World Tuberculosis Day: Health workers raise awareness in Sierra Leone

Tuberculosis is among the top ten causes of death worldwide.

The World Health Organization says

Sierra Leone has one of the highest levels of TB.

Health workers in the country are trying to change that by raising awareness.

Al Jazeera’s Nina Devries reports from Freetown.

Ghana: Nana Akufo-Addo to be sworn in as president

  

Nana Akufo-Addo is to be sworn in as Ghana's new president after beating incumbent leader John Mahama in last month's election.

Some 11 African heads of state and more than 6,000 people are expected in the ceremony in the capital, Accra, where security will be tight.

Mr Akufo-Addo, a 72-year-old former human rights lawyer, promised free high school education and more factories.

But critics have questioned the viability of his ambitions.

Mr Akufo-Addo, from the New Patriotic Party, was elected on his third attempt to reach the post, after a campaign dominated by the country's faltering economy.

Mr Mahama and former leaders John Rawlings and John Kufuor are expected to attend the ceremony in the capital's Independence Square.

Major roads in and around the area have been cordoned off.

---

Nana Akufo-Addo

                           

• 72 years old
• Human rights lawyer
• Campaigned for a return to multi-party democracy under military rule
• A former justice and foreign minister in the NPP government from 2001 to 2007, he is running for president for a third time
• His main promise was to build a factory in each of Ghana's more than 200 districts

---

Mr Akufo-Addo has vowed to revive the country's economy, saying that "there are brighter days ahead".
An economic slump under Mr Mahama led to an International Monetary Fund bail-out.
The current president has defended his record, saying his government had been up against "strong headwinds" that caused growth to slow, public sector debt to rise and the country's currency, the cedi, to fall.
Ghana has been a multi-party democracy since the end of military rule in 1992 and the transition is seen as reinforcing its reputation for the peaceful transfer of power between administrations.

Nigeria's MMM Ponzi scheme: Will participants get their money?

Nigeria's MMM Ponzi scheme: Will participants get their money?

The MMM financial scheme caught on like wildfire in Nigeria but it has frozen its transactions, leaving many investors unsure what will happen to their savings. The Focus Africatv's Tunde explains how the Ponzi scheme found its way to the most populous nation in Africa and how it managed to survive.

What is MMM?

Well, that depends on who you speak to. According to MMM itself (Mavro Mondai Movement), it is a "social financial network of people providing help and getting help from each other".
Members are supposed to receive 30% back on their investment in just 30 days. It launched in Nigeria in November 2015 and according to its founders, has three million members.
But it has a murky history. It started in Russia in the 1990s and collapsed a few years later losing an estimated $100m (£80.3m) belonging to its members.
The Russian government outlawed the scheme and founder Sergey Mavrodi was jailed for four years.



Founder of the MMM pyramid scheme Sergei Mavrodi was released from Russian prison in 2007


 

It made its way to China where it was also banned. But in the past two years, the scheme has appeared in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria.
Nigeria's financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), say it is a Ponzi scheme.
That means money paid in by new members is used to pay back previous members. It doesn't generate any profit but relies on new members to keep going, which means that sooner or later it will collapse.
"No profit is being created," says economist Tunji Andrews. "And the people that are going to pay for all your profit right now are the people that are going to get stuck when MMM finally crashes."

How does it work?

Members either sign up online or with the help of a "guider" - a member who gets commission to recruit more investors.
To start, one can invest as little as 15,000 naira (£32; $40). That money gets paid directly to another member.
The idea is that after 30 days, every member reaps their profits. "Guiders" get a 10% cut of the new members' investment.
Over the past few months, MMM Nigeria has undertaken an aggressive advertising campaign and used community forums and church meetings to recruit members.

Why are people talking about it?

On 13 December, the scheme was frozen. Members who expected a pay-out since Tuesday have been disappointed.
MMM claims it froze the scheme to deal with heavy traffic that it experienced in the run-up to the Christmas holidays.
It says it will re-open in January and though many people are skeptical, others have staunchly defended the scheme.
Nigeria is in the middle of its worst recession in decades. Banks are not lending and so many people are hailing MMM as a source of capital.

Since it first appeared in 2015, authorities have issued warning to Nigerians against investing. In a country that does not have a huge amount of trust in its government, millions ignored that advice.
Seven people, who do not wish to be named, explain how they got involved in the scheme. We will call them by different names.
Margaret, a farmer from Port Harcourt told me that MMM was "a blessing". She used it to pay rent when her business slowed due to the recession.
Similarly Yinka from Ilorin described MMM as "beautiful". He was able to pay his school fees and buy a printer. Both are optimistic the scheme will work again.
Most of the people who spoke to our team had initially made good returns on their investments, compelling them to invest huge amounts later. Unfortunately for them, the company froze its operations.
Isaac invested 50,000 naira in the scheme and got his returns. Two days later he invested 950,000 naira. He was supposed to get his money back on 14 December. So far, he has received nothing.
MMM say it is up front about the risks. A warning on its website reads: "The only rule is no rules… "Win" might not be paid without any reasons or explanations."
All the investors we spoke to admitted that they had been aware of the warnings but thought the risk was worth taking.

Have people lost their money?

At the moment, it is unclear whether participants will get their money back but authorities in Nigeria believe that it is inevitable that people will lose out. There is not enough money in the system to carry on forever.


BBC News


According to the privacy laws of SEC, once a scheme like this gets a certain level of investment it must be registered.
MMM is not registered with the financial regulator so technically, it could be breaking the law.
But the SEC has not yet taken any active steps to prosecute it.

What happens next?

Members have to wait until January to see if MMM is as good as its word.
Until then its investors can only hope to get their money back.
But MMM is under no legal obligation to return it.
If the scheme does "unfreeze", that might encourage more people to invest.
And that means even more people are at risk of losing their savings