TALES OF PROSTITUTION,DRUG AT KURAMO VILLAGE

Kuramo village fell to ocean fury and the rage of  the Lagos State government last week. But tales of prostitution and drug peddling which defined its exixtence have come to the fore, as insiders recount, reports SAMUEL AWOYINFA

Kuramo Beach, to its residents, is escapism of some sorts. Besides its regular occupants, prostitutes and drug peddlers see the place as haven for their operations. It was like an island on its own.

For those who wanted to ‘feel high’ on illicit drug, Kuramo also gave them that illusion of being on top of their world. Kuramo offered unending music, blaring from speakers of numerous drinking joints that lined the ocean front.

But the music stopped early hours of Saturday, August 18, around 3:00am, when ocean surge, entombed a large section of the shanties and cabins. It was not only the shanties and cabins that fell casualties, about 16 persons were also swept away by the ocean rage.

By Sunday, the picture became clearer, as government agents moved in, and demolished the remaining shanties. As a result,  the residents have scattered. But some of them  still wished it were a bad dream that would soon go away. They were seen on  Wednesday still hanging around the Kuramo Beach extension.

Some of them lived there for over 10 years, and for those in this category, it is difficult, having another place to call a home. One of them, who pleaded anonymity, said Kuramo though offered them a shelter; it also played host to a lot other negative indulgences.

According to him, over 50 per cent of the inhabitants were prostitutes and they were the main attraction, given the number of men who trooped in, mostly at night.

He said, “The prostitutes are the main attraction in Kuramo village. They were there in all shapes and sizes. From 8:00pm, men would start arriving. Some after gulping some bottles of alcoholic drink, would face the commercial sex workers.

“Besides prostitution, drug also came handy here. Whatever it was you wanted. Is it marijuana or crack (cocaine)? They were available. A pinch sold for N250, a wrapper of marijuana is N50. Again, there was another form of marijuana, which a wrap sold for N200. That one was the concentrated type.

“And for those who wanted to enhance their sexual performance, there were those who sold the local aphrodisiac called Bura ntasi.”

This source who spoke fluent English, said the prostitutes who lived inside the cabins, where they paid between N800 -N1000 daily, depending on the size of the room, were however, conscious of being infected with HIV/AIDS, as they insisted their clients must put on condoms. But he however, added that they had perfected some tricks, in which they swindled some unsuspecting clients.

The source said,“These prostitutes had agents, and the agents normally lurked around. As soon as any man entered the room with any of them, he would be asked to hang his trousers by the window. As soon as the client got carried away by the sexual ecstasy, the agent stealthily picked the trousers from outside, and emptied the money and valuables therein.

“Many patrons of prostitutes here had lost their valuables in that manner”. According to him, the prostitutes charged between N500 -N1000, and all depending on negotiation skills of the client.

“Kuramo ran on 24 hours basis, it hadly went to sleep.”

One of the former inhabitants, Mr. Samuel Adebayo could not be bothered about sex hawkers and their antics.

His concern was where he would start his tailoring business again. Having lived in Kuramo for over 10 years, and being thrown out under three hours, had left him puzzled for now. He was among those seen at the Bar Beach sea front, about 100 metres from Kuramo, on Wednesday.

He denounced the claim of the Ministry of Waterfront  Infrastructure that they were given four days notice.

“I had lived in Kuramo Beach for over 10 years, it was not true that there was any notice. It was on Sunday (August 19) morning that the DPO of Bar Beach police station led his men to this place and told everyone to come out.

“We were given only two hours to pack our belongings. How many things could one pack in two hours? So, some of us only took a fraction of what we have, before the caterpillar moved in,” he said.

He recollected that there were about 110 cabins, and they paid for everything there. “There was no water, no toilets and no bathrooms. We bought water at the rate of N50 per bucket. To bath, one would pay N100, and to use the toilet, it attracted N100.”

On his own part, Mr. Laja Obasi, who said he was a security man at Kuramo, also said he lived there for almost 11 years, and he was almost regretting it.

Obasi who explained that he earned N3,000 per week, stressed that his fear was how to get another job.

Himself and his colleagues were for now, living at the mercy of friends and passers-by. He moaned, “I’m still fit to work as security man, but who can employ me?”  He suffers a limp in one of his legs.”

Another former resident, who simply preferred to be addressed as Prince, said he was a tourism promoter at the beach front, and all that had gone with the wind. Dressed in a jeans trousers and ash-coloured sweater, he said he was in the business of making those who visited the beach comfortable, providing them good drinks and accommodation.

As at Wednesday, Prince was still in a quandary about the way forward.  “I really want to retrace my steps by going back to God in a seven-day prayer and fasting,” he began. “After that, I will now decide what next to do. I have two options -either to raise money for my young wife to start business, because I had been the one shouldering the family’s burden or buy a car which I will be using to do kabukabu.”

The commissioner for Waterfront Infrastructure, Mr. Olusegun Oniru, who visited the site on Monday reiterated that a four-day warning was given to traders and residents. He said, “It is not that we waited for this disaster to happen before we started acting. We gave them a four-day warning of the looming ocean surge and high waves but they wouldn’t listen. It is rather unfortunate that they waited for nature to force them out.”

Oniru added that the state government was faced with an Herculean task, because some of the residents, had no place to go. Some have constructed some shanties, directly in waterfront at the Bar Beach, and inside and outside where they kept their wares and personal effects.

Besides, some traders who were equally dislodged displayed their wares inside their buses and cars.

While most of the residents and traders ruled out compensation of any kind, some of them were still bogged down by uncertainty of their future.

WHY EVERYONE ALIVE HAS ONE COMMON ANCESTOR

A question one Radio 4 listener asked about the bloodline between Jesus and King David raised a wider genealogical issue. How many generations does it take before someone alive today is the ancestor of everyone on the planet?

Listeners to the More or Less programme on Radio 4 have been challenging me to answer any fiendish question they can throw at me.

A question about Jesus’s genealogy was rather interesting and the answer has astounding ramifications.

The Bible says Jesus was a descendant of King David. But with 1,000 years between them, and since King David’s son Solomon was said to have had about 1,000 wives and mistresses, couldn’t many of Jesus’s peers in Holy Land have claimed the same royal ancestor?

Theory tells us that not only would all of Jesus’s contemporaries be descended from King David, but that this would probably be the case even if Solomon had been into monogamy.

We can make this sort of prediction because over the past 15 years or so, these ideas have been studied as part of the research into understanding patterns in our own genome.

The most successful approach has been to go backwards in time, taking a sample of people and imagining the patterns of inheritance in their ancestral family tree.

When applied to the question of who is descended from whom, the results can surprise even the professionals.

That’s because geneticists normally study biological information – DNA – that people inherit from just one of their parents.

Just like a surname, or the male lines of descent quoted in the Bible, these generate lineages that shrink or expand rather slowly. That’s why we expect the proportion of Smiths in the phone-book to fluctuate only a little from decade to decade.

The surprise comes if we look at inheritance from both parents. Here, the numbers change drastically as the generations go by. For instance, we have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on.

Each generation back, we multiply the number by two. This leads to what is called an exponential increase: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 and so on.

It’s not long before we hit huge numbers. Take the specific case of Jesus and King David.

The number of generations between them is at least 35. Luke lists 42 generations down the male line, and Matthew gives an incomplete list of 27.

These numbers agree reasonably well with an average time between generations of 25 or 30 years – an estimate taken from documented historical records from Iceland and Canada.

Jesus Christ would have had more than 34 billion potential ancestors

So back in the time of David, Jesus would have had at least 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 (35 times); in other words 2^35 – or more than 34 billion potential ancestors. That’s far more than the total population of the world, of course.

This is a good illustration of what’s been called the “genealogical paradox”.

In short, we seem to have too many ancestors. The solution is that we have to take inbreeding into account. Many of these ancestors are duplicates; the same person can found through multiple routes in the family tree.

You are unlikely to be the product of inbreeding between recent ancestors. So initially, your increase in ancestors will indeed be almost exponential.

But as your family tree increases to thousands upon thousands, you will inevitably find many obscure branches that have interbred. That’s when the numbers start tailing off.

Even so, by that time, you will have collected a large number of people in your ancestry. So it’s not surprising that any two people in any one country probably won’t need to go back many generations before finding a common ancestor.

More specifically, imagine the simplest case of a population of a constant size – say a million (the approximate size of the Holy Land at the time of Jesus).

If people in this population meet and breed at random, it turns out that you only need to go back an average of 20 generations before you find an individual who is a common ancestor of everyone in the population.

If you go back on average 1.77 times further again (35 generations) everyone in the population will have exactly the same set of common ancestors (although they will be related, of course, through different routes in all the different family trees).

In fact about 80% of the people at that time in the past will be the ancestors of everyone in the present. The remaining 20% are those who have had no children, or whose children have had no children, and so on – in other words, people who were genetic dead-ends.

Advances in DNA allow us to detect shared genetic ancestry

Apply that to the case of King David. According to this model, he would be a common ancestor of the whole population of the Holy Land somewhere between 20 and 35 generations after his life. That’s even without Solomon sowing his seed so widely.

That’s why everyone alive in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus would have been able to claim David for an ancestor.

Reductions in population caused by events such as the Assyrian invasions will have produced more inbred family trees, and shortened the number of generations needed to reach a common ancestry.

What about the wider ramifications? A single immigrant who breeds into a population has roughly 80% chance of becoming a common ancestor. A single interbreeding event in the distant past will probably, therefore, graft the immigrant’s family tree onto that of the native population. That makes it very likely that King David is the direct ancestor of the populations of many other countries too.

How far do we have to go back to find the most recent common ancestor of all humans alive today? Again, estimates are remarkably short. Even taking account of distant isolation and local inbreeding, the quoted figures are 100 or so generations in the past: a mere 3,000 years ago.

And one can, of course, project this model into the future, too. The maths tells us that in 3,000 years someone alive today will be the common ancestor of all humanity.

A few thousand years after that, 80% of us (those who leave children who in turn leave children, and so on) will be ancestors of all humanity. What an inheritance!
Source: BBC

FATHER’S AGE IS LINKED TO CAUSES OF AUTISM AND OTHER

Older men are more likely than young ones to father a child who develops autism or schizophrenia, because of random mutations that become more numerous with advancing paternal age, scientists reported on Wednesday, in the first study to quantify the effect as it builds each year. The age of mothers had no bearing on the risk for these disorders, the study found.

Experts said that the finding was hardly reason to forgo fatherhood later in life, though it might have some influence on reproductive decisions. The overall risk to a man in his 40s or older is in the range of 2 percent, at most, and there are other contributing biological factors that are entirely unknown.

But the study, published online in the journal Nature, provides support for the argument that the surging rate of autism diagnoses over recent decades is attributable in part to the increasing average age of fathers, which could account for as many as 20 to 30 percent of cases.

The findings also counter the longstanding assumption that the age of the mother is the most important factor in determining the odds of a child having developmental problems. The risk of chromosomal abnormalities, like Down syndrome, increases for older mothers, but when it comes to some complex developmental and psychiatric problems, the lion’s share of the genetic risk originates in the sperm, not the egg, the study found.

Previous studies had strongly suggested as much, including an analysis published in April that found that this risk was higher at age 35 than 25 and crept up with age. The new report quantifies that risk for the first time, calculating how much it accumulates each year.

The research team found that the average child born to a 20-year-old father had 25 random mutations that could be traced to paternal genetic material. The number increased steadily by two mutations a year, reaching 65 mutations for offspring of 40-year-old men.

The average number of mutations coming from the mother’s side was 15, no matter her age, the study found.

“This study provides some of the first solid scientific evidence for a true increase in the condition” of autism, said Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, director of the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research. “It is extremely well done and the sample meticulously characterized.”

The new investigation, led by the Icelandic firm Decode Genetics, analyzed genetic material taken from blood samples of 78 parent-child trios, focusing on families in which parents with no signs of a mental disorder gave birth to a child who developed autism or schizophrenia. This approach allows scientists to isolate brand-new mutations in the genes of the child that were not present in the parents.

Most people have many of these so-called de novo mutations, which occur spontaneously at or near conception, and most of them are harmless. But studies suggest that there are several such changes that can sharply increase the risk for autism and possibly schizophrenia – and the more a child has, the more likely he or she is by chance to have one of these rare, disabling ones.

Some difference between the paternal and maternal side is to be expected. Sperm cells divide every 15 days or so, whereas egg cells are relatively stable, and continual copying inevitably leads to errors, in DNA as in life.

Still, when the researchers removed the effect of paternal age, they found no difference in genetic risk between those who had a diagnosis of autism or schizophrenia and a control group of Icelanders who did not. “It is absolutely stunning that the father’s age accounted for all this added risk, given the possibility of environmental factors and the diversity of the population,” said Dr. Kari Stefansson, the chief executive of Decode and the study’s senior author. “And it’s stunning that so little is contributed by the age of the mother.”

Dr. Stefansson’s co-authors included C. Augustine Kong of Decode, and researchers from the University of Iceland, Aarhus University in Denmark and Illumina Cambridge Ltd.

Dr. Stefansson said it made sense that de novo mutations would play a significant role in brain disorders. At least 50 percent of active genes play a role in neural development, so that random glitches are more likely to affect the brain than other organs, which have less exposure.

In the end, these kinds of mutations may account for 20 to 30 percent of cases of autism, and perhaps schizophrenia, some experts said. The remainder is probably a result of inherited genetic predisposition and environmental factors that are the subjects of numerous studies.

Dr. Stefansson and other experts said that an increase in the average age of fathers had most likely led to more cases of autism. Unlike other theories proposed to explain the increase, like vaccinations, it is backed by evidence that scientists agree is solid.

This by itself hardly explains the overall increase in diagnoses, at least in the United States. The birthrate of fathers age 40 and older has increased by more than 30 percent since 1980, according to government figures, but the diagnosis rate has jumped tenfold, to 1 in 88 8-year-olds.

And it is not clear whether the rate of schizophrenia diagnosis has increased at all in that time.

Nonetheless, if these study findings hold up and extend to other brain disorders, wrote Alexey S. Kondrashov of the University of Michigan, in an editorial accompanying the study, “then collecting the sperm of young adult men and cold-storing it for later use could be a wise individual decision.”

That very much depends on the individual. “You are going to have guys who look at this and say, ‘Oh no, you mean I have to have all my kids when I’m 20 and stupid?’ ” said Evan E. Eichler, a professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Well, of course not. You have to understand that the vast majority of these mutations have no consequences, and that there are tons of guys in their 50s who have healthy children.”

AM I NOT A MAN AND A BROTHER?

BY MUHAMMED ABDULLAHI

With pains and bitterness, albeit in different guises, locked up in our hearts, the youths of this country now have almost the same aspiration and challenges.

Whatever language we speak, and whichever part of the country we come from, the story of an average Nigerian youth today is the same, from the South to the North, from the North to the West. We are all a bunch of deprived, under-valued and unappreciated individuals.

An average Nigerian youth today carries with him one story of bitterness or the other. Although he sings the national anthem and pretends to emulate the Americans by saying ‘God bless Nigeria’, his resentment for the country, occasioned by bad leadership and mis-governance, is very obvious. We are angry and aggrieved.

Many of us have chosen violence to express our anger; another percentage has chosen crime, assaulting ladies and snatching people’s money on the highways or their homes; while a large percentage have chosen to vent their anger using the pen. I belong to the last category.

As I said in the foregoing, the story of the Nigerian youth is the same everywhere, and this explains why I will use the first person singular number in the remainder of this write-up. Therefore, when I use the “I” letter in subsequent paragraphs, I merely use myself as a representative of the deprived youth of Nigeria.

I was born in the ‘80s, and so can claim my rightful position as a prominent member of the present generation of Nigerians whose lives have been perceived as just an appendix to the lives of those who consider themselves worthier than the rest of us. These are the people who enjoyed the best of Nigeria and still do, but who have continued to deny those of us who arrived later in the years the right to decent life which they had and still have. Am I not a brother?

Most of these people who now consider themselves more equal than my generation enjoyed the benefit of free and qualitative education, both of which I was denied. They enjoyed basic protection and services from the governments of their time, but they have forgotten all the privileges they had and now ride roughshod on my own rights as a citizen of the same free country under God. Am I not a brother?

Most of them, as revealed in the oil subsidy fraud, believe that crispy dollar notes are worthier than my life. Those involved bargained away my life while I was somewhere in the sun stretching my muscle and expecting that the fairness of my government would guarantee a just reward for my sweat and effort. Am I not a brother?

Even when I struggled through school, I still would not get a decent job, if I get any at all, to sustain me. Instead, I will be told by the demigods in Abuja to go out and struggle for my daily bread; because, as they often argue, they also struggled to attain whatever positions they now hold. But I have been struggling all this while, and the same set of people who ask me to struggle continue to frustrate my effort. Am I not brother?

The politicians of my country won’t tell me they never had to struggle and suffer as much as I am now doing; and that they had jobs and cars, and sometimes accommodation, waiting for them even before they graduated. As my country grows in population, my government did not make plans to accommodate the increasing births. No jobs were created, no infrastructures were improved upon, and the huge revenue from oil which was at an all-time high in the years of my birth was frittered away through unbridled kleptomania and corruption. But am I not a brother?

I ask: Why must I look in envy each time I see my age mate, who were privileged to be born by the privileged few riding in posh cars and enjoying the best of life? Are we not citizens of the same Nigeria, protected by the same government and constitution? Why must I be given the unpleasant excuse that all animals are not equal each time I demand for what should rightfully be mine? Am I not a brother?

Why is it that to the leaders of my country, I am nothing other than a pawn on their chessboard? I am here rejoicing that justice will be done to those who further impoverish me through their subsidy claims, but some people are somewhere trading my life away. Even when they were caught exchanging bribes, a government that should frown at such practice and distance itself from those involved is edging them on. Am I not a brother?

By Muhammed Abdullah

BAYELSA WORKS TOWARD HER “AUTONOMY”

BOKO HARAM FEAR SEND HILARY CLINTON AWAY

Irrespective of the heightening of security in Abuja, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, shelved many of the activities scheduled for her and left Nigeria for Ghana in hurry.

She later held a meeting with the new Ghanaian President, Mr. John Mahama, at his residence in Accra, as she was billed to participate in the state funeral for the late President John Attah Mill.

Clinton, on the last lap of her nine-nation African tour, departed the country shortly after a closed-door meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan and the National Security Council, but she shelved scheduled meeting, with civil society groups and anti-corruption campaigners billed for the US Ambassador’s residence in Abuja.

The US Secretary of State also shelved the traditional ‘Meet and Greet’ with US Embassy staff.

At the closed-door session with members of the National Security Council were the Minister of State, Defence, Chief Olusola Obada; National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.); Chief of Defence Staff, Air-Marshal Oluseyi Petinrin; Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika; and the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Muhammed Abubakar.

The Federal Government had deployed security agents in many parts of the Federal Capital City, including the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport and Umaru Yar’Adua Way, which were manned by soldiers and policemen as part of the security measures for Clinton’s visit.

Security agents were also at the Federal Secretariat and the Central Business District.

Also, roads leading to the Presidential Villa and the Federal Secretariat and the Central Business District were manned by armed security agents.

Foreign media reports on Thursday however indicated that Clinton would not pass the night in Nigeria because of security fears.

“The security situation in Nigeria has deteriorated to the point where the movement of US Embassy workers is often restricted. Clinton will spend only five hours on the ground and will not spend the night in Abuja, where the hotel traditionally used by visiting dignitaries has been the target of terrorist threats,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

Before she left the country, however, the US Secretary of State had encouraged Jonathan to take tough decisions necessary to change the fortunes of the country and that the US would support him.

She told the President, “We were also very supportive of anti-corruption reform efforts, more transparency in the work that you and your team are also championing because we really believe that the future for Nigeria is limitless but the most important task that you face, as you have said, is making sure that there are better opportunities for all Nigerians, South, East, West, every young boy and girl to have chance to fulfill his God-given potential.

“We want to work with you and we will be by your side as you make the reforms and take the tough decisions that are necessary.”

Jonathan had earlier paid tribute to the US President Barak Obama and Clinton for their support for Nigeria. He recalled that she had used her position as US Secretary of State to deepen the relationship between the two countries.

He said, “Within this period of being Secretary of State, she has raised the relationship between Nigeria and America to a very high level that we have never reached for quite some time by personally chairing the Bi-national and we have discussed various things – security, economy and so on and so forth. She has been very supportive.

“And of course, the President of America, President Obama administration is also quite passionate about Africa and Nigeria. He has always been very supportive of us for the past five years. From the days I came in as Vice-President, especially that period as a nation when we faced a lot of challenges when the late President was very ill and we passed through turbulence period.

“The support they gave us was one of the supports that stabilized this country. And when we insisted we must conduct election that is free and fair and that is the only way we can stabilize democracy, they were very supportive.

“They gave us moral support, technical support to INEC and assisted us to make sure that we conducted elections that national and international observers declared as free and fair.

“So let me on behalf of government and good people of Nigeria really thank you and President Obama and the good people of America for this your support for Nigeria and Africa and all what you are doing to make sure that this part of the globe develop.”

Clinton who was decked in a pair of black trousers and red jacket arrived at the Presidential Villa at 3.50pm in company with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru; Nigerian Ambassador to US, Ambassador Ade Adefuye, and a battery of security details and foreign journalists.

She left the Presidential Villa at 6.15 pm and headed for the airport and on her way to Accra, Ghana.

President Barack Obama had been under pressure by some American legislators to classify the Islamic violent sect, Boko Haram, as a terrorist group, a campaign that had been resisted by diplomats arguing that the sect mainly focused on domestic violence

CAMEROUN ATHLETES MISSING IN OLYMPIC

Seven athletes from Cameroon’s delegation to the London Olympics have gone missing, the country’s head of mission said Tuesday.

The missing athletes include five male boxers, a female footballer and a male swimmer, Paul Ekane Edingue, said David Ojong, Cameroon’s head of mission to London 2012.

Ojong said the missing boxers, named as Thomas Essomba, Christian Donfack Adjoufack, Yhyacinthe Abdon Mewoli, Serge Ambomo and Blaise Yepmou Mendouo, had not been seen since Monday.

Footballer Drusille Ngako, who was one of the team’s reserve players, went missing on July 26, he said.

The Cameroonian delegation approached the London Games organizers, LOCOG, and the High Commission of Cameroon in London as soon as they became aware of the missing athletes, Ojong said.

Nothing has been heard from the athletes since they went missing, he said, but their compatriots “hope and believe” the athletes will rejoin the group before they return to Cameroon.

UK authorities say athletes visiting the United Kingdom for the Games are free to come and go as they please from the Olympic village, where visiting delegations are housed.

Athletes and team officials have been allowed to seek permission to enter and remain in the United Kingdom without a visa from March 30 to November 8. Their right to be in the country ends on November 8.

The UK Home Office, which is responsible for border security, declined to comment on the missing athletes.

The director of protocol at the Cameroonian Ministry for External Relations in Yaounde also declined to comment.