The Wordsmith Blog™

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters, NAPTIP, has carried out a covert operation evacuating Ten Nigerian girls working as sex slaves in Abidjan, Cote d’ivoire. The girls who were brought into Abuja in two batches are from Edo State, Delta, Rivers and Benue States respectively, with Edo State topping the chart with six girls. The Executive Secretary of NAPTIP, Mrs. Beatrice Jedy-Agba disclosed that the operation which was intelligence driven was in collaboration with the regional bureau office of Interpol in Abidjan and an Abidjan based Non Governmental Organization, family Essan for Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, FEPDH. Mrs. Jedy-Agba who spoke while receiving the girls in NAPTIP Headquarters on Wednesday, sued for more intelligence sharing; co-operation and collaboration between West African Law Enforcement Agencies on trafficking in persons as a panacea to breaking the stranglehold of the criminal networks on the sc

Anyone with an inbox knows about "419 scams". They are the messages from mysterious strangers in possession of vast wealth and in need of a bank account to transfer it into. The senders are often assumed to be Nigerian, hence the name - 419 is a section of the Nigerian criminal code pertaining to fraud. Read more: "Happy spamiversary! Spam reaches 30" But what about the people behind the scams? They are known locally as "Yahoo Boys", a nod to their preference for Yahoo email accounts. Journalist Sarah Lacy tracked a few down and reported that times are hard, in part because westerners have become suspicious of emails that offer them massive lottery wins. Yet, beyond the occasional encounter with an intrepid journalist, we know little about a group of people who seem intent on trying to scam the entire planet. Thanks to Joshua Oyeniyi Aransiola, a sociologist at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, the 419ers are now a little less mysteriou

he African society views same-sex relationships as repulsive. Yet in Nigeria, homosexuals live among us. A few hide their status from the world’s prying eyes, while the majority however do not care. Some of them take Ruth Olurounbi through their worlds, insisting that they have been unfairly judged and misunderstood. Her report: Temitope Ali (not her real name), became a lesbian at age 15 during her secondary school days at a girls only boarding school. She was sent to the boarding school because ‘it was the in thing back then’, she said. Besides, a boarding school was an avenue for self discipline and self development in the arts of felinity, among others. Ali said, looking back, being a lesbian was something she couldn’t have imagined herself being, considering that she was from a devoted Muslim home which frowns against same sex relationships. “In fact, having heterosexual sex before marriage is something that is strictly frowned on my religion. So, becoming a lesbian is somethin

"Its high time we stocked our barns with tubbers of yams, and our silos with grains, because there's food scarcity looming in the air. Since the recent devastation by flood of major farming settlements in the country, food production has reduced to an all-time low state, due to the washing away of several farmlands and existing crops. Its no surprise that this warning is coming at this time, Nigerians had better prepared for the coming scarcity as we hope and pray the rains stop coming down heavily, and the R.Niger stops over flowing its boundaries." Courtesy : The Wordsmith. Here's what the PDP has to say about it: The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday warned that, in no distant time, food scarcity would hit some parts of the country. PDP in a communique issued by its National Publicity Secretary Chief Olisa Metuh, said Nigerians must know that flooding was a global phenomenon. The statement reads in part: “PDP has commended the President for the

Following the sad events which occurred on the 5th day of October 2012 at Aluu community in Rivers State, Nigeria, where 4 innocent Students of the university of Portharcort, Nigeria were gruesomely murdered and thereafter set ablaze for allegedly stealing laptops and phones, a new word has now been added to the Nigerian vocabulary ; "Aluu". Aluu (Adjective) : Wicked, Callous, Brutal, Barbaric, In-humane, Devilish, Blood thirsty. Example : Come on man, don't be so aluu! Aluu (Noun) : A person whose thoughts are evil, animalistic, evil and barbaric. Aluu (Verb) : To murder, kill for no just cause. The newly introduced word "Aluu" can be used in a sentences like the bellow; *)That young man sitting in the corner is aluu, the earlier we left this place, the better for us. Create more sentences here!

…I miss the days when live was simple, when I didn't have to think of what to eat, what to wear, what to speak, nor what to do, and everything went easy. It never used to matter whether I knew what I was doing, all that matters was that I was active, alive and doing something. I close my eyes and imagine those good simple days and wish things remained the way they were, but quickly open my eyes to reality, to who I am today. its hard to swallow, am grown and have lost my innocence, lost my dependence, lost all the bliss I used to enjoy as dividends of my ignorance. I miss the days when life was simple, when I'll do the worse and everyone will say "Allow him, he's only a kid". What immunity! I miss being immune. I miss those days when live was simple, when I never used to know the distance of where I went, all because I was siting comfortably on somebody's back, then, a 10 kilometre walk and a 50 never use to make to me any difference. I miss the days when li

History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe - (Review) Achebe: an exhortation to better governance. No writer is better placed than Chinua Achebe to tell the story of the Nigerian Biafran war from a cultural and political perspective. Yet, apart from an interview with Transition magazine in 1968 and a book of Biafran poems, Nigeria's most eminent novelist has kept a literary silence about the civil war in which he played a prominent role – until now. In his engrossing new memoir, There Was A Country, Achebe, now 81, finally speaks about his life during the conflict that nearly tore Nigeria apart in the late 60s. In many ways, the early part of Achebe's life mirrors the story of early Nigeria. Nicknamed "Dictionary", Achebe was a gifted Igbo student and enthusiastic reader, a member of the "Lucky Generation" of young students who rubbed shoulders at top institutions under the tutelage of Oxbridge colonials. They were effortlessly absorbed into the media, industry a