👎🏽 Arson, murder and everything terrible
+ Lagos threatens Makoko, Naira notes confusion, soldiers murder kid.
Hi! It’s me!
Did I go on holiday? (No). Has my hair grown? (yes!). I know you’re curious about my life but enough questions! Let’s get into the pile of crap Nigeria has for us this week.
In this issue, I cover some notable things that happened while I was away, what’s happened this week and everything since the presidential elections last month.
Let’s get into it.
This week’s newsletter is 1,990 words (approx 7 min read)
What has happened since you last heard from me
The presidential elections - through “alleged” rigging and “possible” inflation of numbers, APC’s presidential candidate was declared the winner of the elections.
The Labour Party and PDP candidates disagree (they, and many other people) believe INEC (the *independent* election commission) changed the results in favour of the winner. They both filed a case against INEC to challenge Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s win at the Supreme Court.
What do they hope to achieve? They both want to prove that The election results were manipulated in Tinubu’s favour and that they would have one had the results not been manipulated.
What are their chances? I can’t say, but this isn’t Peter Obi’s first INEC vs candidate battle. He became the first person to debate and win an election result in 2006 when he sued INEC.
A Magistrate Court in Kano imprisoned the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Ado Doguwa, for alleged involvement in the murder of three members of his constituency. He's out on bail now, but not before INEC disqualified his reelection due to the allegations
A woman named Christy Garuba is seeking justice for her son’s murder. She says the police released the suspects arrested for her 11-year-old son's murder without investigating properly. Her son was found dead in a drum at a house in Asaba. She thinks the police let the suspects go too quickly and did not talk to everyone involved. Christy is worried that the police in Asaba isn’t taking her case seriously because of her social status. But the police say they are still investigating. They said they released the suspects because there was not enough evidence against them.
The Governorship candidate of the Labour Party in Lagos State, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour (GRV), confirmed talks of an alliance against the All Progressives Congress with the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state. But it seems they can’t agree on who should be the preferred frontman, so that alliance is not looking possible.
What’s happening now
Elections
Atiku Abubakar, the PDP presidential candidate in last month’s presidential elections, is convinced that he would have been declared winner had the election results not been altered. He is determined to force the *true* outcome out of INEC. So serious that he staged a protest at the INEC office in Abuja and demanded they cancel the elections and give the candidates a do-over
Atiku’s supporters (along with Labour Party’s team) noted that it's particularly dodgy that INEC did not upload all the results to the result viewing (IReV) portal in real-time as they promised repeatedly.
To investigate their case against INEC, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi’s lawyers requested access to the electoral materials to determine what was tampered with and how for their case against INEC. The Court of Appeal granted their request.
One of the materials –- the Biometric Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) — caused a roadblock: INEC needs the BIVAS for the governorship elections and according to them, they’d need to wipe their systems to reuse it
However, Obi’s Labour Party team and Atiku’s PDP guys are not for it. Their argument is that reconfiguring the BIVAS will compromise their investigations, so everything should be kept as is until they’re done.
So they went back to the Court of Appeal — INEC asking the court to allow them to reconfigure and PDP/LP asking the court to stop them.
This week, the court made its decision — INEC can reconfigure the BIVAS.
INEC claims that the verdict came too late for them to prep the materials for the governorship and house of reps elections, so they’ve had to postpone them from today to next week 18th of March.
If you think this means INEC isn’t taking the claims of rigging seriously, you are wrong. They just suspended the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Sokoto, Dr Nura Ali.
INEC hasn’t officially stated why they suspended him, but news outlets say it’s for allegations of irregularities in the election results from the state.
We’re back to naira notes drama
Last week the highest court in Nigeria, Supreme Court, said that it is okay to use old N200, N500 and N1000 banknotes as legal money until the 31st of December 2023. The court thinks that both the old and new money should coexist until then.
Since this ruling, President Buhari has said nothing about it. Buhari’s silence is particularly interesting because the last time the Supreme Court gave money-related instructions that contradicted his, he straight up told the country to ignore them (here I explain why Buhari’s veto is odd).
Some banks in Lagos have started issuing the old notes to customers at ATMs and over the counter, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty as most stores and sellers are waiting for Buhari’s response to the court’s decision.
Members of APC (not Buhari) say the Attorney-general of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and the governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele need to resign from their positions for “misguiding the president” on the decision to phase out old Naira notes.
Recall that the minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed, went as far as holding a press conference to publicly register her disapproval of the new naira notes.
In addition to this confusion, petrol is still a problem
Petrol has been a problem in Nigeria since October last year. Petrol queues started to ease recently, but this week they got worse. Notably in Abuja, Niger, and Nasarawa
The situation is made worse by the fact that the petrol stations belonging to major marketers have run out of stock.
Petrol price is also still a problem. Despite the instructions from the FG to sell at the regulated price, many petrol stations that have fuel are selling at ridiculously inflated prices.
Displacement
Another potential government-instigated Makoko community homelessness
Residents of Makoko waterfront community in Lagos have raised an alarm over a plan by the government to displace them from their homes.
They alleged that the government wants to sell the area they currently live in without proper plans to rehome them or even consulting them. Government contractors have been sand filling and dredging the literal ocean where Makoko is located.
Environmental activists and community leaders spoke out against the government's plan and called for the improvement of the residents' lives and environment instead of displacement.
The residents warned that they would resist any attempt to displace them and called for the dredging and sand filling to stop due to the danger of flooding during the rainy season.
Recall 2017 when Makoko residents were rendered homeless when arsonists and gunmen came to their community at 5 am and burnt their homes.
Rainstorm in Ondo
In Akure, the capital city of Ondo State, heavy rainstorms caused a lot of damage to people's properties and left many homeless.
The incident happened on Saturday evening and affected residents of Abiodun Aloba Street, off Ondo Road.
The rain started soft but grew increasingly worse and eventually started to blow off rooftops and property.
Many people have lost their belongings, including a woman whose medicine store's roof was blown off, and another whose only car was destroyed. They’re calling on the government to help create measures to protect them from vulnerability to potential disasters in the future
Two years ago, a snowstorm in Ondo killed a man and destroyed many homes
The government has not said anything about it
Terrorism
Terrorists surrender for fear of attack from another terrorist group
In the past week, more than 1,250 Boko Haram terrorists, their families and their captives surrendered to Nigerian troops in the northeast.
This came after rival terror group, ISWAP, attacked the Boko Haram hideout. The ambush resulted in over 200 deaths.
During the attack, ISWAP forced Boko Haram to flee their camps, and many surrendered due to fear of being killed by either the military or ISWAP.
Among those who “surrendered” (using that word loosely here) were women and children who had been enslaved or conscripted by Boko Haram.
The surrendered individuals (including the literal terrorists) will undergo profiling and rehabilitation. This is the largest wave of defections from Boko Haram since the death of its leader in May 2021.
Soldiers murdered a 15-year-old boy
A 15-year-old boy named Pelumi Sulaimon was allegedly shot dead by people identified as soldiers who were hired by political thugs to carry out a reprisal on their opponents in the community. The incident happened in Makoko.
Reports say Pelumi was on his way to buy drinks for his friends to celebrate his birthday when he was hit by a stray bullet.
A keke driver who was mistaken for one of their targets was also shot dead by the soldiers.
Pelumi's elder brother, Afeez, said he was with his friends when a resident told him that his brother had been shot by the soldiers. The case is being investigated by the State Criminal Investigation Department, and no suspect has been arrested yet.
Attacks in Benue
In Benue State, armed people suspected to be herdsmen have launched attacks on over 12 communities, killing 50 farmers and causing hundreds of people to flee their homes for fear of being killed.
The attackers burnt down many houses and barns.
The force commander of "Operation Whirl Stroke" division of the army held a meeting with traditional rulers to resolve the issues.
None of the attackers have been caught.
Possible arson in Lagos
A fire broke out at the Akere Spare Parts Market, in Apapa, Lagos. The police have confirmed that a security guard was shot dead during the fire.
The fire also destroyed goods worth millions of naira.
The fire started early in the morning and the fire department arrived quickly to try and put it out. The cause of the fire is not yet known and an investigation is ongoing. An investigation is also ongoing on the death of the man who was shot.
More terrible news
This week tragic accident occurred in Lagos, Nigeria when a train collided with a bus carrying staff members of Lagos State government. The collision killed eight staff members while leaving over 80 passengers injured.
The cause of the accident was reportedly reckless driving on the part of the bus driver, who attempted to beat the train traffic signal at a railway crossing.
Emergency rescuers were not present at the scene on time. People with cars carried the injured to the hospital before an ambulance arrived at the scene.
Families of victims thronged Lagos State University Teaching Hospital to catch a glimpse of the scene while hospital staff prevented them from reaching out to the victims.
The hospital staff said that some of the victims were in critical condition. The Lagos State government has called for blood donations across different state government medical facilities.
Railway District Manager, Lagos District, Augustin Arisa warned people not to stay on the track, as it is dangerous and they are intruders on the track.
Other news
After 35 days in captivity, Commissioner for Women Affairs in Cross River state, Prof. Gertrude Njar has been rescued by troops in Calabar - Vanguard
Security agents in Lagos are worried about an increase in crime around the Murtala Muhammed airport link bridge. The police say reduced patrols have made the situation worse. They’re urging victims to report stolen items so they can review their security plan and track down the criminals— they say they’re tracked down and recovered stolen items. – Guardian NG
The Nigerian Army has said it has commenced investigations into the incident of a soldier who killed his colleagues and himself at Forward Operations Base Rabbah, Sokoto State - Punch
A coalition of women groups led by Women’s Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) has given the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Usman Alkali Baba, a 14-day ultimatum to find one Baby Joseph, who they claimed is in the custody of a police officer, Samuel Ukpabio - Guardian NG