DECEMBER 10, 2023

BY  Ben Westcott, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Australia plans to bring record-high levels of migration under control by cracking down on student visas and unskilled migration, as the country struggles with a growing housing crisis which has pushed rents to their highest levels in more than a decade.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil will release the center-left Labor government’s long-awaited Migration Strategy on Monday, aiming to return Australia’s migrant intake back to near pre-pandemic levels by June 2025 at the latest.

New estimates of net overseas migration to be released later this week will show Australia welcomed more than half a million people in the financial year ended June 30, according to the Department of Treasury. That is the highest annual arrivals in the country’s history and at least 100,000 more than was expected in April.

However projections, which will be released as part of the government’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook on Wednesday, will show net overseas migration is expected to drop to 375,000 in the financial year ending June 2024 and then 250,000 the following year.

The surge in migration has helped fuel Australia’s growing housing crisis, which has seen rents grow at their fastest rates in decades and worsened the cost-of-living crunch for a nation already struggling with stubbornly high inflation. Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the year through September revealed nationwide rents grew by 7.6% over that period, the highest since 2009.

In a statement, O’Neil said the surge in migration over the past financial year was largely a post-pandemic “catch up” and was driven by international students.

“The Migration Strategy is all about getting migration working for the country, including by the right settings to ease workforce shortages that are holding our country back without putting undue stress on other parts of our economy,” she said.

As part of the Migration Strategy, O’Neil will announce plans for a new Skills in Demand visa to be brought in by late 2024 as one of a suite of measures to address skills shortages in the Australian economy. At the same time, there will be a crackdown on international student visas, including a plan to increase English language requirements by early next year.

DECEMBER 11, 2023

BY  Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha 

Kenya Airways has alerted its customers of possible flight delays in the next two weeks due to a global shortage of aircraft spare parts.

The airline said in a statement on Friday, December 8, that the supply chain disruption had affected its maintenance schedule, forcing some of its planes to stay on the ground longer than expected.

Allan Kilavuka, the company’s managing director, apologised for the inconvenience caused by the changes in the night flight schedule.

Kilavuka thanked the customers for their loyalty and support and assured them that the airline is working hard to minimise the impact of the situation.

He urged the customers to check the status of their flights on the airline’s website, Customer Excellence Center, or mobile app.

He also said the airline will offer timely information and assistance to help the customers cope with the challenges.

Read also: Lessons for Nigeria on Delta, Kenya Airways’ travel partnership “Your safety and comfort are our top priorities, and we are committed to resolving these issues as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Kilavuka said.

He urged for the customers’ patience and understanding as the airline navigates the crisis.

DECEMBER 11, 2023

BY  Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha 

Passengers’ flights processing and checks-in at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) was on Sunday suffered a major hiccup as conveyor belts used to move passengers’ luggage broke down.

Airlines had sent messages calling the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to address the issue as passenger waited long hours for their luggage to be cleared.

“There’s is a serious crisis here please come to our rescue the belt we are told to use is also epileptic

“We need urgent attention on the situation of this belt please. We need urgent assistance, please. Belt is not moving,” an airline who craved anonymity stated.

Passengers’ luggage were seen piled up and scattered around the airport terminal.

Funmi Babs, a passenger, who was affected, reached out to BusinessDay to complain about the situation.

“It’s an ugly situation we have here. Passengers who just landed Lagos Airport are here waiting to get their luggage only for the process to be suspended because the conveyor belts are in bad condition”, Babs said.

She said has waited for over one hour to get her luggage cleared but the situation seems to beyond the control of airlines.

ReSome sources told BusinessDay that the situation is not new as the belt habitually breaks down every one hour.

DECEMBER 12, 2023

By Prince Okafor

There are indications that foreign airlines may be planning to exit Nigeria’s airspace soon at the backdrop of the worsening operating environment.

This is coming amidst several exits of foreign businesses from the country this year, the latest being Procter & Gamble of United States, which announced their decision pull out last week barely months after another multinational corporation, GlaxoSmitKline, took similar step.

The key challenge, according to the airline operators, remains the inability to raise the foreign currency required for their operations as over $792 million of the funds are still trapped in Nigeria, a development that is currently threatening their operations globally.

In Nigeria, foreign airlines collect Naira for their tickets to customers and exchange the same for foreign currencies for their operations.

But they have been lamenting their inability to get the exchange executed through the official foreign exchange market due to the scarcity of foreign exchange resources.

The development has already seen the UAE’s flag carrier, Emirates Airlines which exited the country’s airspace last year still refusing to come back despite intervention from President Bola Tinubu.

President Tinubu had directed the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to create a platform for quarterly reconciliatory meetings with foreign airlines to address the backlog of their fund.

But till date, nothing has come out from it, as there have neither been any meeting or funds released to any of the airlines.

It was also responsible for the move by the airlines to close down their lower fare inventory to travelling agents across Nigeria, denying them access to issuing tickets emanating from other countries into Nigeria in a bid to reduce the backlog.

Aviation World gathered that, travellers from Nigeria pay about N2.5 million for economy tickets to London, Heathrow airport, also, flying with KLM Royal Dutch, over N2.6 million flying with Virgin Atlantic, while with Lufthansa which is among the highest at N2.7 million.( Travellers from Ghana, South Africa, among other countries in the region which have to cover more distance to Heathrow than Nigeria pay about N400,000 to N500,000, for the same grade of tickets.

However, the International Air Transport Association, IATA, Regional Vice President Africa & Middle East, Kamil Al-Awadhi, during a media presentation with African journalists at the IATA Global Media Day in Geneva, called on the Federal Government to take the matter seriously.

He listed Nigeria as the country with the highest amount of airlines’ blocked funds at $792m followed by Egypt, $348 million, Algeria, $199 million, AFI zone, $183 million and Ethiopia, $128 million.

He said: “It is getting to a breaking point for the airlines. They are contemplating stopping operations. Nigeria should look into this to resolve the issue. The airlines don’t have the cash to expand their operations”.

“Ethiopia is seeking a way to resolve this issue even though the blocked fund is rising. The first step for us to solve these blocked funds is for both parties to engage. If parties don’t engage, it is very difficult to move forward.

“I have not been able to engage with Nigeria’s CBN Governor, he said he would engage with me when he had a solution. He is not promising but I have engaged with the Aviation Minister who is very understanding, new to the position, or maybe wowed by the situation he inherited will help to resolve the matter.”

 “The airlines in Africa are owed $34 million. That $34 million is blocked. Depreciation has set in on the money. They have already lost $10 million because of depreciation. That is not fair for the airlines because they have paid all the dues to the operators of the airports. Every due has been paid for. They carry Nigerian officials on these flights and they can’t get their money.”

On the state of aviation in Nigeria, Al-Awadhi said with 25 percent interest on loans, high airport taxes, and insurance premiums which it said was six times more than anywhere in the world, it would be difficult for Nigerian airlines to make a profit.

“Any airline in Nigeria operating outside of Nigeria has a cheaper operating cost and better prices than Nigerian airlines.

“Every airline has its challenges and it depends on where it operates. To answer this question, I will use Nigeria as an example. Nigeria has two most expensive airports; their fuel is higher than elsewhere in the world, and insurance is six times more expensive than anywhere else in the world.”

DECEMBER 12, 2023

By Kingsley Jeremiah, Abuja

Nigeria’s electricity grid has once again thrown the country into darkness as the government operated system went down Monday afternoon.

The system collapsed at about 1pm cutting down electricity from 4,032.80 megawatts at about 12pm to 43 megawatts 1pm and a meagre 303 megawatts at about 5:00 pm.

Most DisCos confirmed that their feeders are out even as the over 22 electricity plants on the grid were all reading zero megawatts as of 5pm going by the data available on the Transmission Company of Nigeria’s System Network.

The national grid, one of the most embarrassing entities of the power sector has failed many times this year alone even as the grid has collapsed for about 138 times in the last one decade.

Just recently, TCN had rolled out the drums over a misleading celebration of 400 days of no system collapse. About two months ago, the grid system, in a double jeopardy, collapsed at 12:40a.m., only to go down again at 6:40 am. (six hours interval).

Data on grid collapse showed that in 2013, the country recorded 24 power system collapses. The collapse incidents stood at 13 in 2014. In 2015, the grid collapsed 10 times; in 2016, it rose to 28, while 21 cases were recorded in 2017.

Grid collapse cases in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 were 13, 11, four and four, respectively. It collapsed about 10 times between 2022 and this year.

A check by The Guardian as of 1:00 pm on Monday on Ibom power was left on the grid with 43 megawatts. Only Azura was on the grid at 5:00 pm with 303 megawatts.

A number of Distribution Companies (DisCos) confirmed to The Guardian that the grid went down at about 13:00 hour.

DECEMBER 13, 2023

"When my husband and I decided to move to Japan, one of the first things we had to figure out was where to live. What surprised us the most was the number of options that were available. There were a lot of choices available in terms of finding a place that fit our needs, and we were able to complete the house-hunting process quickly."-Sarah Pharathikoune, i-5O

Sarah Pharathikoune, a customer success manager with i-5O, moved to Japan with her husband and two dogs in May of 2023. Her company provides manufacturers with digital transformation (DX) and Internet-of-things (IoT) services that can help them streamline their production workflows, and they were looking to establishing a physical presence in Japan to better grasp and service the needs of their clients. Having previously lived there as students, she and her husband decided to pack their bags and take the plunge by moving overseas.

Once seen as a challenging place to work and live in due differences in language, culture, and business practices, Japan is now open, globalized, and hungry for international talent and investment. And the government is offering a range of services to help foreign companies incorporate in Japan, as well as to make it easy for workers to relocate, adjust, and enjoy life in the country.

Housing prices in Japan are surprisingly reasonable, to the point where people on even modest salaries can afford to live in downtown Tokyo. Living within a short distance of one’s workplace is far more affordable than in San Francisco, New York, London, or Hong Kong.

Pharathikoune works mostly from home, and she needed space for her two Labradors. “We decided not to live in downtown Tokyo, as we wanted more space for our dogs.” They found an attractively priced country house an hour away from central Tokyo. “Even though we’re some distance outside the city, I’m able to work remotely without any issues, and my husband can go by train to his office.”

Even outside of the bustling capital, her 5G internet is stable and the public transportation is ample and efficient, with information provided in multiple languages. Pharathikoune says that her husband can get around without any issues, even with only three months of Japanese under his belt.

While Pharathikoune and her husband don’t have children, as a young couple making a potentially long-term move, the environment for raising kids was a consideration—one that she says worked in Japan’s favor.

“I have to admit,” she says, “once I heard about the health insurance coverage for children, and thinking about safety and such, that raising children in Japan would be the way to go.”

Japanese hospitals are among the best in the world, and Japan’s comprehensive health insurance system is available to all residents, regardless of nationality, under certain requirements. Children’s healthcare and medication are lower, and some municipalities offer full coverage.

For Kim Youngmin, Managing Director for South Korea’s SBJ Bank, he knew he’d made a good decision to come to Japan with his wife and two daughters after he saw how passionate and sincere the local school was in helping his family prepared for this major transition.

Kim recently moved to Tokyo to head the bank’s Futures Lab, a business unit that specializes in supporting Korean firms expanding abroad and foreign startups moving into Korea.

“The principal and four or five other faculty, from the top down to the classroom advisor, came to greet me for the parent interview,” he says. “My daughter already enjoys going to school and the Shinagawa Ward provides foreign students with a Japanese language curriculum three days a week.”

Kim has also been impressed by the work-life balance he’s found in Japan. “Here in Japan, once I leave the office, I’m on my own time without being overwhelmed by work. This gives me more freedom to spend time with my family and enjoy my own pursuits.”

Another pleasant surprise was the abundant greenery and clean air. “There’s no need to worry about air pollution warnings. It’s refreshing to see the clear blue sky on the way to the office, or even from the windows while working.”

Japan also offers a wide range of readily accessible recreational activities for families. These include many of the same urban activities that can be found in cities around the world, in addition to festivals and cultural pursuits unique to Japan that take place throughout the year.

Outside the cities, Japan offers beautiful nature and trails for hiking and bicycling, as well as wilderness resorts and other destinations for adults and children. Sarah Pharathikoune of i-50 is looking forward to picking up her old hobby: camping.

“We’ve already tried glamping as a first step,” she says. “There’s just so much we want to do and so much available, the toughest part is actually deciding what to do.”

“One thing that my family and I were truly surprised by was how close we were to nature even living in downtown Tokyo,” Kim adds. “The air where we live is clear and clean, and there are hot springs and hiking trails just a short train ride away.”

Doing business overseas requires personnel who can adapt to life in a new country and new culture. And as global trade expands, Japan is continually looking for ways to increase the flow of international talent into the country by making it easier for companies to bring in experts from overseas, and to smooth their transition process in as many ways as possible. Support organizations such as JETRO can assist partners on both sides in taking their first steps in international business with Japan.

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Libya on Tuesday repatriated nearly 1,000 migrants from Egypt and Nigeria who had been staying in the North African country illegally, officials and AFP journalists said.

The 664 Egyptians were to be taken by bus to the Emsaed border post with Egypt, nearly 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) east of Tripoli.

General Mohamad Bardaa, who heads the country's anti-immigration body affiliated to the interior ministry, said 300 Nigerians were taken to the airport to be flown home.

Libya, plunged into chaos with the ouster and killing in 2011 of long-time dictator Moamer Kadhafi, is now ruled by rival administrations in the west and east and has become a hub for illegal migration to Europe.

Migrants seeking to make the perilous sea crossing to Europe from north Africa often fall into the hands of trafficking gangs that extort them for money.

Thousands of people, mostly Egyptians, have also lived illegally in and around the Libyan capital for years, working in agriculture, business and construction.

In similar operations last month, 600 Egyptians were sent home on November 6 and 250 were repatriated to Niger and Chad on November 28.

According to International Organization for Migration figures, there were more than 700,000 migrants -- mostly from Niger and Egypt -- in Libya between May and June this year.

DECEMBER 13, 2023

In the Nigerian town of Ogoja, a typical day in the life of 15-year-old best friends Rebecca from Nigeria and Blessing, a Cameroonian refugee.

By Femke van Zeijl

Ogoja, Nigeria – Rebecca stares down her sandy street past the palm trees and T-junction. No sign of Blessing. It is already after 7:30am, and their school’s morning assembly will soon start. Rebecca sighs with relief when she sees her friend running towards her. “Sorry, sorry,” Blessing gasps, “I had to queue for hours to get water this morning.” The two 15-year-olds hug and quickly make their way to their secondary school, a stone’s throw from Rebecca’s home in Ogoja, a town in southeastern Nigeria about 65km (40 miles) as the crow flies from the Cameroonian border.

The best friends sport similar buzz cuts and wear the same white blouse and navy blue skirt uniform. As they hurry to school while chatting in Pidgin, there is little to suggest that they come from different countries. Yet Rebecca Jonas was born and raised in Nigeria, while Blessing Awu-Akat is a refugee whose family fled violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions where Francophone government forces are fighting English-speaking separatists.

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Rebecca’s family lives in town in a duplex with a gas stove and indoor bathrooms. Blessing lives in Adagom I, a settlement on the outskirts of Ogoja where almost 10,000 Cameroonian refugees reside. Her family uses firewood to cook and shares latrines and showers with other refugees. And in the morning, when everybody is waking up, she has to wait in line to use the communal water taps to wash and collect water to prepare breakfast. Which is why Blessing’s friend cuts her some slack when she is late.

An open settlement

Blessing’s family fled to Nigeria in November 2017. She remembers the morning when an army helicopter suddenly hovered over their village of Bodam, which lies close to the Nigerian border. “Everyone started running into the bush. But there, soldiers were shooting at people,” she recalls.

A friend of hers was shot, Blessing says, shivering in horror as she points at where the bullet shattered her friend’s arm. She, her parents, her three siblings and two cousins, escaped on foot to the Nigerian border unharmed, but destitute. “There was no time for us to pack. All I had was the dress I wore that day.”

Just across the border, the violence was never far away, and at night, gunshots on the Cameroonian side kept the then nine-year-old girl awake. Because the border area was not safe for the thousands of refugees, Nigerian authorities decided to move them further inland. This is how Blessing’s family was resettled at Adagom I, 63 hectares (156 acres) of federal government land that Nigeria offered to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR to use as a settlement for the refugees. “Here I finally managed to sleep through the night,” Blessing says.

Adagom I, named after the village in the Ogoja area where the refugees were resettled, is not a refugee camp with curfews, exit restrictions and separate camp schools and clinics, but an open settlement of about 3,000 households where inhabitants can come and go as they please and interact with their Nigerian neighbours freely. In Nigeria, a country already faced with the challenge of more than two million internally displaced people (IDPs), mostly in the northeast, all 84,030 UN-registered refugees from Cameroon enjoy freedom of movement, access to healthcare, education and the right to work – rights that many wealthier countries in the world do not immediately grant to foreigners seeking refuge within their borders.

The government also waived school fees for refugee children to enable them to continue their education and return to as normal a life as possible. That is how Blessing and Rebecca became classmates and best friends at Government Technical College, Ogoja.

Knowing what it’s like to be new somewhere

Blessing and Rebecca barely make it to the school assembly on time; the band has just started playing the school anthem as they rush through the wrought iron gate. When the assembly is finished, they head to their classroom, where they always sit together, preferably at the front. As they wait for their English lesson to start, they recount how their friendship started.

It was Blessing who welcomed Rebecca on the first day she came to school in March 2021. Rebecca had just moved from Lagos with her mother and brother – her father stayed behind to run his business selling home appliances. She dreaded her first day in a new school. But there was Blessing, a friendly girl who had attended the school since her family arrived in Ogoja in September 2018. She greeted the more timid Rebecca when she entered the classroom and moved over to make space for her to sit down.

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“She was the first to accommodate me,” Rebecca says with a smile. “She knew how it was to be completely new somewhere.” After school, it turned out, they took the same route home, and since that first day, Rebecca has waited for Blessing to pass by her house in the mornings so they can walk to school together.

Rebecca is aware that violence drove her friend out of her country, but she does not ask her about it. “I don’t want to make her cry,” she says.

Sometimes, she sees sadness in Blessing’s eyes, and her chatty friend grows quiet. Then Rebecca tries to cheer her up by telling her a silly story or getting her to sing – they love to sing gospel songs together. Sometimes, she notices Blessing finds it hard to concentrate in class. “Then I know that afterwards, she’ll be asking to take my notes home to copy them,” she says. Even though it means she won’t be able to study that day, Rebecca says, “I have to lend her what I can. She’s my friend.”

Their English teacher Comfort Ullah Solomon, 46, remembers how lost and lonely many of the refugee students appeared when they first arrived in Ogoja. “They seemed miles away, sometimes they were not even listening, as if they were in a trance,” she recalls. When Adagom I opened in 2018, a lot of Cameroonian children came to the school. In the first year, almost one-third of the students were from Cameroon. Today, as they have moved to other schools in Ogoja, about 150 of the more than 1,000 pupils of the secondary school are Cameroonian.

Sometimes, in those early days, there was friction, the teacher says. She describes an incident where a Nigerian and Cameroonian student were running around when the former playfully shouted, “I will shoot you!” The Cameroonian teenager broke down, leaving his classmate puzzled. Comfort sat down with them and explained to the Nigerian pupil the violence his classmate had fled, and how for him the game might have felt real. “They became friends,” she says.

She made an effort to comfort the new students. “I kept them close, told them they were worthwhile. After a while, their absent-mindedness disappeared.”

Blessing confesses she was scared when she first arrived at her new school. “I thought the Nigerians would bully us and ask us what we are doing in their land,” she recalls. But the way the school teamed up the refugees with their Nigerian fellow students for the Friday quizzes and debate teams quickly made her feel accepted.

Her 17-year-old Nigerian classmate, Benjamin Udam, admits he was also worried when the new students came. “I thought maybe they had a different way of life than us. But we turned out to be just the same,” he says.

Blessing’s Nigerian classmate Alice Abua, 16, remarks that Cameroonians prepare their soup with very little water, another mentions they dance the makossa, while another suggests their English sounds a little different. Apart from that, they don’t see any substantial differences between Nigerians and Cameroonians. And when asked who has a friend from the other country, everyone in the classroom raises a hand.

Rice and beans

After school, Rebecca joins Blessing at her place to cook rice and beans, their favourite meal. They stroll to the settlement market to buy condiments, over the red sand paths lined with papaya, palm and mesquite trees, past the one-storey houses refugee families built with bricks and roofing sheets provided by the UNHCR.

The market vendors are a mix of refugees and locals. Janet Aricha, the woman the girls usually buy crayfish from, is from Ogoja. She never saw the refugees as a threat. “I felt bad for them,” she explains. “Imagine to lose your home and everything in a single day.”

Much like the other Nigerian sellers at the market, she saw the influx of new customers as a business opportunity. Even in town, most people agree that economic opportunities in Ogoja, home to an estimated 250,000 people, grew with the arrival of Cameroonian refugees.

Meanwhile, the girls realise the money Blessing’s mum gave them has finished before they have managed to buy all the ingredients they need. “How did we forget pepper?” Rebecca asks her friend in disbelief. But Blessing has a solution; on the way back, she asks a neighbour if she could pluck some chillies from their garden.

At home, Blessing’s mother has started the fire. While her daughter and her best friend prepare the meal, Victorine Ndifon Atop talks about life in this new place.

It’s not easy, but for the children she tries to make life as familiar as the one they left behind, the 43-year-old says. She points at the garden in front of the 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) house the now family of nine shares. The small patch of lawn is meticulously cut and the white periwinkle and hibiscus shrubs are blooming.

She only knew Nigerians from Nollywood movies when they first came to Nigeria. “In those movies, they are always shouting at each other,” she says. “So back home, we thought they were all ruffians.” But six years in Adagom I changed her mind. When the refugees first arrived, complete strangers from town brought them clothes and provisions. And one day, a Nigerian neighbour from the host community of Adagom gave her a plot of land she now grows cassava on to prepare fufu, a popular Western African dish, to sell. “They embraced us and received us like family,” she says.

‘They are like us’

Down the road, a five-minute walk away, Adagom chief Stephen Makong shrugs to indicate he finds his community’s hospitality towards refugees self-evident. “Of course, we gave them land to farm on. If you don’t, what are they going to eat?” he asks.

When the village leader was told about the refugee settlement plan in his community, he saw it as a blessing. “My father taught me: for strangers to come to your house, you must be a good person.” Not everyone in his community thought so, he adds. “Some young men were afraid they would come and claim ownership of the land. But I told them they did not come to steal our land. They are running from war. You cannot drive them away again.”

But there are occasional disputes. “Even when two brothers live in a house, they quarrel,” the chief says. When some refugees cut trees in the forest for firewood, a town hall meeting was called to explain that in Cross River State you only use deadwood for cooking. But life together has been largely harmonious, most people in the village say. They have also benefitted from the settlement’s development. The UNHCR divides investments in the local infrastructure between the refugee and host community, reserving about 30 percent of its budget for the latter. The drilled wells, water taps and the widened road through the village wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for the refugees.

On top of that, the locals discovered that some Cameroonians are from the same ethnic group as them – the Ejagham who live on both sides of the border. So they even share a language, says Makong. “They are like us. We are the same people.”

That cultural proximity, combined with the perceived economic advantages, could explain why Ogoja has taken in thousands of Cameroonians without much local resistance. Farmers who used the federal land where the refugees were settled may grumble a bit even though they have been compensated for the crops they could not harvest. And with inflation making everyone’s money far less valuable, the town’s economic activity has ground to a halt, much like in the rest of the West African country. But that does not make the refugees less welcome, says the chief. “We enjoy together, and we suffer together.”

This hospitality towards strangers on the run from violence is not an exception in Nigeria. Three-quarters of the Cameroonians seeking refuge in the country did not have to go to a refugee settlement – they found shelter within a community. Just as, according to the UN, more than 80 percent of Nigerian IDPs found refuge with fellow Nigerians.

‘She is my friend’

Back at Blessing’s home, the two girls have finished cooking and sit in the shade with a plate of steaming rice topped with smoky bean sauce on the floor in front of them. For a while, the chatting stops and the only sound is the clicking of two spoons on the shared aluminium plate. When they finish their meal, Blessing teases her slender friend, “The way you eat! I don’t understand you’re not fatter.”

The sun is on its way down when Rebecca arrives back home, but her mother does not mind. She is happy her daughter has found such a good friend. “When I look at them, they remind me of my best friend and me back home in Akwa Ibom,” says 39-year-old Favour Jonas, referring to the Nigerian state she grew up in. “I remember how we used to gist, play and sing together as girls.”

Next year will be the girls’ final year in secondary school. Afterwards, even if they go to different universities, Rebecca is sure they will stay in touch. For now, she has more immediate things to think about. Tomorrow they have a maths and an economics exam, and Rebecca hopes Blessing won’t be late. But even if she is, she will wait for her. “I have to,” she says. “She is my friend.”

This article has been produced with the support of UNHCR.

DECEMBER 14, 2023

BY  Ifeoma Okeke-Korieocha 

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that the ongoing recovery in passenger demand continued in October, stating that the numbers bring the industry closer to completing post-pandemic recovery.

Total traffic in October 2023 (measured in revenue passenger kilometers or RPKs) rose 31.2 percent compared to October 2022. Globally, traffic is now at 98.2 percent of pre-COVID levels.

Domestic traffic for October rose 33.7 percent versus October 2022, driven by the triple-digit percentage growth recorded in China, and was 4.8percent above the October 2019 results.

International traffic climbed 29.7 percent compared to the same month a year ago. All markets saw double-digit percentage gains year on year. International RPKs reached 94.4 percent of October 2019 levels.

“October’s strong result brings the industry ever closer to completing the post-pandemic traffic recovery. Domestic markets remain above pre-COVID levels. International demand is recovering, but more slowly. In particular, Asia Pacific carriers’ international demand is 19.5 percent behind 2019. This could reflect the late lifting of COVID restrictions in parts of the region as well as commercial developments and political tensions, ” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.

African airlines saw a 25.3 percent traffic increase in October 2023 versus a year ago. October capacity was up 32.4 percent causing load factor to decline 4.0 percentage points to 70.3 percent, lowest among the regions.

Asia-Pacific airlines saw an 80.3 percent increase in October 2023 traffic compared to October 2022, continuing to lead the regions. Capacity climbed 72.5 percent and the load factor increased by 3.6 percentage points to 82.9 percent.

European carriers’ October 2023 traffic rose 16.1 percent versus October 2022. Capacity increased 14.5 percent, and load factor edged up 1.2 percentage points to 85.1 percent.

Middle Eastern airlines posted a 24.1 percent rise in October 2023 traffic compared to a year ago. Capacity rose 22.2 percent and load factor climbed 1.2 percentage points to 80.6 percent. There was little impact at the regional and global levels from the Israel-Hamas war, despite reduced airline operations to/from Israel.

North American carriers had a 17.5 percent traffic rise in October 2023 versus the 2022 period. Capacity also increased 17.5 percent, and load factor was stable at 83.9 percent.

Latin American airlines’ traffic rose 21.2 percent compared to the same month in 2022. October capacity climbed faster — up 22.3 percent — pushing load factor down 0.8 percentage points to 85.3 percent, highest among the regions.

“People assign a high value to the freedom to travel. The strong demand we’ve seen all year confirms that. And aviation is committed to ensuring that people can continue to enjoy this freedom. To do that in the long-term, we must also meet our commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

,”Last month, the Third Conference on Aviation Alternative Fuels (CAAF/3) agreed a global framework to promote Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) production with the aim that aviation fuel in 2030 is five percent less carbon intensive than fossil fuel used today.

“Now, governments need to support that target by immediately putting in place policies to stimulate SAF production. It bears repeating: last year, every drop of SAF that was produced was purchased. The same thing will occur this year. But, with a few notable exceptions, governments are not living up to their obligations to ensure SAF is plentiful and affordable to support the industry’s energy transition,” said Walsh.

DECEMBER 14, 2023

BY  Chuka Uroko 

Hope exists for Nigerians in the Diaspora, especially those in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

The federal government is perfecting plans to launch a housing finance lifeline, the Diaspora Mortgage Housing Scheme.

According to the government, the scheme, launched in February 2024, aims to enable Nigerians outside the country to have decent shelter in Nigeria they can call home.

It is expected that the scheme will be not only affordable at the single-digit interest rate but also accessible to all.

Minister of Housing and Urban Development Ahmed Dangiwa disclosed the government’s plan when he received the visiting chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa, and some management staff in his office in Abuja recently.

Many of the Diaspora Nigerians do not have their own homes in Nigeria for various reasons ranging from affordability issues arising from the lack of a functional mortgage system to fear and fraudulent activities of some relations who convert money sent for housing projects into personal use.

Many of these people, especially those in Canada, are homeless there as a result of the housing crisis in that country.

The media, in the last 12-18 months when the lapa wave in Nigeria intensified, has been awash with reports of homelessness in Canada and dire housing situation for some in the UK.

The reports have it that due to the rent crisis arising from low housing supply and affordability issues, which also define the housing situation in Nigeria, some Nigerians in Canada are now living in cemeteries and streets—places considered unimaginable for habitation under normal circumstances.

According to the reports, the streets of Canada and, in extreme cases, the cemetery have become top destinations for immigrants and refugees, whose number runs into tens of thousands, who are now pitching their tents in these places as their homes.

In Quebec, one of the country’s largest cities, for instance, one in two homeless people can be located in rural areas in odd places. This is explained by Julie Bourdon, the Mayor of Granby, who noted that “visible homelessness did not exist three years ago in Granby,” adding, however, that “rents are very high now compared to two years ago.”

Largely for this reason, Dangiwa assured that the government was committed to addressing these challenges, among other issues, with the planned Diaspora Mortgage Scheme and delivering on the tripartite mandate of a Diaspora City Project in partnership with NIDCOM, federal housing authority (FHA) and federal capital territory (FCT).

The tripartite Diaspora City Project is situated at Maitama 2 and sits on over 675 hectares of land. Dabiri-Erewa told the minister that Nigerians in the Diaspora were enthusiastic about both the Diaspora mortgage scheme and the upcoming Diaspora smart city in the FCT.

She said that about 20 million Nigerians in the Diaspora are remitting an average of $24 billion annually and are, by so doing, shoring up the Nigerian economy.

The Diaspora Mortgage Scheme is just one of many initiatives by the government to make housing in the country more accessible and affordable to many Nigerians, particularly those within the low-medium income group.

As a passionate minister with about 30 years of experience in the housing and mortgage sectors of the economy, expectation is high that Dangiwa will change the narrative, especially in the mortgage system, which has suffered slow growth over the years.

Only recently, at the 20th edition of the mortgage banks CEOs’ annual retreat, did the minister canvass flexible repayment plans for mortgage loans, urging mortgage banks to adopt rent-to-own mortgage options as part of strategies to develop innovative mortgage products and make commercial loans more affordable.

He urged all bank CEOs to ensure that Nigerians within the low and medium-income segments have access to affordable mortgages, advising that business owners should not see the provision of housing and home loans from a business and profit prism but as a moral imperative to reduce the number of homeless persons.