and you can tell the US press is both reflexivly anti Trump and racist/clueless about Africa when they write stuff like that about Africa. Heck, check out this article: because they insist his remark about "s...... countries" was about Africa, when I thought he meant Latin America, where some countries are good, but others are deteriorating into chaos and lots of folks are fleeing from these countries, most to the country next door, but some to the USA...(Venezuela, Nicaragua, Hondoras and Haiti come to mind).
Nigeria has many problems, and StrategyPage has a summary of them here.
He is facing traditional tribal wars in the north, not just terrorism:
April 30, 2018: The current Nigerian president (Muhammadu Buhari) is a Moslem, a retired general and a Fulani who cracked down hard on Boko Haram but has been more reluctant to take on the Fulani.
he is also facing opposition by corrupt businessmen and politicians (hey, sounds like here in the Philippines, where the corrupt politicians are pushing the "Drug war murder" meme to get rid of him before he puts them in jail.).
At the same time, there is another battle raging between the many corrupt politicians and their corrupt allies in the business community fighting growing government efforts to curb the endemic and crippling corruption. The corruption crowd is suffering losses but have massive financial resources to call on and tend to be stubborn and determined. In addition, there are the criminal gangs that corrupt politicians, especially state governors maintain, and often use during elections or any other crises situation.
He also faces the usual problem of disease. SP notes the fight against polio made worse because some mulsim immans oppose getting the shots: I suspect they read the "anti vaccine" stuff in the UK papers, so again don't pretend this is due to "ignorant Muslims", and eventually these clergymen change their mind when they see less disease.
In Pakistan and Afghanistan, even the Islamic terrorists have come to agree that polio vaccination is a good thing and vaccination is catching up the few unvaccinated kids. That leaves Nigeria where Islamic conservatives up north have been preaching against polio vaccinations for years insisting that the medicine is actually a Christian plot to poison Moslems.
Not mentioned in the article: The oral polio vaccine, which is easy to give to kids, mutates into the real disease once in awhile, so if there are a lot of unvaccinated people around, the vaccinated kid can spread the real disease. Two ways to stop this; one, vaccinate all the kids, and two, use the shot instead (more expensive and requires training).
sigh.
finally, the article mentions that a lot of Nigerians working and living elsewhere are sending money back to help their families.
During 2017 Nigeria received $22 billion in remittances from Nigerians living abroad. This was the largest amount for any nation in sub-Saharan Africa and the fifth highest in the world. The world leaders are India, which received $69 billion in 2017, China $64 billion, the Philippines $33 billion and Mexico $31 billion.
Again, this is a big thing here in the rural Philippines (including our family, who were supported by my husband): One person pays the school fees of all their relatives, and voila, the entire family enters the middle class.
lots more at that link, so go read the whole thing.
Unlike most of the US MSM, they tend to get things right about countries where I have personal experience (i.e. Colombia and the Philippines).
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