Musings From Abroad

US govt vows aid to Nigerian women entrepreneurs

Published

2 months ago

September 22, 2024

The United States government has reiterated its dedication to enabling Nigerian women entrepreneurs reach their full economic potential and establish the conditions necessary to improve everyone’s stability, security, and prosperity.

It stated that its Academy for Women Entrepreneurs would be the vehicle for this. This information was revealed at a recent three-day session in Lagos that brought together 150 academy alumni to improve their digital literacy.

Speaking at the function, Mr. Will Stevens, the Consul-General of the United States in Nigeria, stated that the School for Women Entrepreneurs is an amazing reunion of more than 130 of the 150 women who have graduated from the school in recent years.

“We have been doing this for the past few years since 2019. This is a programme that the US government sponsors to train women who already have small businesses and help their businesses to grow with the aid of further investments in technology, agriculture, and investment services.

“It helps them connect mentors in the United States at the graduate business school in Arizona and mentors in the private sector in the United States and among each other. These women across Nigeria are supporting each other and growing their businesses and employing Nigerians,” Stevens said.

He went on to say that it is encouraging to see women stepping up to become entrepreneurs and working with the US.

Stevens states that the school holds an intake each year for female applicants to the program, stating that “we select between 30 and 50 women to participate.”

Stevens added that by giving Nigerian businesswomen the necessary tools for success, the program has continuously played a crucial part in empowering them.

“Being a part of the academy in the past five years has been an incredible journey and it has helped women entrepreneurs’ businesses to scale,” stated Adebisi Odeleye, the President of the AWE Alumni Association, in her speech. Numerous incentives from the US government have accelerated the growth of different companies.

In a similar move, Women in Successful Careers and UN Women have announced the opening of an Affirmative Procurement Project, which aims to improve women’s full involvement in the public and economic spheres and advance gender-responsive procurement practices.

According to a statement released by WISCAR on Friday, the organisation plans to work with private sector partners in Lagos to promote gender equality in their supply chain and procurement procedures and to pledge to the principles of women’s empowerment.

‘The Affirmative Procurement Project comes at a time when global businesses increasingly recognise that pursuing gender equality is not only a moral obligation but a business imperative.

“Women-owned businesses, which comprise 40 per cent of small and medium enterprises worldwide, shockingly receive only one per cent of corporate procurement contracts,” the statement said.

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Musings From Abroad

Finnish court imprisons Nigeria’s Simon Ekpa for aiding terrorism

Published

8 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian separatist leader based abroad, has been placed under detention by the Päijät Häme District Court in Finland on suspicion of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism.

According to the local daily, Helsingin Sanomat, the court rendered the ruling on Thursday following his arraignment by the Central Criminal Police for his involvement in the terror attacks that have afflicted the southeast area of Nigeria.

“The police suspect that the man has promoted his efforts from Finland with means that have led to violence against civilians in the region of South-Eastern Nigeria,” stated Otto Hiltunen, the crime commissioner and investigation head.

“The man has carried out his activity, among other things, on his social media channels.”

Hiltunen also informed the court that the police suspected four additional individuals in Finland of funding Ekpa’s activities.

According to the story, Ekpa is of Nigerian descent and was born in the Finnish city of Lahti.

His offence occurred between August 23, 2021, and November 18, 2024, according to court documents cited in the publication.

Ekpa is not the only person the police have arrested. In February 2023, they caught him at a private Lahtian flat, but he was freed the same day.

Through the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, Ekpa has continued to be outspoken on social media, raising money and agitating for a Biafran nation to secede. In the southeast part of Nigeria, both factions have been involved in acts of violence, murders, and maimings.

Since gaining formal independence in 1960, Nigeria has seen the emergence of several separatist organisations. The latest surge of calls for self-determination among different ethnic groups has been louder under its immediate previous President Muhammadu Buhari.

Musings From Abroad

Malian singer Rokia Traore arrested in Italy, to be sent to Belgium

Published

1 day ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After Italy’s top court denied her appeal, well-known Malian singer, Rokia Traore, who was detained in Rome in June due to a global child custody dispute, will be sent over to Belgium in the next few days, her attorney announced on Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Traore is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and one of Africa’s most well-known vocalists.

“Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” lawyer Maddalena Del Re said in a statement to Reuters.

The attorney also stated that in its decision late Tuesday, Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld an extradition decision from the European Court of Justice.

Under a European arrest order, Traore was taken into custody on June 20 at the Fiumicino airport in Rome. In October 2023, she was given a two-year prison sentence in Belgium related to a dispute over her daughter’s custody.

She had flown to perform outside Rome’s Colosseum, and she has been imprisoned in Civitavecchia, close to the Italian city, since her detention at Fiumicino.

Lawyer Del Re said that because a conviction was rendered without the defendant’s presence, the Belgian process goes against both international norms and Italian constitutional standards.

After she disregarded a court order to turn over her baby to her Belgian father, the singer’s divorced ex-partner, she was initially taken into custody in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant.

She disobeyed orders not to leave France until her extradition case was handled by taking a private jet to Mali months after being conditionally released. Mali is where her daughter resides.