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Showing posts from July 26, 2020

INVESTIGATION: Inside Oyo Transport Tax Scheme where Corruption, Violence Reign

In its reaction to the appointment, the Oyo state chapter of the Action Alliance said the government’s vision to reform the tax environment, raise revenue and instill discipline can “…only be achieved with people of integrity and noble characters at the helm of affairs of the system and not with controversial people, whose names send shivers down the spines of the people because of their notorious past.” Mr Makinde stuck with the appointment, nonetheless. Speaking later in March, Mr Makinde told participants at a Nigerian-American Business Forum in Tampa, Florida, United States, that huge investment opportunities readily await investors if they make Oyo State their next investment destination because of reforms, like the PMS initiative. “The PMS issue is still ongoing but we are up to the task. We shall not waver in our quest to grow the Internally Generated Revenue of Oyo State without burdening our people with unnecessary taxes,” he said. ‘Burdening the People’ But contrary to Mr Mak

INVESTIGATION: COVID-19 Lockdowns Left Nigerian Trafficking Survivors Stranded. Now They’re Looking for a Way Home

                This piece was originally published in  TIME  in partnership with  The Fuller Project , a global nonprofit newsroom reporting on issues that impact women. The three young women agreed they would escape by nightfall. They didn’t have any money or documents, but Jessica, 19, and her friends knew it was time to go. The brothel was not as crowded as usual: since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, the client base had fallen. Together, they waited for night to settle and for the madam to retire to her room. Then, they sprinted for the highway that runs through Papara, a town in the far north of the Ivory Coast, close to the border with Mali. Jessica and her friend, Favor, had been trafficked into prostitution about a month earlier. (Both women, as well as the other survivors of trafficking in this story, asked  TIME   to use only their first names out of safety concerns.) Back in February, a female friend to both girls’ families in Nigeria had promised them jobs in a clot