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One of the family photos taken after the laborious end of the 26th climate summit in Glasgow, which closed a day later than scheduled with a Climate Pact described as falling short by even the most optimistic, lacking important decisions to combat the crisis and without directly confronting fossil fuels, the cause of the emergency. CREDIT: UNFCCC

By Emilio Godoy
GLASGOW, Nov 13 2021 (IPS)

Developing countries will surely remember the Glasgow climate summit, the most important since 2015, as a fiasco that left them as an afterthought. That was the prevailing sentiment among delegates from the developing South during the closing ceremony on the night of Saturday Nov. 13, one day after the scheduled end of the conference.

Bolivia’s chief negotiator, Diego Pacheco, questioned the outcome of the summit. “It is not fair to pass the responsibility to developing countries. Developed countries do not want to acknowledge their responsibility for the crisis. They have systematically broken their funding pledges and emission reduction commitments,” he told IPS minutes after the end of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) on climate change in Glasgow.

The 196 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ignored the public clamor, which took shape in the demands of indigenous peoples, young people, women, scientists and social movements around the world for substantive measures to combat the climate crisis, even though the goal of containing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is barely surviving on life support.

The Glasgow Climate Pact that came out of the summit finally mentions the need to move away from the use of coal. But it had to water down the stronger recommendation to “phase out” in order to overcome the last stumbling block.

In addition, COP26 broke a taboo, albeit very tepidly, after arduous marches and counter-marches in the negotiating room and in the three drafts of the Glasgow Pact: there was a mention of fossil fuels as part of the climate emergency. And it also stated the need to reduce “inefficient” subsidies for fossil fuels.

But the summit, where decisions are made by consensus, avoided a strong stance in this regard. It also avoided moving from recommendations to obligations for the next edition, to be held in Egypt, and those that follow, while the climate crisis continues causing severe droughts, devastating storms, melting of the polar ice caps and warming of the oceans.

In a plenary session that was delayed by several minutes, the final declaration underwent a last-minute change when India, one of the villains of the meeting – along with Saudi Arabia, Australia and Russia – asked for the phrase “phasing out” of coal to be replaced by “phasing down”, a change questioned by countries such as Mexico, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

A paradoxical fact at the close of COP26, where civil society organizations complained that they were left out, was the decision of several countries to endorse the final text even though they differed on several points, including the fossil energy face-lifts.

“Today, we can say with credibility that we have kept 1.5 degrees within reach. But its pulse is weak. And it will only survive if we keep our promises. If we translate commitments into rapid action,” said conference chairman Alok Sharma, choking back tears after a pact – albeit a minimal one – was reached by negotiating three drafts and holding arduous discussions on the fossil fuel question, right up to the final plenary.

COP26 chair Alok Sharma blinked back tears during his closing speech at the climate summit, expressing the tension of negotiating the Glasgow Climate Pact, due to the hurdles thrown in the way of a consensus by the big coal and oil producers. CREDIT: UNFCCC-Twitter

The South is still waiting

Lost amidst the impacts of the climate emergency and forgotten by the industrialized countries, the global South failed to obtain something vital for many of its nations: a clear plan and funding for loss and damage, an issue that was deferred to COP27 in Egypt.

Mohamed Adow, director of the non-governmental Power Shift Africa, said the pact is “not good enough…There is no mention of solidarity and justice. We need a clear process to face loss and damage. There should be a link between emission reduction, financing and adaptation.”

The final decision by China, the United States, India and the European Union to turn their backs on a global fossil fuel exit and deny climate support to the most vulnerable nations left the developing world high and dry.

“There are things that cannot wait to COP27 or 2025. To face loss and damage, the most vulnerable countries need financing to battle the impacts on their territories,” Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, global climate and energy leader for the non-governmental World Wildlife Fund, told IPS.

Climate policies were, at least on the agenda, the focus of COP26.

The summit focused on carbon market rules, climate finance of at least 100 billion dollars per year, gaps between emission reduction targets and needed reductions, strategies for carbon neutrality by 2050, adaptation plans, and the working platform for local communities and indigenous peoples.

But the goal of hundreds of billions of dollars per year has been postponed, a reflection of the fact that financing for climate mitigation and adaptation is a touchy issue, especially for developed countries.

The corridors of the Blue Zone of the Scottish Events Campus, where the official part of the 26th Climate Conference was held in the city of Glasgow, were emptying on Saturday Nov. 13, at the end of the summit, which lasted a day longer than scheduled and ended with a negative balance according to civil society organizations. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Offers and promises – on paper

One breakthrough at COP26 was the approval of the rules of the Paris Agreement, signed in the French capital in December 2015, at COP21, to form the basis on which subsequent summits have revolved. By 2024, all countries will have to report detailed data on emissions, which will form a baseline to assess future greenhouse gas reductions.

The agreement on the functioning of carbon markets creates a trading system between countries, but does not remove the possibility of countries and companies skirting the rules.

Industrialized countries committed to doubling adaptation finance by 2025 based on 2019 amounts. In addition, COP26 approved a new work program to increase greenhouse gas cuts, with reports due in 2022.

It also asked the UNFCCC to evaluate climate plans that year and its final declaration calls on countries to switch from coal and hydrocarbons to renewable energy.

Apart from the Climate Pact, the summit produced voluntary commitments against deforestation, emissions of methane, a gas more polluting than carbon dioxide, and the phasing out of gasoline and diesel vehicles.

In addition, at least 10 countries agreed to put an end to the issuing of new hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation licenses in their territories.

Furthermore, some thirty nations agreed to suspend public funding for coal, gas and oil by 2022.

Demonstrations demanding ambitious, substantive and equitable measures to address the climate crisis continued throughout the 14-day climate summit in Glasgow, which ended on the night of Saturday Nov. 13 with disappointing results for the global South. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Finally, more than 100 stakeholders, including countries and companies, signed up to the elimination of cars with internal combustion engines by 2030, without the major automobile manufacturers such as Germany, Spain and France joining in, and a hundred nations signed a pact to promote sustainable agriculture.

All of the 2030 pledges, which still need concrete plans for implementation, imply a temperature rise of 2.8 degrees C by the end of this century, according to the independent Climate Action Tracker.

The climate plans of the 48 least developed countries (LDCs) would cost more than 93 billion dollars annually, the non-governmental International Institute for Environment and Development said in Glasgow.

In addition, annual adaptation costs in developing countries would be about 70 billion dollars, reaching a total of 140 to 300 billion dollars by 2030, according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

But the largest disbursements are related to loss and damage, which would range between 290 billion and 580 billion dollars by 2030, and hence the enormous concern of these nations to obtain essential financing, according to a 2019 study. And their disappointment with the results of the Oct. 31-Nov.13 conference.

During his presentation at the closing plenary, Seve Paeniu, a climate envoy from Tuvalu, an island nation whose very existence is threatened by the rising sea level, showed a photo of his three grandchildren and said he had been thinking about what to say to them when he got home.

“Glasgow has made a promise to guarantee their future. It will be the best Christmas gift that I can bring home,” he said. But judging by the Climate Pact, Paeniu may have to look for another present.

IPS produced this article with the support of Iniciativa Climática of Mexico and the European Climate Foundation.

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Diabetes test, Mauritius. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

By Bruno Kappa
NAIROBI, Nov 12 2021 (IPS)

Although for different reasons, diabetes appears to be one of the few cases that put rich and poor societies at equal footing. In either case, diabetes is caused by wrong, dangerous to health nutritional habits.

In fact, people in industrialised countries tend to consume the so-called “junk food”, while in poor nations diabetes is caused by malnutrition and undernourishment.

And it is a seriously worrying health problem. In fact, globally, an estimated 422 million adults were living with diabetes as of 2014, compared to 108 million in 1980. Since then, the figure has doubled.

Now have a closer look: every five seconds one person develops diabetes…every 10 seconds one person dies of diabetes…every 30 seconds a limb is lost to diabetes.

The rate at which the global prevalence of diabetes has nearly doubled since 1980 is that it has risen from 4.7% to 8.5% in the adult population.

This reflects an increase in associated risk factors such as being overweight or obese, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

 

What is it about?

WHO defines diabetes as a chronic disease, which occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar.

This leads to an increased concentration of glucose in the blood (hyper-glycaemia).

 

Types of diabetes

Type 1 diabetes (previously known as insulin-dependent or childhood-onset diabetes) is characterized by a lack of insulin production.

Type 2 diabetes (formerly called non-insulin-dependent or adult-onset diabetes) is caused by the body’s ineffective use of insulin. It often results from excess body weight and physical inactivity.

Gestational diabetes is hyper-glycaemia that is first recognised during pregnancy, with blood glucose values above normal but below those diagnostic of diabetes.

Women with gestational diabetes are at an increased risk of complications during pregnancy and at delivery. These women and possibly their children are also at increased risk of type 2 diabetes in the future.

 

The impact

The United Nations has repeatedly warned that diabetes is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.

Why? Hyper-glycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of the body’s systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels.

Between 2000 and 2016, there was a 5% increase in premature mortality from diabetes.
And in 2019, an estimated 1.5 million deaths were directly caused by diabetes. Another 2.2 million deaths were attributable to high blood glucose in 2012.

 

Faster rise in low and middle income countries

Over the past decade, diabetes prevalence has risen faster in low and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.

The Middle East and North of Africa are among the highest impacted due to wrong diets. In this region, people consume excessive amount of carbohydrates, pastries with high doses of sugar and honey, and very sugary drinks, in addition to incorporating “junk food” in their diet.

 

Obesity and diabetes: the cause-effect

Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.

Body mass index is a simple index of weight-for-height that is commonly used to classify overweight and obesity in adults. It is defined as a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of his height in meters (kg/m2).

The World Health Organisation reports the following facts and figures:

• Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975.

• In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, were overweight. Of these over 650 million were obese.

• 39% of adults aged 18 years and over were overweight in 2016, and 13% were obese.

• Most of the world’s population live in countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.

• 39 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2020.

• Over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 were overweight or obese in 2016.

 

Access to diabetes care

Every year, 14 November marks World Diabetes Day. The theme for World Diabetes Day 2021-23 is access to diabetes care.

According to it, 100 years after the discovery of insulin, millions of people with diabetes around the world cannot access the care they need. People with diabetes require ongoing care and support to manage their condition and avoid complications.

A healthy diet, regular physical activity, maintaining a normal body weight and avoiding tobacco use are ways to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.

In view of the above, change in nutritional habits appears to be almost a matter of life or death.

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Efforts to improve nutrition of breastfeeding mothers has resulted in an innovative maize product which includes small fish which often go to waste. Credit: Zany Jadraque/unsplash

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Nov 12 2021 (IPS)

During the COVID-19 lockdown in Uganda, a breastfeeding mother struggled to improve the health of her malnourished child. With the closure of her local health centre, she worried the child could die without urgent medical treatment.

Her child was saved. The mother was given a fish-enriched maize meal, developed by a local team of researchers under the NutriFish project and donated to the local Mulago Hospital in Kampala.

It is not hard to see why the food innovation was effective. The fish-enriched maize meal flour is packed with essential micronutrients and protein. A 200g serving of the fish-enriched maize meal, known locally as posho, provides up to 50 percent of a mother’s daily requirements in terms of calories, vitamin A, iron and zinc.

“Posho is good for me even though its appearance can put one off, it is delicious,” a breastfeeding mother wrote in hospital comments after receiving the maize meal, developed to help tackle widespread nutritional deficiencies, particularly among women of reproductive age and children under five years.

According to the 2017 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey, 29 percent of children under five years are stunted while 4 percent are wasted, and 11 percent are underweight. Furthermore, about 32 percent of women aged 15-49 are anaemic, making it vital for them to access foods rich in micronutrients such as iron, zinc and calcium, which are found in fish.

A nutritionally enhanced maize meal suitable for breastfeeding mothers has been developed by the NutriFish project and donated to hospitals in Uganda. Credit NutriFish

NutriFish researchers developed the nutrient-enriched meal using under-utilized small fish (USF) species. The meal is created by blending maize with Silverfish – a small lake fish species locally known as “mukene”, which is less preferred despite being highly nutritious because of its pungent smell and grittiness.

Dorothy Nakimbugwe, one of the co-principal investigators in the NutriFish project, explained that the enriched maize meal had been developed with other products, including baby food, a seasoning, a snack, and a sauce. All the products contain under-utilized fish and Nile Perch by-products (NPB), rich in calcium, zinc and iron, making them ideal micronutrient deficiency busters for vulnerable groups in Uganda.

“The fish-enriched maize meal was evaluated by breastfeeding mothers to improve their ability to produce adequate breast milk to feed their babies,” Nakimbugwe told IPS.

NutriFish researchers are helping reduce losses of underutilized small fish and Nile Perch by-products through improved post-harvest and processing technologies such as solar tent dryers.

The NutriFish project is an initiative of the Cultivate Africa’s Future (CultiAF) Fund, a partnership between the Australian’s Center for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and Canada’s International Development Research Centre. The project promotes the handling and processing of small fish to improve the quality and shelf life and avoid waste.

Researchers from the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute (NaFIRRI) estimate that up to 40 percent of the small fish caught in Ugandan lakes are lost due to poor handling and rudimentary processing methods.

These losses have negative implications for fish supply and the incomes of actors in the small fish value chains, particularly women who dominate fish processing, says Jackson Efitre, a senior lecturer in fisheries and aquaculture at Makerere University and the NutriFish project’s principal investigator.

Currently, the small fish are processed using open sun drying or on raised racks which take a long time, exposing fish to dust, insects, and bacterial contamination, Efitre said. He added there are persistent challenges with the current methods of processing and preserving fish to avoid loss.

Each Ugandan consumes between 10 and 12 kg of fish per year which is lower than the 25 kg per person per year recommended by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, according to Efitre.

Declining stocks of large fish species, coupled with high exports, gender inequalities and post-harvest losses, have affected supply, Efitre said.

The Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) has developed the Double Pyramid Model to raise awareness of foods’ environmental and nutritional impacts. The Health Pyramid orders food according to the frequency of consumption with the base, including foods that should be eaten more frequently, such as fruit, vegetables and whole grain.

Legumes and fish are recommended protein sources, while red meat and high glycaemic foods should be eaten in moderation. The Climate Pyramid indicates that animal-based products have the highest contribution to climate change while plant-based ones have the smallest.

Research by BCFN also notes that fish and legumes should be the primary source of protein in diets for many communities. The researchers note that sustainably increasing fish production also faces challenges related to large scale exploitation and experience of domestic fish production and climate change, making it important for consumers to aim for a balanced and diverse diet.

“The Double Health and Climate Pyramid shows that all foods can be part of a healthy and sustainable diet when consumed with appropriate frequency. Typically, foods that have a low climate impact are also those that should be consumed at a higher frequency for personal health,” according to the report.

The report further notes that food waste occurs during industrial processing, distribution, and final consumption of food. In developing countries, food waste occurs mainly through losses upstream in the production chain.

BCFN has identified possible ways to prevent food waste through information, diet education, and the involvement of governments, institutions, producers, and distributors in the food value chain.

 

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By External Source
Nov 12 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Patricia Danzi was appointed Director General of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in May 2020. For nearly three decades, she has dedicated her career to serving the world’s vulnerable populations.

Danzi was with the International Committee of the Red Cross since 1996, serving as a delegate, with increasing responsibilities, in the Balkans (Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo), Peru, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. At head office, she was appointed Deputy Head of Operations for the Horn of Africa and Political Advisor to the Director of Operations. She served as Head of Operations for America between November 2008 and April 2015 and has been Regional Director for Africa from May 2015 until she assumed the post of director general of the SDC on 1 May 2020.

Danzi studied in Lincoln, Nebraska, and in Zurich and holds a master’s degree in agricultural economics, geography and environmental science. She undertook postgraduate work in development studies in Geneva and speaks seven languages.

Born in Switzerland, Danzi is the daughter of a Swiss German secondary school teacher and a Nigerian diplomat and the eldest of six siblings. In her student days she taught mentally challenged children and spent time teaching in a township in South Africa just after Nelson Mandela was elected President. Danzi represented Switzerland in athletics at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. She has two adult sons.

ECW: The Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies was officially launched in January. How will this new hub impact our global efforts to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals, most specifically SDG4?

Patricia Danzi: In emergencies, protracted crises and forced displacement situations, education plays a key role for affected children. A structure and the possibility to learn helps them and their families to project themselves into a brighter future and not to lose hope.

Yet education is still too often a rather neglected sector in humanitarian action and tends to fall through the cracks when durable solutions are discussed or development interventions in crisis contexts are designed.

That is why Switzerland pledged at the 2019 Global Refugee Forum to promote Geneva as the Global Hub for Education in Emergencies – a hub which will strive for collective action to raise the profile of EiE, both politically and operationally. Geneva is an excellent place to host the Global Hub for Education in Emergencies. The city is the humanitarian capital and the second UN HQ. A large number of member states representations, hundreds of NGOs, the private sector, academic institutions and many actors across sectors that are relevant for education are present in Geneva. This provides a perfect opportunity for collective thinking and action.

As co-founding members of the Geneva Global Hub for EiE, the pledge was co-signed by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the Global Education Cluster (GEC), the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), UNICEF, the University of Geneva, UNESCO and UNHCR. Switzerland is extremely happy that, since its launch in January 2021, already 21 new organizations have joined the EiE Hub and we welcome many more, including other member states. Only together can we bring EiE to scale and positively impact the education of crisis-affected girls and boys and make a steps towards achieving SDG4!

ECW: Since its inception, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) has mobilised US$827 million through its trust fund and over US$ 1 billion in aligned funding through its Multi-Year Resilience Programmes (MYRPs). Switzerland has been a key partner in achieving our goals and delivering for the millions of children and adolescents that are being left behind by conflict, COVID-19 and the climate crisis. But a huge US$1 billion funding gap remains. How can we fill this gap and align public sector funding, private sector funding and blended finance modalities to achieve our goals?

Patricia Danzi: First, awareness has to rise! The world needs to understand better that if education is not addressed in a timely and proper manner, human capital is lost – sometimes for generations. Investing in education is therefore key.

Second, providing funds for EiE is a collective responsibility. It should be both an act of solidarity and a genuine interest of bilateral and multilateral donors, of the private sector and of crisis-affected countries themselves. In addition, we should all become better in engaging more in preventive and preparing action to make national education systems more crisis resilient. This demands forward-looking approaches of actors working in development and better collaboration between different stakeholders.

Third, we need to become more creative and more flexible in finding new ways of working and of financing. Public donor models of grants have their limits, so has ODA. Engaging the private sector more actively – and holding it accountable – will be important. SDC is, for example, piloting a new way of generating funding and impact for education through a recently initiated project called “Impact Linked Financing for Education” where public and private money is pooled.

ECW: Localisation is a key component of ECW’s global movement to provide crisis-impacted children and adolescents with the safety, hope and opportunity of a quality education. How can we accelerate efforts to achieve the targets in the Grand Bargain Agreement through ECW-financed programmes?

Patricia Danzi: We congratulate ECW for the efforts it makes in this regard. Switzerland endorsed the Grand Bargain. Strengthening local capacity – be it Ministries of Education, decentralized education authorities, local communities or national civil society and NGO actors – is an important concern for Switzerland’s engagement in education, such as it is in other sectors. Only local ownership can bring sustainable change. Moreover, in many emergency contexts, the first responders are parents, teachers, local civil society organizations or educational authorities before the international community arrives and – sadly – often overruns what already exists instead of building upon it and strengthening it.

Every EiE-intervention run by an international actor should have a local counterpart. Capacity strengthening must be a building block in any partnership. Handing over ownership, engaging more flexibly and predictably is key.

ECW: You represented Switzerland in the women’s heptathlon during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. What a remarkable achievement! How can sports benefit girls caught up in emergencies and protracted crises and how can we empower a future generation of powerful women advocates, athletes, doctors, engineers and leaders?

Patricia Danzi: Sports can provide boys and girls with a lot of self-confidence. It can help channel anger, frustration and increase resilience. It prepares one well to be humble when winning and resilient when losing. These are great lessons for life. Generally, we can all mentor young people, learning from and with them rather than lecturing them.

ECW: Before your appointment as the Director-General for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), you worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). How can education help to prevent and limit human suffering and contain the harmful effects of armed conflict on people’s lives and dignity?

Patricia Danzi: If education is not available, opportunities are lacking. Wars often last for decades and sometimes generations have not seen the inside of a classroom. During war, it is important that parties to a conflict respect international humanitarian law. Uneducated fighters lack that knowledge.

When people are forced to flee fighting, families often choose the location where to displace to according to the education that is available for their children. Education helps children to have a structured life and to forget the dire situation they are facing. They can become children again. When equipped accordingly, school can also help them overcome trauma and start the healing process.

ECW: You are living an interesting life! As the daughter of a Swiss-German teacher and a Nigerian diplomat – and a leading role model for women and girls everywhere – we believe that readers are leaders. Can you please share with us two books that have positively influenced you and that you would recommend to others?

Patricia Danzi: Two books that have influenced me and which I recommend are A Long Walk to Freedom and Half of a Yellow Sun. My thoughts on both:

• A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela: Humbling, a must-read for every person that aspires for leadership. A lesson of how to overcome one’s prejudice, judgements and lead selflessly, taking in lessons from life and showing a true interest in people.
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Describing the different sides of the Biafra Civil War – the author wasn’t even born then – makes the reader slip under the skin of the characters, gives readers a different look at what war does to people, how it affects their lives and how it makes them do things they never thought they were capable of (good and bad). It sheds a different and nuanced light on “victims” and “perpetrators”. My grandfather was killed in that war and the book, therefore, brings many accounts of my relatives to life again.

 

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How two little-known black cricketers helped South Africa back into international cricket post-Apartheid.

Photojournalist Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan reported on the 2020 protests against police violence in Nigeria. Cedit: Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan via CP

By Jonathan Rozen
NEW YORK, Nov 12 2021 (IPS)

The photos showed blood-soaked concrete, a gashed open thigh, and an injured protester grimacing in pain on the ground. Taken by photojournalist Eti-Inyene Godwin Akpan on October 20, 2020, the images tell the story of Nigerian forces’ mass shooting of anti-police brutality protesters at Lagos’ Lekki Toll Gate, an incident the government continues to deny.

One year after Akpan published the photographs on social media, he planned to display them in Lagos at a museum exhibit marking the anniversary of the protests against police brutality that swept Nigeria late last year.

But he postponed the show indefinitely after receiving two calls summoning him, without explanation, to the local offices of Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS), a federal security agency.

“I now sleep with one eye closed, trying to watch my back every second,” Akpan told CPJ in a phone call. “They know I know some things and I have some images…”

The calls came minutes after Akpan gave a live interview on local TV about his work documenting the 2020 protests. Akpan said that he asked the callers for a formal, emailed summons.

He feared that without it, the DSS might mistreat him or hold him for a prolonged period without access to a lawyer or his family, the kind of behavior that CPJ has documented in the past. The calls echoed intimidation tactics he said he faced a year earlier following his posting on social media about the toll gate shooting – tactics that led him to temporarily flee the country.

Reached by CPJ via messaging app, DSS spokesperson Peter Afunanya denied that his agency called Akpan in early October 2021. He also dismissed concerns over the DSS’ history of detaining journalists.

“Right in front of my eyes, I saw dead bodies,” reads the caption on Akpan’s Instagram post from the October 2020 shooting that killed protesters, according to local and international media and rights groups. It was the deadliest incident in last year’s protests, known as the End SARS movement – a reference to the protesters’ call to dismantle Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad unit.

Journalists covering the protest movement were beaten, harassed, and fined by law enforcement. One reporter, Onifade Emmanuel Pelumi, was found dead at a mortuary on October 30, 2020; he was last seen alive in police custody after he covered unrest around the protests in Lagos.

Images of the Lekki Toll Gate killings are particularly sensitive, Akpan told CPJ, because they contradict the government’s account. In a press conference, Nigerian Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed marked October 20 this year by calling it “the first anniversary of the phantom massacre,” which took place “without blood or bodies.” Last year the Nigerian army admitted it used live rounds at the toll gate, but said its forces only shot into the air.

After Akpan first published the pictures, he told CPJ that anonymous callers pressured him to take down the Instagram post and replace it with one saying the images were fake. He said his bank account was frozen and that DSS agents arrived at his office looking for him, which DSS spokesperson Afunanya denied.

After that, Akpan decided to heed friends’ advice to leave the country. In the days before he fled, Akpan told CPJ that he believed the images he had captured could contribute to the historical record of the protests. But to protect this evidence for future generations and continue his work, he needed to be safe.

He fled to Ghana by crossing over land through Benin and Togo – a journey of hundreds of miles facilitated by CPJ and Maxime Domegni, an editor with the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

Akpan did not know anyone in Benin or Togo. Nor did he speak the local languages of those two francophone countries. But CPJ introduced him to two local investigative journalists — Igance Sossou in Benin and Ferdinand Ayité in Togo – whose help would prove invaluable.

Sossou and Ayité have both faced reprisal for their work and told CPJ in separate interviews that they agreed to assist Akpan out of journalistic solidarity.

“I understand the risk hanging over journalism in the West African sub-region,” Sossou, who was arrested in late 2019, imprisoned for six months, and fined over social media posts, told CPJ via messaging app. “If you are a journalist who experienced what I experienced between 2019 and 2020 in Benin, you are necessarily sensitive to the case of Eti-Inyene.”

After Akpan slipped across Nigeria’s western border, he met Sossou in Cotonou, Benin’s economic capital. Sossou said he assisted Akpan with changing his money into local currency and finding a car and driver to transport him to Togo’s border, which Akpan crossed on foot before finding a cab to Lomé, Togo’s capital.

Ayité, whose newspaper L’Alternative has been repeatedly suspended and who continues to face harassment by authorities, told CPJ he met Akpan in Lomé. Ayité arranged and paid for Akpan’s dinner and overnight accommodation as well as a motorcycle driver who could safely navigate the border with Ghana the following morning. Once across, Akpan caught a bus from the Aflao border town to Accra.

“We are just journalists and we have no borders. Wherever one of us is threatened, all journalists are concerned,” Ayité told CPJ. “Solidarity must be the cardinal value of our profession and I think that this is what guided Ignace Sossou and my modest self to come to the aid of [Akpan].”

Akpan told CPJ that his travel across Togo and Benin would have been “so difficult, if not impossible” without this assistance. “I would have been attacked or duped,” he said. “It was an amazing collaboration.”

After arriving in Accra, a friend helped Akpan find accommodation. He stayed in hiding for four months but decided to return to Nigeria in February 2021. The stresses of exile, exacerbated by the pandemic, made him struggle with loneliness and depression, he said.

“I felt that there was still work for me to do in Nigeria. These stories [of the protests] still need to be told,” Akpan said, adding that he initially avoided telling his mother and sisters of his return because it would make them worry.

Despite one sister’s advice never to set foot back in Nigeria, he felt that the protests had diminished enough to reduce the risk. But the intimidating calls returned this October, as Akpan promoted his photo exhibition.

Akpan told CPJ that the callers claiming to be DSS agents never sent him an emailed summons, as he had requested. After their calls, he received other calls from people asking him questions about his photography.

He said the people claimed to be potential clients, but when he requested the callers send their details over email, they never followed up, compounding his fears. He said he now takes extra precautions to secure his communications and store his information.

Yet, Akpan has not stopped trying to record historic events. He went out with his camera on this year’s October 20 anniversary to photograph a memorial marking the Lekki Toll Gate killings, where journalists were again attacked by police.

The solidarity he experienced over the last 12 months has given him courage and strengthened his commitment to speaking the truth, he told CPJ. “I rest assured that I’m not alone,” he said.

Jonathan Rozen is Senior Africa Researcher at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

 

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