Stock Exchange named the bank ‘Company to Inspire Africa’ because of its meteoric rise in the firmament of merchant banks across the continent.

Despite the general repressed economy of Nigeria since 2015, FSDH posted N3.86bn profit after tax in 2017 and grew profitability after tax by more than 70% in 2018 with N5.18bn. While providing cutting-edge financial solutions to businesses across diverse sectors of the economy, FSDH supports clients and ensures success through tailored services that meet their aspirations.

Ambah graduated from the University of Lagos in 1980 and proceeded to the Imperial College of Science & Technology, London for her Postgraduate qualifications. Before joining FSDH Merchant Bank in 1993, Hamda was at Reuters Ltd Nigeria where she served as a Senior Executive for about 5 years and was solely responsible for the Nigerian sales accounts. Prior to this, she worked at the International Merchant Bank Plc, Lagos, Nigeria after joining the company in December 1982. She is a member of the Nigerian Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers and was the recipient of the1999 IBTC award for the best examination candidate in Corporate Finance.

For Hamda, because there are various financial institutions that are created to deliver services to their clients, there is the need for FSDH to distinguish themselves. For her, it is about integrity. “What sets us apart is the focus that we put on integrity and for us, integrity is not just about ‘not stealing’ (obviously integrity precludes us from stealing), it is also about being truthful to the client and putting the client first.” She said.

By putting her clients first, she means “If the clients ask for our advice on transactions which we consider not to be in their interest to do, even though there’s an opportunity to do something that can make us a lot of money at that time, we will tell them not to do the transactions. We may be a small firm, but we value relationships.”

According to her, their customer outlook is fostering a relationship that will be retained for years, so they don’t have to try and collect every kobo today. “If the relationship lasts, the value of a long term relationship will always be much more than a transactional relationship. So for me, it’s important for our client to trust us. In our environment, trust doesn’t come naturally, because people and situations will test you”, Ambah said.

SOURCE: https://businessday.ng/women-hub/article/women-in-business-hamda-ambah/

A German soccer player has resurfaced 4 years after being declared dead in a car crash. Hiannick Kamba, a former defender for FC Schalke 04 and VfB Hüls, has reportedly returned to Germany and taken up his old job as a chemical technician after a 2016 wreck in his native Democratic Republic of Congo.

Authorities are investigating his wife for forgery/fraud, for allegedly fabricating his death certificate and using it to claim his life insurance policy. She received more than a million dollars.

Whether Kamba was party to the alleged scam is unknown, and he told investigators that the people he was with the night of the accident stole his papers, money, and phone.

SOURCE: https://www.thedailybeast.com/german-soccer-player-hiannick-kamba-reappears-four-years-after-his-wife-said-he-died-in-a-car-wreck

EFE UKALA, the institutional investor adviser on globally relevant matters

Efe Ukala is the founder of ImpactHER, an impact driven organisation that focuses on bridging the financing gap for women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa. The organisation achieves its mission by helping African women business owners to access institutional capital for their business, scale their businesses while also helping them tackle business operational challenges, access new markets through the use of technology, and become investor-ready.

ImpactHER has trained over 5000 African female entrepreneurs in 43 African countries, on a pro bono basis, on how to run successful businesses and become investor-ready. ImpactHER’s intervention has launched hundreds of African female-led businesses online, helped African women supply their products to U.S. vendors, and given African female-led SMEs access to over $1billion in institutional capital.

Ukala is also an experienced investment/private equity lawyer and has extensive experience in private and public investments arising out of frontier markets, inclusive of Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Rwanda. She has advised on investment worth over $15 billion in the U.S. market and over $300 million directed into Sub Saharan Africa. Previously, she served as lead counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at a private equity firm focused on investing into Sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, she serves as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at JP Morgan where she advises institutional investors. Additionally, Efe served as the 41st Vice President of the Association of Black Women Attorneys NYC.

Efe received her A.B. from the University of Chicago where she was a Jeff Metcalf Fellow and her J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law. Efe is a member of the New York State and New Jersey State Bars. She was an elected member of Board of the University of Chicago Black Alumni Association.

She is an advocate for financial inclusion for African women and the prosperity of Africa, having been featured in Forbes and spoken at Harvard Business School, the United Nations, Columbia Business School, Cornell University Business School on issues relating to Africa.

MY STORY
As the first child of 4 children and a product of the federal government secondary boarding school system in Nigeria, I learned from an early age the importance of leadership, independence, and hard work. Attending a federal government secondary school in Nigeria allowed me to appreciate independence from an early age and at the same time made me aware of the huge income gap in Nigeria.

From my observation, I had a choice to be average or to work hard to be above average and hope that with a little sprinkle of luck, I would be successful. At about 14 years old, I choose the later. I remember from time to time, my Dad would say, “has hard work ever killed anyone?” I grew up having this phrase as a backdrop each day. I was so inspired to be the best that I could be – throughout my schooling and during my career. With this attitude, no task was too mundane or too intimidating for me.

In fact, I remember as a younger lawyer in New York, I would walk into an office and would realize the office was a bit dusty. I would literally pick up the cleaning spray and a rag, wipe the office down and then attempt to start the day’s task which is usually comprised of a list that I had written the previous day. My use of the word “attempt” is not accidental because once I took my seat to start working on the task list I had made from the previous day; I would quickly realize that other work emergencies had emerged that I would have to help the C-suite resolve.

I would then spend the whole day trying to resolve such issues and would only be able to get to my tasks of the day at about 5 – 6pm. I would often joke that this is when my work day actually started, from 8:30am to about 6pm was my “pre-work” hours – I was just warming up for the work day. I would then proceed to working through my task list from about 6pm to anytime between 1am and 3am. And yes, the next day, I’ll be in the office before 9am. I remain grateful for that opportunity, it allowed me to prove myself, test my limits and while doing what I love to do – lawyering. I, however, do not think I would have been able to be successful at that job without the skills that my parents had instilled in me – humility, hard work, and leadership.

Q: How are you bridging the financial gap for women SMEs in Africa?
A: Through my non-profit, ImpactHER, African women SME owners are given access to finance that they need to grow their business. The women are trained on how to build the best businesses possible – for example, a Nigerian woman that attended our training testified to having her business turnover increase by 40% within a few months of working with us. The women that successfully build the recommended infrastructure are then further trained to be investor ready and then connected to investor or debt financing partners.

We have observed that some women shy away from equity and would rather raise debt. In addition, we also convert non-technologically enabled SMEs to tech-enabled SMEs, thereby, giving female SME owners access to new markets by leveraging technology. ImpactHER also ensures that these women are not working in a vacuum through programs specifically designed to cure the problem.

Q: How are you able to train over 5,000 African women entrepreneurs in 43 countries?
A: Networks and technology. Given my experience in structuring investment deals around Africa, in over 15 countries, I have been lucky enough to plant deep roots and develop relationships on the continent. As such, we are able to leverage our deep networks and align with people that are equally keen about the prosperity of Africa. We train women on a monthly basis and consistently seek ways to improve our training offerings.

Q: Over $1bn in institutional capital…how are you able to do this?
A: In the entrepreneurship and investment space, the importance of network cannot be overemphasized. We have been lucky to connect investors to our trainees that are among the best on the continent and have large assets under management.

Q: Did you always want to be a Lawyer? Share on your passion for being an investment/private equity lawyer
A: Observing my father and my innate desire to use my voice as a tool to champion causes for the well-being of others has always been my thing. As a young girl, I observed my Dad advocate for the human rights of a particular client, an individual who many would shy away from advocating for under the circumstances. This observation changed my outlook on life and thought me the importance of one’s voice. I am extremely grateful for that experience as it made choosing a career an easy one for me.

After I started practicing Law in New York, I felt Africa was calling me [laughs]. I was deeply interested in how I could contribute to Africa’s success story. I quickly developed a keen interest in the investment space, particularly as it relates to Africa. I then became very intentional about seeking opportunities that would allow me to combine my legal skills with this interest. This later on translated into real opportunities and allowed me to structure deals across several African countries from Zimbabwe to Kenya and in both private companies and publicly listed companies. I have enjoyed every bit of it.

Q: Advising on investment of over 15billion dollars in the US and over 300 million in Sub Saharan Africa
A: It’s been an interesting experience as every deal presents an opportunity for you to hone your skills and think creatively. Also, the investment space also allows you to consistently improve your critical thinking skills given that no two deals are always exactly the same and you have the opportunity to work on deals simultaneously on a daily basis.

Q: On being Assistant General Counsel and Vice President at JP Morgan
A: It’s been an amazing experience and a great opportunity to work with such a group of talented and diverse individuals. The job presents an opportunity of constant learning and working on interesting deals. It presents the opportunity to work on the most complex and sophisticated deals. As such, it keeps me on my feet.

SOURCE: https://businessday.ng/women-hub/article/efe-ukala-the-institutional-investor-adviser-on-globally-relevant-matters/

Reno Omokri, a former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed concern over the death of three Northern Emirs within 6 days.

Borno’s first class monarch, Shehu of Bama, Alhaji Kyari Ibrahim El-Kanemi died on Monday afternoon at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH). His death was followed by that of Emir of Rano, who passed on yesterday and the Emir of Kaura Namoda, Ahmad Muhammad Asha, whose death was announced on Sunday.

Omokri, who served as presidential assistant on new media under Jonathan, expressed worry that many ordinary persons could be passing away on a daily basis, whose deaths were not being reported.

“Within a week, three major Northern emirs have died: Shehu of Barma, April 27 aged 63, Emir of Rano, May 2 aged 74 and Emir of Kaura Namoda, May 3, aged 71. If prominent people are dying like this, what is happening amongst the talakawas? What is going on?” He tweeted.

Another Emir, Ahmad Muhammad Asha is dead

SOURCE: https://dailypost.ng/2020/05/04/covid-19-jonathans-ex-aide-reacts-as-3-northern-emirs-die-within-6-days/

THIS JAPANESE ISLAND LIFTED ITS CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN TOO SOON AND BECAME A WARNING TO THE WORLD

Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido offers a grim lesson in the next phase of the battle against COVID-19. It acted quickly and contained an early outbreak of the coronavirus with a 3-week lockdown. But, when the governor lifted restrictions, a second wave of infections hit even harder; 26 days later, the island was forced back into lockdown.

A doctor who helped coordinate the government response says he wishes they’d done things differently. “Now I regret it, we should not have lifted the first state of emergency,” Dr. Kiyoshi Nagase, chairman of the Hokkaido Medical Association, tells TIME.

Hokkaido’s story is a sobering reality check for leaders across the world as they consider easing coronavirus lockdowns: Experts say restrictions were lifted too quickly and too soon because of pressure from local businesses, coupled with a false sense of security in its declining infection rate.

“Hokkaido shows, for example, that what’s happening in the U.S. with individual governors opening up is very dangerous; of course you can’t close interstate traffic but you need to put controls in place,” says Kazuto Suzuki, Vice Dean of International Politics at Hokkaido University. “That’s what we now know: Even if you control the first wave, you can’t relax.”

Dr. Bruce Aylward was part of the WHO's team that went to China after the coronavirus outbreak there in January. He has urged all nations to use times bought during lockdowns to do more testing and respond aggressively.

The Japanese prefecture of 5.3 million people, known for its rugged mountain beauty and long history of farming and fishing, was the first area of Japan to see a major coronavirus outbreak. It’s very different from Japan’s main island, Honshu, with its frenetic sprawling cities. And its response to COVID-19 has also been very different. Hokkaido’s leaders acted early and decisively, even as the national government was criticized for moving too slowly to stop the spread elsewhere.

Japan still has relatively few confirmed COVID-19 cases compared to other countries—12,400—but the numbers have more than doubled in the last two weeks, alarming international health officials.

EARLY ACTION
Hokkaido’s story starts Jan. 31, at the annual snow festival in the island’s capital city of Sapporo. More than 2 million people attended the wintry carnival, to marvel at giant ice sculptures and dine on crab hotpot. Many were Chinese tourists, on vacation for the Lunar New Year.

Around the start of the festival, Hokkaido doctors saw their first coronavirus patient, a woman from Wuhan, China. Then several more Chinese tourists fell ill and soon the virus was circulating in the general population.

On Feb. 28, exactly a month after the first case was reported, there were 66 cases, the highest of any prefecture in Japan, and infections were accelerating, so the governor declared a state of emergency. At a press conference at the time, Nagase praised the government’s fast response and said it could be a model for the country.

Schools closed, as did many restaurants and businesses, even though they weren’t legally compelled to shut. In Japan, the government can’t use police or military to enforce a lockdown, it can only ask—and in some cases beg—businesses to close. That’s in part because the country’s constitution, written after the Second World War with the help of the Americans, has strict protections for civil liberties in order to avoid a return to fascism.

Mostly though, people complied. “Hokkaido residents are pretty obedient, plus it’s cold that time of year, so people usually lock themselves inside with a hot water heater anyway,” said Yoshfumi Tokosumi, a former editor for the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper.

FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY
By mid-March, the health crisis was stabilizing—new cases were in the low single digits and even zero on some days—but complaints from businesses were increasing.

Hokkaido’s two main industries—agriculture and tourism—had been devastated. Farmers watched produce rot because restaurants and school lunch programs stopped buying it. An estimated 50 food processing companies went bankrupt. And Hokkaido’s dairy industry was hit so hard that the Ministry of Agriculture launched a video campaign featuring a ministry official dressed as a cow, to encourage people to drink more milk.

Similarly, tourism was decimated by travel restrictions and the state of emergency measures. In Kutchan, a resort area that gets more snow than almost anywhere else on Earth, skiers and other tourists vanished, says Mayor Kazushi Monji. “We’ve seen almost no new hotel reservations since the state of emergency was declared and the damage to small businesses has been severe.”

Rishiriya Minoya, a 30-year-old seaweed company in Otaru, saw sales drop 95% from last year. Owner Kazuomi Minoya, 50, who inherited the business from his father has struggled to keep it afloat with so few tourists and local shoppers. Across the island, bar owners, taxi drivers and restaurateurs recounted similar stories.

In March, Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki grappled with whether to maintain the lockdown and endure more economic pain, or lift it and risk the health consequences. Suzuki is a popular figure, with a nearly 90% approval rating. At 39, he’s the country’s youngest governor. He also has close ties to the national government, which enjoys strong support from the business sector and is responsive to pressure from it, says Suzuki, the international politics professor.

“Hokkaido’s business sector was opposed to the state of emergency, but the governor also wanted Hokkaido to be an example to the rest of Japan for how to control the virus,” says Aya Hasegawa, a reporter for the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper.

On March 18, Suzuki assembled his advisers and decided it was time to ease restrictions. Nagase, the doctor who helped coordinate the government’s response, says that at that time, officials had only a limited understanding of the virus and how quickly it could spread. “Hokkaido was the first big outbreak here, so we were really operating in the dark.” Without sufficient data, doctors based their recommendations on the idea that the coronavirus spread like influenza. Nagase says he now regrets not pushing for more testing from the beginning.

The next day, the governor announced he would lift the state of emergency, but asked residents to continue to restrict social interaction and stay home if they felt unwell. He also said Hokkaido would keep 34 government-run facilities closed, as well as many schools. He called it “The Hokkaido Model,” in which residents would work to prevent infection while still continuing social and economic activities.

2ND WAVE IS BIGGER THAN THE FIRST
The announcement lifting restrictions came just before a 3-day weekend; Hokkaido residents spilled onto streets and lingered in cafes, celebrating the conclusion of their weeks-long confinement. That likely kicked off the second wave of infections, says Nagase.

Further fueling it, people from other parts of Japan saw that Hokkaido had relaxed restrictions and began travelling there. Some were university students in big cities, who returned home to Hokkaido when classes were cancelled in April, says Nagase. Others were employees of large companies that typically start new job rotations at that time of year; when the state of emergency was lifted, businesses sent a fresh crop of workers from Tokyo and Osaka to Hokkaido.

That likely seeded even more infections and soon the second outbreak was in full bloom. By 9th April—exactly 3 weeks after the lockdown was lifted—there was a record number of new cases: 18 in one day. “Officials thought about people coming from overseas but never considered that domestic migration could bring the virus back,” said Hironori Sasada, professor of Japanese politics at Hokkaido University.

On April 14, Hokkaido was forced to announce a state of emergency for a second time. The island had 279 reported cases, an increase of about 80% from when the governor lifted the first lockdown less than a month before. As of Wednesday, there were 495 cases in Hokkaido.

Businesses are now preparing for the long haul. Tetsuya Fujiawara, CEO of Smile Sol, a group of 10 pub restaurants in Hokkaido, says even though sales are down 60%, he’d rather a strong, consistent lockdown than “lukewarm measures” that would only perpetuate the cycle of restrictions being lifted and then reinstated as infections resurge.

Nagase worries that Japan as a whole has not learned from Hokkaido’s mistakes, though. “I’m on the board of the Japan Medical Association and we’ve been pushing the central government for stronger national measures, but it comes back to the economy: because of the economic situation, it’s really hard to lock down in Japan.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did announce a state of emergency on April 7 for seven prefectures, but did not include Hokkaido. On April 16, he extended it nationwide, noting that the virus was spreading as people moved between prefectures. In early May, the country will celebrate one of its biggest holidays of the year, Golden Week, when people typically travel around the country on vacation. National officials have advised people to stay put and Suzuki, the Hokkaido governor, has warned against non-essential outings.

As for Nagase, the doctor involved in Hokkaido’s response, the hard lesson he and the prefecture have learned, he says, is that until there’s a vaccine or medicine, everyone has to take personal responsibility and understand that, “it really may not be until next year that we can safely lift these lockdowns.”

SOURCE: https://time.com/5826918/hokkaido-coronavirus-lockdown/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

A Nigerian lady, identified as Adetomisin, who was allegedly trafficked to Oman has cried out for rescue, saying she was tricked to the Arab country. The Ondo State indigene explained in a video that she was initially promised a job in the United States, but found herself in Oman.

This is happening a few days after another Nigerian lady, Busari Peace, was put for sale on Facebook for $1,000 by a Lebanese, Wael Jerro. She was subsequently rescued by the Nigerian Mission in Beirut, Lebanon. The PUNCH had also reported the plight of a 27-year-old lady, Adedeji Suliyat, who was trafficked to Oman and starved of food for three weeks.

In the video posted on Youtube, Adetomisin stated that on arrival in Oman, her passport and other personal items were confiscated, while she was dispatched to work as a domestic help and shop attendant for an Omani, who allegedly subjected her to all forms of abuse, including sexual harassment.

Adetomisin, who had spent over one year in captivity said, “After I finished my NCE programme, there was no job and I chose to travel. My agent said he would help me to secure a job in the United States but all of a sudden, everything changed and I was brought to Oman.

“When we got to Oman, two people came to pick us. They seized our passports and our phones. They took us to where we would work.”

Speaking in Yoruba, Adetomisin further stated, “For the first four months that I worked there, my boss didn’t pay my salary. He didn’t give me any money. When I called my agent, he said he had played his part and none of that was his problem anymore and he has stopped picking my calls ever since.”

When contacted on Sunday, the spokesman, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Ferdinand Nwonye, said the case had not been brought to his attention, adding that he would find out on Monday (today).

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/lady-trafficked-to-oman-seeks-rescue/

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has made a remittance of N7bn to the Federal Government, saying the amount is part of the excess funds generated in 2020, particularly from the March and April Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

The board said on Sunday that it made “an interim remittance of N3.5bn to the Federal Government’s consolidated account,” which was added to an initial N3.5bn raked in from the UTME candidates by way of the reduction of the cost of electronic PINs as approved by the Federal Government.

The JAMB Head of Media, Dr Fabian Benjamin, said in a statement that the Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, had directed that more remittances be done by the board and a “proper audit of JAMB books be carried out.”

Benjamin said, “From the outset, it has been the intention of the present leadership of the board to return whatever is left unutilised from its operational imperatives. The immediate benefit of the move manifested in the reduction by President Muhammadu Buhari of the UTME registration fee payable by candidates from N5,000 to N3,500.

“Before the reduction in the cost of application ePINs, the board had remitted over N7bn in 2017.”

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/jamb-remits-n7bn-to-fg-for-2020-utme/