Hundreds of residents in various parts of llorin, the Kwara State capital, have been rendered homeless by rainstorm, following downpour which lasted for over three hours in the evening of Saturday, March 17, 2018.
A house with its roof blown off in Ilorin
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some of the affected houses, which had their roofs blown off by the storm, were in densely populated areas of the township.
NAN observed that several belongings of the victims including clothing, food items, electrical gadgets and other valuables littered the ground in the affected areas.
Some of the affected areas in llorin and its environs were Ganmo, Gaa Saka, Alore Guniyan, Agbooba, Adewole, Kuntu, Magaji Ogidi compound and Okelele among others.
One of the victims, Alhaji Oba Aremu, who resides at Magaji Ogidi compound, Ojuekun area of llorin, told NAN that his residence was completely damaged by the storm.
Aremu explained that he and his 15 family members were currently taking refuge in a small place given to them by the Magaji Ogidi, Alhaji Salihu Amosa-Ajape.
Another victim, Alhaji Asinmi Aliyu, who is a landlord of a six bedroom flat at Agbooba in llorin, said that he was yet to quantify things damaged by the rainstorm in his house.
In their separate reactions, some of the victims appealed to both the state and local governments to come to their aid and give them necessary support.
Most of the affected areas are still in total blackout following damages to electric poles and cables.
The Senior Special Assistant to Governor AbdulFatah Ahmed on Media and Communications, Dr Muideen Akorede, while reacting on the development on Sunday, said the state government symphatised with the victims over the incident.
Akorede assured that appropriate agencies of the government would embark on inspection of all the affected areas with a view to support the victims.
Some of the affected residents are now taking refuge in mosques and some with neighbours.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) says it will support Nigeria’s Power Sector Recovery Programme (PSRP) in three areas.
Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, receives African Development Bank Vice-President for Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth, Amadou Hott, and other African Development Bank Senior Managers in his office to discuss Nigeria’s Power Sector Recovery Programme (PSRP), State House Abuja
It listed the areas to include: operational and technical intervention, governance issues, and policy based support.
The bank disclosed this in Abuja on Friday, March 16, 2018 in a statement signed by Mrs Fatimah Alkali, the Senior Communications Officer in Nigeria Country Office.
AfDB said it had undertaken a mission to hold further discussions on Nigeria’s PSRP with several stakeholders.
The bank said that the mission was led by Mr Amadou Hott, the bank’s Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth.
It said meetings had been held with relevant ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to harmonise plans and areas of intervention.
The ministries and agencies include the Ministries of Finance, Power, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, the Transmission Company of Nigeria, World Bank and solar power developers.
The bank said the programme was designed to promote energy access to rural communities through the expansion of the transmission grid, development of innovative financing products and provision of technical assistance to improve revenue generation by the distribution companies.
It said the goal of the mission was to identify opportunities for collaboration in the programme.
“The bank’s energy strategy identifies energy as crucial not only for the attainment of health and education outcomes, but for industrialisation, reducing the cost of doing business and for unlocking economic potential and creating jobs.
“In line with its high 5 development priorities, the bank is committed to supporting Nigeria in the effective and efficient implementation of the country’s Power Sector Recovery Programme,” the bank said.
The statement quoted the bank’s President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, as saying that “Africa is simply tired of being in the dark.
“It is time to take decisive action and turn around this narrative: to light up and power Africa and accelerate the pace of economic transformation, unlock the potential of businesses and drive much needed industrialisation to create jobs,” he said.
Possibilities for swift transition to clean and efficient mobility exist more in Africa than other regions, experts have affirmed.
Head of UN Environment, Erik Solheim, speaking during the Africa Mobility Week
Experts at the Africa Clean Mobility Week that ended in Nairobi, Kenya on Friday, March 16, 2018 believe that Africa’s readiness for the much-needed transition remains exceedingly higher than those of other regions that are deeply entrenched in dirty and inefficient fuel economies.
Africa, according to Rob de Jong, Head of the Air Quality and Mobility Unit of the UN Environment, is very ready to transit because the region depends largely on imported fuel to meet 80% of its consumption needs.
The region, he added, “is not producing a lot of vehicles, most vehicles are imported and more than any other continent in the world, Africa can today decide to import cleaner cars and efficient fuel and through this, leapfrog to a new era of clean mobility.”
“In other continents like Asia, where there is so much production of poor quality vehicles, its very difficult to introduce vehicle standards, but for Africa, it becomes easier for the region to set up policy frameworks that regulate the quality of fuel it imports and many African states are already doing that,” Jong said.
Experts are also of the view that a larger part of Africa’s vehicular need is yet to be met even though the region is motorising very quickly. In Kenya for example, the number of vehicles doubles every seven years while in Europe, there are already too many cars and if Africa adopts the clean transition policy today, it will successfully influence a cleaner future.
Jane Akumu, Programme Officer at the Economy Division of the Air Quality and Mobility Unit of the UN Environment, sees great prospects in Africa’s transition to a clean mobility future.
“We see good prospects for progress,” Akumu said. “When we started this move less than a decade ago, Africa was predominantly using lead petrol but today its only one country that is still using lead petrol out of Africa’s 55 countries,” she says.
“What took other regions over a decade was achieved within less than five years in Africa,” Akumu added.
The UN Environment, on its part, has been prioritising and bringing the issues of cleaner transport into the discussions of African ministers and various stakeholders including the private sector, civil society and the media.
“Once issues are prioritised with cost-effective solutions, we see very good and remarkable progress in Africa especially when we link them with health, environment and climate change considerations, it’s a win-win situation,” Akumu said.
Science, technological innovation and a fundamental understanding of nature are among the major drivers of progress. Today’s advances in the treatment of human disease have been made possible by the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928 and the DNA double-helix structure by Watson and Crick in 1953. These discoveries have saved the lives of countless people battling with bacterial infections; the number one cause of death in the last century and made possible today’s advances in the treatment of human diseases. Significantly, advances in the agricultural sciences and plant breeding through Green Revolution, has also saved millions of people from starvation.
GMOs. The GM technology has been described as an important tool in the fight against global poverty and food insecurity
Farmers all over the world face the challenge of doubling food production to meet the needs of a population that is expected to reach nine billion by mid-century and maintaining soil and water quality and conserving biodiversity. Maintenance and reservation of natural resources and need to support the livelihoods of farmers and rural populations around the world are major concerns. These challenges which are mainly linked to climate change, food safety and security, poverty and social exclusion, global warming, depletion of fossil fuel resources and fights against disease are already high on the public and political agendas.
In Nigeria, the challenges together with other constraints such as insect range expansion, extreme weather increase, weed pressure and Fulani herdsmen have broadened the scope of the impact. Agriculture, which needed to increase production by 70% to feed the population, is grossly affected by these natural hazards and disasters. Therefore, innovation and technology are fundamental to Agricultural transformation, in the reduction of major impacts and Nigerians, particularly farmers need to make decisions under these extreme unstable and insecure circumstances. Besides, there is need to support farmers and increase access to innovation, impact policy and improve public perception.
To counterpoise the predicted increase in the world population and the related implication of climate change, science has to develop technologies that increase yields and productivity in a sustainable way, while lowering the demand for fertilisers and pesticides, and adapting crops to match the effects of changes in the environment.
Technological development and demonstration activities are some of the world’s largest international projects for basic and applied research, and are means of our collaborative innovation to tackle these global challenges we face.The concept of the Bio-Economy provides many scientific and technical solutions to enhance resource efficiencies and reduce environmental footprints through an economically viable and socially responsible approach. The basic challenges for global institutions and industries will be to increase resource efficiency and develop more eco-efficient products and life cycles.
Biotechnology became the key component of the Bio-Economy due to its large diversity. It is a concept applicable in a range of fields ranging from primary production to industrial and pharmaceutical applications, and involving emerging technologies such as synthetic biology. Modern biology is used to address major challenges, including food and feed security and safety, the development of renewable resource platforms and pharmaceuticals, while improving environmental sustainability.
Biotechnologies could provide us with useful tools in sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, food production and industry. Crop production will have to subsist with rapidly increasing demand while ensuring environmental sustainability. In order to achieve the best solutions, we must consider all the alternatives for addressing these challenges using independent and scientifically sound methods. These alternatives include genetically modified organisms (GMO) and their potential use.
Undeniably, GM technology is an important tool in the fight against global poverty and food insecurity and based on a growing body of evidence, biotechnology is not more risky than alternative technologies. The introduction of such advanced processes and materials based on biotechnology and GMOs has enormous potential not only to enhance quality of life while reducing environmental footprints, but also to improve the competitiveness of global industry. As with all new technologies, the potential risks and benefits must be identified and quantified. You will note that recent projects dealing with the development of new products and processes based on GMO technology fully integrate safety assessments in their conception, experimentation, development and application.
As published in “A decade of EU-funded GMO research”, a publication of the Directorate-General, European Commission, for research and development; the principles laid down in the “Europe 2020” Strategy, adopted by the European Council on 17 June 2010, where building the Bio-Economy is one of its main targets, are aiming to “… re-focus R&D and innovation policy on the challenges facing our society, such as climate change, energy and resource efficiency, health and demographic change. Every link should be strengthened in the innovation chain, from ‘blue sky’ research to commercialisation.” It stated “that these principles will enable Europe to thrive in an even more competitive and resource-limited global economy, providing education, knowledge, health support and, above all, job opportunities for generations to come”.
From same publication, review of the last 10 years of research projects launched under the Framework Programmes for research, technological development and demonstration activities, focusing on safety aspects of GMOs, took account of developments in the field over time. It shows that more than €200 million has been invested through the Framework Programmes since the year 2001, developing agricultural management techniques for co-existence, tools for detection in and analysis of food and feed, and methods for risk assessment of GMOs, thus responding to the need of farmers, consumers, industry and policymakers. Estimates indicate that the European Bio-Economy is worth €2 trillion annually and accounts for some 22 million employees. The EU already has a very strong research presence in the field, for example in industrial and pharmaceutical biotechnologies, and includes significant know-how on the health-related aspects of the Bio-Economy. It is quite interesting to note these developments from Europe.
However, “economic pressure in a globalised world and the experience with biotechnology in Europe should encourage us to pursue the development and application of all available technologies without prejudice, while respecting fundamental safety and ethical principles. It is predicted that, whereas the past century was transformed with the commercialisation of personal computers and the development of the Internet, the 21st century will be revolutionised by our growing understanding of the functioning and interaction of biological systems, whether at the molecular or at the ecosystem level’’.
However, sound policy, which shall take account of a wide range of views, must be based on sound science. Only a structured dialogue with policymakers, stakeholders and the public, based on science and empirical evidence, will clear the coast for a balanced assessment of the benefits and risks of biotechnology and GMOs within the framework of the bio-economy. Therefore, there is need to support scientific studies on Biotechnologies and the GMOs to ensure available evidence for a constructive debate in our societies.
It is remarkable that after 25 years of field trials without evidence of harm, fears continue to trigger major fuss and controversies like; can a GM crop become a “super weed”, devastating our habitat in a glimpse? Do we disturb the “natural biodiversity balance” more when we grow GM crops than when we stay with traditional crops and intensive monocultures where large quantities of chemicals are used? Does the involuntary and irreversible spread of genes really represent such a danger and justify such an alarming scenario? The potential adverse effect on non-target organisms is also frequently mentioned by ecologists.
It should be noted that meeting the challenge of proving the safety of GM crops is not so easy. Apparently, it looks scientific, but not at all. Science can certify the existence of danger, but not its absence. Expert contention that a 100 % GM variety approved for commercialisation is neither more nor less of a health or environmental problem than its parent crop will not shelve these questions. The scientific world did not realise that it was not just enough to say that intensive agriculture causes environmental disruption, independent of whether the crop is GM or not, and that we can in any case develop novel GM varieties that are more environmentally friendly. Our society needs a step-by-step evidence of studies that support such statements.
Fortunately, genomic studies of the last decade, as published on page 55 of “A decade of…; have demonstrated that a genome is not a static entity but a dynamic structure continuously refining its gene pool. The adaptation, survival and evolution of plants depend on their ability to alter genomes through transposition of the movable elements, accumulation of deletions, insertions, gene amplifications and point mutations. So, for a scientist in genetics, the act of splicing to generate a transgenic organism is a modest step when compared to the genomic changes induced by all the ‘crosses’ and breeding events used in agriculture and husbandry. The molecular biology tools simply add a new precision, speed and reach to this indispensable process of species domestication’’.
It was therefore a surprise for scientists to discover that public opinion did not “buy into” this line of thought. Reports from EU fact sheets stated that “GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved. Continuous application of safety assessments based on the Codex Alimentarius principles and, where appropriate, adequate post market monitoring, should form the basis for ensuring the safety of GM foods”.
Prof. B.O Solomon from Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria, pointed out that is important that farmers and consumers of crop products in Africa be given an opportunity to benefit from increased opportunities, productivity, and efficiency which can result in low costs of food by having GM crops commercialised in African countries. According to Clet Masiga from Uganda, ‘’Every field is using scientific innovations to advance and there should be no exception in plant breeding”.
By Edel-Quinn Agbaegbu (Executive Directo, Every Woman Centre – EWHC; Secretary, National Biotechnology and Biosafety Consortium – NBBC)
A research project by Amnesty International has exposed evidence of severe negligence by oil giants Shell and Eni, whose approach to oil spills in the Niger Delta seems to be exacerbating an environmental crisis.
Attending to oil spill in the Niger Delta
Through the Decoders network, an innovative platform developed by Amnesty International to crowdsource human rights research, the organisation enlisted thousands of supporters and activists to collect data about oil spills in the Niger Delta. Their findings were then analysed by Amnesty International’s researchers and verified by Accufacts, an independent pipelines expert.
According to this publicly available data, Amnesty International found that Shell and Eni are taking weeks to respond to reports of spills and publishing ambiguous information about the cause and severity of spills, which may result in communities not receiving compensation.
“Shell and Eni claim they are doing everything they can to prevent oil spills but Decoders’ research suggests otherwise. They found that the companies often ignore reports of oil spills for months on end – on one occasion Eni took more than a year to respond. The Niger Delta is one of the most polluted places on earth and it beggars belief that the companies responsible are still displaying this level of negligence,” said Mark Dummett, Business and Human Rights Researcher at Amnesty International.
“Adding insult to injury is the fact that Shell and Eni seem to be publishing unreliable information about the cause and extent of spills. The people of the Niger Delta have paid the price for Shell and Eni’s recklessness for too long. Thanks to Decoders, we’re a step closer to bringing them to account.”
Amnesty International is now asking the Nigerian government to re-open investigations into 89 oil spills.
What Decoders did
Decoders collected information about the contents of the reports that Shell and Eni publish each time they visit the site of an oil spill. These reports detail the likely cause, location and extent of the damage, and are often accompanied by photographs. They are important because companies pay compensation to affected communities based on this information.
Previous research by Amnesty International has revealed that the information in these reports is often inaccurate. For example, Shell reportedly understated the amount of oil spill in the fishing town of Bodo between 2008 and 2009. With the help of Amnesty International, the Bodo community eventually took legal action, forcing Shell to admit the real amount and pay £55 million in compensation.
To help other communities like Bodo, Amnesty International needed to analyse masses of publicly available data about oil spills, and enlisted activists from around the world to help. A total of 3,545 people, from 142 countries, took part in Decode Oil Spills. They answered 163,063 individual questions about reports and photographs and worked 1,300 hours – the equivalent of someone working full-time for eight months.
What Decoders found
Decoders’ work helped Amnesty International confirm two main things:
1. Shell and Eni are publishing misleading information
Since 2011, Shell has reported 1,010 spills, with 110,535 barrels (or 17.5 million litres) lost along the network of pipelines and wells that it operates. Since 2014, Eni has reported 820 spills, with 26,286 barrels or (4.1 million litres) lost.
Shell and Eni claim that most oil spills in Nigeria are caused by theft and sabotage.
This claim is contested by communities in the Niger Delta, who stand to lose compensation if the companies attribute spills to third party activity. Previous research by Amnesty International has exposed cases where the companies have wrongly labelled spills.
For these reasons, Amnesty International asked Decoders to review and describe all the photographs of spills published by Shell and Eni, and to highlight anything that looked unusual.
They identified at least 89 spills (46 Shell, 43 Eni) about which there are reasonable doubts surrounding the cause provided by the oil companies.
For example, Decoders highlighted photos where spills which appear to have been caused by corrosion were attributed to theft. If confirmed, this could mean that dozens of affected communities have not received the compensation that they deserve.
2. They are not responding quickly enough to reports of spills
Nigerian government regulations require companies to visit the site of a spill within 24 hours of reporting it.
Analysis of company documents shows that Shell responded within 24 hours of a spill occurring on only 26% of occasions, compared to Eni which did so on 76% of occasions. The data also shows that Shell’s response to spills has become slower over time, even though the number of spills it is reporting has reduced. On one occasion it took 252 days to visit the site of a leak.
“The government regulations are there for a reason. The longer companies take to respond to spills, the higher the risk of oil spreading into food and water sources, and Shell knows this. There’s no way they’d be so irresponsible if their oil was seeping into European land,” said Mark Dummett.
By far the slowest response was recorded when Eni took 430 days to respond to one spill in Bayelsa State. Eni told Amnesty Interntional that the delay was caused by the local community refusing to give it permission to visit the site, although this information was not reported at the time. When the company finally showed up, it calculated the amount of oil spilled by measuring the area that was visibly contaminated – amounting to four barrels.
Amnesty International consulted pipeline experts Accufacts, who verified that this figure is not credible, highlighting the problem with the way spills are measured.
“Eni’s risible claim that just four barrels of oil were spilled over the course of a year demonstrates the urgent need for better regulation. Oil that spreads into swampland and rivers quickly becomes invisible, but this does not mean it becomes harmless. A quick visual assessment is not an accurate measurement of pollution, and it’s likely that this approach is resulting in understatement across the board,” said Dummett.
“We consider Shell and Eni to be deliberately reckless and therefore wilfully negligent in their operations in Nigeria – their failure to operate in line with Nigerian law and best practice standards is having a devastating impact on the human rights of Niger Delta communities.
“Decoders is people power at its best. By giving just a few minutes of their time, activists are helping us hold these oil giants to account.”
Recommendations
Amnesty International will present the findings of Decode Oil Spills to the government of Nigeria, calling on it to significantly strengthen its regulation of the oil industry. This includes making sure that the government oil spills agency (NOSDRA) has the tools to ensure that the companies are taking all reasonable steps to prevent and clean up spills.
The home states of Shell and Eni, the UK, the Netherlands and Italy, also have important roles to play. They should step up support for the Nigerian government, and require by law that extractive companies whose headquarters are in their country undertake human rights due diligence measures.
President, Maize Growers, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria (MAGPAMAN), Dr Edwin Uche, has advised farmers in the northern part of the country to cultivate vitamin A bio-fortified maize, as the wet season farming sets in.
A maize farm
Uche gave the advice on Friday, March 16, 2018 in a telephone interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
The advice is sequel to a complaint by Mr Dollah Yusuf, a maize specialist with HarvestPlus Nigeria, at the 2018 stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja on Jan. 31.
Yusuf then moaned that most farmers in the North still preferred to cultivate the white maize, as against the vitamin A bio-fortified disease-resistant, nutrient-rich maize.
Uche said that the association had initiated an awareness campaign in the North to sensitise farmers to the benefits of cultivating vitamin A bio-fortified maize and where the seed could be obtained.
“We are already sensitising farmers across the country; we have been able to work out a plan and budget for the sensitisation campaign, especially in the North.
“We are getting the information down to the grassroots because farmers need to be informed on why they should plant vitamin A bio-fortified maize.
“If you don’t convince the people on why they should embrace vitamin A bio-fortified maize, they will not accept the proposal,” he said.
Uche said that vitamin A bio-fortified maize had been tested extensively in Oyo, Imo, Kaduna, Osun, Ogun states and the result had been “thrilling and fulfilling.
“The passion with which the farmers in the South are embracing vitamin A bio-fortified maize is increasing by the day.
“We are mobilising northern farmers to join in and embrace the planting of this disease-resistant, nutrient rich maize, which will give farmers better yield for their efforts.
“The health benefits of vitamin A bio-fortified maize are numerous and the consumption of this maize can make people live healthy lives,” he said.
Besides, Uche said that the association was interfacing between maize farmers and seed companies to ensure that the farmers got improved seeds, as the wet season farming began across the country.
He advised maize farmers to always approach the association’s officials in all the states for assistance whenever they encountered any problem in the course of their agricultural activities.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said natural disasters cost the agricultural sectors of developing country economies a staggering $96 billion in damages to crop and livestock production.
Natural disasters have negatively impacted agriculture. Photo credit: smeonline.biz
The report, titled: “The impact of disasters and crises on agriculture and food security”, also said poor farmers in developing countries bore the brunt of the losses.
A quarter of all financial losses caused by natural disasters between 2005 and 2015 were borne by the agricultural sector, according to FAO’s study.
A crowded field of threats that includes drought, floods, animal disease outbreaks and chemical spills were among the disasters costing farmers in the developing world billions of dollars each year, it said.
The report, launched in collaboration with FAO, Vietnam, at a regional conference in Hanoi, said drought, which had battered farmers globally, was one of the leading culprits.
According to FAO document, 83 per cent of all drought-caused economic losses were absorbed by agriculture to the tune of $29 billion.
“This has become the ‘new normal,’ and the impact of climate change will further exacerbate these threats and challenges,” José da Silva, Director-General of FAO, warned.
The report also detailed how multiple other threats were taking a heavy toll on food production, food security, and people’s livelihoods.
“For both Africa as well as for Latin America and the Caribbean, drought was the costliest disaster, resulting in crop and livestock losses of $10.7 billion and $13 billion, respectively, between 2005 and 2015.
“African farmers notched up more than six billion dollars in losses in that period from crop pests and animal diseases, according to the report.
“Small island developing States were particularly vulnerable to tsunamis, earthquakes, storms and floods as their economic losses from disasters jumped from $8.8 billion for the period 2000 to 2007, to over $14 billion between 2008 to 2015,” the report showed.
In Syria, the report found that the overall financial cost of damage and loss in that country’s agriculture sector over the 2011 to 2016 period was at least $16 billion.
“The agriculture sectors – which includes crop and livestock production as well as forestry, fisheries and aquaculture – face many risks, such as climate and market volatility, pests and diseases, extreme weather events, and an ever-increasing number of protracted crises and conflicts,” da Silva said.
Given the increasing scale and intensity of threats to agriculture, the report noted that it was critical to develop adequate disaster and crisis governance structures, which must be grounded on data and evidence detailing the ways that disasters affected farmers and food producers.
“Building a more holistic and ambitious disaster-resilience framework for agriculture is crucial to ensuring sustainable development, which is a cornerstone for peace and the basis for adaptation to climate change,” da Silva emphasised.
The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) has advised Nigerians to be cautious of Particulate Matters (PMs) caused by air pollution, saying it can cause cancer.
The WHO says that, in one year, 46,750 persons died as a result of outdoor pollution in Nigeria
Mrs Olaniyan Olumide, the Assistant General Manager, Central Forecast Office of NiMET, gave the advice on Friday, March 16, 2018 in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Anyigba, Kogi State.
Olumide spoke on the sidelines of the just concluded First National Workshop on Air Quality organised by the Centre for Atmospheric Research of the National Space Research and Development Agency (CAR-NASRDA).
The theme of the workshop was: “Air Quality Research and Sustainable Development: The Nexus, Prospects and Challenges”.
According to United States Environmental Protection Agency, Particulate matter (PM), also known as particle pollution, is a complex mixture of extremely small particles and liquid droplets that get into the air.
“Once inhaled, these particles can affect the heart and lungs and cause serious health effects.’’
Olumide said: “The effect of air pollution, particularly dust haze on the health of people is very dangerous; people with respiratory tract infection are more prone to effects of dust haze.
“This is because of the PMs that they breathe in. In fact, PMs that are lower than 0.5 meters enter into the blood stream and do lots of havoc.
“It can cause cancer, heart disease and block the artery, while Particulate Matters that are bigger can stock in the nasal way.
“Transporters should also watch their speed for dust haze, especially early in the morning, because of the visibility, particularly the aviation industry.”
According to her, dust haze has huge financial implication on the aviation industry.
She said that the agency was strengthening collaborations with research institutions on environmental issues for the exchange of data which would form the basis for air quality policy.
Olumide said that lack of data had made air quality policy redundant, thereby increasing the human activities causing air pollution.
“We are also working with the health sector to get data of people that are affected on these issues and give them more advice on what to do and how to go about it at a particular season.”
Olumide also said that governments and lawmakers needed to be aware of the dangers of not having an effective law on air quality.
She said that NiMET was at the front burner of the advocacy.
A UN expert committee has announced that four countries could soon “graduate” from the ranks of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable nations.
Mr Jose Ocampo, chair of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP)
The four countries, according to Mr Jose Ocampo, chair of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP), are: Bhutan, Kiribati, Sao Tome and Principe, and the Solomon Islands.
Ocampo said the countries had increased national earning power and improved access to health care and education, making them eligible to exit the group of least developed countries (LDCs).
“This is an historic occasion,” Ocampo, said, noting that only five countries had graduated since the UN established the LDC category in 1971.
LDCs are assessed using three criteria: health and education targets; economic vulnerability; and gross national income per capita.
Countries must meet two of the three criteria at two consecutive triennial reviews of the CDP to be considered for graduation.
The Committee would send its recommendations to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for endorsement, which would then refer its decision to the UN General Assembly.
A member of CDP, Diane Elson, a professor at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom, said the announcement was good news for millions of women in rural areas.
Elson pointed out that the latest session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), currently under way in New York, was discussing the challenges facing this population.
“The success of the countries that are graduating reflects things like the improvement of the health and the education of the population, which extends to rural women, and the increase in incomes in the country, which extends to rural women,” she said.
However, Elson stressed that the countries would need continued international support because they remained vulnerable to external shocks, including the impact of climate change, currently evident in Pacific Island states such as Kiribati.
Globally, there are 47 LDCs, according to the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States.
The majority, 33, are in Africa, while 13 can be found in the Asia-Pacific region, and one is in Latin America.
In the 47 years of the LDC category’s existence, only five countries – Botswana, Cabo Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Maldives and Samoa – had graduated.
The CDP said two more countries, Vanuatu and Angola, were scheduled for graduation over the next three years.
Nepal and Timor-Leste also met the criteria but were not recommended for graduation at this time, due to economic and political challenges.
That decision would be deferred to the next CDP triennial review in 2021, according to Ocampo.
The morning fire on Wednesday, March 14, 2018 at Olusosun dumpsite in Lagos burnt seven buses belonging to LAGBUS Asset Management Limited, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has learnt.
A row of LAGBUS buses
A LAGBUS official, who pleaded anonymity, told NAN on Thursday in Lagos that, due to the thick smoke still surrounding the area, the company was yet to make further assessment of losses suffered.
The official said that the firm had moved staff away from the area because of the health implications of the smoky environment.
According to a NAN correspondent who visited the site, the environment is still very foggy as emergency response teams are seen with nose masks.
Commuters at the Toll Gate bus stop near the dumpsite were also seen covering their noses with handkerchiefs and seeking quick exit out of the environment.
Mr Adesina Tiamiyu, the General Manager of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), told NAN that there was no casualty in the inferno.
Tiamiyu said that the emergency response teams, including the Lagos Fire Service and the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), were at the site to curtail the fire.
NAN reports that the Lagos State Government had said that the Olusosun and other dumpsites would be shut down as part of the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI).
The government had through an Environmental Utility Firm, Visionscape Sanitation Solutions, commenced the construction of the first engineered sanitary landfill in Epe.
However, the CLI on its website said it was necessary to clarify that the fire at Olusosun dumpsite was not an arson.
It said that the fire broke out as a result of pockets of unstable gases caused by indiscriminate dumping which was further compounded by the dry weather.
”It is important to note that a major aim of the Cleaner Lagos Initiative is to eventually shut down the unsanitary dumpsite at Olusosun.
”The government is well aware of the risk of having such a massive, unsafe, and unsanitary landfill so close to residential areas.
”This is why under the CLI, three Engineered Landfills in Epe and Ikorodu have been concessioned for construction and maintenance.
”We expect for the first to be fully operational by early 2019, although it is already being used as a viable alternative to these dumpsites,” it said.
