The prospects for cocoa farmers in West Africa have not appeared rosy in recent years, what with declining cocoa prices and reports of exploitive labour practices on their properties. Organisations like the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture have been working to assist these farmers, however.
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/ 12 February 2004
In the past two years, 800 policemen in Nigeria have been dismissed for extortion and another 65 have found themselves in court. But, the arrests and dismissals do not appear to be making a real dent in the levels of police corruption in Lagos, as far as extortion of money from motorists is concerned.
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/ 4 February 2004
While African culture may venerate the aged, the continent’s pensioners don’t always find themselves living out a peaceful retirement. This is nowhere more true than in Nigeria, where the collapse of pension schemes has pushed many former civil servants into poverty.
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/ 28 January 2004
Relatives of the more than 1 000 people who died during the 2002 explosions at a military barracks in Lagos, Nigeria, have boycotted a ceremony to commemorate the event on Tuesday — this to show their displeasure at the government’s treatment of blast survivors.
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/ 21 January 2004
A court of appeal in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, has ordered the Nigeria Labour Congress to suspend a proposed strike that had been scheduled to start on Wednesday. It has also ordered authorities to reverse the one cent petrol tax that is at the heart of the labour dispute.
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/ 24 December 2003
Nigeria’s generations-old father-to-son farming life is in jeopardy — because of concerns over the child labour it involves. Rights activists claim that many of these children are subject to hazardous conditions, including exposure to pesticides and being required to use dangerous tools like machetes.
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/ 27 November 2003
For an insight into how fake drugs affect the lives of ordinary Nigerians, look no further than the Ajibade household. Alice Ajibade, a retired nurse, recently sent her servant to buy medicine for her week-old grandchild. After taking a close look at the label on the syrup, Ajibade concluded that the medicine was fake.
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/ 18 November 2003
Blocked drains, heaps of garbage in the streets, remnants of food and disused household items: these things have become a common sight in the Nigerian commercial capital of Lagos over the past few years, prompting some to label it the ”dirtiest city in the world”. But Lagos is about to turn over a new leaf.
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/ 7 November 2003
The government of Nigeria has rushed health workers to Daramba, a village on the border with Niger, following an outbreak of whooping cough — one of the six main killer diseases for children.
A long stretch of vehicles is caught in a traffic jam on the busy Murtala Muhammed Way in Lagos, where desperate drivers struggle to wriggle out of the chaos to get home.