Shadow Migration

More Nigerian families are having their babies in the United States and Europe. This is costing the country hard earned foreign exchange, and is sparking fears of future loss of valuable manpower, writes OBODO EJIRO.

When Mike Ogundipe’s wife was seven and half months pregnant in December 2016, he sold his only car. He had bought the car, a Toyota Camry 2013 model, a year earlier with funds collaboratively raised by himself, his wife and close friends, before his wedding ceremony.

“We had to sell something valuable to fund our ambition of having our baby in the United States,” the 29-year-old property developer and his wife, who works with a newspaper told me in their living room in Surulere, Lagos. 

“Today, my daughter has an American passport and birth certificate, which is a head start,” Mrs Ogundipe cheerfully told me as she revealed that her second child will follow the same path (she is already carrying her second pregnancy).

Eating the rainbow

Nigeria’s soil supports many species of fruits and vegetables, but the level of their consumption lags behind what it should be, writes OBODO EJIRO.

 

“The oranges are brought in from Gboko, Benue State, the watermelon comes from either Kano or Kebbi State, while the pineapples are brought in from Cotonu, Benin Republic or Edo State. We small traders have to rely on big fruit merchants for supplies from different places so our businesses can continue,” says Idris Adamu, a trader who has made a fortune off selling fruits in Apapa, Lagos.

 

Chapter Zero

More local children and teenagers’ storybooks are being published, but they face many challenges, writes OBODO EJIRO.

"I want that one. No, not that one, I want the one with the dancing princess on the cover,” says a teenage girl, as she stoops over a pack of short storybooks under the Ojuelegba Bridge in Lagos.

Photo Credit: AC Nielsen

Bet On The Stars

The industry emerged unannounced, taking off from the ashes of previously popular football pools. Today, sports betting or gaming, as it is called locally, is big business in Nigeria.
In the past five years, the industry has grown in leaps and bounds, attracting new entrepreneurs and higher patronage.
With outlets now numbering over 300, scattered across the country, most entrepreneurs in the business are Asians (particularly, Indians and Lebanese) who see the opportunity in a country where there is much love for sports.

Saturday, saturday medicine

Concerns about the quality of education from part-time programmes university keep growing writes OBODO EJIRO

During the week, she works as a cashier at a new generation bank in Lagos while he works as a shopkeeper at a small shop in Abeokuta, but at weekends, they are classmates at the University of Lagos. This is how tertiary remedial or part-time programmes bring people together across Nigeria weekly.

FG, CBN battle stagflation as inflation, unemployment rise

The Federal Government and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are battling an economic anomaly called stagflation as both inflation and unemployment which should have an inverse relationship are rising simultaneously.

The burden of a sale

There is a peculiar challenge facing Nigeria’s economy OBODO EJIRO writes.

They can be seen even when it rains heavily. Young men in their early twenties or late thirties braving the cold, chasing vehicles in desperate efforts to sell loaves of bread in front of Nigeria’s National Stadium in Lagos.