American football takes off in Nigeria

I woke up with excitement on that Saturday. I was looking forward to covering the American football game, the first time such a game will be played in Lagos. This is a game I've only seen on TV that left me with more questions. Such a technical game. I was never a fan until I saw it played live at the Campos Mini Stadium in Lagos. Gosh! What a rush!!!!! They started off the game with the United States' national anthem. Followed by the Nigerian anthem. Cheerleaders danced as spectators showed support for their local team. The atmosphere was charged as the Lagos Marines were on a revenge mission after losing the first leg game to The Titans some weeks before. Personally, I said a prayer for the Lagos Marines team. The Titans had some really huge players that could knock one out with just a strike.
In soccer-mad Nigeria, American Football, a sport usually played thousands of miles away in the United States but growing in popularity around the world, is slowly winning over new fans.
The West African country this year hosted what organizers said were its first two games as its two amateur American Football teams, the Lagos Marines and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Titans, battled it out on the pitch.
Before the first game in March at the Titans' home ground in northern Kaduna state, few Nigerians had heard of either team. A few weeks later in Lagos, dozens of fans waved banners and cheered in support.
With no official game structure in place, the two matches were one-offs, but the teams are hopeful Nigeria could one day have a league for the sport just like soccer.
ABU has been training its players for several years, holding in-house matches. In Lagos, German coach Dominick Muller founded the Marines in late 2013, recruiting players more used to soccer, basketball and volleyball. With no major sponsor, it was Muller who paid for about 65 kits for his players. For now, no immediate games between the teams are planned but the players expect to face each other again.

Pictures courtesy Sharon Ogunleye and Femi Obagare

Video link:  American football touches down in Nigeria

Modest makeover for Barbie by a Nigerian designer

When I came across Haneefah's designs on the dolls, I was blown away. I knew instantly it was a story I wanted to do. I wanted to get ahead with the video and after initial hiccups and approval from my boss, the story was done. Thanks to Haneefah for being so patient with us. A million thanks to Stephanie Busari for being extremely useful in providing Haneefah's contact after several attempts to reach her failed.

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It's a doll that makes a fashion statement and the designer, 24-year-old Haneefah Adam says can also change the way young Muslim girls see themselves.
Hijarbie, the modestly dressed doll styled by Haneefah out of her bedroom in Kwara state, western Nigeria wears hijabs and abayas in prints, bold colours and various fabrics.
Haneefah, who has a masters degree in Pharmacology from Coventry University in the UK, said the idea for Hijarbie came to her after going through a popular Barbie Style site on social media where she noticed all the dolls were dressed in skimpy or tight fitting outfits - a style most Muslim girls are unable to identify with.
The dolls' bodies are imported from China. Haneefah designs their clothes using locally sourced fabrics and makes everything from colourful fashionable hijabs, maxi skirts, maxi gowns, fully covered blouses and abayas or traditional gowns.
Haneefah says Hijarbie shows young Muslim girls that they can be fashionable and stylish without losing their identity.
What started out as a hobby shared on Instagram is growing into a profitable business for Haneefah.
The Hijarbie Instagram page has 63,400 followers since its first post in November last year. The doll has sold 200 pieces since February through a distributor in the UK from where it is dispatched to other parts of the world and sold for 25 pounds (7,219 naira).
Haneefah says she is now working on a fashion line by the same name and plans to start selling the doll within Nigeria but the success of the brand has come as a surprise to her.

Pictures courtesy Seun Sanni

Link to the video: Modest makeover for Barbie

Pics of Haneefah below:

Nigeria's cocoa sector is still waiting

One year on from the election of President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria is still awaiting the promised policies to boost the cocoa sector, whose growth is seen as vital to offset a slump in oil revenue that has plunged the economy into crisis.
Buhari routinely states the need to expand the agricultural sector to end the reliance of Africa's biggest oil producer on crude exports and cut its 20 billion U.S dollars annual food import bill.
A priority is to develop cocoa farming, the only sizeable agriculture sector in the continent's biggest economy to have survived government neglect since the 1950s oil discovery.
But Buhari's policies have not yet made it beyond the talking stage.
For cocoa processors, Buhari's foreign exchange policies have added to a crisis, as grinders struggle to get dollars to import spare parts, since the central bank has imposed hefty curbs to support the naira.
This, combined with high bean prices, Nigeria's high transport costs and sporadic power supply, have driven up production costs, causing several plants to shut in recent months.
Cocoa farmers in Nigeria, the world's fourth-largest grower, have recently enjoyed bumper profits, but this is due to high global prices for raw beans rather than government intervention.
Akin Olusuyi says his plant's output fell to 4,000 tonnes last year, a fraction of its 30,000 tonnes capacity.
"We have started shutting down already. As I'm talking to you, there are about eight processing factories in Nigeria and I think as I'm talking now, I think only three or four of us are in operation and in operation epileptically. We are just surviving not living really, not living," said the Cocoa Products (Ile-Oluji) managing director who is based in southwestern Ondo, the country's largest cocoa producing state.
So far the clearest message from Buhari's administration is that it will retain many of its predecessor's policies.
The road map inherited by this government seeks to increase output to 1 million tonnes by 2018 in a bid to catch up with the 1.8 million tonnes of top producer Ivory Coast.
The agriculture ministry also wants to plant 2 million cocoa trees within three years, but no details have been given to show how this would be achieved.
"We're looking forward to quick intervention, quick action on the part of government even if it is by policy statements but we have not seen that yet so well, one welcomes such statements but as we have seen over the years, government talks but it does not walk the talk," said cocoa consultant Robo Adhuse, who works with farmers and non-governmental organisations.
Buhari has unveiled a record 30 billion U.S dollar budget for 2016 to invest in infrastructure to diversify the economy, but the bill setting this out has been delayed by parliamentary wrangling.
Adding further woes, a policy retained from the previous administration in which farmers could receive central bank loans at a rate of 9 percent, instead of borrowing from commercial banks at about 18 percent, has proved difficult to implement.
Buhari has urged banks to increase lending to the agriculture sector and in March said the central bank should bear part of the risk of such loans. But the central bank governor has complained that banks have largely failed to follow this guidance.
Nonetheless, Nigeria's cocoa output is set to rise to 350,000 tonnes in the 2015/16 season, as farmers are reinvesting last season's larger profits in fertilizer and pesticides.
Aside from a brief drop in January, global cocoa prices have risen for two years, buoyed by growing demand for cocoa products and chocolate, particularly in China and India, plus fears that the El Nino weather pattern could affect beans.
Fifty six-year-old, Ebeneezer Akinmade whose five farms located just a 20 minute drive from the Cocoa Products plant span 12 hectares, typifies gains made by farmers in the last few months.
"Last year the price of cocoa was 270,000 to 300,000 naira (1,356 to 1,507 U.S dollars) last year, but this year, it is 800,000 naira (4,020 U.S. dollars) per tonne, which I know... that is of great benefit to me," he said.
High poverty levels among the 180 million Nigerians have prompted authorities to see the labour-intensive cocoa industry as a way to create jobs, but Olusuyi at Cocoa Products has been firing workers to stay afloat.

Pictures courtesy: Akintunde Akinleye (Reuters)

Video link: Nigeria's cocoa sector is still waiting