Africa’s tourism industry continues to grow at a rocket rate. The ‘black’ continent’s tourism industry boasts second fastest growing, according to Africa News, a prominent continental news site.

Even with the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions thereof, many outside Africa yearn to come to the world’s leading Safari tourism destination. One would wonder why so?

The answers are simple. First, no continent comes close to the wealth of African wildlife and signature sunsets. Secondly, the hospitality of Africans employed at the tourism agencies is simply unmatched. Let me tell you this story better through the lens of an African tourism company I Know. It is called Architect tourism SMC, and it has a daughter brand called Visit Africa.

Visit Africa is an online travel guide tracking unchartered paths in Afro-tourism. It is like that neat Digital Personal Assistant who will organize your safari schedule to the dot; books your flight tickets, makes hotel reservations, and coordinates strings of safari events and activities around Africa. When all is set, he or she shows up to ask you if you are ready to go have a lifetime of Afro-tourism experience.

This sheer diligence and attention to detail is displayed even through the design of the Visit Africa website. When you open it, the pleasant patterns popularly seen on African wear, namely Bitengyi,set a serene African ambiance to your browsing experience, as you scroll through the packages.

Picturesque photos of African wildlife and tourism sites at their natural best. Afro-culture and architecture on delightful display. Greenery and breath-taking aqua-life all arrested in a single page layout. Yet, all those are but mere shadows of the wholesome African tourism experience one can get.

Photo: Bibhash

By 2018, Africa registered a staggering approximately 67 million tourists. This, according to major continental news site, Africa News, was a 7 % leap from the “63 million arrivals” the previous year. A travel guide such as Visit Africa apologizes for why this so.

Though its origin is one Country, Uganda, Visit Africa’s web of networks within almost all African countries speaks of an unsaid Pan-African agenda to make African tourism industry the giant it is on the global map. It is an embodiment the reason why thrill of the African tourism is better lived and loved, than told or read about.

Credit: the standard Digital

In a good weekend he can collect 400 of them. On top of that, he manages a team of six agents doing the same thing in other parts of the country, and between them they expect to collect around 30,000 phones this year.

Some of the conditions accepted by Twitter have raised concerns about its future operations in Nigeria.

“It is definitely concerning that Twitter may have capitulated to an arrangement that would allow Nigeria to pressure it into decisions it would not otherwise make,” David Greene, director at US NGO Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told the BBC.

He said Twitter should have agreed to obey local laws only if they upheld human rights. The agreement gave the government the advantage in enforcing take-down orders and data demands against the company, Mr Greene added.

Turnaround after Nigeria snub

Human rights groups say President Buhari’s administration has a history of abusing the rule of law and freedom of speech, with a number of journalists and activists locked up for criticising the government.

Now there are concerns that there will be an increase in crackdowns on social media users and more tweets will be flagged and pulled down by Twitter.

A long-running campaign has been waged against curbs on free speech in Nigeria

Twitter has refused to comment on the agreement it made with Nigeria, leaving many frustrated.

The company only tweeted that it was “pleased” to be “restored” and “deeply committed to Nigeria”.

However, the BBC understands that the company agreed to the conditions stated by the government before its service was restored.

It feels like a huge turnaround for a company that announced last year that it was opening its Africa headquarters in Ghana, citing it as “a champion for democracy, supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet”.

Many considered that decision to be a snub to Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy.

Now though, Twitter has become one of the first digital companies to be brought to heel under a new digital tax law passed in 2020.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said that non-resident companies providing digital services would be required to pay 6% tax on their turnover from this year in order to boost public revenue at a time of “emerging fiscal constraints”.

Twitter has agreed to pay tax in Nigeria, and establish a legal entity in the country, although it is not clear if that means it will open an office or merely register an intermediary.

“The difference might be significant with respect to how much pressure Nigeria will be able to exert against Twitter going forward, and Twitter’s ability to resist future disproportionate or arbitrary demands from Nigeria,” said Mr Greene.

Young Nigerians, especially the digitally savvy, adore Twitter. It is more than a platform, serving as a one-stop shop for everything – from job openings, to a missing persons portal, and a civic space to hold public officials to account.

Young people have used Twitter to organise protests against police brutality

Twitter made its biggest political impact during the #EndSars demonstrations in 2020 when it became the platform of choice for young demonstrators who forced the president to abolish the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars), a police unit that was notorious for its brutality.

The #EndSars protests morphed into calls for an end to bad governance in Nigeria and President Buhari has said that the protesters wanted to remove him from office.

The government blames Twitter for fanning the protests and holds its former boss, Jack Dorsey, who showed support for the protesters, responsible for the destruction that ensued after the demonstrations were hijacked by criminals.

Government supporters celebrate

In many ways, Twitter’s travails in Nigeria felt like a personal battle between Mr Dorsey and Mr Buhari, culminating in the president’s tweet being deleted last June.

The tweet referenced the 1967-70 Biafran civil war and warned that “those misbehaving today” would be dealt with in “the language they will understand”.

In the wake of Twitter’s climbdown, it is hard to see how protests such as the #EndSars demonstrations can be organised on the platform without it being accused of violating local laws such as “inciting violence”.

Nigeria’s government says social media is used to stoke unrest

But Gbenga Sesan of Nigerian digital rights group Paradigm Initiative believes it was actually the government which lost out during the seven-month ban as it could not get its message out.

“The real winners are Twitter and the Nigerian people, the government are the biggest losers,” he said.

His organisation is part of a consortium challenging the ban and Mr Sesan believes the government rushed to announce the lifting of the Twitter ban to save face as a ruling is expected this week by a court of the regional body Ecowas.

“Shame on him [President Buhari] because this is a legacy thing, first shutdown in Nigeria,” he said.

But supporters of the government are celebrating its victory and saying that the authorities forced Twitter to bend over.

Many of them felt that deleting the president’s tweet was the height of political interference by a private firm and they fully supported the ban.

The company is now being mocked for accepting the government’s conditions and returning in time for next year’s general elections.

Election campaigns in Nigeria are among the most expensive in the world. Presidential candidates can spend up to 15 billion naira ($36m; £26m) on campaigns and social media adverts account for an increasingly large part of the budget.

It is the sort of windfall that Twitter, a company that wants to grow its revenues in Africa, would not want to miss out on, government supporters say.

Although the return of Twitter in time for the polls also suits Nigerian politicians from all parties.

Source: BBC 

A locally made Ugandan rolex that weighs up to 204.6kg (451 lb) has set a new Guinness World Record, as the largest Ugandan rolex in the world.

According to the video posted online by the Guinness World Records; a global authority on record breaking achievements since 1955, the record breaking video was prepared by a team over 10 locals.

The huge-sized street food also required a gigantic cooking equipment to come out perfectly, according to the video.

Unlike elsewhere where a rolex could mean a watch, rolex in Uganda means something different, it is a snack.

It is a popular street food, a chapatti that is rolled with a fried egg and sometimes vegetables.

The delicacy goes for about shs 1, 500 on roadside food vending points in Kampala and its suburbs. It could however go for shs 6, 000 in some of the fast food joints in the city and across the country.

In 2016, the CNN reported that the rolex was becoming the fastest growing new African fast food.

The Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) also added the rolex to the list of tourism products in the country.

It has since then been promoted as a national meal identifier for Uganda.

I was in preparation meeting for a planned conference.

In an interface with the ‘big people’, all was seemingly moving well until someone released a ‘bombardier’ into the atmosphere in form of an awful stench.

Unfortunately, in a setting where the ‘bombardier’ was released in a silent mode, all of us became suspects.

While some feigned nothing had happened, others walked out in expressed disgust only to return minutes later.

I stayed put in thought unsure what is the best action to take lest you could be wrongly labelled-owa bomu (loosely meaning the ‘The one of the BOMB’

Bits of YOU

I have been in the presence of colleagues debating what’s worse: releasing gas (fart) in silent mode to no one’s notice, or allowing the burden to excuse self from gathering, walk through rows of people to let it out in isolation with its natural bounce (sound)

This piece will offer some remedies.

Dr. Paul Kasenene of Wellness Care says such discomfort is at times normal, but shares certain conditions worsen them.

“When you build up gas in your stomach, it’s a normal thing but the body expels it through belching or flatulence (farting),” he explained.

“If it’s in the upper digestive system like the stomach, it usually called gas and it can be expelled through belching. But if it goes down the lower intestines or colon then that is through the back, it’s called farting or flatulence.”

Often time people hear rumbling sounds in the stomach which Dr. Kasenene says are medically called borboridimy and are basically what you hear when your intestines are moving.

They can be caused by a build up of gas among other factors.

He says, when the body realises that there’s gas, at a certain point the intestines have to move automatically to expel the gas.

It is therefore in such situations where you can’t really control it because the gas has to be expelled.

Other causes, he said, could include incomplete food digestion.

People who don’t digest food very well or have slow digestion usually present incomplete digestion which builds up gas or could be a factor of inflammation.

Doctors caution if not dealt with it can build up a clog and builds up gas inside the stomach.

Be concerned if these three are associated with pain, running stomach, constipation, blood in the stool or abnormal symptoms.

MIND YOUR FOOD

Food sensitivity or intolerance to certain types of food is a recipe for disaster, says Dr. Kasenene.

“The most common tend to be gluten which is a protein in wheat/barley, beer, diary products, casein protein which is hard to digest or lactose and they’ll build up gas”.

Other foods that could trigger flatulence include groundnuts, eggs, soya or certain types of fish.

He strongly advises against consumption of foods that tend to cause inflammation in the bowl and the resultant effect is gas -/produced and bloating.

 Dr. Paul Kasenene’s Preventive Measures

– Make sure you eat regularly

-Eat smaller amounts to allow proper digestion

-By eating smaller amounts of food and chewing food more thoroughly digestion will begin from the mouth and less is done in the stomach and intestines.

-Avoid eating large chunks to prevent incomplete digestion.

-Avoid talking as you eat so that it allows less gas in the stomach and more complete digestion

-Drink enough water away from meals because dehydration can be associated with those abnormal sounds and accumulation of gas

– Consider taking probiotics- these are healthy bacteria.

-Taking probiotics and eating probiotic rich foods like fermented foods