Africa: A Marxian Analysis

 Introduction

1. State and class in pre-colonial West Africa

2. Tribalism, colonialism and capitalism

3. Religion, racism and class

4. Sharia in Nigeria: a class analysis

5. The poverty of education in Ghana

6. South Africa in the twentieth century

Africa: A Marxian Analysis – worldsocialism.org/spgb

Nigerian women

 Further to this post from SOYMB, 5 March, comes news that women in Nigeria are being targetted to become more capitalism friendly and contribute toward the profits of Nigerian capitalists.

‘The World Bank, formed at the 1944 Breton Woods Conference is meanwhile concerned that women's rights and gender equality need to progress at a faster pace. Lest anyone think that this organisation’s motives are exclusively altruistic the World Bank says, ‘Closing the gender gap could boost global GDP by over 20%, doubling the world’s growth rate over the next decade.’

‘Women have the power to turbocharge the sputtering global economy,’itother said.

Further, ‘Today, barely half of women participate in the global workforce, compared with nearly three out of every four men. This is not just unfair – it’s wasteful,’

‘The development organization argues that the transition to a gender-equal world could be fast-tracked through accelerating efforts in reforming laws and enacting public policies that empower women to work, as well as to start and grow businesses.’

In other words, on behalf of the global capitalist class the World Bank wants a situation where, along with men, more women can be exploited to produce more surplus value (profits) for capitalists. Women are also part of the majority working class and their interests are best served by working toward the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by a social system where quality goods and services are produced for free use not profit.’

https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2024/03/russia-women-and-musk.html

‘An initiative to promote the role of women in local Nigerian businesses will receive a grant of 600 million naira ($376,000) that will benefit 1,000 female entrepreneurs, a foundation run by major mobile operator MTM Group has announced. 

During the launch of phase two of what is called the Y’ellopreneur Initiative in the city of Lagos on Tuesday, Odunayo Sanya, the executive director of MTN Nigeria Foundation, highlighted gender inequality as a significant cause of hunger and poverty.

The initiative aims to decrease female unemployment and promote women’s development as entrepreneurs by offering capacity-building programs and providing access to loans, grants, and advisory services to ensure long-term business sustainability.

“MTN is investing 600 million naira in the second phase of the initiative. The sum of $282,000 (N450 million) is available at $1800 (N3 million) each for the top 150 qualified Y’ellopreneurs to access as equipment loans at a low 2.5% flat interest rate. Upon full repayment of the loan, the sum of $70,000 (N112 million) will be refunded between all 150 Y’ellopreneurs as grants,” Sanya explained.

The initiative is tailored to support female entrepreneurs at medium-sized enterprises who possess at least a secondary education and prefer self-employment. Eligible applicants need to have been operating an existing business for at least two years in sectors such as manufacturing, processing, agriculture, ICT, digital services, waste management, and energy generation.

Sanya emphasized that sustained female participation in entrepreneurship and business administration will not only generate income for their families but also significantly contribute to Nigeria’s socioeconomic progress. 

The submission period for applications for the Y’ellopreneur program commenced on Tuesday and will run through March 30. 

MTN Group Limited, formerly known as M-Cell, is a South African mobile communications company that operates across numerous African and Asian nations but derives a third of its revenue from Nigeria, where it holds an approximately 35% market share.

The MTN Foundation was established in 2004 and, according to its website, works with “disadvantaged and rural communities” to help them “become self-sufficient.”’

Promoted by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN. 

Nigeria victim of fraud shock

  Was Nigeria the victim of a 419 fraud, or advance fee fraud?

We’re shocked, shocked we tell you to find that an African country appears to may have been the victim of a scam. Our faith in capitalist enterprises seeming not to be models of virtue, rectitude and probity in their dealings with capitalist states has been deeply shaken. To take advantage of a government like that goes far beyond the pale.

For new readers to SOYMB, let it be noted that the above is sarcasm. Capitalism as a whole is a cut-throat social system that would leave seventeenth and eighteenth pirates gasping at its audacity.

‘ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A London judge on Monday overturned an arbitration award that would have required Nigeria to pay $11 billion over a failed gas project, finding the contract was obtained through fraud.

The High Court ruling by Justice Robin Knowles reverses the award to the British Virgin Islands-based Process & Industrial Developments Ltd. over the 2010 gas deal. The payment would have dealt a massive blow to Nigeria’s ailing economy.

The judge said although he did not accept all of Nigeria’s allegations discrediting P&ID and the contract, “the awards (of the contract) were obtained by fraud … and the way in which they were procured was contrary to public policy.”

Knowles said three things showed the case as an “irregularity”: P&ID providing evidence it knew was false in a witness statement, the company’s bribery or corrupt payment to a Nigerian civil servant and the company’s ”improper retention” of Nigeria’s legal document which it received during arbitration.

P&ID in 2017 secured the compensation award, which originally was $6.6 billion but is now estimated to be $11 billion with accrued interest. The company’s main claim in the arbitration was for loss of profit for the 20 years the agreement covers.

The contract signed with Nigeria's government in 2010 was for the company to build a gas processing plant in the south eastern port city of Calabar. The project collapsed not long after it was signed, and P&ID took the Nigerian government to arbitration, alleging a breach of contract.

Nigerian officials said the contract was signed under questionable circumstances while late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was critically ill and Goodluck Jonathan, his deputy, was acting president. Officials accused P&ID of bribery and corruption in securing the contract and during arbitration, which the company denied.

https://qz.com/a-british-court-ruling-frees-nigeria-from-paying-11-bi-1850949923

Nigeria: Capitalism NOT a 'glorious dawn'.

1000 Nigerian Naira equals £1.03

‘Nigerian President Bola Tinubu addressed the nation in an evening broadcast on Monday, acknowledging the economic hardship caused by the removal of a subsidy on petrol.

He however said the country would save "trillions of naira" yearly by scrapping the subsidy and that the money would be used to implement reforms that would help boost the economy.

Ending the decades-long subsidy has more than doubled the price of petrol and raised prices for food and other essentials.

But Tinubu said the government had created a fund to use the savings to build much-needed infrastructure and supply cheap loans to farmers, small businesses and students.

He said the government would monitor petrol prices and intervene if and when it was necessary to do so.

"I assure you, my fellow countrymen and women, that we are exiting the darkness to enter a new and glorious dawn," he said at the end of his address.’

https://www.africanews.com/2023/08/01/nigerian-president-justifies-removal-of-fuel-subsidy/

Related?

‘A total curfew was imposed on Sunday in a state in northeastern Nigeria where hundreds of residents engaged in massive looting of shops and public warehouses where food was stored, authorities said. 

Teenagers living on the street started the looting , but were soon joined by hundreds of residents who entered these places where food, especially cereals, was stored before taking them away.

"Adamawa State Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri has issued a 24-hour curfew...with immediate effect ," his spokesman, Humwashi Wonosikou , said on Sunday . "With the curfew imposed, there will be no movement statewide" .

Local police also said security personnel had been deployed to enforce the curfew and prevent future looting.

Nigeria , the most populous country in Africa and the continent's largest economy, has been facing a serious economic crisis since 2016, aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic , then the Russian offensive in Ukraine.

Nearly half of its 215 million people live in extreme poverty (on less than $2 a day) despite its huge oil reserves .

For the past two months, poverty has worsened in the country as the new president Bola Tinubu has taken a series of economic measures aimed at reviving long-term investments, but with serious effects on household wallets.

Last month, the president notably ended fuel subsidies , causing gas prices to quadruple, and indirectly skyrocketing food prices.

In mid-July, he announced a "State of emergency on food security" , promising massive investments in agriculture, and money transfers to the poorest.

Earlier this year, the UN already predicted that more than 25 million Nigerians would be at "high risk" of food insecurity in 2023, not counting recent inflation .

Northeast Nigeria is particularly affected by food insecurity, as a 14-year-old conflict between the army and jihadist groups has displaced millions of people there and driven farmers away from their land’.

https://www.africanews.com/2023/07/31/nigeria-curfew-in-adamawa-state-after-massive-looting/

Nigeria: Food shortage/state of energency

 

Nigerians experienced an almost twenty five per cent increase in their food bills in May.

Following on here from a post on poverty in Nigeria, 5 July, it is now reported that:

‘A state of emergency has been declared in Nigeria as a result of food shortages and surging prices, with the country’s government announcing a range of measures to address the crisis.

On Thursday, it was announced that fertilizers and grains will “immediately” be released to farmers, and 500,000 hectares of farmland and river basins will be activated for year-round farming.

The move will also expand the central bank’s role in financing the agricultural value chain.

“We declared a state of emergency and unveiled a comprehensive intervention plan on food security, affordability, and sustainability, taking decisive action to tackle food inflation,” President Bola Tinubu said on Twitter.

Tinubu emphasized that the goal of the intervention was to promote agriculture and increase job creation, pledging that “no one will be left behind” in his government’s efforts to ensure “affordable, plentiful food.”

Attahiru Bafarawa, a former governor of Nigeria’s Sokoto State, had warned earlier this month about banditry in the country’s north, saying it threatens food security and was a “serious disaster.”

Africa’s largest economy has seen a surge in the cost of food and transportation due to the president’s removal of fuel subsidies and sweeping exchange-rate reform since May.

In a statement on Thursday, government spokesperson Dele Alake said “savings from the fuel subsidy removal” would be directed at revamping the agricultural sector.

A National Commodity Board will be established and charged with reviewing food prices and maintaining a “strategic food reserve that will be used as a price stabilization mechanism for critical grains and other food items,” Alake said.

The cost of food in Nigeria had increased by 24.82% in May compared to the same time last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). It explained that the year-on-year increase in food inflation was caused, among other things, by price hikes in oil, yam, bread, cereals, and fish.’

We will keep on saying it; the solution is socialism.

Poverty in Nigeria

 

The World Poverty Clock is a tool used to track poverty progress worldwide.

‘Nigeria has the awful distinction of being the world capital of poverty, with 71 million people living in extreme poverty today (World Poverty Clock, 2023) and a total of 133 million people classed as multidimensionally poor according to National Bureau of Statistics data.

About 828 million people will wake up every day having no idea when or where their next meal will come from, and many will go to bed that day without eating anything. This is according to a 2021 UN report. The UN further states that of these 828 million people, 25,000 will die today, including more than 10,000 children.

The T200 Foundation’s report shows that Nigeria has a serious hunger problem with a Global Hunger Index score of 27.9, but there are significant variations in the score across states.

Executive Director of T200 Foundation, Amb. Emmanuel Osadebay stressed the need for collaboration among stakeholders to end hunger in Nigeria by 2030 in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.'

https://punchng.com/71-million-nigerians-extremely-poor-world-poverty-clock/

Black death

The civil war in Nigeria officially ended on this day in 1970 following two and a half years of conflict and the death of  millions.     Socialists did not support either side, holding that the workers and peasant farmers had no interest at stake in the capitalist rivalries within Nigeria or in the sordid intervention of Russia, France, Britain and other capitalist powers.   Recent reports, such as that from Amnesty International in November last year stating that government forces had killed at least 150 pro-Biafran activists,  indicate that these rivalries remain and divert workers from expressing their class solidarity.  

Further reading: Nigeria,Biafra and oil.

Nigeria's Slump

Two years ago, in 2014, Nigeria overtook South Africa to become the continent's largest economy, measured by GDP. Yet the country faces severe infrastructure challenges, and it still suffers from chronic power shortages.

Nigeria has seen its crisis deepen in the third quarter. Renewed attacks on pipelines and a slump in oil prices sent the West African nation into its third quarterly contraction in a row, with no fix in sight.

Oil production accounts for around 70 percent of government revenue, and the bulk of the nation's export earnings. Oil production averaged 1.63 million barrels per day. That marked a 22-percent drop from the same period a year earlier, when Nigeria produced 2.17 million barrels per day.

The government's efforts to prop up the naira has drained foreign currency reserves, necessitating the abandonment of the naira-dollar currency peg in June of this year. Despite that measure, a dollar shortage still persists, with black market rates hovering around 440 naira to the greenback this month, compared with the official bank rate of 320 naira to the dollar.

http://www.dw.com/en/nigeria-crisis-worsens-amid-oil-price-slump/a-36469531

Yet another forgotten tragedy

Unlike the refugees from Syria and elsewhere, whose perilous journeys to Europe have rarely been out of the headlines, the people of north-east Nigeria have remained almost entirely below the media radar. The UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator in Nigeria, Peter Lundberg, says the crisis here is worsening rapidly.

As many as 14 million people could soon be in need of help; an international funding conference is to be held in Geneva next month. The UN and other agencies are urgently appealing for additional funding to help the forgotten victims of Boko Haram. The children’s agency Unicef has raised barely a quarter of the $115m it says it needs.

They are more than three million people in north-east Nigeria who were displaced in what has become one of the world’s worst – and least reported – humanitarian disasters. The UN has warned that up to 75,000 children could die within the next 12 months unless more help arrives urgently. In Borno state,  the medical relief agency Médecins sans Frontières says thousands of children have already died of starvation and disease. According to the agency, a survey conducted in two camps for displaced people in Maiduguri indicated that mortality rates among children under the age of five were more than double the threshold for the declaration of an emergency.

Pauline Bannaman of Oxfam, which provides water, sanitation and hygiene assistance in the area, as well as small cash handouts to enable villagers to buy food in local markets, says: “We think the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better, because large areas are now opening up after the military campaign against Boko Haram, which means that more people will be returning to their homes and finding nothing there.”

Nigerian Agriculture

Nigeria is blessed in terms of natural endowments, i.e. land, water, live-stocks, etc. For instance, the semi-arid of the far north through the Guinea savannah of the north central to the thick mangrove forests of the south of Nigeria is cultivated with abundant varieties of fruits. Water melon, pineapple, pawpaw, citrus, banana, guava, mango and cashew, to name but a few, are the common fruits grown and harvested in abundance across the country. Each region of the country produces at least three of these seasonal fruits in commercial quantity. There are many reasons why northern Nigeria continues to hold the aces as far as food production is concerned compared to other states of the federation. Anyone who doubts the region’s ‘supremacy’ in the area of food production needs to visit any part of the north to erase every iota of doubt in his mind. Truth is the north still dominates the rest of the country in agriculture. Yes, if there is an area where the north literally suffers from an embarrassment of riches of some sort, it’s her rich heritage of agriculture resources including flora and fauna.

But the irony, however, is that much of this potential remains a mirage, because Nigeria still imports about $22billion worth of food annually, especially on foods that can otherwise be grown locally, namely: wheat, rice, dairy, fish and sundry items, including fresh fruits.

Estimates show that the country requires 6.3million tons of rice annually, but is only able to provide just about 2.3million tons, thus filling the gap with import. Ditto for wheat, whose domestic consumption is 4.7million tons but the country produces a paltry 60, 000 tons. Whereas the nation requires 2million tons of milk and dairy per annum, it is only able to produce a paltry 600, 000, leaving a shortfall of 1.4million, which is sourced from overseas market. The demand for tomato is 2.2million tons but the actual amount produced locally is 1.5million tons. But over 700, 000 tons is lost to post-harvest. The country also produces 4.5million oil palms but the local demand is 8.5million tons. Nigeria requires at least 3.6milliuon tons of cocoa, but it is only able to produce 250, 000 tons. The demand is 700, 000 while 200, 000 is produced for cotton and 7million tons with 6.2million tons is produced for sorghum.

The only crop the nation easily produces is maize/corn. While it requires 7.5million tons, it produces 7million tons. The country also has self-sufficiency in the production of yams. The nation requires 39million tons annually but produces 37million tons.

The famine which isn't a famine

 The ongoing war with Boko Haram that stretches across Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon has displaced 2.6 million people, both within national borders and across them. It has also left 6.3 million without enough food. The lack of food is the cumulative impact of three years of lost farming seasons, or of crops and livestock left behind, or looted. It is a consequence of towns and villages cut off by fighting, preventing people from leaving or food from coming in.

For the UN to declare a famine, 20 percent of families in a state or province face extreme food shortages, over 30 percent of the population, must be acutely malnourished and hunger causes two out of every 10,000 people to die every day. For those in north-eastern Nigeria not quite meeting the formal definition of famine, it is nothing short of a disaster.

Médecins Sans Frontières alerted the international community of a “catastrophic humanitarian emergency” in June, they were encountering rates of malnutrition and mortality rates in young children that were consistent with famine conditions in newly accessible towns. About 2.1 million people in Nigeria remain completely cut off from any external assistance because of the conflict. We don’t know what their conditions are like, but the conditions in these newly accessible towns raise grave concerns. People still in inaccessible areas are hardly going to cultivate their way out of hunger: even if people could plant crops, the next harvest is more than 12 months away. So aid supplies and the populations we suspect are in the greatest need remain cut off from one another.

We don’t currently have a defined famine in the Nigerian north east, but it’s hardly the point. We have 65,000 people already experiencing famine conditions, people cut off by violence and more than a million people with severe hunger, and we’re only meeting a fraction of the need.

http://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/2016/10/north-east-nigeria-man-made-hunger/

The Tragedy of Refugees

https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2016/10/18/hungry-and-isolated-women-who-survived-boko-haram-face-new-nightmareOver the past seven years, the militant group Boko Haram has set about destroying communities, schools and health facilities in northeast Nigeria and has used sexual violence and the kidnapping of women and girls to terrorize the population. At least 20,000 people have been killed, and an estimated 2.5 million people have been displaced.

Amid the carnage, communities have been unable to tend to their land and multiple harvests have failed. Hunger has taken over. Children and adults have wasted to death. The United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF warned that 75,000 children could die this year without a major aid effort in northeast Nigeria. Aid has been slow to reach people in the region. Some Nigerians fear corrupt local officials are diverting resources from people in need. The international aid system was slow to recognize the scale of the crisis and has not yet cranked into full gear. Ongoing fighting has complicated the effort – the U.N. estimates that 2 million people remain inaccessible to aid agencies.

In Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, families continue to pour out of their destroyed homes and villages, seeking sanctuary, food and medical care. Maiduguri’s population has almost doubled in size to more than 2 million people in recent years. There are 11 official and unofficial camps for people who have been displaced across Maiduguri.  Even after they escaped fighting for the relative safety of the camps, the threat of violence and sexual assault continues to cast a long shadow over women’s lives. Most of the displacement camps are surrounded by the Nigerian military. Men carrying weapons are visible inside the camps, likely members of a civilian militia that is armed by authorities. People displaced from areas taken by Boko Haram have been met with suspicion in Maiduguri. Local authorities have openly fanned fears that the displaced population may have radicalized Boko Haram sympathizers in their midst. The militant group’s repeated use of women and girls as suicide bombers has roused the fears of the local population. Local officials describe women freed from Boko Haram control as a security risk, some claiming that is impossible to ensure that the camps for the displaced have not been “infiltrated” by “the wives of Boko Haram.” When people in Borno refer to “wives,” it is a euphemism for rape and sexual slavery. While it is possible that some women have voluntarily joined or married fighters, most survivors describe forced marriage and horrific sexual violence, including rapes by multiple men.

“Unspeakable things start happening to girls from the age of 12,” Amina, a 15-year-old girl from Bama who recently gave birth to her first child, said in a maternity clinic on the outskirts of Maiduguri. Women who became pregnant while in Boko Haram captivity have been particularly shunned by local communities.

Aisha, a mother of five, described fleeing her home in Mafa when Boko Haram militants attacked two years ago.

 “They came like wildfire to burn and loot our homes – they showed us no mercy, no mercy at all,” she says. “I picked up my children and ran and have been running since then.”

https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2016/10/18/hungry-and-isolated-women-who-survived-boko-haram-face-new-nightmare

Disciple of Evil (2)

Rows of sick people queue up one afternoon in downtown Lagos. There are people with crutches, mothers with crying babies, a couple of wheelchair-bound people and several with bad coughs. This is not a hospital; it’s a sports center. And they are not waiting to see a doctor; they are here to see a preacher.

 T.B. Joshua is one of Nigeria’s most controversial clergymen. Besides claiming to have a direct line to God, this 52-year-old has been performing so-called “healing miracles” for 20 years. He has his own TV shows, two million Facebook fans, sold-out events and branded merchandise. The latest estimates put his wealth at about $150 million. His church has branches all over the world, from the U.K. to Australia. He often goes on what he calls “Miracle Crusades” to other nations.

“He exploits the naïveté or desperation of his followers with no accountability,” says Pradip Thomas, a scholar at the University of Queensland and co-editor of the book Global and Local Televangelism. A dozen people died last year when one of his event venues collapsed. Joshua has not been held legally accountable for the incident…but surely it was another message from God to him?

Joshua is certainly not the only millionaire priest in Nigeria.

The first Pentecostal missions arrived in Nigeria in 1910. By 1970, there were an estimated 300,000 converts, and by the turn of the century, 30 to 40 million, according to Ruth Marshall, professor at the University of Toronto’s Departments for the Study of Religion and Political Science and author of Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria. According to the World Christian Database, some 12 percent of Africans are Pentecostals.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/millionaire-god-payroll-080000251.html

Capitalism kills

Economic hardship is leading to a rise in the suicide rate in Nigeria. The current economic crisis in Nigeria has forced businesses to close. This crisis has now trickled down to the ordinary man and woman. Many are now living below the poverty line which leads to anxiety, depression, and frustration.

Maru Godwin Worlu, an economist and lecturer at the Port Harcourt Polytechnic in Rivers State, said the difficulties are being felt in every corner of the country. He went on to recount the story of a woman with three children who was forced to beg for money to feed them. One day she had had enough and went and bought sleeping pills and gave them to the children. "All three children died in their sleep. They just died," he said.

Who polices the police?

Amnesty International said it had investigated facilities run by the Nigerian police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), and found multiple cases where “confessions” were allegedly obtained through torture, where people who had not been charged with any crime were claimed to be beaten and starved, and where suspects were detained for months longer than the maximum 48 hours defined in Nigeria’s constitution.

A specialist police unit that was set up to tackle Nigeria’s alarming rise in violent crime has instead become a hotbed for alleged corruption, where suspects are claimed to be detained in horrific conditions and tortured until they or their relatives can pay for their freedom, according to their report.

The unit has become seen as a comfortable posting in the police force where officers allegedly know they can “earn a substantial amount of money in a short time”, in part through extortion and in part through the theft of valuables from suspects.

UN Report Card on Nigeria - A Fail

A United Nations report on Nigeria’s Common Country Analysis, CCA, has described the country as one of the poorest and unequal country in the world, with over 80m of her population living below poverty line.

The report read in part: “Nigeria, with a population of over 175 million, is the most populous nation in Africa and the seventh most populous in the world. Her population will be approximately 200 million by 2019 and over 400 million by 2050, becoming one of the top five populous countries in the world.

“Nigeria is one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the world, with over 80 million or 64% of her population living below poverty line. The situation has not changed over the decades, but is increasing. Poverty and hunger have remained high in rural areas, remote communities and among female –headed households and these cut across the six geo-political zones, with prevalence ranging from approximately 46.9 percent in the South West to 74.3 percent in North West and North East.

“In Nigeria, 37% of children under five years old were stunted, 18 percent wasted, 29% underweight and overall, only 10% of children aged 6-23 months are fed appropriately based on recommended infant and young children feeding practices.

“Youth unemployment which is 42% in 2016 is very high, creating poverty, helplessness, despair and easy target for crime and terrorism. Over 10 million children of school age are out of schools with no knowledge and skills.

“Nigeria’s economy is currently in a recession and it is estimated that government revenues have fallen by as much as 33 percent, which has further resulted in the contraction of the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, by 0.36 percent in the first three months of 2016.

“Over-exploitation of natural resources and pollution of the environment, desertification are exposing the population to vulnerability and risks caused by climate change, among others. “Nigeria is well-endowed with forest resources, accounting for 2.5% of GDP. But Nigeria has one of the highest rates of forest loss in the world. Between 1990 and 2000, Nigeria lost an average of 409,700 hectares of forest per year on average deforestation rate of 3.5% per annum.

“Increase in population, human activities like farming, construction and cutting of trees, use of wood and effect of climate change lead to environmental destruction across Nigeria. ‎

“This in turn leads to unpredictable weather, drought and floods. The implication of destruction of the environment includes reduced agricultural productivity, destruction of property and loss of lives.

http://dailypost.ng/2016/09/05/nigeria-one-poorest-countries-world-80m-living-poverty-line-un-report/

Fact of the Day (Nigerian poverty)

The Head of Health, Save the Children Nigeria, Dr Abimbola Williams has disclosed that more than half of over 170 million population in Nigeria is currently humiliated by poverty adding that 90 per cent of the poorest people resides in the North.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201609050100.html

Climate Change Wars?

Growing desertification and violence in Nigeria is forcing thousands of Muslim herdsmen to move south, leading to clashes with Christian crop farmers. Residents and activists report that hundreds have been killed. Scarcity of fertile land and violence at the hands of Boko Haram jihadists in the north of Nigeria are driving thousands of people southwards, dividing the country down ethnic and religious lines.

Thousands of people from the roaming Fulani ethnic group are reported to have fled south this year, running up against Christian crop farmers, who accuse the Muslim herdsmen of violence against villagers. Fulani herdsmen have been accused of attacking the village of Nimbo in Nigeria's Biafra southeast state in April, opening fire on residents and torching a house. Fulani leaders say they are the victims, and that they have no choice but to migrate to seek new pastures and escape the violence of terrorist group Boko Haram.

Much of the fighting is understood to stem from conflict over resources such as land and water, which have become increasingly scarce in Africa's most populous nation. Clashes are reported to have intensified over the last few years. With temperatures soaring and drought increasing, many in Africa are losing their livelihoods. They are looking for other ways to survive.

Desertification is increasingly rendering large swathes of fertile land into desert. A report published in the Journal of Ecology and the Natural Environment says that more than 60 percent of the Nigeria's land is affected. The report cites climatic variation and the result of human activities - including deforestation, extensive cultivation and overgrazing - as causes. Other studies have established a link between climate change and conflict.

Nigeria's Inequality

62.6% of Nigerians currently live in poverty, compared to 27.2% in 1980.

In 2014 the World Bank reported that Nigeria had the third highest number of poor people in the world.

Aliko Dangote, a Nigerian businessman, “was recently classified among the 25 richest people in the world

Jailed in hospitals for debts

 Few Nigerians have health insurance. Four months after giving birth in Umuahia, the capital of Nigeria's southeastern Abia state, 23-year-old single mother Amarachi Amadi is still in hospital with her baby girl. While the mother and her daughter are in good health, they are not allowed to leave the public hospital until Amadi settles the 543,000 naira ($1,900) bill for their care. Amadi, who makes a living selling stones to construction workers for 40 naira ($0.15) per sack, fears she may never be able to clear her debt - leaving her and her baby trapped in the Umuahia Federal Medical Centre (FMC) for the foreseeable future. There are a large number of ABS patients at the FMC due to the hospital's policy of treating every patient who arrives, regardless of whether they can afford to pay upfront for their treatment, said Chuku Abali, the director of the hospital. Abali said he frequently waives the bills of the hospital's patients, many of whom are nursing mothers, with amounts ranging from 10,000 naira ($35) to 1.5 million naira ($5,300). "But if we continue to run on charity, we will fold. Things have to be paid for," Abali told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The University College Hospital (UCH) in the southwestern city of Ibadan has set up a fund which allows hospital staff to make voluntary monthly contributions from their salaries towards patients' bills. Abandoned teenage mothers are given priority. Yet these contributions alone are not enough to solve the problem, said Adefemi Afolabi, the UCH's deputy director. "The government also needs to extend the National Health Insurance Scheme so it goes to the grassroots," he said. "Only government workers and some private workers are entitled to it."

New mothers like Amadi are stuck in maternity wards across Nigeria - forbidden from leaving until their debts are settled. Known as Awaiting Bill Settlement (ABS) patients, these women are responsible for looking after and feeding themselves and their newborns. Whenever the maternity ward at the hospital is full, many ABS patients are forced to sleep on the floor. "Sometimes, we place all the babies on one bed while the mothers sleep in chairs," said one nurse. "Some babies have stayed here until they started crawling," the nurse said, adding that some mothers had managed to escape the hospital with their babies when no one was watching.

Janet Moses, 19, said the father of her twin boys had stopped visiting or answering her calls over the past month. She believes he has been scared off by the bill. No one visits Moses or brings her food, so she depends on other patients to share their meals with her.

Adaku Mmaduabuchi, a 25-year-old housewife who gave birth to her first child in May, is brought meals daily by her husband. But they too have been struggling to pay off their debt. "I have been phoning my friends and relatives to see if anyone can lend me the money," said her husband, Ihunze, who has so far only paid a third of the 200,000 naira ($700) they owe.

25-year-old Blessing Godfrey, a student was rushed to the hospital after she fell unconscious when her baby was born unexpectedly. Godfrey woke up on the ward to learn that her baby had died. Two weeks later, the grieving mother is still in hospital, discharged but unable to settle her 19,000 naira ($67) bill. Her mother, a widow, makes very little selling vegetables, while her boyfriend, also a student, denies he is the father. "There is no one to assist me," Godfrey said.