Paul Hamilton, who played for the senior national team in the 1960s and early 1970s, including featuring in the football tournament at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, died in the early hours of Thursday, March 30, 2017 in Lagos.
Paul Hamilton
He was said to have been diagnosed of heart and kidney related health issues some months ago, and had his right leg amputated early this year.
Nicknamed “Wonderboy” for his delicate skills and on-field wizardry, Hamilton was at a few times head coach of the senior national team, including taking the the reins for the 1990 FIFA World Cup qualifying series, before Dutchman Clemens Westerhof took over with only the last match of the campaign (away to Cameroon in Yaounde) left in the series.
He was also head coach of Nigeria’ U-20 squad that took the bronze medal at the FIFA World Youth Championship (now known as FIFA U-20 World Cup) in the Soviet Union in 1985.
“Wonderboy”, was also the first head coach of the senior women national team, Super Falcons, steered the team to the 1991 and 1995 FIFA Women’s World Cup final competitions.
He was also at different times Head of Technical Department and Head of Lagos Liaison office of the Nigeria Football Federation.
President Muhammadu Buhari has sacked the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Alhaji Muhammed Sani-Sidi. A replacement was immediately announced for him.
Former Director-General of NEMA, Alhaji Muhammad Sani-Sidi Photo credit: elombah.com
This information and appointment of executive management for some other Federal Government agencies and parastatals were contained in a statement issued by presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, on Friday, March 31 2017.
Adesina said Sani-Sidi is to be replaced by Mustapha Yunusa Maihaja, an engineer.
According to available information, Sani-Sidi’s tenure should have ended in 2018.
The NEMA Board is now to be chaired by the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo (SAN). Other members of the NEMA Board are the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, David Babachir Lawal; Captain Talba Alkali, representing Ministry of Transport and Aviation; Ambassador Rabiu Dagari, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Dr. Ngozi Azadoh, Ministry of Health; Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido, Ministry of Interior; Ajisegiri Benson Akinloye, Ministry of Water Resources; Air Vice Marshal Emmanuel Anebi, Nigerian Armed Forces; and Assistant Inspector General of Police Salisu Fagge Abdullahi, Nigerian Police Force.
Buhari also approved appointments into the executive management of some government agencies and parastatals.
The new chairman of the board of the Nigerian Television Authority is former newspaper editor and ex-presidential spokesman, Chief Duro Onabule.
Other executive directors of the NTA include: Dr. Steve Egbo, Administration and Training; Abdul Hamid Salihu Dembos, Marketing; Mohammed Labbo, News; Fatima M. Barda, Finance; Stephen Okoanachi, Engineering; and Wole Coker, Programmes.
At the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Aliyu Hayatu is the new chairman, while Buhari Auwalu and Yinka Amosun, are Zonal Directors for Kaduna and Lagos respectively.
Under the Ministry of Information and Culture, the Nigerian Film Corporation has Dr. Chika Maduekwe as General Manager; National Theatre and National Troupe of Nigeria, Comrade Tar Ukoh, Artistic Director; National Council for Arts and Culture, Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, Director-General; and National Film and Video Censors Board, Folorunsho Coker, Director-General.
In the light of the recent development in the US, Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), tells her staffers on Friday, March 31, 2017 to be positive and focus on inherent opportunities as the organisation continues to raise its game in support of the transformation of the global economy
Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
The new US administration announced this week that it will be reviewing America’s Clean Power Plan, domestic legislation brought in by the previous administration in 2015 aimed at reducing US power sector emissions and increasing renewable energy production.
The review comes shortly after the new US administration also submitted its first budget to Congress covering a wide range of areas from defense to education and including changes in funding for the US Environmental Protection Agency.
These two announcements form part of well publicised election pledges made by the new President during last year’s campaign.
As Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC I, like many people and organisations around the globe, am watching these developments with interest.
Budget proposals in the United States often involve long and complex negotiations before they are finally approved in part or in full by Congress.
The review of the Clean Power Plan may also take some time before an outcome emerges. I have made it clear from the outset, following the change in the US administration, that the secretariat works with all Parties to advance climate action and take forward the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
Meanwhile many of the budgetary and legislative measures that have been proposed by the US administration relate to domestic policies rather than international obligations.
The new US administration is and remains a Party to the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement and we look forward to welcoming and working with its delegations to the sessions planned for 2017.
It is important to note that it is not for the secretariat to comment on the domestic policies of a Party or member state to the United Nations.
It is also important to note that the precise impact on the secretariat and on global climate action linked with these various announcements also remains unclear at this juncture and perhaps will only become clear over time.
The Paris Agreement remains a remarkable achievement, universally supported by all countries when it was adopted and, as of today, ratified by 141 out of 197 Parties to the Agreement – with more coming forward weekly and monthly.
Daily, the UNFCCC Newsroom and our social media channels are spotlighting new policies, initiatives and actions by governments – over the past few weeks for example India has announced bans on highly polluting vehicles and new research showed that solar power capacity globally grew 50 per cent in 2016 led by the United States and China.
At our next May sessions, I also look forward to launching new findings from research groups including the London School of Economics highlighting how, since 2015, climate related laws have significantly increased – again underlining the world-wide momentum post-Paris.
This governmental momentum continues to be underpinned by companies, investors, cities, regions and territories including now many oil majors who’s CEOs have in recent weeks publicly spoken out in support of the Paris Agreement and the need to act at various conferences I have attended.
The UNFCCC will continue to move forward to support Parties to implement and achieve their aims and ambitions under the Paris Agreement – this is our honour and our responsibility and will require all our creativity and commitment now and for decades to come.
I would ask staff to focus on this opportunity as we continue to raise our game in support of the transformation of the global economy; in line with the best available science; backed by nations in every corner of the globe and the hopes of billions of people.
The first shots have been fired in what’s likely to be a long, bitter war over the environment between conservationists and President Donald Trump of the US.
US president, Donald Trump
It started on Wednesday, March 29, 2017 when a broad coalition of groups sued the Trump administration in federal court, barely 24 hours after the president signed an executive order that lifted a moratorium on new coal leases on federal land.
Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, Defenders of Wildlife, the Centre for Biological Diversity and others call the directive illegal because it allows a massive area of land to be disrupted without any federally required study of the potential environmental impact.
They were joined by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana, whose president said the tribe would bear the brunt of the decision to resume leasing. More than 425 million tons of coal are located near its reservation at the Decker and Spring Creek mines.
On Thursday, environmentalists also challenged the administration’s decision to move forward with the Keystone XL oil pipeline. This second federal suit claims the State Department relied on “an outdated and incomplete environmental impact statement” to comply with a 60-day decision deadline set by Trump.
The president has said both actions were taken to harness American energy and create jobs. Native communities fear the changes will come at their expense.
“The Nation is concerned that coal mining near the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation will impact our pristine air and water quality, will adversely affect our sacred cultural properties and traditional spiritual practices and ultimately destroy the traditional way of life that the Nation has fought to preserve for centuries,” said L. Jace Killsback, president of the Northern Cheyenne.
Environmental groups have been raising money and preparing to battle Trump since his election, and the fight over coal is expected to be the first of many. The president already has moved on a campaign promise to dismantle parts of the federal government, with recent proposals to dramatically cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department, the nation’s steward for public lands.
“No one voted to pollute our public lands, air or drinking water in the last election, yet the Trump administration is doing the bidding of powerful polluters as nearly its first order of business,” Jenny Harbine, a lead attorney for the activist group Earthjustice, said on Wednesday. “Our legal system remains an important backstop against the abuses of power we’ve witnessed over the course of the past two months.”
The coalition may have company in its legal challenge. Several governors and attorneys general have indicated a willingness to take the Trump administration to court over the new executive order and other environmental policies. California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said in an interview that he was prepared to sue if the EPA revokes the waiver it granted his state in 2012 to set more stringent fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built for model years 2022 to 2025.
Trump recently announced that the agency would revisit the federal carbon standards for that fleet, prompting California to announce it would press ahead with its own rule.
“I fought the Bush administration as California’s attorney general and will continue defending the California law,” Brown said, adding that climate change ranks as “an existential threat” that must be addressed. “Not out of any political position, but in recognition that the world is at risk and that the lives of real people are endangered.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who successfully challenged the administration’s first immigration executive order, said he and his state’s attorney general are assessing whether to return to court in light of the new executive order on climate. “We’re looking at some litigation options,” he said.
At a recent conference, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) emphasised the importance of preserving public lands. “As governor of a state with millions of acres of public land,” he said, “I will not stand idly by if Congress or other outside special interests try to erode the birthright of all Americans.”
But Trump and Zinke have powerful allies, including Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R), whose office sued over the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan to regulate greenhouse gases and ripped the rule that led to a moratorium on coal leases.
“Utah and many public-land and energy-producing states think that the Clean Power Plan was a significant overreach. It was really designed to kill off carbon-based fuels and particularly coal,” he said recently. “The standards that they were trying to put in place, there is not even technology that allows you to meet those standards.”
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, established in 1970, conservationists and other organisations can fight any government attempt to take administrative action without following proper administrative procedures. “These regulations are binding on all federal agencies,” according to a NEPA fact sheet on the EPA’s website. “The regulations address the procedural provisions … and the administration of the NEPA process, including the preparation of environmental impact statements.”
Following Trump’s action, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced on Wednesday that he signed two “secretarial orders to advance American energy independence.” One was to “foster responsible development of coal, oil, gas and renewable energy on federal and tribal lands.” The lengthy statement did not mention NEPA or the environmental study it requires.
In Montana, that’s where the coalition lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Great Falls took aim. “In repealing the moratorium … the Secretary of the Interior, Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management opened the door to new coal leasing and its attendant consequences without first performing an environmental review.”
Under the Obama administration, Interior worked for more than a year to evaluate the impact of coal mining and to determine if the benefit was worth the environmental harm. With U.S. power plants using less coal, companies have laid off workers and entered into bankruptcy proceedings. And with abundant coal reserves expected to last two decades even without new mining, the department decided on a moratorium.
The decision was controversial in Wyoming, Montana, Nevada and other states that rely on coal revenue mined on federal land, but it was not made without a scientific review, public hearings, comments and a written rule that takes months to finalise. Trump and Zinke’s decisions were made virtually with the stroke of a pen, their challengers claim.
Zinke said his action aligned with the president’s “vision for energy independence and bringing jobs back to communities across the country.” He said that “for far too many local communities, energy on public lands has been more of a missed opportunity and has failed to include local consultation and partnership.”
His detractors say Zinke is guilty of the same, acting without consulting scientists and environmentalists and without following the proper administrative steps.
Before the department acted in late 2015, the federal coal programme that leases land for mining had not been reviewed in nearly 40 years. Over that time, studies showed that coal-fired fuel produced a dirty mix of particulate matter and chemicals such as mercury, benzene and radium that cause respiratory illnesses and heart disease.
As part of the Obama administration’s review, the Bureau of Land Management was examining whether the programme could ensure that land damaged by mining could be restored by companies, commitments to lower pollution could be met and companies could continue to profit. Trump’s order ended that assessment.
“The moratorium was a common-sense policy move to fix our federal coal programme, and Trump’s actions likely mean that programme will stay broken,” Shannon Hughes, who works in the climate and energy programme at WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement. “Managing public lands and public interest to bail out energy executives is nothing short of corruption. A moratorium won’t help a dying coal industry, but it will help its CEOs line their pockets.”
From southeastern Montana, Art Hayes is tracking the Trump administration’s action with keen interest. His 9,000-acre ranch, which has been in his family since the late 1800s, is in an area that gets only about 12 inches of rain a year and depends on water from the Tongue River for irrigation. It’s also downstream from the Decker Mine, which has pending lease applications that could move forward now that the moratorium has been lifted. Hayes worries about the safety of his water supply.
“We totally depend on it,” Hayes said on Wednesday. “The river is everything. … We don’t have much water here, and it’s precious.”
By Darryl Fears & Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post
The Minister of Sanitation, Environment and Sustainable Development of Côte d’Ivoire has called on African states to put value to the coastal and marine environment as it provides multiple benefits to people.
Anne Desiree Ouloto, Minister of Sanitation, Environment and Sustainable Development of Côte d’Ivoire
Anne Desiree Ouloto made this call at the 12th Conference of the Parties to the Abidjan Convention which started in the Ivorian capital city of Abidjan on Monday. It ends on Friday, March 31, 2017.
She said the marine and coastal environment in Africa is currently facing a number of challenges such as overfishing and pollution. Ouloto wants the convention to find ways to utilise coastal and marine environment in a sustainable manner, for the benefit of both the present and future generations.
She said 80% of sea pollution is a result of human activities, such as fishing, navigation and urban waste disposal. According to her, the Abidjan Convention is not just a tool for protecting marine and coastal biodiversity, but it can also bring about social and economic development on the marine and coastal environment.
“It is important that COP12 strengthens the level of coordination, bearing in mind the multiple benefits we derive from the marine and coastal environment,” she said.
Ouloto called for the sustainable management of mangroves and for measures to stop illegal trade in plants and animals. “I am convinced that the results of this conference will change the way we look at oceans,” she added.
The executive secretary of the Abidjan Convention, Abou Bamba, said the convention has broken away from addressing normal issues to addressing developmental needs. He said COP12 would was addressing issues such as agro-industry, fisheries, oil and gas exploration and tourism. “It is time to apply the blue economy,” he added.
Chairperson of the bureau de convention, Lisolomzi Fikizolo of South Africa, said the convention has come at a time when it’s (the convention’s) revitalisation is coming to an end and that he was glad for the progress made during the three years of South Africa’s tenure as chair.
He said the convention has put in place the oil and gas protocol, the protocol on mangroves and the additional protocol on land-based activities.
Fikizolo said the issues of ocean governance has been high on the convention’s agenda for the last three years and will continue to be so in the years to come. He called on parties to the convention to introduce proper frameworks for ocean governance.
The conference is being held under the theme: “Integrated Ocean Management Policies in Africa”.
Adopted in the Ivorian capital in 1981, the Abidjan Convention is for cooperation in the protection, management and development of the marine and coastal environment of the Atlantic Coast of West, Central and Southern Africa.
On Thursday, March 30, 2017, hundreds of climate activists as well as concerned and affected Nigerians joined ongoing actions around the world to press home the need to address the world’s dependence on fossil fuels which, according to them, poisons the planet and threatens to eliminate mankind.
Land degradation from oil spill in Ogoniland, Nigeria
According to activists Nnimmo Bassey, Celestine Akpobari, Ken Henshaw and Emem Okon, the problem is even more pungent in Nigeria where the effects of fossil fuel-related pollution and climate changes therefrom are emerging as a major disaster.
They stress that, from sea level rises that threaten to consume whole coastal lying communities to crude oil pollutions which continue to deprive many of viable livelihoods, the continued extraction and dependence of fossil fuels has devastating consequences for Nigeria and especially the Niger Delta.
They spoke at the Mass Breakfree Actions in Ogoni, Rivers State.
Recently, the city of Port Harcourt and its environs in Rivers State has been plagued with massive soot, an outcome of incomplete hydrocarbon combustion processes. For months, the people have had to breathe the polluted air while interacting with it on their skin, clothes and food items. The immediate and long term medical consequences of this will be severe, say experts.
The activists submitted in a statement that, while the government at the federal and state levels have failed to arrest the problem, or even confirm the source of the new threat, “the people of the Niger Delta continue to live with routine gas flaring and routine oil spills while oil companies and government officials trade blame and the situation persists.”
The statement reads in part: “Rather than improve the lot of the people, oil and gas extraction has been the source of conflict, livelihood losses, social imbalance, environmental pollution and health threats. Indeed, due to soil air and water pollution which the people of the Niger Delta region are exposed to, life expectancy has dropped in the region. Despite several decades of oil extraction, Nigeria still fares miserably on all development indices, certainly worse than other less endowed countries.
“On all key global development indicators, Nigeria fares badly. It tilts on the periphery of a failed state according to reports; it has one of the lowest electricity accesses in the world despite its huge crude and gas deposits, failing infrastructures, failing healthcare, failing educational systems, etc. It begs the question to ask, what has been the benefit of Nigeria’s fossil fuels?
“According to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released after an assessment of environmental pollution in Ogoniland, the area has been so polluted that it might take up to 30 years of clean-up and remediation activities to bring it back to its pre- crude oil condition. Indeed, benzene, a chemical which causes cancer and other heart related diseases is contained in the water the people drink 900 times above safe levels.
“Crude oil extraction and its attendant environmental and social problems continues not for a lack of alternative, but because the government has refused to explore other cleaner, cheaper and viable energy sources. Other countries are gradually moving away from fossil fuel as a source of energy, while Nigeria is increasingly embedding itself in this outdated practice.
“It is this spirit of the need to stop the extraction of fossil fuel and begin the exploration of other cleaner and renewable sources of energy that informs the Break Free from Fossil Fuels movement. Break Free from Fossil Fuels is a wave of escalated citizen led actions to keep coal, oil and gas in the ground.”
Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, President of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), sees the action as timely. He said: “Coming at this time, the Break Free action is an opportunity for us all to remind the Nigerian state that the clean-up of Ogoni environment should be seen as a step towards our turning away completely from dependence on polluting or dirty energy sources.”
Key organiser of the Break Free movement and Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, disclosed: “The time has come to make fossil fuels history and give our environment and peoples a chance to recover from decades of unrelenting oil pollution. By our actions we are standing in solidarity with communities in the oilfields of the Niger Delta, and other impacted communities around the world, demanding that our appetite for dirty energy must not be allowed to destroy the planet and future generations.”
Celestine Akpobari of the Ogoni Solidarity Forum stated: “If there are still people who doubts the devastating effect of the fossil fuel business on the environment, citizens’ livelihoods, well-being and their very life, the terrible experience of Ogoni, tells it all. If the Ogoni people had a second chance, they will choose their environment over crude oil. They will prefer to keep their sons and daughters including Ken Saro Wiwa and thousands of others who became victims of this deadly business. Breaking free from fossil fuel will save the world from having another Ogoni.”
According to Ken Henshaw of Social Action and member of Nigeria organising team of the Break Free campaign, “this global campaign is the type of citizens’ led shock therapy that is needed to make the world realise that our dependence on fossils is destroying our only habitable world. Fossil fuels may seem attractive and something we cannot do without, but so did stone seem just before mankind moved away from the Stone Age; so did typewriters before we moved over to computers. A global dependence on fossil fuel is simply no longer sustainable, especially in the face of increasing threats to global existence on the one hand, and the availability of viable, safer and more sustainable alternatives”.
The Breakfree from fossil fuel event took place at the Ken Saro Wiwa Peace and Freedom Centre in Bori, Rivers State.
Lifting a moratorium against leases for coal mining on public lands will not create demand for coal as power companies continue to shift to natural gas and other energy sources, experts say
With coal miners gathered around him, Trump signed an executive order rolling back a temporary ban on mining coal and a stream protection rule imposed by the Obama administration
President Trump lifted a moratorium on federal coal leases on Tuesday, March 28, 2017 paving the way for excavation of a fossil fuel on public land in the West that few mining companies seem to want.
With coal miners gathered around him, Trump signed an executive order rolling back a temporary ban on mining coal and a stream protection rule imposed by the Obama administration. The order follows the president’s campaign promise to revive the struggling coal industry and bring back thousands of lost mining jobs in rural America.
“I made them this promise,” Trump said, “We will put our miners back to work.”
But industry experts say coal mining jobs will continue to be lost, not because of blocked access to coal, but because power plant owners are turning to natural gas. At least six plants that relied on coal have closed or announced they will close since Trump’s victory in November, including the main plant at the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona, the largest in the West. Another 40 are projected to close during the president’s four-year term.
As power companies switch fuels, “the amount of coal in the national energy generation mix (both Fuels and Electricity Generation) has declined by 53 percent since 2006,” according to a Department of Energy report released in January. Over the same period, electricity generation from natural gas increased 33 percent.
The shift was mirrored by employment, with jobs in natural gas and other cleaner energy resources rising and coal jobs declining, the report said. It cited a Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis showing that coal mining and support employment declined by nearly 40 percent between March 2009 and March 2016.
A bulldozer operates atop a coal mound at the CCI Slones Branch Terminal June 3, 2014, in Shelbiana, Ky. Photo credit: Luke Sharrett/Getty Images
In this shaky financial environment, coal companies are struggling. Two of the largest, Contura and Arch Coal, emerged from bankruptcy only recently, and another giant, Peabody Energy, recently filed a reorganization plan for its path out of bankruptcy, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
As Trump vowed to resurrect the coal industry and mining jobs in remarks at the Environmental Protection Agency, he promised to increase production of the resource that experts say is killing them. “We will unlock job producing natural gas, oil and shale energy. We will produce American coal to power American industry.”
The IEEFA disagreed. “Promises to create more coal jobs will not be kept – indeed the industry will continue to cut payrolls,” the group said in its 2017 U.S. Coal Outlook. “These losses will be related in part to the coal industry’s long-term business model of producing more coal with fewer workers.”
The industry has a fundamental problem it has not addressed even as businesses fail, the IEEFA said: “Too many companies are still mining too much coal for too few customers.”
Coal has another problem that dogs power companies: health. Studies have shown that the risk of death from heart disease, including heart attacks, was five times higher for people who breathed pollution from coal emissions over 20 years than for those who were exposed to other types of air pollution. Burning coal releases fine particles with a potent mix of toxins, including benzene, mercury, arsenic and selenium.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) found that seven million people died from breathing air pollution in 2012, one in eight of the total number of global deaths. The 2014 study said air pollution, including coal, “is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk” and that “reducing air pollution could save millions of lives.”
In addition to enforcing a moratorium on leases, the Obama administration sought to protect water near mining sites by forcing coal companies “to avoid mining practices that permanently pollute streams, destroy drinking water sources … and threaten forests.” That rule was also scuttled by a recent congressional resolution that the president signed.
The National Mining Association slammed Interior when the rule was imposed in December, saying Obama administration officials failed to engage mining states such as Wyoming, Montana and Nevada during its development, leading to a win for “extreme environmental groups and a loss for everyday Americans,” said Hal Quinn, the association’s president and chief executive.
He applauded the congressional resolution and Trump’s signature demolishing a rule that placed “obstacles in the path of responsible mining and other necessary activities that depend on federal land while at the same time marginalising the participation of states and local stakeholders.”
During the signing ceremony, Trump also touched on the resolution he signed. “We’ve already eliminated a devastating, anti-coal regulation, but that was just the beginning,” he said. “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal, going to have clean coal, really clean coal.”
Paul Bledsoe, a lecturer at American University’s Centre for Environmental Policy, an Interior official under President Bill Clinton, called Trump’s attempt at job creation “sheer nonsense.” Coal’s decline is too steep.
“No company will bid on new leases when there’s already a glut of unwanted coal on the market,” Bledsoe said. “Trump’s false promise that he can bring back coal is really exposed as so much coal dust and mirrors by this executive order, since utilities will continue to use natural gas instead of coal.”
As a means of supporting the call for economic diversification through agriculture in order to ensure food security, generate employment and increase foreign exchange earnings for the nation, the Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo (FUNAI), Ebonyi State on Wednesday, March 29, 2017 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with an Abuja-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), Food for All Initiative (FFAI), for the establishment of a university farm.
The VC, Prof. Chinedum Nwajiuba, signing the MoU on behalf of the university
Speaking during the event organised under the auspices of the Faculty of Agriculture of the university, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Chinedum Nwajiuba, stressed the importance of agriculture in economic development, noting that agricultural activities could be the panacea to the burden of hunger and poverty in the nation if relevant stakeholders take advantage of the vast arable land the country is endowed with.
Professor Nwajiuba further explained that the Faculty of Agriculture was established in the University with over seven academic programmes to serve as agricultural research hub where research findings and new developments in the sector would be made available to farmers at no cost within the immediate university environment and beyond for improved farming and bounty yields.
For food security: L-R: University Librarian, Dr. O. O Adediji; SA to VC on Linkages and Advancement, Mr. Chris Uwadoka; Representative of FFAI, Mrs. Nnenna Okoro; and colleague; VC, Prof. Chinedum Nwajiuba; Registrar, Mrs. Odisa Okeke; DVC, Prof. Sunday Elom; and Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, Prof. Jonny Ogunji, after the signing ceremony at the VC’s Conference Room
He maintained that universities are established to provide solutions to problems in the society, adding that FUNAI would surely live up to expectations in that regard, hence the wide range partnerships the university has been entering with local and international organisations
Giving insight into the partnership, FFAI’s spokesperson, Nnenna Okoro, said the organisation was targeting the entire six geopolitical zones of the country, noting that FUNAI was chosen in the Southeast due to the availability of arable land and eco-friendly activities in the area. She further stressed that the organisation would also be providing technical services to the university farm.
Expressing their readiness for the take-off of the farm, the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Prof. Johnny Ogunji, said the faculty was fully equipped with relevant resources for accelerated food production. He noted that the beauty of the partnership was that it would also provide jobs and serve as laboratory for practical oriented courses to the students of the Faculty, adding that students who work in the farm will be adequately remunerated.
The MoU is said to beyet another milestone in the administration of Prof. Nwajiuba, in an apparent drive to make FUNAI “an institution that grooms and turns out responsible citizens and solution providers as graduates”.
Burkina Faso’s cotton companies and growers seem to have settled their long dispute with Monsanto Seed Company over their revenue losses allegedly caused by the introduction of genetically modified (GM) cotton.
The GM Bt Cotton failed in Burkina Faso, with farmers making claims from Monsanto
Among the world’s poorest countries, Burkina Faso, which began the nationwide introduction of cotton containing Monsanto’s Bollgard II trait in 2008 to fight against pests, is Africa’s top cotton producer.
However, a decline in quality of cotton, which lowered the crop’s value on the global market, was blamed on Monsanto by the country’s cotton companies and the national farmers union. They demanded $76.5 million in compensation from Monsanto and withheld nearly $24 million in royalties.
A report by Reuters states that “the agreement, which includes the dividing up of royalties withheld by Monsanto’s Burkina Faso partners, brings to an end a collaboration that had at one time promised to offer the company a foothold in Africa.”
The managing director of SOFITEX, Wilfried Yameogo, stated that his company agreed to accept 25 percent of royalties as part of the agreement reached with Monsanto, even as Monsanto would not confirm the settlement amount and said the agreement terms were confidential.
The Creve Coeur-based seed giant has previously acknowledged changes in cotton fiber length, but said a fiber quality is influenced by both environmental conditions and genetic background.
Burkina Faso did not renew its contract with Monsanto last year and this season returned to its conventional cotton strain.
Monsanto has since exited its cotton business in Burkina Faso, citing difficulties securing a “reasonable return” on its investment, spokeswoman Christi Dixon said.
Minster of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, wants Sports Federations in the country to strive towards changes in their votes ahead of the forthcoming Federation elections.
Solomon Dalung
Dalung said that the ministry would only work with board members elected from acceptable congresses.
The minister, who was in Uyo, capital of Akwa Ibom State for the state’s Youth Sports Festival, advised individuals aspiring for positions in Sports Federations to be democratic as the elections draws near.
“There is going to be a level playing ground. Everybody should go there and demonstrate who he is and the support he has to lead the federations,” Dalung said.
The guidelines for the Federations elections billed to hold in April would be released early in the month.
Meanwhile, the Director of Grassroots Sports Development in the Minister of Sports, Dr Ademola Are, said the future of athletes discovered from the National Youth Games is bright.
Are gave the assurance on the backdrop of the fact that there are international tournaments to showcase such talents.
He said the talents discovered from last year’s games would represent Nigeria in the Youth Olympics this year.
The last Youth Games was held in Ilorin, Kwara State last August.
