Stories from UNODC Nigeria

Using Data Against Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants: from Theory to Practice

Abuja, 11 June 2021 - On the occasion of the 14th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice held in March 2021, Member States adopted the Kyoto declaration in which they called to "improve the quality and availability of data on crime trends, considering the development of statistical indicators, and share such data, on a voluntary basis, to strengthen our capacity to better understand global crime trends and improve the effectiveness of strategies to prevent and combat crime."

In this spirit, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), with funding from the Government of Canada, organized from 7 to 10 June 2021 in Lagos, a four-day long training of trainers on data collection and analysis on trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants (TIP and SOM). This training equipped officers from the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) with the necessary tools when working with data, but also to train data providers at federal and state levels to improve the overall national reporting on TIP and SOM in Nigeria.[Read More]

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Stories of Hope: Responding to the Drug Use Epidemic in Nigeria: Series 5

Abuja, 7 June, 2021-In recent years, Bmuko village, a community on the fringes of metropolitan Abuja has been grappling with a growing drug use epidemic, in particular among its youth. While the drugs of choice are cannabis and tramadol, in reality most users will consume anything that helps them to even temporarily forget about the harsh economic realities, unemployment and poverty.

For several years, community leaders have been seeking to address the drug use situation.  "We have done our best to address this issue by setting up vigilante groups with support of youth, community and religious leaders, [as well as] the use of policemen in cases of crime. This approach has helped to reduce the crime rate but not the drug use situation in our community" says Ibrahim Dangama, traditional ruler of Bmuko village,

Drug use in the community appears to also go hand-in-hand with an increase in mental health issues, sexual abuse, as well as discrimination and stigmatization against drug users. "Anytime I see a drug user, I classify him/her as someone who is not reasonable, [someone] we want to distance ourselves from".[Read More]

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UNODC Congratulates Step Up Nigeria on the Launch of Halima's Vote -the Movie

Abuja 3 June 2021: Today Step Up Nigeria launched Halima's Vote - The Movie, the fictional story of a courageous Nigerian woman who stands up for her rights and the rights of her community against the attempts of a corrupt politician to buy their votes. The movie which is based on a book by Onyinye Ough, Executive Director and founder of Step Up Nigeria, has been produced by Basement Studios with the support of MacArthur Foundation.

The launch provided also an opportunity to recall the findings of the 2 nd National Corruption Survey published by the National Bureau of Statistics and UNODC which also contained for the very first-time data on the scope of vote-buying in Nigeria. As it turned out, in 2019 21 percent of Nigerians had been offered money or another favor in exchange for their vote on the occasion of the last national or state election in which they had participated. Moreover, a total of 86% of all respondents considered electoral fraud as very or fairly frequent.[Read More]

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