Ndiho Media,LLC.

By Paul Ndiho

August 25,2011

Tourists and local residents alike are flocking to a market in the heart of Lagos, Nigeria’s economic and financial capital. The market with its dazzling array of African artwork, beads, colorful cloths and hand crafted jewelry attracts thousands of people each year.

The bustling Lekki market in Nigeria’s sprawling city of Lagos has become a must-see destination for tourists and locals, with its wide selection of masks, traditional clothing and hand crafted jewelry and paintings.

Phillip, a Brazilian tourist, says he likes to visit the market.

“At all times, we have some friends that come from Brazil, we usually come here to show the beauty of Africa and all the things,”

But it’s not just tourists who visit the market. Lekki market is also a favorite for local residents.

“I like it because; I get to feel the African vibe when I’m here, like I get to see different artworks. It tells me a lot about my culture as an African so I like the work,”

The market, which has over 150 stalls, also sells fruits, vegetables and fresh fish, and attracts traders from the region, like Ghanaian trader, Walter Eto.

Eto, who has been making handbags and other leather goods for more than 20 years, says Lekki market provides a good business opportunity for his products.

“Bring catalogue for me, anyone with catalogue anyone with a design or catalogue, you can bring catalogue for me now or I have a catalogue for myself. I have catalogue for myself, if you come, I’ll show you, and you decide, you choose your choice your design, I can make it for you,”

Taofeek Adeshina is an artist and says the market gives him a chance to show and sell his work.

“We have many type of wood you know to do this kind of work you understand. We have like ebony wood, mahogany wood, eh tin wood and some other kind of wood like that so when you want to, you make sure you use quality wood to do this kind of work,”

With more than 200,000 visitors streaming into Lagos this year Lekki market offers a unique aesthetic in Nigeria’s most populous state.

By Paul Ndiho

August 16, 2011

With one of the worst transport safety records in the world, residents of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, say that their infrastructure needs a massive overhaul and the government will be hard pressed to improve it ahead of elections later this year.

Beating the rush hour traffic is next to impossible when you live in Kinshasa.

Commuters and motorists here often find themselves struggling to get to work and back, as there are few efficient and reliable transport services.

Many Congolese use mini buses to get around, the most popular means of transport, but they are notorious for their reckless drivers, and picking up and dropping off passengers at illegal stops.

Passengers wait in line for hours for a bus. Boyafi Lusingu is a conductor:

“You can see people are suffering because of transport. There are not enough buses for a big city like Kinshasa. We need the government’s assistance to assist in the transport industry, so that they can give us more buses to avoid difficulties so that there is a bus every two minutes, for all the routes.”

Despite its mineral wealth, decades of dictatorship and civil war have meant that most of the DRC’s transportation infrastructure is in poor shape.

The central African nation’s information minister says the government is trying to change that.

“Transport is one of the major hindrances that our government faces. We went from a small town of 350,000 people in the 1960’s to a metropolis city of more that 10 million people.”

In 2008, a Chinese state-owned railway firm signed a 9 billion dollar deal, to build thousands of kilometers of road and rail, but there is nothing to show for it in the DRC. Other such deals have been signed over the years, to no avail. Martin Lukusa heads the Inter-Urban transport project in Kinshasa:

“The real problem is that there is no political will. I have always said that if there is political will, things will get done. I’ll gives you a silly example: Boulevard June 30. The road was built based on political will, where one morning, a man woke up and (President Kabila), and he said that he wanted Boulevard June 30 to be built, and it was built. If the same political will can also be applied when it comes to the railway system and the sea transport, I can tell you that it’s not necessarily a problem of money.”

Travel by Congo’s vast water ways also problematic. Boats are in poor condition, are poorly piloted, and may be overcrowded, which results in hundreds of drowning deaths each year.

“The river is full of inexperienced boat drivers and mechanics. That is why there are many accidents, because most of them are not necessarily professional mechanics or boat drivers.”

But most travelers choose to ignore the statistics. Trader Francine Tambu says she depends on water transport.

“No, we are not afraid of this problem. If the boat is in a bad shape, then we will be scared to board. But otherwise, if the boat is in a good shape, then we have no fear boarding it.”

In May this year, China and the World Bank launched a 600 million dollar plan with Congo to revamp nearly 700 kilometers of rail in southern and central provinces, in the heart of Congo’s copper mining sector. The Congolese government says it has so far spent more than 500 million dollars on eight transportation projects and is seeking some 400 million dollars more before the end of the year.

By Paul Ndiho

August 16, 2011

In South Sudan, Juba University remains closed due to the decay of its facilities, following years of war.

Juba University is in the heart of the bustling capital of the world’s youngest nation, South Sudan, which celebrated its independence in July. It is hard, however, to see the signs of post-independence jubilation and development here. Juba University was closed last November until further notice, unable to serve the students flocking to its gates.

Many of them still live on or visit the campus, and are urging the government to re-open the university as soon as possible.

“We need our people to study, because through education development can be easy and we could fast develop our country, though it is newly-born nation in Africa and in the world. So education is important, because it is the key to life. Though the university remains closed we are wishing the government and the international community to support us so that we can go on with our studies.”

Juba University was opened over 35 years ago during a peaceful period between the civil wars.

In 1989, however, it was closed for security reasons and relocated to Khartoum in the north.

While in Khartoum, the university grew to accommodate over 10,000 students. The university is in the process of relocating the university to Juba, but there are many logistical problems, according to the school’s vice-chancellor, Agrey Abbate: .

“With the relocation process back to Juba, we were now faced with the challenge of having to come into the infrastructure that did not develop during these 20 years of war, it remained as it was when we left in 1989. So that is our major problem: not enough space for lecture halls, not enough laboratories for all this expansion that went on when we were back in Khartoum, and not enough student accommodation.”

The university’s facilities are in dire need of repair. The classrooms are dusty, stuffy, badly lit and crumbling with age. There is an acute lack of teaching equipment, such as maps, tables and lab equipment.

Accommodations are in a similar state. In one of the residence halls, aptly named ‘Titanic,’ there is no running water or sewage system. Students who want to wash need to fetch water from outside the campus, a walk that takes half an hour. John Ibrahim is an electrical engineering student:

“We can live anywhere, even under trees. Our reason is that, wherever we stay, we are ready to change that place, so I hope that we need to bear the situation we are in and we need also to be hopeful and work hard to change the situation.”

In Juba, where the private sector is less developed than that of Khartoum, life is also much more expensive. Students say that the delay in re-opening the university has already cost them a year of their time, and John Ibrahim says he expects there will be further delays:

“So it will be two years [for] no reason while the country waits for its graduates to participate in the development of the country. Or elsewhere we will acquire foreigners to work in our city that is in our country, because they are qualified. Yet we are not qualified because we are not graduates”.

Students say that the troubles of Juba University are affecting not only the youth of South Sudan, but the future of the new nation as a whole.

By Paul Ndiho

August 16, 2011

With one of the worst transport safety records in the world, residents of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, say that their infrastructure needs a massive overhaul and the government will be hard pressed to improve it ahead of elections later this year.

Beating the rush hour traffic is next to impossible when you live in Kinshasa.

Commuters and motorists here often find themselves struggling to get to work and back, as there are few efficient and reliable transport services.

Many Congolese use mini buses to get around, the most popular means of transport, but they are notorious for their reckless drivers, and picking up and dropping off passengers at illegal stops.

Passengers wait in line for hours for a bus. Boyafi Lusingu is a conductor:

“You can see people are suffering because of transport. There are not enough buses for a big city like Kinshasa. We need the government’s assistance to assist in the transport industry, so that they can give us more buses to avoid difficulties so that there is a bus every two minutes, for all the routes.”

Despite its mineral wealth, decades of dictatorship and civil war have meant that most of the DRC’s transportation infrastructure is in poor shape.

The central African nation’s information minister says the government is trying to change that.

“Transport is one of the major hindrances that our government faces. We went from a small town of 350,000 people in the 1960’s to a metropolis city of more that 10 million people.”

In 2008, a Chinese state-owned railway firm signed a 9 billion dollar deal, to build thousands of kilometers of road and rail, but there is nothing to show for it in the DRC. Other such deals have been signed over the years, to no avail. Martin Lukusa heads the Inter-Urban transport project in Kinshasa:

“The real problem is that there is no political will. I have always said that if there is political will, things will get done. I’ll gives you a silly example: Boulevard June 30. The road was built based on political will, where one morning, a man woke up and (President Kabila), and he said that he wanted Boulevard June 30 to be built, and it was built. If the same political will can also be applied when it comes to the railway system and the sea transport, I can tell you that it’s not necessarily a problem of money.”

Travel by Congo’s vast water ways also problematic. Boats are in poor condition, are poorly piloted, and may be overcrowded, which results in hundreds of drowning deaths each year.

“The river is full of inexperienced boat drivers and mechanics. That is why there are many accidents, because most of them are not necessarily professional mechanics or boat drivers.”

But most travelers choose to ignore the statistics. Trader Francine Tambu says she depends on water transport.

“No, we are not afraid of this problem. If the boat is in a bad shape, then we will be scared to board. But otherwise, if the boat is in a good shape, then we have no fear boarding it.”

In May this year, China and the World Bank launched a 600 million dollar plan with Congo to revamp nearly 700 kilometers of rail in southern and central provinces, in the heart of Congo’s copper mining sector. The Congolese government says it has so far spent more than 500 million dollars on eight transportation projects and is seeking some 400 million dollars more before the end of the year.

By Paul Ndiho

August 8, 2011

In the south of Cameroon, a huge, ultra-modern seaport will be constructed by the China Harbour Engineering Company, but the project has not been without controversy.

More than one thousand people living in Kribi, a fishing town in south Cameroon, are facing eviction as the Cameroonian government moves ahead with the plans to construct a deepwater project in the area, a major development program estimated to cost $985 million dollars.

Cameroon’s government had announced a $50 million dollar compensation package for residents of the port, but residents say they are yet to receive any funds and threaten protests if alternative housing is not provided.

“We were born here by the sea. It will really be a problem for us if they take us far away to the forest. The coastal man lives by the sea. If they take us away, then we will not be able to work. But it seems that it’s all in the hands of the state.”

Another resident echoes this sentiment.

“We have yet to be resettled and we don’t know exactly how people will be resettled. That is the reason why we are making requests so that the government can guide us. If they can provide us with alternative housing, then when we have money, we will be able to buy houses elsewhere. But if we are compensated and have nowhere to live, it’s pointless in the long run as we will always live in poverty.”

Although there are no clear figures on how many people will be displaced, the government says it’s reviewing the compensation process that was suspended due to corruption.

“There were some complaints. People wrote to us telling us that there are some beneficiaries they don’t know. Where did they come from? Nobody knows, and this is why the head of state has decided for some inquiries. The policemen came here and we have noticed that… yes there has been some fraud, and this is why there has been a sort of delay in the operation of indemnifying people,”

But many like Ernest Essono, a resident of Mboro village in Kribi say they fear they will never get full compensation.

“That’s why some people’s accounts were closed. People protested, and some were paid but then the payments were stopped. Like my grandmother, to whom they had started paying money but in less than a month, they stopped paying her.”

James Edonge, a chief of a village in the area known as South Grand Batanga, is concerned about this resettlement program.

“The resettlement sites have to be near the sea. And if they ask, why should they have to be resettled near the sea? Simply because our lives are linked to the water.”

The Kribi port complex will have four terminals, as well as a wharf for exporting ore, and will allow access to the bigger ships. Alongside the port, work is also underway on a gas power plant, which is expected to become operational sometime in late 2012.