IYANDA'SBLOG

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
This breed of seal is facing extinction but conservationists in Finland are trying to save it.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
The Democratic front-runner solidifies his lead after heading for a win in the key state of Michigan.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Watch the massive disinfectant operation in a neighbourhood of Iran's capital.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
The ex-Vatican treasurer was jailed for sexually abusing two boys, but maintains his innocence.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
This year's event in April was set to be headlined by Rage Against The Machine and Frank Ocean.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Blasian - black and Asian - couples now exist in South Africa... but they don't always have an easy time.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
It can be fiendishly complex to measure the social and environmental effects of large-scale dams.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
A trove of confidential UK government documents was leaked online in the run-up to the last general election – but who’s to blame? We look at the evidence.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Dax was one of YouTube's first stars, but 13 years later, few people remember his name. Can a vlogging legend seize glory again?

Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, has appointed deposed Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, into the board of KADIPA, its investment promotion agency.

The appointment was announced through a statement.

The statement reads, “Mallam Nasir el-Rufai has appointed His Highness, Muhammad Sanusi II, into the board of KADIPA. 

"The appointment is part of the reconstitution of the board of KADIPA, which is statutorily chaired by the deputy governor and has as internal members senior officials of the Kaduna State Government.

"Governor el-Rufai hopes to benefit from the profile, experience, intellect and networks of His Highness, Muhammad Sanusi, who before becoming Emir, had built a solid reputation in global financial circles. 

"Mallam Nasir el-Rufai said that Kaduna State was honoured to be able to call on the services of a man of such calibre to drive its development.

“The governor also said that he was confident that the new board, which includes the most senior officers of the state, will further propel KADIPA to greater success in attracting investments to Kaduna State. 

"He disclosed that the external members had been carefully chosen to further reinforce the investment credentials of the state."

Sanusi would be Vice Chairman of the agency while Hadiza Balarabe will be the Chairperson.

 

Politics News AddThis :  Original Author :  SaharaReporters, New York Disable advertisements : 
https://ift.tt/336Awao

BusinessDay Media

 

Deposed Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has been moved from Loko in Nasarawa State where he was initially banished to and now taken to Awe also in the same state.

Head of Loko town, Abubakar Sabo, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Tuesday that Sanusi “has been relocated from my domain”.

He said, “The Emir of Kano left my domain around 1:40pm. 

"I don’t know where they have taken him to. They came with a helicopter and took him away. He has left.”

Kano State Executive Council approved the dethronement of Sanusi at a special sitting held on Monday.

Since coming on the throne, Sanusi, who rose to become governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank as a professional, has always spoken out against harmful traditions and practices in the North, often times drawing the ire of elites in the region.

The executive council headed by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano claimed that Sanusi was removed for displaying disregard for laid down rules.

Politics News AddThis :  Original Author :  SAharaReporters, New York Disable advertisements : 
https://ift.tt/2Dc8kso

Daily Trust

 

Members of Nigeria’s House of Representatives are making moves to stop the Academic Staff Union of Universities from embarking on any other strike in the near future.

To resolve the issue, the House of Representatives has summoned the leadership of ASUU, the Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Labour to find a solution to the strike action.

The lawmakers posited that strike actions by the union had the tendency of collapsing the economy of the country.

The lawmakers expressed fear that ASUU would embark on an indefinite strike if their agitations were not addressed.

In a motion of urgent public importance submitted at the floor by Dachung Bagos, the legislator urged the House to intervene in the ongoing strike action by the union.

He highlighted Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System as the major reason for the industrial action.

In his submission, Rimamnde Shawulu posited that education tourism drains the country’s forex and called for the development of public and private institutions to discourage the practice.

Politics News AddThis :  Original Author :  SAharaReporters, New York Disable advertisements : 
https://ift.tt/2Rasc28

 

The criminals that destroyed the North by deposing Emir Sanusi will soon turn their attention on Sultan Saad Abubakar of Sokoto and Shehu Abubakar El-Kanemi because they want to remove any voice of reason from the North, loot down the region and disappear into Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and US to enjoy their loots. The CUPP had last year raised alarm that there is a plan to depose Sultan of Sokoto and Emir of Kano for holding views contrary to that of the parties in power.

In December last year, I wrote a piece titled ‘Planned Deposition of Emir Sanusi; Foolishness of Northern Elites’ the next day, the Presidency set up a committee headed by Ex Maximum leader Abdulsalami Abubakar, Yakubu Gowon, Adamu Fika, Governor Fayemi among others to resolve the Ganduje, Sanusi feud.

In the second piece titled ‘Plot to Depose Sanusi; North Sheds Foolishness as Buhari, Abdulsalami, Gowon Intervenes’, I posited that, “The worst humiliation to the Emirate stool is the new law that when an emir wants to travel out of the state, he sends letter to the local government chairman, instead of the governor. Thus Emir Sanusi will have to take permission from a houseboy local government Chairman of Kano Metropolis before he can visit the Emir of Zazzau in Zaria.

"Soon the law will be extended to Sokoto and the Sultan will take permission from the Chairman of Sokoto Local Government Area before he can attend Argungu Festival in Kebbi Emirate jurisdiction. The Shehu of Borno will soon beg Maiduguri Local Government chairman before he can attend a state function in Abuja.

“Governor Ganduje has humiliated the north. He has desecrated the revered emirate mystique of northern Nigeria. This nuisance may continue until Almajiris turns Emirs to lap dogs. Babangida started it, Abacha joined in 1996, Obasanjo and Aliero took it to another level in 2005. These men are former Presidents. Now a Governor is threatening an emir as though he is a councillor. Soon a local government chairman will depose the Emir of Bauchi, and soon again road transport workers will banish an Emir of Daura. Ganduje is sowing the seeds and it will germinate very soon”

Now that the hawks have deposed Sanusi, I want to tell the north that the cycles of depositions have started. The Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar is next in line. The Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai Al-Amin El-Kanemi will be the next until they have turned Sultanate and Emirates to rags at the becks and callings of riff raff.

The criminal politicians that destroyed the North, looted the North, hoisted Boko Haram on the north, raped young girls in the name of child marriage and sent their impoverished fathers to Mecca for a gratuitous pilgrimage, have finally taken a big pound of flesh, sacked a most brilliant, most intellectual, most progressive Emir. They have tested an experiment and it walked successfully.

Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar should either shut his royal mouth up, and swallow every piece of shit from these criminal northern politicians or risk being thrown away. The Shehu Abubakar El-Kanemi should be sheepishly praising the government as Boko Haram invades Maidugeri, or be thrown away. It will come to a point where the troublesome leader of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Yerima Shettima will sack the Emir of Zazzau. It will degenerate to a point where MC Oloumo, leader of Lagos touts will influence the sack of the Sultan of Sokoto

It is very unfortunate that despite the interventions of Generals Abdulsalami, Gowom, Adamu Fika, Governor Fayemi among others, Ganduje still went on to depose Sanusi. Buhari gave a tacit approval to this heist when three weeks ago he pledged neutrality in the Sanusi-Ganduje feud. Where is the Father in Buhari.

I chided Igbo leaders when they were fooling away with Jonathan while infrastructural deficits engulfed the region. Today, Nnamdi Kanu of IPOB fame has turned them into rags. These people superintended over a 419 Second Niger Bridge and 419 Enugu International Airport and another 419 ‘Ebele is our brother’ mantra which kept the Igbo in infrastructural crisis when other regions are being developed with oil money.

Northern elites have shown that they were even more foolish than their Igbo counterparts. Soon the Almajiris will do them ‘frog jump’. They should mark my words.

Sanusi blew the whistle that $20bn was missing from the Federation Account in 18 months from NNPC remittance alone. Jonathan and his team victimized Sanusi until they hounded him out of the CBN while the international finance world hailed him. Months after Sanusi’s revelation, Oby Ezekwesili former Vice President, World Bank African Affairs revealed that billions of dollars has been wasted. She was abused to high heavens by Jonathan’s men.

Months after Ezekwesili’s revelations, Prof Soludo, Sanusi’s predecessor at the CBN put the figure of stolen funds at $150bn within Jonathan era. I had months earlier put up my calculation of stolen funds during Jonathan era at $142bn.

Sanusi could have asked for his share of the missing $20bn and could be given $2bn to shut up. Sanusi as Emir of Kano, criticized in 2016 Buari’s forex policy. Sanusi said that “We have created our own billionaires since 2015 from foreign exchange subsidy.”

Sanusi as Emir of Kano, criticized in 2016 Buhari’s forex policy. Sanusi said that “We have created our own billionaires since 2015 from foreign exchange subsidy.”

Sanusi said: “For instance, when the CBN was selling dollar at N197 and people were buying at N300, if I sit down in my garden and pick up my phone I would have enough people to call in the industry to get $10M at officials rate and sell at N300 and make a profit of over N1bn and if I do that four times in a year. For doing nothing I would have earned N4bn.

“And people were telling us that this policy was to help the poor. We should not devalue because if we do the poor people would suffer”.

Criticizing Governor Ganduje’s light rail project Sanusi said “We have governors…”they go to China and spend one month on a tour and what do they come back with, MoU on debts.

“China will lend you $1.8bn to build light rail. This light rail will be done by the rail workers from China. The trains will come from China. The engines will come from China. The labour comes from China. The driver is Chinese. At the end of the day, what do you benefit from it.”

Sanusi challenged Kano residents to defend themselves against Boko Haram and the terrorists plotted to assassinate him, bombed the Kano Central Mosque, killing over 200 persons inside the place of worship. Fortunately, their principal target, Emir Sanusi, travelled to London earlier in the day.

Therefore, it is dumbfounding that the entire northern establishment sits in silence while a corrupt governor Ganduje destroys the ancient prestigious Kano Emirate. Ganduje’s tenure will expire in 2023 but Kano Emirate lives for long.

Sanusi should accept his fate. But let no evil Nigerian ever consign him to any life in exile in a village in Nasarawa for speaking out against evil. Any attempt to try that, we burn down the useless country. Let him go and rest. Let Sultan Sa’ad wait for his turn of disgrace. Let Shehu El Kanemi wait for his turn, until Boko Haram, bandits, kidnappers, ISWAP and criminals overrun the North.

Obinna Akukwe wrote via profetobinna2@yahoo.com

Opinion AddThis :  Original Author :  Obinna Akukwe Disable advertisements : 
https://ift.tt/2Du2EIC

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Mark Rutte has apparently been caught out by his own handshake policy, moments after announcing it.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Work to repair the cathedral is under way, nearly a year after its spire was destroyed by fire.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Police think the robbers may have had inside information about the cash shipment.

 

Women make up 50 per cent of Africa’s population and drive 70 per cent of consumer spend. This demographic represents the continent’s largest growth opportunity, and yet there remains very little data available on female spending habits. If African businesses are to succeed, and indeed if we are to attract more foreign direct investment into the continent at large, we need to build a better understanding of women in 2020.  

“Study women as you would a foreign market,” Forbes Contributor Bridget Brennan told us in her 2015 article outlining the ‘Top 10 Things Everyone Should Know About Women Consumers’. Fast forward five years and this remains strong advice – female consumer spending habits remain a mystery to most brands, particularly in Africa.

Generally, when a business spots opportunity in a foreign market, the first thing it does is its homework: employing experts, sourcing local data, conducting feasibility studies, etc. But in the case of female consumers, where is the evidence that this information is even being compiled at all?

In Africa, a lack of data hinders the consumer marketplace at large. ‘With no precise figures’ is a phrase that many of us have become accustomed to when a global study begins to drill down into the African economy, not to mention the individual countries within it. Of course there are exceptions to this rule - companies like Nielson and FMCG giants like Coca Cola, Unilever and L’oreal have been mining data for years - but it is seldom made publicly available.

A good example of this lies in beauty sector, where women are its primary consumers. The global beauty market - including bath and shower, fragrances, hair care, makeup, and skin care - is estimated by Euromonitor to be worth US $250bn.

But as soon as you begin to drilldown into Africa the data becomes more sketchy. A 2012 study conducted by L’Oreal estimated the overall value of the Sub-Saharan cosmetics sector to be Euros €6.9bn. Within this, South Africa was found to be the largest marketplace, accounting for €3bn of total revenues, followed by Nigeria with €2.5bn. The fact that we are having to reach back to eight-year-old studies in the first place, reveals something about the extent of research being conducted in this area.

It’s also an analysis that should not be taken at face value. We know that there are approximately 30 million females in South Africa compared with 100 million in Nigeria. We also know that the overall GDP of the two countries is relatively similar. So the argument that South African women have access to greater disposable income, and are therefore more likely to spend on consumer products, is unlikely to be enough to overshadow a literal 3:1 ratio of bodies on the ground.

There is also evidence to suggest that in times of economic hardship, female spending on cosmetics products not only bucks the overall market trend, but can actually increase. The so-called ‘lipstick effect’ dictates that women view these types of self-enhancement products as a means of investing in themselves, and use makeup to ensure that they achieve their professional ambitions, as well as romantic ones.

Of course, exactly how far the latter argument stacks up begins to take us into the realm of the qualitative. But in many ways that is exactly the point – there needs to be more research being carried out on both a quantitative and qualitative basis that approaches these marketplaces from the point of view of the female psyche, and with the goal of delivering the products women need.

Researching female needs more robustly could yield serious benefits for brands across the globe. In 2019, Kylie Jenner became the world’s youngest ever self-made billionaire when she sold a 51per cent stake in her cosmetics brand to Coty Inc. Rihanna’s beauty offering, Fenty, is now estimated to be worth $3bn. Between them, these two celebrities have a combined following of 235 million people on their personal Instagram accounts alone, and while they are not all female, it puts the earlier analogy of female consumers as a foreign marketplace into tangible perspective.

We know that women in general are believed to drive 70-80 per cent of consumer spend. This is because they make purchasing decisions on behalf of others. They are often, for example, primary care givers, and responsible for both old and young family members.

African women in particular are not only consumers but also the influencers of global fashion, even when western brands don’t necessarily know it. From dance and music to fashion and cosmetics, African women - and women of African heritage around the world – have traditionally influenced global culture from time immemorial and continue to do so today, be that in the form of Beyonce and Janet Jackson music videos to top fashion designers like Christian Dior, LV, etc.

Ultimately, more businesses need to start listening. Women represent Africa’s largest growth opportunity, and collecting better information on their spending habits is the key to unlocking this growth.  

Such work is not only the preserve of the private sector. In seeking to increase GDP and attract further FDI, Government departments need to understand how critical this demographic is to the future success of nations across the continent, and seek themselves to gather better data on women over a sustained period of time. This can also be beneficial in the advancement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), where female spending is particularly important because it is more likely to lift families out of abject poverty versus that of men.

Overall, there are lessons to be learned from behaviour in the fashion and cosmetics industries that can in-turn be applied to help fuel wider growth across B2B and consumer sectors. Finding the answer, or answers, to the question of ‘What African women consumers want’ is key to unlocking future growth on the continent. 

Dr Nkiru Balonwu is CEO RDF Strategies and Founder/Chair of African Women on Board, an independent non-profit organisation. A version of this article has been published in Africa Report

Opinion AddThis :  Original Author :  Nkiru Balonwu Disable advertisements : 
https://ift.tt/2TA55lI

 

Deposed Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, won’t have access to visitors while on exile, the Kano State Government has announced.

Director-General, Media and Communications for the state government, Salihu Yakasai, made the disclosure in a post on Twitter on Monday.

He said, “Clearly, some people are ignorant of how dethronement works. When an Emir is dethroned, he is sent on exile in a remote location and will basically be under house arrest and won’t have access to visitors.

“A person under these circumstances will be after his freedom and not the next election.”

Since coming on the throne, Sanusi, who rose to become Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank as a professional, has always spoken out against harmful traditions and practices in the North, often times drawing the ire of elites in the region.

The executive council headed by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano claimed that Sanusi was removed for displaying disregard for laid down rules.

 

Politics News AddThis :  Original Author :  SaharaReporters, New York Disable advertisements : 
https://ift.tt/2QratVo

Omoyele Sowore BBC

Rights activist and journalist, Omoyele Sowore, has opposed the application filed by the Nigerian Government seeking leave for its witnesses to wear facial masks to testify against him in his ongoing trial.

In a counter affidavit filed by his lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), at the Federal High Court, Abuja, with charge No: FHC / ABJ/ CR 235/2019, the activist is asking the court to dismiss the application. 

He added that the application is vexatious, ill-conceived and attempt to waste the time of the court.

He maintained that an application pursuant to section 232 cannot be brought in proceedings not hinged on terrorism or money laundering charges.

Falana said, “My Lord it is our contention that the entire content of paragraphs 4; a, b, c, e, f, g, h, k and 5 respectively of the applicant's affidavits offends the provision of section 115 (1), (3) and (4) of Evidence Act 2011 (as amended) and ought to be struck out for being so incompetent.”  See Also Breaking News BREAKING: Nigerian Government Seeks To Mask Witnesses In Case Against Sowore 0 Comments 3 Days Ago

Sowore was arrested in the early hours of August 3, 2019 by operatives of the Department of State Services for calling on Nigerians to take to the streets in peaceful demonstrations on August 5 to demand a better country from the administration of President Buhari. 

He was kept in unlawful detention from that period until December 5, 2019 when he was finally released on bail despite two court orders earlier sanctioning his freedom. 

In a twist of event, DSS operatives invaded the Federal High Court in Abuja on December 6, 2019 to rearrest him without any court order.

He remained in unlawful detention until 18 days later when he was released by the secret police for the second time.

At the resumption of his trial in a case brought against him by the Nigerian Government, the prosecution failed to prove accusations against him and even went ahead to dropping seven of the charges earlier preferred against him. 

The trial resumes on March 11, 2020 and this time government is accusing him of attempting to overthrow Buhari’s administration by calling on citizens to protest against the regime.

ACTIVISM Free Speech Human Rights Legal Politics News AddThis :  Original Author :  SaharaReporters, New York Disable advertisements : 
https://ift.tt/2rTxl7i

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Austria will bar Italians from entering unless they carry a medical certificate.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Muhammadu Sanusi II says the new emir should be embraced after he is ousted for "insubordination".

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
"Though you've never seen my body, you still judge me for it," says the star, as her tour kicks off.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
His visit comes as China records its lowest number of infections, with just 19 on Tuesday.