Nigeria: Ojota Foot Bridge - Traders, Beggars Make Brisk Business

For several months, the new Ojota pedestrian bridge was almost 'begging' for 'patronage' due to peoples' preference for 'short cut' to use the deadly express road. They gave various excuses, ranging the steep climb to the time it take to come down the other end for 'abandoning' the footbridge, allafrica.com reports.



But last month the state government constructed an iron-fenced barricade to prevent recalcitrant pedestrian from crossing the express road as well as stationed combined teams of security men at the facility in order to monitor compliance. Hithertho,Governor Akinwunmi Ambode's campaign for the use of footbridge,especially in the ever-busy Ojota is paying off as scores of passers-bye now use the facility with some measure of discipline.

For instance it is now a norm to queue when using the foot bridge,whose stairs have now been demarcated with iron to aid movement of pedestrians and prevent stampede. But the current arrangement in Ojota is now a brisk business for the business-inclined ones as they now use the long queues to either sell or advertise their wares in late hours of the day when security operatives might have left.

Among the 'beneficiaries' of the new arrangement are petty traders,who sell soft drinks ,water,gala and other edibles. Some of these traders 'overlap' from neighbouring bus garages when there is lull in business to sell edibles to pedestrians queuing to ply the bridge. Shoe menders are also not left out of the benefits created by the new arrangement in plying Ojota bridge. They are more in number under the Ojota and ready to provide services to pedestrians using the bridge.

The long queues of pedestrians at the Ojota footbridge has also attracted beggars,corporate beggars and street urchins who seek alms to survive. They beseech their 'donors' and sometimes fabricate or concoct stories to make people part with their tokens. For advertisers,marketers and employment agencies,the pedestrians queues at Ojota is a ready made market to hook their target or restrategise. They do that through distribution or circulation of handbills or pamphlets among the pedestrians on queue. Besides,commercial bus drivers now use the exit and entry points of the footbridge as terminus to either drop passengers or pick another ones.The conductors are there in large numbers 'dragging' passengers with their skills.

Kidnapping: IG deploys helicopter, mobile cops to Kogi

Solomon Arase

The Inspector-General of Police (IG), Mr Solomon Arase, has approved the deployment of a helicopter and more policemen to Kogi to checkmate the increasing rate of kidnapping and armed robbery in the state, P.M News reports. The Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, while addressing newly deployed policemen in Lokoja on Tuesday, said the helicopter was for aerial surveillance.




Among the deployed policemen are members of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad and four detachments of mobile policemen and trackers. He said the police had been provided sophisticated security equipment and that the helicopter had since commenced aerial surveillance of suspected criminal hideouts in the state.

Bello said that it was hoped that the incidence of kidnapping, armed robbery and other violent crimes in parts of the state would soon be history. He thanked President Muhammadu Buhari and the IG for their intervention in the situation in the state.

The governor said that kidnappers and other criminals would not be allowed to operate in the state as the security agencies had been directed to go after criminals and smoke them out from their hideouts. He also said that local governments in the state had been directed to constitute vigilance committees to complement the efforts of the security agencies.

Bello said that the committees, to be made up of traditional hunters, ex-servicemen and other relevant groups, would assist in intelligence gathering. He said the government would soon embark on some job creation programmes in agriculture to check youth restiveness and divert youths’ attention from crime.

Bello promised that security of life and property would continue to be a priority to his administration and urged Kogi residents to assist by reporting suspicious movement and people promptly to security agencies. Earlier, while presenting the helicopter and policemen to the governor, the Commissioner of Police in Kogi, Mr Usman Yakubu, said a lot had been achieved in the fight against criminals since the arrival of the helicopter and policemen. “With this helicopter, we can easily track down either kidnappers or robbers operating in the state. “The aerial view gives us full details of the suspected criminals while operating,” he said.

Nigeria’s Latest Enemy? Tomato-Eating Moths

Nigerians love tomatoes. They are a non-negotiable ingredient in a number of traditional dishes, most notably in jollof rice — arguably the country’s most famous and delicious meal. But across the country, the price of a basket of tomatoes has increased more than 30-fold in the past few months. The culprit?  A fruit-eating moth known as the “tomato leaf miner,” or tuta absoluta, that has destroyed some 80 percent of tomato farms in the country’s northern Kaduna state.




According to foreignpolicy.com,  the Kaduna government on Monday declared a state of emergency over the tomato shortage. By Tuesday Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, had announced the central government would send experts north to address the crisis.

Agriculture Commissioner Daniel Manzo Maigari said at a news conference in Kaduna Monday that 200 farmers have lost $5.1 million in the past month alone. In some parts of the country, a basket of tomatoes can run upwards of $40. A few months ago, it would have cost $1.20. That means fewer customers — and less money for Nigerian tomato farmers.

Ogbeh blamed neighboring Niger for the infestation, saying it arrived in Nigeria from insects that traveled south from the country’s northern neighbor. “There was nothing the quarantine service could do to stop it from coming into the country as the disease is being carried by insects,” he said.

Regular Nigerians are suffering under the tomato shortage, and last month, Aliko Dangote — Africa’s richest man, with an estimated net worth of $17 billion — stopped production at his tomato paste business in the northern state of Kano. According to him, there were not enough tomatoes coming into his $20 million business to make production worthwhile.

The tomato crisis is the latest setback for the country’s unstable northern region, where Boko Haram terrorists have killed more than thousands of people and displaced millions more in recent years. The tomato shortage represents a crisis of a different kind, but Ogbeh said Tuesday, a crisis all the same. “We also need to educate farmers on how to control the infestation and we also need to raise new nurseries,” he said to a group of local journalists. “The process is much like an immunization program.”