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Africa Live this week: 12-18 February 2024 - BBC News Africa Live this week: 12-18 February 2024 - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
The Newsroom
BBC World Service
Recently released victims of kidnappings in Nigeria say snakes Some Tanzanians online are expressing
are being used to terrorise them into raising ransoms. concern that a new statue in honour of their founding president Julius
There's been a sharp rise in kidnappings, with ever greater Nyerere does not look like him.
sums being extorted. The statue was unveiled on Sunday outside
One abductee told the government-owned News Agency of Nigeria some victims the African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
were taken to areas known to be snake-infested and thrown into the bush. “I know the gesture counts most but this
In the words of one, "that's when a victim will ask statue’s face has very little or no resemblance to Mwalimu Nyerere (old or
friends and family to sell everything to raise the ransom house, cars, goods, young),” Maria Sarungi says on X (formerly Twitter).
just everything". “That is not our Nyerere,” another says.
Both criminals and victims are at risk of being bitten - and Nyerere was the leader of what is now Tanzania from independence
some are. in 1961 until 1985.
Local doctors have confirmed that some kidnap victims have He was a committed pan-Africanist and hosted independence
required treatment for snake bites following their release. fighters opposed to white minority rule in southern Africa.
Last year, a statue honouring Zambia’s first President, Kenneth Kaunda, had to be removed after weeks of ridicule, with
people similarly saying that it did not look like him.
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