The capture of democratic political systems by private power networks is arguably the greatest threat to civil liberties and inclusive development in Africa. That’s the conclusion of two new reports that address the issue of threats to democracy on the continent.

The first report is published by Ghana’s Centre for Democratic Development. It focuses on the capture and subversion of democratic institutions in Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Nigeria.

These case studies reveal that even in more democratic states such as Benin and Ghana, ruling parties can “hijack” democracy and appropriate its benefits. They do this by capturing the institutions of democracy itself. This includes electoral commissions, judiciaries, legislatures and even the media and civil society.

The net effect is to undermine transparency and accountability. This in turn facilitates the abuse of power, especially in more authoritarian contexts.

The second report was curated by Democracy in Africa and takes a slightly different approach. It looks at how unelected networks can infiltrate and subvert state structures.

In particular, it maps the emergence of shadow states in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. These case studies show that networks of unelected businessmen, civil servants, political fixers and members of the presidents’ families wield more power than legislators.

By mapping how these networks are organised across different groups and countries, the report reveals how influential and resilient certain groups have become. It also shows how many shadow states have been integrated into transnational financial and – in some cases – criminal networks.

This is not an “African” issue. Similar processes have been identified in a number of different countries and regions. These include Bangladesh, Brazil and the US. But this does not mean that the need to recognise and confront these issues is any less pressing.

States with higher levels of democracy capture are prone to becoming more authoritarian, corrupt and abusive.

Democracy capture and the shadow state

According to politics professor Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, democracy capture occurs when

a few individuals or sections of a supposedly democratic polity are able to systematically appropriate to themselves the institutions and processes as well as dividends of democratic governance.

In other words, democracy capture expands the idea of “state capture” to include all political institutions and democratic activities including civil society and the media.

The term is widely used in South Africa to refer to the undue influence of special interest groups over state institutions.

Indeed what is striking about this process is the well-structured networks that encompass a broad range of individuals from government to the security forces, traditional leaders, private businesses, state-owned enterprises, and their family members. According to a separate study by South African academics Ivor Chipkinand Mark Swilling, what distinguishes these actors is their privileged “access to the inner sanctum of power in order to make decisions”.

One helpful way of conceptualising these networks is the idea of shadow statesdeveloped by the influential political scientist William Reno.

For Reno, a shadow state is effectively a system of governance in which a form of parallel government is established by a coalition of the president, militias, security agencies, local intermediaries and foreign companies. In extreme versions such as Sierra Leone real power no longer lies in official institutions of government such as the legislature.

This kind of shadow state is characterised by the existence of private armies and a severely limited, almost imaginary, formal state.

More recently, researchers have identified manifestations of the shadow state in countries that are not in the middle of civil war and have stronger formal political systems. Good examples include Kenya and Zambia.

In these cases, the shadow state is more oriented towards hampering the activities of opposition parties and ensuring impunity for its members.

Africa is not a country

The nine case studies featured in the two reports show that the extent of democracy capture varies significantly. It is lower in states like Ghana, where robust electoral contestation among rival parties has seen multiple transfers of power. It’s much higher in states such as Zimbabwe, where the government has never changed hands.

The shape and resilience of unelected power networks also varies in important ways. In Uganda, the shadow state is run by an axis of President Yoweri Museveni’s family, a “military aristocracy” and interlocutors in the business community.

In Benin, President Patrice Talon has exploited the weakness of the legal system, the judiciary and the legislature to expand his power. Through this process he has turned one of the continent’s most vibrant democracies into a near political monopoly.

The picture is different again in the DRC. International military alliances were critical to the way that former presidents Laurent Kabila and Joseph Kabila took and held power. This led to a shadow state that has been more profoundly shaped by transnational smuggling networks and the activities of the security forces.

The situation in Zambia is also distinctive. Under former president Edgar Lungu, the security forces were less relevant than the nexus between politicians, government officials and businessmen. This led to rampant corruption and mismanagement. But it did not prevent a transfer of power in 2021.

In contrast, in Zimbabwe the government has been progressively militarised, penetrating further areas of the state and the economy. This raises serious questions about whether President Emmerson Mnangagwa – or army leaders – holds real power.

It is, therefore, important to map the shadow state on a case-by-case basis because no two networks are the same. The differences between them reveals who really holds power.

The consequences

Shadow states have a negative impact on democracy and accountability. But the damage they do goes well beyond this. It undermines inclusive development through three related processes:

• creating a culture of impunity, which facilitates corruption and diverts resources from productive investments
• manipulating government expenditure and other public resources and opportunities to sustain the patronage networks and ensure the shadow state’s political survival
• creating monopolistic or oligopolistic conditions that increase prices and enable companies with links to the shadow state to make excessive profits.

The result is that resources and investment are systematically diverted into private hands.

In Uganda, Museveni issues tax waivers to business allies in return for election support. This denies the treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

In Zimbabwe, companies in league with the ruling party and the military have used these connections to establish near monopolies in key sectors of the economy that exploit the public. In one case, this led to severe fuel shortages that artificially inflated prices.

When added to the billions of dollars lost through straightforward corruption, theft and fraud, it is clear that these processes represent one of the most significant barriers to inclusive development in Africa. Unless these networks are challenged, they will continue to keep citizens in poverty while enriching those connected to the shadow state.

H. Kwasi Prempeh, executive director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development, co-authored this article

The Conversation

The ancient Romans were brilliant engineers and builders, creating a dazzling array of magnificent structures including some that have survived to modern times virtually intact like the domed Pantheon in Rome.

An indispensable material for the Romans was a form of concrete they developed that is known for remarkable durability and longevity, though its exact composition and properties have remained a mystery. A new study goes a long way toward solving this puzzle and, the researchers said, could pave the way for the modern use of a replicated version of this ancient marvel.

Roman concrete was introduced in the 3rd century BC, proving revolutionary. Also called opus caementicium, its three primary ingredients were lime, volcanic ash and water. It helped the Romans erect structures including temples, public baths and other big buildings, aqueducts and bridges unlike any fashioned to that point in history. Because the concrete could harden underwater, it also was vital for constructing harbors and breakwaters.

Many of these structures have endured for two millennia while modern concrete counterparts sometimes crumble in mere years or decades.

The researchers conducted a sophisticated examination of concrete from the walls of the ancient city of Privernum, located in Italy south of Rome. They deciphered unexpected manufacturing strategies that gave the concrete self-healing properties - chemically repairing any cracks or pores.

"The new results show that at the basis of ancient Roman concrete's self-healing and longevity could be the way Romans mixed their raw ingredients, specifically how they used lime, the key component of the mix besides volcanic ash," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology civil and environmental engineering professor Admir Masic, who headed the research published in the journal Science Advances.

"This is an important next step in improving the sustainability of modern concretes through a Roman-inspired strategy. We were able to translate some of the features in ancient Roman mortars that can be associated with self-healing into modern analogs with great success," Masic added.

Lime is a white caustic powdery substance comprised of calcium oxide, made by heating limestone.

Roman concrete contains white bits called "lime clasts," remnants of the lime used in the concrete. These features, the researchers said, appear to have resulted from a process called "hot mixing" that employs a lime variant called quicklime that reacts with water to heat the mortar mix and fosters beneficial chemistries that otherwise would not occur.

Experts long had believed the Roman concrete's durability arose from another important ingredient: volcanic ash from the area of Pozzuoli on the Bay of Naples. Some viewed the lime clasts, absent in modern concrete, as an accidental byproduct of sloppy preparation or poor-quality materials. This study identified them as instrumental in self-healing.

"Essentially it works like this: when concrete cracks, water or moisture enters and the crack widens and spreads throughout the structure. The lime clasts dissolve with the infiltration of water and provide calcium ions that recrystallize and repair the cracks. Additionally, the calcium ions can react with volcanic ingredients to reinforce the structure," Masic said.

The Pantheon, dating to the 2nd century AD, is a circular concrete building faced with brick, boasting the world's largest and oldest unreinforced concrete dome. The massive Roman Colosseum, dating to the first century AD, also would have been impossible without concrete.

"The Romans were great engineers. The fact that we can still walk around many of their structures is a testament to that. Just go to the Pantheon and see the line of people waiting to view the magnificent dome," said study lead author Linda Seymour, who worked on the research as a doctoral student at MIT and is now a project consultant with the engineering firm SGH.

"The Romans were savvy and adapted their materials based on a myriad of factors such as location and type of structure," Seymour added.

Reuters

An increasing number of nations are making plans to break away from the dollar's dominance of global trade and investment flows.

China has pursued the yuan in cross-border trade deals, while France's president has called for reduced dependence on the greenback. 

Here's what 10 expert voices have said about the rise of a de-dollarization trend. 

The de-dollarization movement is gathering global momentum, with an increasing number of nations from Asia to Europe and Latin America lining up plans to end the greenback's dominance of global trade and investment flows.

China and Brazil have made a deal to settle trade in each other's currencies, while French president Emmanuel Macron has urged Europe to wean itself off its dependence on the greenback. 

The acceleration of the anti-dollar drive has seen the yuan overtake its US counterpart as the most used currency for Chinese cross-border transactions. It is also Russia's most traded currency since Moscow was largely pushed out from global finance following its war with Ukraine. 

And while Goldman Sachs thinks attempts to undercut the dollar's supremacy will remain contained and constrained for years to come, other influential figures have adopted a more bearish view on the greenback. 

Here's what 10 top voices have said about the anti-dollar drive. 

Elon Musk, billionaire business magnate 

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has warned against weaponizing currencies like the US has done with its economic sanctions, and suggested the de-dollarization trend may be linked to that. 

In a tweet on Tuesday, he responded to a video post by economist Peter St Onge, in which the latter highlighted that "de-dollarization is real and is happening fast." 

"Dollar share went from 73% (2001) to 55% in (2020). Went from 55% to 47% since sanction launched on Russia, now de-dollarizing at 10x faster than the previous two decades," Onge said. 

Musk responded: "If you weaponize currency enough times, other countries will stop using it." 

Ray Dalio, Bridgewater founder 

"Dollars are debt. In other words, when one holds a dollar — a central bank — they hold a debt asset," the Bridgewater Associates founder recently said. "So the holders of that would say, 'I'm already over-exposed to US dollar-denominated debt.' And so there's less of an eagerness to buy."

Western sanctions against Russia have frozen $300 billion worth of its central bank's assets, preventing Moscow from transacting in dollar- or euro-based assets. Those sanctions "increased the perceived risk that those debt assets can be frozen in the way that they've been frozen for Russia," Dalio said.

"So for those reasons, there's less desire to hold US dollar-denominated debt, which means yes, less US dollars," he added. "So the supply-demand picture is worsening particularly as we continue to have to sell them internationally to fund the deficit."

Emmanuel Macron, French president 

France's Macron urged that Europe must reduce its dependence on the  "extraterritoriality of the US dollar" in a Politico interview this month. 

The bombshell remarks came as the president stressed Europe should avoid getting tangled in tensions between China and the US. "If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won't have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals," he said.

Chamath Palihapitiya, venture capitalist

While the China's yuan in trade deals is increasing, Palihapitiya said it's unlikely to erode the dollar's dominance.

"This whole thing is a huge nothingburger," he said in a recent episode of the All-In Podcast.

"Until [the yuan] is unpacked in a free-floating currency, we will never know what the real market clearing price is," Palihapitiya said. "China has been very effectively able to manipulate this currency since they were brought into the WTO, in order to engender that trading partner status," he continued, adding that the dollar will remain the "canonical" flight to safety. 

Stanley Druckenmiller, Duquesne Capital founder

Billionaire investor Druckenmiller recently shared he is shorting the US dollar after missing out on last year's rally. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said he felt confident taking a bearish position against the greenback due to the prospect of US interest-rate cuts, a rise in non-dollar trade agreements, and the dollar's weaponization. 

"One area I'm comfortable is I'm short the US dollar," he told the outlet. "Currency trends tend to run for two or three years. We have had a long [run] higher."

Jeremy Allaire, Circle CEO 

"If we want to make the dollar safer and more competitive, we need to do two things," Allaire said in a tweet.

"Unleash it's power as a native data type on the internet, that can be openly used and integrated" and "remove the underlying bank lending IOU risk on electronic money, and separate payment tokens from lending tokens," he added. 

Goldman Sachs

De-dollarization is "lots of talk (again), not a lot of action," the bank's strategists wrote in a note.

"[P]art of the Dollar's declining share can likely be attributed to regular market forces as Treasuries fell and Asian central banks sold their Dollar holdings to counter the stronger Dollar last year," strategists said.

"While that is a clear risk if the US abuses its 'exorbitant privileges', we see no evidence of that in the data so far (for example, even Brazil's rising share of CNY reserves replaced CAD, not the Dollar), and our strong view is that there is currently no real contender," they added.

Joseph Sullivan, former White House economist

According to Sullivan, the dollar's dominance could be seriously threatened by a currency issued by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

"The BRICS would also be poised to achieve a level of self-sufficiency in international trade that has eluded the world's other currency unions," he said. "Because a BRICS currency union—unlike any before it—would not be among countries united by shared territorial borders, its members would likely be able to produce a wider range of goods than any existing monetary union."

"Either way, the dollar's reign isn't likely to end overnight—but a [BRICS currency] would begin the slow erosion of its dominance," he said.

Stephen Jen, Eurizon SLJ CEO and former Morgan Stanley currency guru

"The prevailing view of 'nothing-to-see-here' on the US dollar as a reserve currency seems too innocuous and complacent," Jen, who coined the "Dollar Smile" theory, wrote in a note, per Bloomberg.

"What needs to be appreciated by investors is that, while the Global South is unable to totally avoid using the dollar, much of it has already become unwilling to do so."

Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysian prime minister

"There is no reason for Malaysia to continue depending on the dollar," the country's prime minister Anwar Ibrahim said earlier this month. He added that Malaysia and China are already in talks to utilize the ringgit and renminbi for trade deals.

Business Insider

Technology has been taking over the world, especially within the last decade with the advent of the gig economy.  Now, more and more companies are figuring out how to make themselves more efficient by becoming more tech friendly. 

However, China is taking this to the next extreme with the growing popularity of virtual people. Some of the largest Chinese tech companies are hopping on this bandwagon, and many are wondering if this will affect American jobs. 

What are virtual people? 

Virtual people are simulations of human beings on computers, also known as virtual characters or avatars. They combine animation, sound tech, and machine learning that create digitized human beings who can interact with people virtually. 

These virtual employees can perform various tasks, such as customer service, data entry, and content creation. They can also be used in video games, virtual worlds, simulations, and be programmed to interact with people in various ways, such as on social media, digital marketing, and other forms of online communication. 

China uses 2D and 3D virtual people to help grow their tech companies. Some have even appeared in American internet spaces, especially as social media influencers. 

How much do virtual people cost to use? 

Part of the reason why these virtual people have grown so much in popularity over the years is that they cost so little to make. The price range spans from as little as $2,800 to as much as $14,300 to use per year. 

Costs are continuing to go down, as the price tag has already dropped 80% since last year. Some experts believe that due to these low costs, virtual people will continue to grow in popularity and that the industry could potentially grow up to 50% annually through 2025. 

Beijing city even announced a plan back in August of 2022 to continue growing their use of virtual people for companies with the hope to have the industry valued at over 50 billion yen by 2025. 

Are virtual people only being used in tech companies? 

Tech companies are first to embrace virtual people, yet their presence among other industries is growing fast. China already has a plan to get more virtual people to work in broadcasting and manufacturing. 

They also have them currently working in various financial services, local tourism boards, and state media. Many brands are especially looking for virtual people to represent them and help sell their content with the growing presence of cancel culture and many celebrities generating negative press over the years. 

If more brands use virtual people, they won't have to worry about getting involved in personnel or criminal scandals like a human being could since everything about them is programmed. 

Should Americans be worried about their jobs? 

The rapid growth of virtual people has certainly hit other areas of the world quicker than here in the U.S. As I mentioned, the presence of virtual social media influencers is undoubtedly growing on the internet.   

Other than that, some companies have just used virtual reality to help regularly train their frontline employees. Some of these companies include JetBlue, Walmart, and MGM Resorts. Many of them have found it helpful as their companies deal with serving the public in some capacity. 

Regarding virtual people taking over for actual humans, America is not quite at that point just yet.  With the advent of ChatGPT that uses artificial intelligence to mimic human thinking, virtual employees could ultimately result in job losses for Americans as some businesses choose to automate specific tasks or outsource them to virtual workers.   

Proponents argue that it is also possible the growth of virtual employees could lead to the creation of new human jobs, such as those related to the development and management of virtual workers. 

While the use of virtual employees can bring cost savings and increased efficiency to companies, it's important to consider the potential negative impacts. Aside from the obvious human job loss which could be colossal, virtual workers could bring about new privacy, misinformation, and accountability concerns.  

Overall, the effect of virtual employees on the job market is likely to be complex and multifaceted. 

Fox News

When Blessing* boarded a bus early on a January morning in 2017 for the 60km (37 miles) journey from her home in Calabar, in Nigeria’s Cross River State, to a village in neighbouring Akwa Ibom State, she thought she was going to meet a corporate executive about a potential job offer.

The 10-hour ordeal that followed still haunts her, years later.

It all started with a job posting on Jiji, an online trade platform, in December 2016.

At the time, Blessing was 24 years old. She had just finished a diploma course and was planning to begin university the following year. But first, she needed to save money for her fees and living expenses. And that meant finding a job.

Like many other young Nigerians seeking employment in the digital age, Blessing made a social media post in search of job offers, leaving her contact information so that prospective employers could reach her.

A few weeks later, she got a call from a man who told her there was an opening for an entry-level role at ExxonMobil, an American oil and gas company with a drilling licence in Nigeria. He asked that she bring a hard copy of her ID to an address in the neighbouring state to continue the application process.

She had doubts but hoped her weeks of job hunting were finally about to pay off.

“I told [the man] that I wasn’t comfortable [travelling so far to meet him], being that I don’t know him. But he insisted that I didn’t have a choice. And I was desperately in need of a job at that time,” Blessing, who is now 30, recalls.

When she told her mother about the call, she too tried to persuade the man that Blessing could simply scan her ID and email him a copy of it, instead of travelling across states. But the man insisted, so Blessing’s mother borrowed the money for her bus fare.

‘Beware of dogs’

After four hours on the bus, Blessing arrived in the town of Uyo in Akwa Ibom State at 10am.

“When I got there, I called him. He sent me the location [an address in the village] via SMS. He told me to take a taxi to Oron road, then I should take a [motorcycle taxi] and look for a house with [a] ‘beware of dogs’ [sign],” she says.

The road to the village of Nung Ikono Obio is untarred and lined by thick vegetation on both sides. When she saw the condition of the road, Blessing contemplated turning back but reasoned that she had already spent too much on travel.

“I did not want to go home without feedback [for my mother],” she recalls.

But when Blessing arrived at the house with the “beware of dogs” sign, she was shocked by what she saw. It was the site of ongoing construction; outside, labourers were moving sand from a heap to mix concrete which they used for the foundation.

The man she had been speaking to on the phone also surprised her – he looked too young to be a corporate executive. It later turned out that he was just 16.

Blessing says he asked her to sit on a bench and wait for his father, who would discuss the job offer with her. Meanwhile, the labourers continued working around her.

“There were people working so I did not suspect anything,” she recalls. “At about 2 o’clock, I became uncomfortable because time was running fast and I was supposed to be heading back to Calabar.”

The boy told her not to worry, that they would leave as soon as he had paid the labourers.

But at 5pm, when the labourers left, the boy locked the gate, and Blessing was left alone with him inside the compound. When she protested, he threatened to kill her and demanded that she enter a nearby room.

She describes what happened next. “He told me to obey him and not hesitate, otherwise he would hurt me and no one would come to my rescue. The room was so dark but there was a small mattress. He told me to sit on it. He told me to undress. That was when I started pleading.”

Blessing started crying. She told him that she did not want the job any more.

“He brought out a knife tied with red cloths and [said] that if I did not undress, he would stab me.”

Then he raped her.

Rape and murder

In August this year, Uduak “Ezekiel” Akpan, now 22, was found guilty of raping and murdering Iniubong Umoren, a 26-year-old job seeker, in April 2021. After Umoren’s case started trending on social media, Blessing saw posts and realised the attacker was the same man who had raped her in 2017.

Like Blessing, Umoren had made an open call on social media for a job. “#AkwaIbomTwitter please. I’m really in need of a job, something to do to keep my mind and soul together while contributing dutifully to the organization. My location is Uyo. I’m creative, really good at thinking critically, and most importantly a fast learner. CV available on request,” she tweeted on April 27, 2021.

As with Blessing, Akpan had then lured her to his home – the same one, still under construction all these years later – under the pretext of a job interview.

While there, Umoren sent a one-second WhatsApp audio message to her friend Uduak Obong. When Obong called her back, she heard her friend’s screams. So she sent a frantic tweet suggesting Umoren might be in danger. Online, Nigerians began investigating. Within a few hours, they found Akpan’s Facebook pages and dug up his digital footprint. A Twitter user got a leak of Akpan’s call log. With the call logs, he geolocated where Akpan was when he had last called Umoren’s phone.

The following day, Umoren’s body was found in a shallow grave in the same compound in Nung Ikono Obio where Blessing had been raped years earlier.

After Akpan attacked Blessing, she was too traumatised to report it. She did not even tell her mother what had happened. But she did go to the hospital to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

Blessing came forward after Umoren’s death, and prosecutors called her to give evidence against Akpan at his trial. Although she did not end up testifying – she was told her testimony was no longer needed – she sees her decision as a first attempt at seeking justice for what happened to her.

In the statement Akpan gave to the police before his trial commenced – a confession he later tried to recant, saying it was obtained under duress, although the judge ruled against him – he admitted to having attacked six other women, including Blessing. Umoren was the only one he killed.

Multiple victims

Twenty-five-year-old Miriam Akpan (no relation to the perpetrator) was one of Akpan’s other victims. In December 2020, desperate for a job, she posted on a Facebook group called Job Vacancy in Uyo, advertising her interests and qualifications.

“Please, anything, I can do,” she wrote, mentioning that she had the equivalent of a high school certificate and would take any job. No one offered her one until Akpan said he would pay her 35,000 Nigerian naira ($80) a month as a secretary in an “integrated farm”. Miriam was excited. For someone without a university degree, a job that paid more than the minimum monthly wage of 30,000 naira ($69) felt like a great opportunity.

She agreed to meet him to discuss the details of the job offer. But instead of an interview, she was drugged and raped.

For more than a year Miriam had suppressed the memory of what happened to her. She kept it from her sister, the only immediate family she has. But as people tried to locate Umoren, she saw Akpan’s picture being shared on Twitter and all the emotion she had tried to bury came rushing back. “I did not even think about it, I just commented [on Twitter] that this person robbed me last December,” she says.

But her last name raised suspicions, and some accused her of being related to Uduak Akpan. Umoren’s relatives did not immediately trust her when she advised them to go to Akpan’s house that night to search for the missing woman.

The following day, Miriam’s directions led the police and Umoren’s relatives to the compound where they found her body.

Miriam’s court testimony also helped convict Akpan.

He was subsequently sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Umoren, and life imprisonment for her rape.

Soaring unemployment

But Akpan is not the only person to have taken advantage of Nigeria’s employment crisis.

It is common for Nigerians to announce on social media that they are seeking jobs. With a soaring unemployment rate, many explore unconventional ways of finding work. Graduates are sometimes seen holding placards at major bus stops and expressways pleading for jobs; others make online banners; and members of the National Youth Corps who finish their service also post their certificates on social media, announcing that they are ready for employment.

Nigeria’s unemployment rate is 33.3 percent, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, which means that more than 23 million people either have no job or work for less than 20 hours a week. Among those aged between 15 and 35, the unemployment rate was 42.5 percent in 2020.

The high number of unemployed people seeking jobs also makes Nigeria’s labour market a “breeding ground” for criminals who lure applicants in with job interviews, said Taibat Hussain, a youth and gender equality advocate. “Criminals … lure applicants in with fake job interviews, and then rob, rape and, in extreme cases, kill them. This category of youth, after spending years without employment opportunities, falls prey to the tactics and is left with no other choice than to give in,” she told Al Jazeera.

As part of reporting this story, Al Jazeera met a 26-year-old man arrested in Cross River State for the alleged rape of an 18-year-old woman to whom he had promised a job. We are not naming him as he is awaiting trial.

When Al Jazeera met him at Calabar Correctional Centre, he was wearing a blue shirt with its collar raised and a pair of too-small slippers. He had already been behind bars for more than a year. He told Al Jazeera he had slept with the woman but denied raping her. “I was going to help her get the job but she is angry because the job did not come as fast as she wanted,” he said.

But in a statement the woman gave to the police detailing her experience, she told a different story. She met the man while looking for work vacancies, she said. He told her there was a cleaning position open in his workplace – a manufacturing company in Calabar.

“He asked me to bring my application to his house so that he can help me correct it and submit [it]. He looked at my application and said it is not correct. He wrote another one and told me to recopy it with my handwriting. After I finished copying it, I wanted to go but he did not let me go. He started kissing me and touching my breast. He used his right hand to hold my hands together and his left hand to cover my mouth,” her statement in the police report reads.

Experts say that most victims of dubious employment scams are younger women seeking low-skilled jobs, who make up a significant number of the unemployed population, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Extorted by ‘jobs for sale’

While predators like Akpan take advantage of desperate job seekers, there are registered companies that also extort these desperate people in other ways.

Oladeinde Olawoyin, a Nigerian journalist who has investigated fake employment agencies, found 50 cases of applicants being extorted. These agencies get applicants to pay for a registration package – usually charging 5,000-10,000 naira ($11-$q23) – with the promise of finding them a job, yet most never do. Some of these companies are registered as consultancies to circumvent the law that makes it illegal for a person to pay to gain employment, Olawoyin explains.

“Many of the agencies do not have jobs to give,” he says. “They charge applicants for registration forms and don’t really get them any job. There are a few who might have [a] few jobs but they recruit more people than the [number of] job[s] they have. In a pool of about 1,000, they might throw in maybe 20 jobs or less.

“These agencies know that Nigeria is [a] free for all. So they … gamble with people’s life and extort them. Most often they change their location when their notoriety spreads. They change their name and location. So it is possible that a job seeker might get scammed two, three, or four times by the same set of people with different names and addresses.”

John Nyamani, the director of employment and wages at Nigeria’s Ministry of Labour, told Al Jazeera that “desperation”, social media and job seekers wanting a quick fix were to blame for people being preyed upon.

“We don’t want to follow the rules because we are in a hurry to get employment,” he said.

Nyamani advised job seekers to be circumspect of opportunities advertised on social media that cannot be traced to an established organisation. “They are deceived with jobs and it is because of the situation of things. The government can only try its best through the security agencies to educate people on how to be careful. Not every advert you see on social media [is one] that you respond to. If you have to respond to it, make clarifications, and ask the Ministry of Labour. The Ministry of Labour has a good, functional website,” he added, referring to the National Employment Electronic Labour Exchange (NELEX).

The website has a pool of vacancies and a list of legal organisations where Nigerians seeking employment can carry out background checks on their prospective employers, Nyamani said.

However, advocate Hussain, who has looked into the government’s youth unemployment reduction scheme, says such initiatives only provide “temporary relief”, and that there is a need for permanent and sustainable connections between the labour market and government initiatives that hope to help young people.

For many, Umoren’s death highlighted how dire the unemployment situation is in Nigeria, and the risks young people are willing to take to find a job.

Miriam has gone back to school where she is learning to become a data scientist. She said facing Akpan again was one of the toughest things she has ever done but, after the incident, she decided to relocate to Lagos to start afresh.

“I have left Uyo and everything else behind me,” she says. “I can now build a future that I want. I bought a laptop. I am going to start learning how to code.”

For Blessing, it has been harder. She will only feel that there has been justice when Akpan hangs, she says, adding: “I don’t think he will ever be killed.”

*Name changed to protect the victim’s privacy

Al Jazeera

George Orwell envisioned the dangers of monolithic government armed with artificial intelligence in his famous novel of a future dystopia, "1984," published in 1949.

The Party, led by Big Brother, uses omnipresent technology to monitor constantly and to propagandize to the docile citizens of Oceania.

The terrifying tandem of technology and the human intoxicant of power is used in Oceania to rewrite history, control society, crush the human spirit and keep the Party entrenched forever.

Protagonist Winston Smith works for the ironically named Ministry of Truth, a job he hates. He dreams of the freedom to think, act, write and love. 

The totalitarian scenarios described in "1984," and the technologies to enforce them, seemed like science fiction 75 years ago. 

Yet they appear more possible today with the emergence of artificial intelligence and the stark warnings about its dangers from Elon Musk and others among the brightest people in technology. 

Digital devices already constantly track our movements and behaviors.

Artificial intelligence, experts say, is on the verge of perhaps even predicting our thoughts and actions.

The warnings of "1984" are also more ominous after big tech proved its eagerness to partner with big government in recent years to influence electionsand stifle dissent. 

The book that issued warnings about these very scenarios may now also be a target of governments armed with technology to track dissent. 

Orwell was recently added to a list compiled by government officials in the U.K. of authors whose works are allegedly shared by people sympathetic to "the far-right and Brexit," according to The Spectator. 

Here are 10 warnings from "1984" that seem more prescient — and more urgent — than ever.

1. The screen on your wall knows what you’re doing

"The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely," Orwell wrote of the household electronic device in Oceania we now recognize as the television. 

Few homes in the U.S. or U.K. owned televisions in the late 1940s — but Orwell already saw their potential for surveillance.

"You may not be aware of it, but your TV knows — and shares — a lot of information about you," Consumer Reports noted in 2021. "We’ve found that you can’t stop all the data collection."

2. History is canceled and rewritten to benefit the state

"Who controls the past controls the future," wrote Orwell. "Who controls the present controls the past."

Thomas Jefferson, and his words from the Declaration of Independence, such as "all men are created equal," are recast or canceled in "1984."

"Jefferson’s words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government," wrote Orwell, while only fragments of the Declaration of Independence exist as it is slowly erased. 

3. Technology supplants the rule of law with political purpose

The legal system is obsolete in Oceania, where society exists only to support the government. 

Orwell discussed the phenomenon when Smith opens a diary to pour out his thoughts, then considers the dire consequences of his action. 

"This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws)," Orwell wrote. 

"But if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by 25 years in a forced-labor camp."

4. Technology is leveraged to savage a man who challenged the system

The residents of Oceania are fed a constant stream of digital hatred against a figure who dared to speak out against the Party.

"As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed onto the screen," wrote Orwell of an office meeting. 

"All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies." 
Goldstein’s crimes, Orwell wrote, were advocating freedom of speech, press, assembly and thought. 

5. Virtues are erased, replaced by empty new language

Words such as honor, justice, morality, democracy, science and religion "had simply ceased to exist’ in Oceania, Orwell wrote.

"A few blanket words covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them."

It might already sound familiar today: Concepts such as morality and religion are belittled on social media, while new phrases quickly gain political power by their sudden and constant presence on the same platforms. 

Speaking new phrases becomes a virtue unto itself even if the words are undefined. 

6. The worship of God is replaced by worship of the state

Any existing faith in God in Oceania is replaced a death cult that worships only the Party and specifically Big Brother. 

Assemblies or even words of faith are easily tracked by technology. 

"Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader," wrote Orwell. 

The prevailing philosophy, he added later, "is called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps better rendered as Obliteration of the Self."

7. The elite rule amid grandeur while cities crumble

"The Ministry of Truth … was startlingly different from any other object in sight," Orwell wrote of London’s most glorious edifice in "1984," after describing the squalor inhabited by ordinary people.

"It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace … Scattered about London there were just three other buildings of similar appearance and size." 

They were, he noted, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love and the Ministry of Plenty — each name a misrepresentation of their actually mission. 

8. Basic facts are rewritten as a tool of oppression

One of the tenets of the Party in "1984" is that 2 + 2 = 5. 

The obvious error of math seems less shocking today, in a world in which people in position of power can no longer define the word "woman" or flout the long-known scientific reality of two genders.

9. The family is replaced by the state

Children learn to pledge allegiance to the Party over their parents in "1984," armed with technology to peer into their lives.

"It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children," wrote Orwell.

"And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which ‘The Times’ did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak — ’child hero’ was the phrase generally used — had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police."

10. ‘Big brother is watching you’

The most famous phrase from "1984" entered pop culture long before it became a reality.

Televisions, computers, smartphones, even automobiles today can already track our movements and even hear our voices. 

Social media giants know all about our lives and behaviors — information the publicly has given willingly.

Constant surveillance will only grow stronger and more pervasive with the advances of artificial intelligence, most experts agree.

"Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by the telescreen," wrote Orwell. 

"There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork."

Fox News