Late Afrobeat superstar, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, in his early musical ensemble days as Africa ‘70, recalibrated a folklore that told the story of food shortage and hunger. The folklore, which Fela entitled Alujanjankijanbrims with the motif of greed and its implications. The hunger folktale goes thus: Long time ago, a very severe famine hit the animal kingdom, leading to intense food crisis. As against the predictions of diviners called to seek the face of divinities for solution, hunger continued to ravage the land, so much that the kingdom’s silos were completely depleted. Lion, the king of the jungle and the monarch of the kingdom, called a meeting of all known animals. After all, don’t the elders say, though “eat” and “become” are rendered same way in Yoruba lingual representation, what to eat occupies a higher hierarchical ladder than what we want to become? (Ohun t’a o je l’agba ohun t’a o je). With hunger pelting their bellies, all the animals literally crawled to the central square. Lion, with his hitherto luxuriant but now withered mane, cleared his throat and spoke. There was no gainsaying that the food crisis in the kingdom would prove fatal, leading to animals dying in droves, he said. Except urgent and quick remedy was procured, Lion underscored the calamity ahead. A drastic action was agreed, to wit, every mother of each animal must be offered in martyrdom to ensure a continuation of the animal race. The agreed modus operandi was that each of those mothers must be brought to the square and mutually devoured, for the sustenance of the race.

Upon hearing this, rather than toe the difficult line of the collective effort to stem hunger in the kingdom, at nocturne, Dog selfishly went home and parceled his mother out of the kingdom. He loved his mother so well that he would rather die than offer her as meal for the survival of the hounds of the animal world. Dog thus fled to a very remote jungle and, perhaps in a conjuration, hid Mother Dog in the sky. Every other animal, including Tortoise the trickster, complied and their mothers were brought to the square, tethered and collectively devoured. So each day, Dog walked to a particular spot and conjured out his mother by singing a song which Fela made a melodious offering of. The song goes thus: “Mother, Mother, send down your rope/All have killed and eaten their own mothers/I, Dog, took my mother to the sky/Mother, Mother, send down your rope.” In its original Yoruba rendition, it goes thus: “Iya, Iya, ta’kun wa le o/Alu jan jan kijan/Gbogbo aye pa yeye re je/Alu jan jan kijan/ Aja gbe ti re o d’orun/Alu jan jan ki jan…”

After each orchestra-like musical rendition, Mother Dog looked down from the sky and magnanimously dropped a rope which Dog climbed to the sky. There, Dog was treated to a feast by his mother. He did this to the curiosity of other animals about his rotund look, until Tortoise the trickster came into the equation. He clandestinely trailed Dog and found out the secret. The next day, the trickster went to the spot and, perfectly mimicking the Dog, sang same song and a rope was lowered. As he climbed the rope, Dog appeared and, totally flummoxed, began to sing, tearfully, that his mother had listened to the voice of a scammer. Didn’t his mother recognize his voice again? Infuriated, Mother Dog cut the rope and Tortoise landed in a ghastly crash which turned his carapace into shell of fragments. Scarcely able to walk, he meandered into the home of a native orthopedic who salvaged the shells by gluing them together. This story, aside teaching morals, using their experience of the desperation of food crisis, became Yoruba’s own cosmological explanation of the tortoise’s fragmented shells.

Make no mistake about it: there is hunger in the land. A viral video last week depicting the Nigerian food crisis in its grim showed a tumult of unruly crowd queuing for N100 bread at Lagos Island being whacked with lacerating cudgels. Among other crises, Nigeria is facing a severe food crisis that is threatening lives and existence. Food stress itself is not a totally new phenomenon in the world. Each country and epoch devises different responses to their hungers. In the period between the 1950s and 1960s, India was thrown into a cauldron of food shortages, so severe that the country of Jawaharlal Nehru became known as a “begging-bowl” nation. The same happened in the pre-historic world that was often ravaged by famine. In each of these countries, responses were devised for the crises. Take the example of Pharaoh’s Egypt during its bitter plague of famine. It bought food from other lands which it stored in silos. Egypt even promoted the biblical Joseph as Prime Minister to manage the era of food shortage.

In 1816, the grueling Napoleon war brought in its wake an extremely cold, dark weather throughout northern Europe and northeastern United States. It was said to have been as a result of a super eruption from the Dutch East Indies city of Indonesia Mount Tambora which triggered global climate shifts. It manifested as smoke and ash that gushed into the atmosphere. The sun was completely covered. It got so severe that in July of that year, in Albany, New York, as well as in other cities in northern Europe, snow was recorded for the very first time. For farmers, the Mount Tabora eruption led to huge crop failures and famine throughout the northern hemisphere. It was so severe that 1816 got nicknamed the “year without a Summer” and the “Poverty Year.” When they couldn’t get bread to eat, people resorted to eating sawdust and straw. The result of the Indonesian eruption was famine, riots, disease outbreak, and mass death. Trust literature to take its full course, the great Romantic poet, Lord Byron, who was living in Geneva at the time of this near apocalypse, penned a poem out of that calamity which he entitled Darkness.Byron drew a picture of an "icy Earth" that is enveloped by desolation, burning cities, and global warfare.

The starvation and famine provoked by the Indonesian eruption was so huge that many German and Swiss residents fled to Russia and the Americas and Italians moved to cities. It led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who were killed by the combined effects of starvation and exposure to typhus. By 1817, as we have in Nigeria today, food prices had increased astronomically and dramatically. As a response to this, governments had to make direct interventions in failed markets, with local governments coordinating food imports to feed starving people.

Africa also had its own share of food crisis. In the 1970s, the drought in the Sahel and Ethiopia drew global attention to the famine in the Horn of Africa countries of Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia. The Ogaden war, similarly known as the Ethio-Somali war, was a military conflict fought between Somalia and Ethiopia which raged from July 1977 to March 1978 over the Ethiopian region of Ogaden, further worsened the famine. In Nigeria, the unsavoury civil war images of hunger and countrymen devouring lizards and toads for protein scared the world. From Ethiopia, skeletal images of hunger-ravaged Ethiopians surfaced, bespattering world television screens and littering pages of newspapers. As they sat comfortably to devour their dinners, the “unhealthy” images of children with distended stomachs, big heads and tiny legs on their television screens tampered with the appetites of world leaders. They had to do something urgent about it, if only to retain their appetites at dinner.

The current Nigerian food crisis is drilling down to the basest of the people’s agonies. Food and other goods’ inflation has soared to its highest figure ever. Hot protests are erupting like the scalding lava of volcanoes. The upward skyrocket in prices of staple foods is benumbing. Purchasing powers of the people have been stretched so thin that many families cannot afford to feed themselves. Cement price is said to have hit about N10,000 per bag while rice is nearing a hundred thousand Naira. Already, the spiking food prices with its rising inflation figure, is forcing Nigerians to troop to the streets in protests in Niger, Kano, Osun and Lagos States. Those who know the effect of this crisis are scared. The World Food Programme, (WFP) in its latest publication, is afraid that the crisis could have a globally consequential effect on the country’s over 220 million people, Nigeria being the most populated country in Africa and the sixth in the world. Before now, the about 84 million Nigerians, representing about 37 percent of the total population, who lived below the poverty line was worrisome to the WFP. Singling out conflict and insecurity, rising inflation and the impact of the climate crisis for the food stress in Nigeria, the WFP projected that the country’s 26.5 million people would face acute hunger in the June-August 2024 lean season. This is further worsened by the conflict in the North East which has succeeded in displacing 2.2 million people, leaving another 4.4 million food insecure in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.

Now, like the animal kingdom gathering, we are gathered to tame the monster of hunger. So, what are the responses from leaders of Nigeria? On his part, President Tinubu ordered the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to release maize, millet and gari of about 42,000 metric tonnes. He also met Nigerian governors at the Aso Rock Villa on Thursday where he sternly decreed that food importation was not an immediate panacea to the crisis. Tinubu also pleaded with the governors to deepen investments in the agricultural sector of crop production, livestock development and management to shore up food availability.

Northern Nigeria’s response to the food crisis has been to play the ostrich and effectively act the role of the Dog in time of famine. This it is doing by stylishly and selfishly ethnicizing the food crisis situation. The north’s stand is always predictably selfish, as if it is destined to go the way of the self, as against the collective. Reminds me of what my mother would say, of a man destined to go to bed hungry who, even if a bowl of pounded yam is kept on the rafter waiting for him, the rat would climb up to ruffle the bowl to tumble down.

The first selfish Dog was Niger State Governor, Mohammed Umar Bago. In the wake of the protest that rocked Minna a little over a week ago, Bago banned mass purchase of foods by traders from the southern parts of Nigeria from the state's local markets. Emir of Kano, Aminu Bayero, Like the Dog, also took north’s Mother Dog to the sky. While receiving Nigeria’s First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, in his palace last week, Bayero urged her to relate the message to her husband, Bola Tinubu, that hunger, starvation, and insecurity plaguing the country had become urgent issues to address. Also, speaking through an interpreter, in spite of several analyses that have been made on the vacuity of the north northernizing the FCT, by condemning the Federal Government’s plan to relocate offices of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and Central Bank of Nigeria from Abuja to Lagos, Bayero still doubled down on it.

Last Wednesday, at the 6th executive Northern Traditional Council committee meeting held at the Arewa House in Kaduna, Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar and his Northern Traditional Council, like the Alujanjankijan anecdote Dog, took the north’s Mother Dog to the sky. They warned that revolt of northern people looms if the rising poverty, hunger and insecurity in the country were not faced headlong.

There is no doubt that the current food prices are taking their tolls on the people. They also tug at the here-and-now, peremptory policies of successive governments of Nigeria who seem to lack a natural endowment of good leaders – the vision to see tomorrow. Truth be said, there had been warning indicators that Nigeria would face severe food crisis. It didn’t begin today. None of the leaders gave heed to them. When Fulani herders were ravaging the food basket states of Benue, Plateau, Adamawa, Taraba, Kaduna, Yobe, Niger and Jigawa where rice, peppers, cassava, yams, plantains, pineapple, maize, beans, and palm oil were got from, what, for instance, did the government of Muhammadu Buhari do? How did they warn of revolt of other parts of Nigeria? Agreed that the problem became hydra-headed with the announcement by the Tinubu government of an end to fuel subsidy payments at inauguration in May, 2023, as well as the unification of exchange rate windows, we cannot play the ostrich as if we didn’t know that the food crisis of today began under Buhari when farmers, due to insecurity, could not go to the farms.

Feelers from across most of the states still producing foods, in spite of the rampaging insecurity, reveal that a coordinated attempt is being made to stop food going to the south. I imagine what would be the effect if southern states also order essential commodities from their states not to go northwards. What would be the effect, for instance, if petrol is not allowed to go to the north? While the totality of Nigeria is feeling the brunt of the food crisis, northern leaders’ wolf cries appear too self-serving and selfish for comfort. When their son, Buhari, was making Nigeria hell on earth for the rest of Nigeria, how much of those cries did we hear from the Emir of Kano and the Sultan? This subterranean attempt to southernize the Nigerian hunger by the north fits perfectly into a hackneyed pattern of blaming the rest of the country other than it for Nigeria’s crisis. If northern forefathers had tamed the malady of Patience Jonathan’s “Born trowey” children, otherwise known as the Almajiri syndrome, we most likely would not have the banditry system on which Nigeria has sunk trillions of Naira and which has cut short the lives of thousands of the people. In the same vein, if the Borno State-born Mohammed Yusuf’s Islamist group, Boko Haram, was not allowed to grow by selfsame northern elders, Nigeria may not be grappling today with a ravaging insecurity that is majorly responsible for the Nigerian food crisis. If the north is trying to curate an Arewa or Uthmania Republic, it should concisely state this so that we will know that we need visa to enter each other’s zones and shout “to your tents oh Nigeria!” Otherwise, we cannot have a country that puts a leash on intra-trade relations.

The way out of the Nigerian food crisis isn’t to sectionalize our ordeal. It cannot even be helped by a tokenist declaration of national emergency on agriculture by Tinubu. He has to put on the garment of a statesman at this critical time. As urgent as quick fixes in taming deaths from starvation are, government must put on its thinking cap by looking for long-term and sustainable solutions. One way is to face agriculture with unexampled vigour. This is the time for Tinubu to search the length and breadth of Nigeria for his own Adedunmola Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, a professor of agricultural economics from the then University of Ibadan reputed to have incubated Obafemi Awolowo’s highly applauded agricultural programme. Oluwasanmi must still have progenies of his agricultural sagacity scattered all over Nigeria. The Nigerian food crisis demands almost a Marshall Plan, a sound economic policy that will prioritize agriculture and not the tokenism of more than half a century of governance that we have had. Institutional reforms that will safeguard land tenure and raise farmers’ productivity, thus boosting food supplies and lowering prices to consumers are urgently needed. Its final aim will be ensuring good returns for agricultural investments. For instance, why not give Southwest governors incentives to return to cocoa farming which is witnessing remarkable boom and bloom in the world market today, encourage southeast palm-oil and north’s essential farm products?

It is not rocket science. India, already an object of mockery in the comity of nations due to its ravaging hunger in the 1960s, embarked on and successfully accomplished a journey to food self-sufficiency and agricultural development strategy. Today, India is a major exporter of foods. A good, forthright and determined leadership can achieve the Indian Midas touch for Nigeria. Rather than each Nigerian region clandestinely ferrying its mother out of harm’s way like the Dog as the north is doing at the moment, Nigeria must collectively look for remedy to this crisis.

Faith: The Instrument of Supernatural Translation!

By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God ~ Hebrews 11:5.

Introduction:

The entire Christian life is a supernatural experience from start to finish. As His children, God is ever ready to do the most extraordinary things for us and through us! He always wishes to move us supernaturally across time through the invisible heavenly realm in order to accomplish His plans, will and purposes on earth.

However, faith is a standard requirement for all of this. Faith is the key to everything in God’s kingdom (Romans 1:17). This is a fact that must be fully internalized by all people who have the dream of living on earth to glorify God.

Everything answers to faith, and faith answers to daring possibilities, even to God’s glory on earth (John 11:40). Faith holds the key that opens incredible doors, and it’s the most potent force of transformation in the whole universe.

We are told in Hebrews 11:5 that Enoch was translated by the force of faith. To translate means to transpose, to relocate, to move from one condition to another, to transport, and to transfer from one place to another. It also means to carry across (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).

By faith Enoch was translated from the earth, and he was not found among men, because God took him away (Genesis 5:21-24). In other words, he didn’t experience death; he was taken up to heaven without dying.

Caught up suddenly, Enoch simply disappeared, skipping death completely. He thinned out life and limbs, because God took him up to heaven. Strange and absolutely incredible? Yes indeed, but that’s what faith can do!

I imagine that Enoch’s friends looked for him all over the place, and his foes also, including sin, sicknesses, poverty and death, looked but couldn’t find him because God had taken him. Our God is great and gracious. He’s alive, and He truly cares enough to respond to those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6; Jeremiah 33:3).

Undoubtedly, this experience of Enoch is a pointer to what God can do with the faith journey of the Christian believer (1Corinthians 10:11). Enoch’s sudden removal from mortality to immortality without death is like the change that will be experienced by saints at the rapture (1Corinthians 15:51-55).

Meanwhile, it must be understood that all true believers in Christ have experienced some form of supernatural translation already. We were legally delivered from the power of darkness, and carried across to God’s kingdom of light (Colossians 1:12-13; 2Corinthians 4:6).

We have passed from death to life (John 5:24). We’re no longer where we used to be (Matthew 28:6). We resurrected with Christ, ascended with Him above principalities and powers, and are presently seated at God’s right hand of majesty with Him (Ephesians 1:17-22; 2:6-7).

Certainly, our God is exalted above all gods (Psalms 97:9). Hence, when we were translated into His presence, we were simultaneously moved from satanic dominion to a new realm of light, automatically!

Through faith, Sarah received strength, having been translated to the strength of her younger years (Hebrews 11:11). By faith, Joshua became a commander in the realm of unique wonders (Joshua 10:12-14). And, by faith, King Hezekiah upturned the verdict of death, and had his lifespan extended by fifteen years (Isaiah 38:1-5).

By faith also, the three young Jewish men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who refused to bow to the golden image set up by King Nebuchadnezzar, defied the authority of fire to burn them (Daniel 3:1-30).

Now, we all can equally live in the power of our supernatural translation, practically; but we must determine to pay the price for enjoying the out-of-this-world experiences of these realities by faith on earth.

Pleasing God Is the Pricey Ticket Here!

Pleasing God was the ground of Enoch’s translation, and his walk of faith was his ground for pleasing God. Before he was taken up, he was commended as one who walked with God and pleased Him (Genesis 6:9).

It was his walk of faith that enabled Enoch to be taken up from the earth straight to heaven without seeing death. Certainly, the mechanism of faith in the experience of supernatural translation needs to be studied and well understood.

Walking with God is walking in faith (2Corinthians 5:7). Faith is the start-up mechanism for the out-working of supernatural translation because faith works in such mysterious ways as to generate divine pleasure.

There is no hope of sharing God’s supernatural characteristics if we don’t please Him here on earth (Amos 3:3). Those who would find God, must seek Him with all their hearts. We cannot come to God unless we believe that He is who He has revealed Himself to be in the Holy Bible.

Enoch walked with God, living in constant communion with Him. We too must determine to move experientially from where we are to a higher realm of glory (Deuteronomy 32:11-14).

Friends and brethren, translation by faith in varying forms is a New Testament possibility. It is our inheritance in Christ as well as our legal right as children of God. However, God is always looking for the willing and the obedient before He releases the bounties of the land (Isaiah 1:19).

In this class of Enoch, the Bible indicates that Elijah, Elisha, Philip, John and many other Bible characters enjoyed supernatural translation one way or the other as they allowed God to use them without reservation to accomplish His purposes upon this earth (2Kings 2:11-12)!

God is still moving right now for the cause of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He’s on the lookout for those who will step up in their faith, laying down their own agenda for God’s will. He’s looking for those who will sack their personal fear, doubt, unbelief and carnal propensities. Will He find you?

Meanwhile, we all can enjoy the sweet experience of supernatural translation, not just basking in its legal realities, but practically enjoying it to glorify our God on earth. But we must eschew evil, fully embrace godliness and yield totally to the Holy Spirit.

The power of supernatural translation is a product of the fire of the Holy Ghost. Moreover, walking with God calls for a life of total surrender, a life totally controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Stir up your passion for God. Begin to pursue Him with a heart prepared to please Him in everything (Philippians 4:6-7). Give His Word its prime place also. Choose to walk in faith, always. Thereafter, you will see yourself walking in the reality of supernatural translation. You won’t miss it, in Jesus name. Happy Sunday!

____________________

Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Connect with Bishop Akinola via these channels:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bishopakinola

SMS/WhatsApp: +234 802 318 4987

The Santuario Della Beata Vergine Maria Delle Grazie, in Italy’s Lombardia region, is an old church famous for having a real taxidermied crocodile hanging from the ceiling.

What’s the last thing you expect to see when you look up in a church? Granted, there are plenty of interesting answers one can think of, but ‘a crocodile’ definitely ranks up there with the quirkiest of them.

But if you travel to the small municipality of Curtatone, in Lombardia, Italy, you’ll find a church with a five-century-old crocodile hanging from the ceiling. It’s a peculiar sight, to say the least, but one that has been around for as long as anyone can remember. How the croc wound up at the Santuario Della Beata Vergine Maria Delle Grazie is, and will probably remain a mystery, but its purpose had been linked to religious symbolism.

In ancient times, Christianity associated reptilian creatures like snakes, dragons, and crocodiles with evil, either as personifications of the devil or simply animals that lead humans to sin. So having it chained high up in the vault of the church served both as a warning for churchgoers, but also as a symbol of victory of good over evil.

While it might look like a prop at first, this is a real embalmed Nile crocodile (Crocodilus niloticus) believed to be at least 500 years old, with the church itself dating back to the 13th century. Over the years, many legends surrounding the origin of the animal circulated around Lombardia, but the two most popular ones involve a local animal menagerie and two brave brothers who fought the animal.

Some believe that the crocodile was caught and killed after escaping a private exotic zoo on the estate of Francesco Gonzaga, while others claim that the animal one day attacked two brothers resting on the banks of the Mincio River. One of them asked for the help of the Holy Virgin, and armed with a knife attacked and killed the crocodile.

According to another local legend, the crocodile was let out of its cage when a circus stopped in the area for a show, taking refuge among the reeds and lotus flowers. It is said the crocodile was even blessed with the gift of human speech by the Holy Virgin.

Whether you believe in these stories or not, the hanging crocodile of the Santuario Della Beata Vergine Maria Delle Grazie is a worthwhile attraction. It’s quirky, but it also speaks to the taxidermy skills of the monks whose job it was to turn the crocodile into a permanent exhibit.

Interestingly, this is not the only Italian church with a real crocodile on display. The Church of Santa Maria delle Vergini, in Macerata, and the Santuario della Madonna delle Lacrime, in Ponte Nossa, have their own stuffed crocodiles.

Oddity Central

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has declared a two-day nationwide mass protest over the economic hardship being faced by Nigerians.

The two-day warning protest would be held on February 27 and 28.

Benson Ukpa, NLC national head of information, confirmed the development.

He said the decision was reached during an emergency session of the NLC held in Abuja on Friday.

On February 8, the NLC and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) gave a 14-day ultimatum to the federal government over the rising cost of living in the country.

In a joint statement, the unions said the government failed to honour the 16-point agreement that was reached on October 2, 2023, with them.

The labour movements accused the government of neglecting the welfare of Nigerians and the workers.

They warned that “everything must be done within the two weeks to avoid a situation where we may be compelled to take appropriate steps to protect Nigerian workers and masses”.

“These agreements which were reached with the federal government were focused on addressing the massive suffering and the general harsh socioeconomic consequences of the ill-conceived and ill-executed IMF/World Bank induced hike in the price of PMS and the Devaluation of the Naira,” the statement reads.

“These dual policies have had, as we predicted, dire economic consequences for the masses and workers of Nigeria.”

“Widespread Hunger is now ravishing millions of Nigerians, with the Workers purchasing power significantly eroded, while insecurity has assumed an increasing dimension. Nigerians are left wondering where their next meals will come from and what tomorrow might bring.”

The NLC and TUC had also issued a “stern ultimatum” to the federal government to honour their part of the understanding within 14 days from February 9.

The Cable

Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) has vowed to suspend operations on Monday.

Its National President, Yusuf Lawal Othman, made this known in a press statement he issued in Abuja on Thursday.

He noted that the statement is an official announcement from the association’s headquarters that the members are parking their trucks from Monday.

Reason provided for the strike action is because “what we spend on operation is more than what we get in total: both in local and bridging.”

According to him, members have been operating at a loss and it is no longer sustainable for them to endure the losses. 

The President said, “We will have to suspend operations from Monday. We cannot continue to operate at a loss. Most people have parked. A lot more are going to park.”

The President disclosed that NARTO’s efforts at soliciting the intervention of all the key stakeholders in the Federal Government and industry have not yielded positive results.

Othman revealed that the association has written letters to table the plight of unbearable cost of operation to the Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu; Minister of Petroleum Resources; Director General, Department of State Services (DSS); Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) Chief Executive Officer; Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Group Chief Executive Officer; and the Marketers.

He said: “We have written letters up to the level of the Chief of Staff. We have written to the Minister of Petroleum Resources (Oil). I will send you the copy. We have written to DG SSS. We have written to the GCEO. 

“We have written to the Authority Chief Executive. We have written to the Major Marketers.”

He stressed that despite the notification to the above stakeholders, “No response.”

Analysing the market situation, which the members have endured for several months, he recalled that the same freight rate that was in force while President Muhammadu Buhari was in government is still subsisting.

According to him, the N32 Lagos to Abuja freight rate that was implemented while the dollar was N650 is still retained now that dollar is N1,615.

He said, “Everybody is aware that all our consumables in terms of operation are not produced in the country.

“So, by virtue of the rate of dollars, every consumable has increased. But the freight they are paying us has been the same even during Buhari’s time.

“So how is that feasible? During Buhari’s time, the dollar was N650. Today, the dollar is now N1,615. The average freight from Lagos to Abuja is N32.” 

Continuing, he explained that   “What I mean by local, you load Lagos, you discharge in Lagos. And bridging, you load from Lagos, you come to Abuja. Lagos to Lagos, we are paid N120,000.

“AGO alone to distribute fuel within Lagos is N140,000 because it is N1,400 per litre. So, they give you N120,000 and you spend N140,000. So, how do you want to operate?

“Talk less about the cost of vehicles, cost of loading, driver’s allowance. That is for local. For bridging, Lagos to Abuja, they give us N32.

“If you have a truck of 40,000 litres, you are talking of N1,280,000-N1,216,000. Less 5% of the amount of N1,280,000 Withholding Tax N64,000. Less 55,000 loading expenses and 15,000 driver allowance. Total expenses N134,000 while balance is N1,146,000. AGO is N1400 for 900 litres, totalling N1, 260,000. There is a total loss of N114,000.

“Meanwhile the cost of a New truck head and tank is N95 million and used is N50 million.So imagine the amount invested on each truck?”

Daily Trust

Ministers of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have adopted a treaty to create a union of states aimed at fostering economic and political integration in the Sahel region of West Africa.

The military-ruled countries last month announced their exit from the Economic Community of West African States, the 48-year-old regional bloc they helped to found. They criticize Ecowas for failing to assist them in their fight against a sprawling Islamist insurgency that threatens their existence.

“Our decision to withdraw is irreversible,” Kassoum Coulibaly, defense minister of Burkina Faso, said during a meeting of ministers in the capital of Ouagadougou late Thursday. Ecowas cannot “divert us from our common goals of defeating terrorism, putting our countries on the path of development and exercising full sovereignty on all fronts,” he said.

The union to be known as the Alliance of Sahel States was first formed in September by the three countries to support each other in the fight against militants. The trio of governments all came to power via coups in the last three years.

The adoption of the treaty Thursday will result in the establishment of the union’s initial organs, namely the college of heads of state, the council of ministers and the representatives of parliament, according to a communique.

Bloomberg

Satellite photos show Egypt building a wall near Gaza Strip as Israeli offensive on Rafah looms

Egypt is building a wall and is leveling land near its border with the Gaza Strip ahead of a planned Israeli offensive targeting the border city of Rafah, satellite images analyzed Friday by The Associated Press show.

Egypt, which has not publicly acknowledged the construction, repeatedly has warned Israel not to forcibly expel the more than 1 million displaced Palestinians now in Rafah into its territory while Israeli troops battle the militant group Hamas for a fifth month.

Israel’s defense minister said Friday that Israel has “no intention” of pushing Palestinian civilians across the border into Egypt. However, the preparations on the Egyptian side of the border in the Sinai Peninsula suggested that Cairo is preparing for such a mass ejection, a scenario that could threaten a 1979 peace deal with Israel that’s been a linchpin for regional security.

The Egyptian government did not respond to requests for comment Friday from the AP. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Feb. 11 issued a statement warning Israel over the possible Rafah offensive and its “displacement of the Palestinian people.”

The satellite images, taken Thursday by Maxar Technologies, show ongoing construction on the wall, which sits along the Sheikh Zuweid-Rafah Road some 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) west of the border with Gaza. The images show cranes, trucks and what appear to be precast concrete barriers being set up along the road.

Those satellite images correspond to features seen in a video released by the London-based Sinai Foundation for Human Rights on Feb. 12. The video shows a crane lifting concrete walls into place along the road.

The construction “is intended to create a high-security gated and isolated area near the borders with the Gaza Strip, in preparation for the reception of Palestinian refugees in the case of (a) mass exodus,” the foundation said.

Nearby as well, construction crews appear to be leveling and clearing ground for an unknown purpose. That can also be seen in imagery from Planet Labs PBC of the area. The Wall Street Journal, quoting anonymous Egyptian officials, described “an 8-square-mile (20-square-kilometer) walled enclosure” being built in the area that could accommodate over 100,000 people.

Homes and farmland in the area previously had been razed during Egypt’s war on an affiliate of the Islamic State group in the area.

Hard-line officials within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have raised the possibility of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza despite strong opposition from Israel’s main ally, the United States. The Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank are lands the Palestinians hope to have for their future state.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a member of the country’s three-man War Cabinet, said Friday that there were no plans to push Palestinians into Egypt.

“The state of Israel has no intention of evacuating Palestinian civilians to Egypt,” Gallant told reporters. “We respect and value our peace agreement with Egypt, which is a cornerstone of stability in the region as well as an important partner.”

A report by the Israeli Intelligence Ministry, drafted six days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw over 250 others taken hostage, included a proposal of moving Gaza’s civilian population to tent cities in the northern Sinai, then building permanent cities and an undefined humanitarian corridor.

In the time since, the Israel-Hamas war has laid wide swaths of the seaside enclave to waste and killed more than 28,600 people, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian troops withdraw from Avdiivka as ammunition shortage bites

Ukrainian troops withdrew from the devastated eastern town of Avdiivka, Ukraine's new army chief said in the early hours of Saturday, paving the way for Russia's biggest advance since May 2023 when it captured the city of Bakhmut.

The withdrawal, announced as Ukraine faces acute shortages of ammunition with U.S. military aid delayed for months in Congress, aimed to save troops from being fully surrounded by Russian forces after months of fierce fighting, Kyiv said.

General Oleksandr Syrskyi, who took the helm of the Ukrainian military in a major shakeup last week, said Ukrainian forces had moved back to more secure positions outside the town that had a pre-war population of 32,000.

"I decided to withdraw our units from the town and move to defence from more favourable lines in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen," he was quoted as saying in an armed forces statement.

The loss of the town nearly two years into Russia's full-scale invasion may give President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a stronger case to make to the West for more urgent military aid as he addresses the Munich Security Conference on Saturday morning.

U.S. President Joe Biden had said on Thursday that Avdiivka risked falling to Russian forces because of ammunition shortages following months of Republican congressional opposition to a new U.S. military aid package for Kyiv.

Capturing Avdiivka is key to Russia's aim of securing full control of the two provinces that make up the industrial Donbas region, and could hand President Vladimir Putin a battlefield victory as he seeks re-election next month.

Avdiivka has borne the brunt of mounting offensive pressure by Russian forces in the east as wavering Western military aid has compounded the fatigue of troops fighting for almost two years.

"We are taking measures to stabilize the situation and maintain our positions," Syrskyi said.

There was no immediate comment about the withdrawal from the Russian Defence Ministry, Zelenskiy or the Ukrainian defence minister.

OUTGUNNED AND OUTNUMBERED

Russia stepped up its offensive on Avdiivka in October and Ukraine's positions had been looking increasingly fraught for weeks.

The Third Assault Brigade, a prominent Ukrainian infantry assault unit, was rushed into the town to help reinforce troops this week as other Ukrainian forces pulled back from the southeast of the town.

The unit described the fighting as "hell" and said on social media that Ukrainian defenders had been outnumbered by Russian forces by a ratio of about six to 100 in some places.

Russia has not given details of its losses in the brutal fighting for the town, but Ukrainian officials and Western military analysts say its advances have come at a staggering cost in terms of personnel and armoured vehicles.

The town, where fewer than 1,000 residents are now left, lies just north of the Russian-held bastion of Donetsk which Ukraine lost control of in 2014 when Moscow's proxies began an uprising. Avdiivka has a vast coking plant that has stopped functioning during the war.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine facing ‘many other’ defeats – Pentagon

The Ukrainian government desperately needs billions more in aid from the US, a senior Pentagon official has admitted, citing the critical situation in Avdeevka, a frontline town in Donbass.

Earlier this week, the US Senate approved a $95 billion aid package that includes $61 billion to fund Ukraine’s war against Russia, but the House of Representatives failed to sign off on the measure before a two-week recess.

“We do see that Ukrainians are running short on critical supplies, particularly ammunition, and we see this as something that could be the harbinger of what is to come if we do not get this supplemental funding,”the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Without this money, the official said, Ukraine won’t stand a chance against the “superior” Russian military and “we also will find many other locations along the forward line of troops that will be running low on supplies, on critical ammunition.”

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Thursday that “Avdeevka is at risk of falling into Russian control,” also citing this as the reason Congress should approve Ukraine funding.

Numerous Western outlets have been reporting for the past several weeks about Ukraine’s frontline problems. The New York Times predicted a “cascading collapse along the front” at some point this year without the Western billions, the Financial Times spoke about the lack of artillery ammunition, while the Washington Post highlighted Kiev’s manpower deficit, which no amount of Western funding can fix.

The latest reports from Avdeevka, a fortified Ukrainian stronghold since 2014, spoke of Russian troops reaching several key locations in the city and coming close to trapping the already badly mauled Ukrainian 110th Mechanized Brigade.

The Ukrainian military has called the situation “difficult but under control”and said its units were “maneuvering in threatened directions” to relieve the 110th. One of the units that has reportedly been sent to the city is the 3rd Assault Brigade, a Western-armed unit consisting of many fighters from the neo-Nazi ‘Azov’ regiment.

Reuters/RT

During five years as a romance scammer, Christopher, now 24, posed as an American army man to prowl social media platforms and dating sites in search of his next victim, and successfully tricked up to 50 women into sending a total of £55,400.

Speaking to Money Mail, the self-confessed reformed scammer reveals the deceptive and cruel tricks he used to seduce women across the English-speaking world from the UK to the US, Canada and Australia.

Christopher, who is using a pseudonym and now works as a consultant at fraud-busting group Social Catfish, started scamming in 2016 as a way of making easy money during his second year of university in Nigeria.

‘I had no money and my family was broke so I had to do something. I chose to go into scamming,’ he says.

‘I know people might not understand, but I’m a professional and it was my full-time job. It took months to get to that level, like training on the job,’ he says. ‘I scammed every day of my life at the time.’

Christopher says he used a 40-page bible for scammers in Nigeria entitled How To Make A White Woman Fall In Love With You From Online Chat.

The book, which has been shown to Money Mail by SocialCatfish, offers a step-by-step guide for romance scammers with scripts of romantic phrases, conversation starters and questions that it promises will make vulnerable people ‘fall head over heels in love with you’.

It says the types of women who are ‘easier to get’ and who will ‘fall in love with you ASAP without much stress’ are those over the age of 40.

It says: ‘They are working hence they have the money you need. Also, being single at 40, they are eager for love.’

Once the target is identified, the playbook instructs scammers to do their research before chatting up their ‘client’.

‘You will want to find out everything you can before chatting [to] her as this will help later on. Check her [social media] bio for information.

‘It can be her hobbies, her pets, job, passion, if she has kids, where she lives, what she loves etc.

‘You can take a pen and paper and list them [next] to her name. This is something I like doing.’

For the opening message, it recommends complimenting women on their activities or what they enjoy and asking a question relating to it. It says: ‘You want to go gentle and different. Do not send a “hi...” There are many people that have sent her hi before. You want to send something that will make her like you from the very first text. Something that will make her open your message and her heart for you.

‘For example, if on her Facebook profile she has pictures of her dogs you can use a line like: “Hi, I just spent the last 10 minutes debating if those cute dogs beside you are mountain shepherds or Belgian Malinois. Please help me here ...they are super cute btw”.’

Another suggestion is: ‘You always have the best music in your stories! I’d love to swap playlists.’

Once the conversation is flowing, the book says to ‘make it about her’. It says: ‘Oyinbo women [a Nigerian term for Western women] like talking about themselves. They will think you care and will fall in love.’

Next, it instructs the criminals to compliment women using one of 60 suggested phrases, such as: ‘I can’t believe I found someone like you’ and ‘Your mind is just as sexy as your beauty’.

Women are more susceptible to messages at night, it claims: ‘Get to know her time zone and text her around 10pm. Night is when you can easily get her to fall for you. You will have her full attention, and if the chat goes well, she will sleep thinking about you.’

Scammers are told to take their time in asking for money to build trust first. It says: ‘Spend days talking about random things. It can be time-consuming, but it’s totally worth it.’

When it comes to asking for money, it instructs to ‘ask without looking like you are asking’ for example: ‘When she asks about your day you can tell her it was bad then tell her you are broke, you are behind your mortgage and they will kick you out next week and you have exhausted every means to get money.

‘By herself, she will offer to give you money. If you want a new phone you can tell her your phone is bad and you won’t be able to chat anymore.’

These tricks have been widely used by romance scammers, including Christopher himself. But did he feel guilty for tricking lonely women? ‘No, I did feel bad at the start, but at some point I stopped,’ he says. ‘I was making good money. I never felt for these people and didn’t let any emotion kick in.’

Christopher says he was arrested in Nigeria but never charged over his romance scams.

He adds that he used social media platforms Facebook and Instagram to contact women as well as dating websites. He primarily targeted women in their 50s and 60s who appeared to be recently divorced or widowed.

‘I can take advantage of that. The dating apps make it easy because you can set your interest on your profile to a particular age and it brings up people of that age group,’ he says.

His profile showed pictures of a man he had found online who was in the army and he told women he was American and had been deployed to either Afghanistan, Israel or Korea.

Christopher says he had no prescribed opening line, but said what came to mind when looking at that woman’s profile to personalise the message. At any one time, he would be in one or two relationships, speaking to women round the clock – from his lecture halls to the middle of the night to make up for time difference.

He would wait until he had gained their trust before asking for money. He says: ‘It would depend on the victim how long I waited to ask for money. I have gotten money in three days before but sometimes it takes months. I would make sure to message every single day.

‘One time I met this woman who had a boyfriend but she broke up with him because of me and was giving me $400 within a few days. I said I cared about her and I would do everything for her. She was 35 and white, working at a communications company. She gave me $400 (£317). We talked for four months,’ he says.

The 24-year-old says he had a range of false excuses to ask for money, which included saying he needed money to take a flight and spend the rest of his life with the woman or to replace his uniform: ‘I started with small amounts and always said I would pay everything back.’

His biggest windfall came from a 61-year-old American woman, he says, who sent him a total $30,000 (£23,700) during their one-year relationship. However, she used Social Catfish, a company that verifies online identities using reverse image searches, and was able to track Christopher down.

When he was confronted by the woman whose life he ruined, he says he felt terrible and is happy he no longer has to scam to make a living.

The National Crime Agency says that the majority of romance scams originate from fraudsters in West Africa – Nigeria and Ghana, in particular.

Christopher says he was open with his girlfriends and explained why he was messaging women day and night. ‘There’s a lot of poverty so a lot of people go into it here – they are used to it so it was never a problem.’

Christopher reveals that the biggest tell that you’re speaking to a scammer is if they won’t show their face via video call.

‘Avoid anyone who says they cannot meet because they are in the military or live overseas,’ he says. If they confess love too quickly and demand the same in return, it is a scam.

Daily Mail

A professional organizer shares her decluttering secrets.

Decluttering your home is a notoriously difficult task. What makes it so hard is that decluttering isn't just about stuff—it's also about emotional baggage and unfinished business. Regardless of our desire to simplify our homes and lives, our attachment to objects can make it difficult (or near-impossible) to let them go.

We tend to ask ourselves the wrong questions when deciding what to keep and get rid of: "Could this be useful one day? Did someone give this to me? Did I pay a lot of money for this item?" Instead, Shira Gill, a professional organizer known for her transformative closet makeovers, asks us to think differently. "These questions are rooted in guilt, obligation, and fear," she says, "and will provide you with the justification to keep just about anything!"

If you find yourself struggling to let go of clutter, it could be that you're just asking the wrong questions, Gill explains. Ready to kick your clutter to the curb? Gill recommends asking yourself the five questions below.

Would I buy this item for full price today?

When sorting through your stuff, this is a great first question. If you wouldn't choose to pay money to bring this item into your home today, then it's time to let it go. Plain and simple.

Would it impact my daily life not to have this item?

Were talking to you, bulky camping gear, inherited sets of dishware, and endless rolls of gift wrap. Think about your current goals and lifestyle, and be real about which items support and enhance your life, and which items just get in the way. Keep any items that are essential to your daily life or that you reach for regularly, and be a little more critical when it comes to those items you only use once per year. If you're holding onto a pair of ice skates but only go to the rink once every few years, it may be better to let go of them and rent skates next time.

Is this item really worth the space it's taking up in my home?

Sure, it might be fun to host a waffle-making party one day, but if you're short on storage space, ask yourself if that bulky waffle iron (or ice cream maker or ping pong table, etc.) is actually worth the real estate it takes up in your home the other 364 days of the year. If these items are creating clutter without adding value to your life, it's time to pass them on.

Do I own a similar item that I like better?

Consider volume when deciding whether to keep or donate an item. Most people have far more than they actually use and can benefit from practicing restraint. If you have eight wine openers, pick the best one and donate the rest. If you have 15 black T-shirts, decide how many you actually need, and then select your favorites from the pile. The same goes for spatulas, umbrellas, and even hairbrushes.

Could this item be useful/helpful to another person?

This question is especially helpful for considering items that were expensive or gifted to you but that you just don't use. If you know the item in question will just gather dust for the next five years, give it to someone who could truly use it. It always feels great to practice generosity, and donating to others can help you swiftly streamline your home. It's a win-win.

Keeping these questions in mind as you declutter your home will help keep you focused on creating a space that supports your life. After you ask these five questions, you'll only be left with things that are truly meaningful and functional.

Real Simple