Cigarette packets sold in Nigeria carry a health warning: ”The Federal Ministry of Health warns that cigarette smokers are liable to die young.” But, says the government, this warning has not stopped many Nigerian youngsters from smoking. Taju Olaide says that he was unaware of the warning because he is uneducated and therefore cannot read what is printed on the cigarette packs.

”When I go home, I often notice that as soon as I come, all the towels, soaps and sponges that were in the bathroom will disappear,” says Isaiah Ojeabulu, who has leprosy. He chairs the Human Rights Association of Persons Affected by Leprosy, an organisation in Nigeria. Ojeabulu has similar tales from his earlier years. He says discrimination against him started from the moment that he contracted leprosy.

When Uzonna Tochi picked up the phone last week, he heard the most chilling words of his life. ”Please do something fast to save my life; they might execute me anytime now,” Uzonna’s older brother, Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi, pleaded from Singapore. Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi is sitting on death row in Singapore with Okele Nelson Malachy condemned in March after being found guilty of transporting heroin into Singapore.

Nigeria’s daily power requirement is about 5 000 megawatts (MW). At most times, however, the National Electric Power Authority (Nepa) is barely able to generate 2 000 MW, prompting exasperated Nigerians to give the utility another name: Never Expect Power Always.

In Agege, a suburb of Nigeria’s commercial hub, Lagos, Augusta Uyi-Evbuomwam has become indispensable. From dawn until dusk, people carrying buckets and jerry cans queue to buy water from her borehole. Uyi-Evbuomwam claims she dare not close shop for even a day, as the entire neighbourhood would be left without water. ”It is more than a business, it is a service. People are begging me to sell water to them,” she says.

Indigenous oil workers in Nigeria, the world’s sixth-largest oil producer, are angry with multinational oil companies operating in the country’s Niger Delta region over the influx of foreign oil workers, mainly from the United States and Europe. Communal unrest is also taking a toll on the country’s oil production.