Permanent Secretary of the country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Gerald Kusaya, disclosed this while speaking to a delegation from IITA that paid him a courtesy visit in Dodoma city to introduce the new Director for Eastern Africa, Dr Leena Tripathi. He identified soil, improving farmers’ knowledge on good agriculture practices, and combatting aflatoxin as some of the priority areas needing IITA support. He notes that the government’s emphasis was on the commercialization of agriculture to increase farmers’ income, and therefore, IITA was needed to continue supporting efforts to train farmers and extension officers on improved agricultural practices to increase productivity and quality of…
Author: Akpan Akata
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Feed-the-Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity has conducted a series of training on crop residue utilisation and feed formulation. They were for farmer and herder groups’ representatives, large-scale farmers, local livestock feed processors, livestock feed sellers, nutrition liaison officers, and extension agents in Yola (Adamawa State) between February 18 and 20, and in Biu (Borno State) between from February 24 through March 1. The training, facilitated by the Activity experts from International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and ICRISAT, should contribute to the reduction in crop residue waste, minimize the cost of livestock production, increase productivity…
The Buhari administration appears to be helpless in meeting the security challenges schools in Nigeria are currently facing with the undying abduction of schoolchildren. Rather than rise to the challenge, the administration is now harping on the need for the citizenry to be vigilant to end attacks on schools and abduction of students. The charge by the Buhari administration is coming as the Catholic Archbishop of Owerri Archdiocese, Anthony Obinna, says the spate of killings in the country has made Nigeria to become a theatre of horror. The archbishop was speaking in his homily at the one-year anniversary of Governor…
The Pamoja Voices toolkits are enabling people and communities in Tanzania and Zanzibar to articulate their priorities for building resilience to climate change. In many rural communities, climate change affects men, women and young people in different ways, reflecting each group’s different daily responsibilities. Often, women and young people are marginalised from decision making and crowded out by more powerful actors, which means their climate adaptation priorities are often ignored and their vulnerabilities to climate change persist. A new pair of toolkits has now been co-designed with partners and communities to facilitate inclusive, climate-resilient participatory planning by producer cooperatives or rural…
While seeking to resolve its security and economic challenges and in spite of being pejoratively mocked as NATO, Nigeria entered 2021 focused on playing pivotal roles in the international arena regardless of the deepest global recession the COVID-19 pandemic triggered. No country in 2020 escaped the pandemic unscathed. The plague is still having large and persistent negative effects on the world economy. NATO, a military and political alliance, stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European countries to provide collective security against the defunct Soviet Union. NATO was the…
The world’s largest crime prevention and criminal justice gathering has rejected “the divisions and inequalities” exposed by COVID-19. Ghada Waly, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Secretary-General of the 14th Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice says ‘’we have strengthened “crime prevention and criminal justice to address the urgent needs of today as well as the challenges of tomorrow…to leave no one behind.” This is coming as poor rain forecast for the next few months is threatening to exacerbate the plight of tens of thousands of Somalis displaced from their homes and villages due to…
The world is currently faced with two critical choices. It is either it urgently respond to the feeding need of vulnerable people or gear up to fueling conflict. United Nations chief, António Guterres, has already spelt this out to the Security Council. He has brought to the knowledge of the Council that conflict is driving hunger, and that when it turns to famine, it drives conflict. According to him, “when a country or region is gripped by conflict and hunger, they become mutually reinforcing…[and] cannot be resolved separately.” Guterres was speaking via videoconference to the meeting which focused on how conflict…
In a solemn message of remembrance for the 18,400 people who died or are unaccounted for, due to the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan exactly ten years ago, countries are being urged to make sure they invest the funds necessary to prevent and manage disasters. Known officially as the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, António Guterres expressed his condolences, “to those who continue to grieve the loss of loved ones. “And I think of those who remain displaced, unable to return to their homes because of safety concerns surrounding the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant”, adds the UN Secretary-General. He welcomed the…
Director of Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) Emergencies and Resilience Division, Dominique Burgeon, says the Organisation urgently needs to scale-up actions to avert a major emergency in food crisis. FAO is seeking $1.1 billion to save the lives and livelihoods of some of the world’s most food-insecure people. This is even as the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict and climate-related crises are driving acute levels of hunger higher. In 2021, FAO is aiming to reach more than 48.9 million people who rely on agriculture for their survival and livelihoods through interventions aimed at boosting local food production and nutrition, while strengthening the capacity and…
Women’s Employment Programme of International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group has announced the creation of the Women’s Leadership in Private Health Care Global Working Group. The working group aims to strengthen women’s leadership roles in the health care sector. It brings together Chief Executive Officers and Human Resources managers from 17 leading health care organisations in Africa, Middle East, and South Asia to identify and address gender barriers in their field. This is an initiative under the umbrella of IFC’s Global Health Platform, which promotes private sector solutions in developing countries to respond to COVID-19…
One hundred thirty-four survivors, most of them from Côte d’Ivoire, have been rescued from another migrants’ shipwreck that claimed the lives of at least, 39 people. The survivors were brought to shore by Tunisia’s coast guard. While rescue operations are still ongoing, hampered yesterday by harsh weather conditions, the 39 people drowned in a shipwreck off Kerkennah island. A second shipwreck took place off the coast of Jebeniana city in Sfax governorate. The boat had 70 persons on board, including four children, who were all taken to shore. These are the latest in a string of shipwrecks off Tunisia’s coast. International…
An independent expert mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor the issue of torture globally has indicted governments of the world, alleging that they have demonstrated a lack of credible commitment to banning torture and other cruel treatment. UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, made the charge while presenting his latest report, which evaluates states’ response to his official communications and requests for country visits. “While the reactions of governments to allegations and requests transmitted to them, range from complete silence to aggressive rejection, unsubstantiated denial, bureaucratic obstruction and even sophisticated forms of pretence, the common denominator of all of these patterns is…
A pioneering new study published in Nature Food says the world’s food systems are responsible for more than one-third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Spanning from land-use change and agricultural production to packaging and waste management, food system emissions were estimated at 18 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2015. That is 34 percent of the total, a share that is gradually declining – it was 44 percent in 1990 – even as food systems emissions kept increasing in absolute amounts. The study, co-written by Francesco Tubiello, a senior statistician and climate-change specialist at the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations…
Kebbi State is fast emerging as the Thailand of Nigeria in rice production. The state is boasting of rice pyramids comprising a collection of 100,000 bags of 70kg rice paddies harvested from various fields. The rice pyramids is the result of the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP). Over the past five years, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) have pursuing a seeming ambition of turning Nigeria into the world’s biggest rice producer. And from Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria, as part of efforts by the state government to “reform and sanitise” the red meat…
Farm Radio International, a non-profit organisation using radio to help African farming communities support themselves, has indicated an interest to collaborate with International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria. The radio team disclosed this during a recent virtual introductory meeting between the two organisations. The radio team included the Country Programme Manager, Eucharia Uranta Okonkwo, Country Representative Ghana, Benjamin Fiafor, and Senior Programme Development Manager, Karen Hampson. They took turns in presenting the activities of the organisation in different countries. Head of IITA-Abuja Station, Gbassey Tarawali, welcomed the idea of building synergy with IITA. He gave a brief background on…
Board of Directors of African Development Bank (AfDB) has awarded a $2.00 million grant to establish the African Cybersecurity Resource Center (ACRC) for Financial Inclusion to tackle cybercrime across Africa and to strengthen the resilience of digital financial ecosystems. The grant will be disbursed through the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility, a blended finance vehicle, which the institution supports. The project will take a three-pronged approach: creation of an affordable shared platform to monitor cyber-attacks against financial service providers and individual customers; rollout of individualized advisory services to enable organisations to bolster their cybersecurity; and enhancement of cybersecurity talent development…
Humanitarian aid agencies are currently rethinking their deployment to all vulnerable “deep field” locations in the North-East axis of Nigeria, following an attack by Boko Haram fighters on Dikwa, Borno State, this week . United Nations reportedly commenced evacuation of aid workers out of humanitarian hubs in Monguno and Ngala, Northern Borno, following the overrunning of Dikwa and the siege on the organisation’s compound by terrorists. Aid workers were forced to shelter in a bunker during a multipronged attack by insurgents belonging to Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) between Monday evening and Tuesday morning, which led to the capture of the…
A United Nations independent human rights expert is calling for greater protection for rights activists and urging countries to find the political will to prevent the killings of human rights defenders. According to Mary Lawlor, a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders on Friday, hundreds of rights activists are murdered every year. She was speaking while presenting her latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, which is based in Geneva. “It is shocking that between 2015 and 2019, at least 1,323 defenders were killed in 64 countries”, she said. “The pattern of killings is widespread, with human rights defenders having been killed…
Affordable houses in Borno State will soon lift the standard of living of the ordinary people, and enhance their health. At completion, the social houses will be available for their owners. The 125 blocks of 500 housing units are in Yana Yaskuri, Konduga Local Government Area of the state. Industry watchers say the scheme will meet a very urgent and critical need for housing in the state. Since 2019, Family Homes Funds that is concerned with social housing programme began the funding and development of over 4,800 houses in the state which has been alarmingly affected by the Boko Haram…
No less than 70 migrants have lost their lives in the last five months with the latest incident of Wednesday claiming 20 lives. Two similar incidents in October claimed the lives of at least 50 migrants. Twenty people have drowned after smugglers threw dozens of migrants overboard early Wednesday morning during their journey from Djibouti to Yemen, the third such incident on the Gulf of Aden in six months.Survivors receiving medical treatment at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) Migrant Response Centre in Obock said at least 200 migrants including children were crowded aboard the vessel when it departed. Thirty minutes…
United States Mission in Nigeria is gearing to facilitate two weeks training for Nigerian dairy sector stakeholders in the US as Ikun Dairy Farm in Ekiti State receives shipment of pregnant Jersey breed dairy cows from the country. Counselor for Agricultural Affairs at the US Mission to Nigeria, Gerald Smith, disclosed that the shipment was a result of the strong partnership between the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Mission in Nigeria, the Ikun Dairy Farm, and the Nigerian government. “We believe these efforts will maximise the local dairy sector’s potential and help Nigeria emerge as a major player in…
Freshly approved Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in the United States is facing a religious controversy as the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans labels it “morally compromised” over links to abortion cells. The jab, which comes in a single-shot form was approved for emergency use in the US. Already, it is being rolled out in South Africa. US approved its third vaccine, with the Johnson & Johnson jab joining Pfizer and Moderna in the ongoing battle against the coronavirus. Acting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner, Janet Woodcock, said in a statement late on Saturday, “the authorisation of this vaccine expands the availability of…
The Military Writers Society of Nigeria (MWSN) has warned media houses against unwittingly aiding fifth columnists to fuel disaffection among the leadership of the country’s armed forces. In a statement on Thursday, the Society’s President, Akanimo Sampson, says there is no lack of cooperation and synergy among the military chiefs in Nigeria. ‘’What is often perceived as lack of cooperation and synergy among the military top brass, is a seeming lack of proper understanding of the operational and strategic systems at work on the plural frontlines’’, the Society says. ‘’Disturbingly, some of our inability to clearly understand military operations, has…
The Governing Council of Military Writers Society of Nigeria (MWSN) says it is seriously concerned about how to actively involve veterans and retired military officers in literary works. Chairman of the Governing Council, Dr Abubakar Sani, made this known in Abuja on Tuesday after their virtual meeting in which some key members of the Society’s Executive Committee were given the nod to pilot the affairs of MWSN. To galvanise the activities of the Society as its President is a notable print journalist, who has worked for a good number of Nigeria’s notable publications, such as The Punch, Champion Newspapers, Daily…
Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), David Beasley, says the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is making its ‘’significant capabilities’’ available in the service of humanity in the face of COVID-19 pandemic. WFP is, however, a United Nations agency and the world’s largest humanitarian organisation, saving lives in emergencies, building prosperity and supporting a sustainable future for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change. According to Beasley in a statement wired to this reporter, “at this grave moment in history, when so many countries face enormous challenges at home, the UAE is once again stepping…
COVID-19 cases in Nigeria is surging to hit a 3,000 mark and above as transport systems and international trade are under tremendous stress as countries adopt radical measures to bring the pandemic under control. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) says the country on Monday recorded an all-time high of 245 new cases of COVID-19 in 24 hours. This figure now brings the tally in Nigeria to 2,802, with fatalities hitting 93 after recording six new deaths on the day. NCDC says a total of 417 patients have also been treated and discharged from the different isolation centres and…
Unaccredited health facilities in Nigeria that are handling coronavirus cases now run the risk of a shutdown. The Federal Government says such health facilities will also face some serious sanctions in addition to being shutdown. Health Minister, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, who gave the warning says government will from now on take ‘’appropriate steps’’ to close health facilities handling COVID-19 cases without proper accreditation. This is coming as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced 35 new cases of the troubling disease late on Thursday night that now brings the tally to 442 confirmed cases across the country. NCDC says…
A 21-year-old Mariam, the eldest of five children, left Burkina Faso after her father’s death to support her family and pay for her sister’s typhoid treatment. Within a few days of becoming a sex worker, she was able to send her family 50,000 CFA francs (75 euros) via mobile money. Mariam is the latest arrival in a small brothel in the gold-mining hub of Yanfolila, southern Mali, She still recalls the first time she had sex for money. She took a man into her small, concrete room, and did what she had to do. She then cried and went to…
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), an agency of the United Nations, is currently pressing the European Union (EU) to integrate migration considerations in the upcoming European Green Deal. The migration agency is encouraging Croatia to use its six-month tenure at the helm of the Council of the EU to also promote a more comprehensive approach and a long-term EU budget that facilitates orderly, safe and regular migration. In recommendations released on Wednesday, IOM called on the Croatian Presidency to ensure that migration considerations are reflected and integrated into the European Green Deal. Croatia assumed the rotating six-month Presidency on January 1 and…
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is currently cooperating with the World Bank and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to assess the potential implications of carbon dioxide reduction measures on developing countries. This is so because over 80% of the goods consumed around the world are transported by sea, thus making shipping the engine of the global economy. Maritime transport relies heavily on bunker fuels that have a high carbon footprint and contribute to the climate emergency facing the world. One major side effect from the shipping industry is the release of climate-warming gases (such as sulphur…
