News
Zero Hunger: IITA to offer solution to weed menace
Researchers working on the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture-managed Cassava Weed Management Project (IITA-CWMP) on Friday assured that findings from the 5-year project will respond and address the problems of weeds especially in cassava farming systems.
The challenge of weeds on Nigeria’s agricultural productivity, as gathered was brought to the fore at the meeting of the Nigeria Zero Hunger Forum (NZHF) held in Ebonyi State, Southeast Nigeria.
According to the Director General of IITA, Dr Nteranya Sanginga, cassava featuring as one of the top priority crops in most states of Nigeria, the IITA-CWMP would provide innovations to help the government to tackle the weed menace.
“We want to see increases in yield in Nigeria, and our innovation in cassava weed management will help states with cassava as a priority crop to tackle weeds—a major constraint to cassava transformation,” he said.
Last year, Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, in listing the challenges facing agricultural development, noted that weeds were the most notorious constraint limiting agriculture development. Worse still, the adulteration of herbicides is not helping matters and is undermining efforts by resource-poor farmers to raise their productivity.
Expressing concerns over the issue, stakeholders unanimously issued a communique calling on the Federal Government to step up the regulation on use and distribution of herbicides and input market.
They worried that the uncontrolled influx of adulterated herbicides in the Nigerian market was jeopardizing the gains made so far in transforming agriculture and efforts to attain zero hunger.
The goal to attain zero hunger is a commitment Nigeria has made since the declaration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015.
Taking the SDGs forward, Nigeria’s former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has initiated and is leading efforts to help the country to achieve SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) with the creation of the Nigeria Zero Hunger Forum initiative.
The former president, with the support of IITA, the World Food Program (WFP), and the African Development Bank (AfDB), has created a forum comprising six pilot states that are desiring to hit the target of zero hunger by 2025.
The Deputy Director General, Partnership for Delivery, Dr Kenton Dashiell, said IITA’s participation in NHZF would help Nigeria to tap the institute’s capacity in science and innovation to address hunger in the country.
Dr Alfred Dixon, Project Leader, IITA-CWMP noted that once the problem of weeds is addressed, farmers would have a boom in harvest.
The meeting in Ebonyi, which attracted about 500 persons from both the public and private sectors, was the second after the initial one in Benue state.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery has made headlines by announcing a further reduction in the price of diesel, dropping it from ₦1200 to ₦1000 naira per litre.
The refinery’s decision comes on the heels of its recent supply at a significantly reduced price of ₦1200 per litre, which was introduced three weeks ago, signifying a remarkable 30 per cent decrease from the previous market price of approximately ₦1600 per litre.
This substantial reduction in diesel prices at Dangote Petroleum Refinery is expected to reiterate positively throughout various sectors of the economy, potentially serving as a catalyst in alleviating the persistently high inflation rate in the country.
In a statement last week, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest individual and the owner of the refinery, expressed his optimism regarding the potential impact of the price reduction on inflation in Nigeria.
“I believe that we are on the right track. I believe Nigerians have been patient, and I also believe that a lot of goodies will now come through. There’s quite a lot of improvement because if you look at it, one of the major issues that we’ve had was the naira devaluation that has gone very aggressively up to about ₦1900,” he remarked.
As anticipation builds around the implications of this move by Dangote Petroleum Refinery, stakeholders and consumers alike remain hopeful for the positive effects it could bring to the Nigerian economy in the coming months.
More than 50,000 Russian military personnel have died during the Ukraine conflict, the BBC reported Wednesday, citing its own reporters, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers.
They found that more than 27,300 Russian soldiers died during the second year of the war, a 25-percent increase on the first year.
BBC Russian, Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022, using open-source information from official reports and the media, as well as using satellite images of Russian cemeteries to estimate the number of new graves.
The figure of more than 50,000 is eight times higher than the official toll acknowledged by Moscow in September 2022. It does not include deaths of militia in Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine said in February that it had lost 31,000 soldiers, but that figure is also likely to be significantly lower than the true toll.
Russian losses spiked in January 2023 as it launched a large-scale offensive in Donetsk and again months later last year during the battle for the city of Bakhmut.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” at dawn on February 24, 2022, which has since turned into a bloody and attritional war, isolating Russia from the Western world.
Responding to the report, the Kremlin said it did not disclose any information on military deaths and casualties, which falls under the remit of the defence ministry.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added official secrets laws and those covering what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine meant it was “absolutely understandable” that the ministry did not release the figures.
The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has disclosed that 95 million Nigerians need to enroll for the National Identification Number (NIN) to meet its target of 200 million enrollments by 2025.
Kayode Adegoke, Head of Corporate Communications at NIMC, emphasised the importance of this enrollment during an interview on X over the weekend.
He stated, “For NIMC to meet the 200 million target by 2025, 95 million Nigerians need to register for the NIN.”
Adegoke revealed that over 105 million NINs have been issued to Nigerians and legal residents so far.
He assured Nigerians of the commission’s commitment, saying, “We want to assure Nigerians that within the next one or two years, we will reach our target of enrolling all Nigerians.”
“The NIN serves as a unique identifier for each citizen and has become increasingly important for various government initiatives aimed at improving security, governance, and service delivery.”
Adegoke highlighted the efforts to streamline the modification and enrollment processes under the leadership of Abisoye Coker, the director-general of NIMC. He announced the development of a self-service platform, allowing Nigerians to make necessary modifications such as changing names, dates of birth, email addresses, and phone numbers from anywhere, using different devices.
Emphasising the convenience of the self-service modification portal, Adegoke encouraged Nigerians to utilize this innovative solution.
He noted the evolution of the process, citing the past requirement for applicants to visit NIMC offices for data corrections.
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