Committee to Protect Journalists

pulitzercenter:

On ground cool with concrete tiles, a woman carefully smoothed a turquoise and burnt orange printed sheet in front of her. She tenderly unfolded three white baby onesies and laid them on the fabric. Kneeling before her simple shrine she clutched her stomach, raised her eyes to heaven and started her kinesthetic prayer. Thousands of fellow congregants danced and shook around her. A woman sprawled on the ground crying; a man walked in place with his eyes closed, mouth racing with determination.

From his lectern at the front of this cavernous auditorium, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, a tall smiling man with plum cheeks, said, “You can pray sitting, you can pray lying down, you can pray standing, any way you want. Begin to talk to the Almighty God.” He’d titled the conversational sermon “God will make you laugh.” The promises and prophecies conveyed to the gathered faithful were mostly of miraculous fertility.

Religion is big in Lagos. Not just in size, not just in sound, nor in the omnipresence of reminders on billboards, bookmarks, pins and bumper stickers. It is big in the consciences of Nigerians, in the public understanding of morality, and in political debates. Abortion is legal here only to save the life of a mother, and in all cases, taboo. Religious groups consistently lobby the government to keep the restrictions in place.

But despite the restrictions, at least 760,000 abortions happen every year, with complications killing between 3,000 and 34,000 women annually, according to estimates by the Guttmacher institute and the government. Women go to pharmacists, herbalists or expensive qualified doctors for a wide range of clandestine procedures. Often the cheapest abortions are the most dangerous.

Read the full story by Pulitzer Center grantee Allyn Gaestel. Photographs by Allison Shelley. This reporting is part of their project: Deadly Cycle: Nigeria’s Silent Abortion Crisis

saharareporters:

Strategies For Regaining Political Relevance In Nigeria

Journalists may be your worst nightmare but their weapons aimed and fashioned against you will not prosper if the reading citizens are on your side, and are aware that all you have experienced since leaving office are the handiwork of your enemies from the other region, religion or ethnic group. So, come to the social media, which is now the beer parlour of all reading citizens, and face your predators. Yes, create Facebook and Twitter accounts and befriend them, all of them, trolls both northern and southern, Muslim and Christian, patronising and belligerent, sound and silly, young and old…

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