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ActionAid Calls for Stop in Infanticide

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ActionAid Calls for Stop in Infanticide


… Rescues over 100 babies from Killing in Partnership with Vine Heritage Foundation

By: Michael Mike

ActionAid Nigeria has called for immediate stop in infanticide and social profiling of children with distinct birth.

The non governmental organisation on Friday said it was wrong and unacceptable at this age and time that people are still involved in activities that they term as cultural belief and practices of killing of twins, which include multiple births.

ActionAid said the negative profiling does not exclude children who lost their mothers during birth who are believed to be witches and wizards, children born with albinism are not allowed to live, children who grew the upper teeth first are meant to be evil, children who are born with deformities are also believed to have demonic manipulation on them and so they don’t allow them to live .

The Action aid Nigeria as part of his activities for this year and its commitment to collaborating with social movements and citizens to tackle poverty and social injustice across Nigeria, has scheduled to pay a visit to Vine Heritage Home Foundation (VHHF) in Kuje community, Abuja together with board and general assembly members for the main purpose of making children feel good or have sense of belonging.

While speaking during the visit to the Foundation, the Country Director of ActionAid, Mr Andrew Mamedu: “We came upon Vine Heritage Home, and we just naturally got started working with them. The reason was simple. This is an epitome of what ActionAid stands for, fighting for injustice and poverty. So this is an epitome of injustice and poverty where we have man or human inhumanity to human or to children in this instance, and that, of course, attracted us to them. And since then, we have been working closely.

“We partnered with the European Union to put up this edifice. And of course, we have seen a lot of transformation over the year, a positive transformation, improvement in vines heritage. When we first met them, they had about 160 children, and these are children that have been rescued from infanticide. But as of today August 9th, 2024 we have about 203 children and while about 30 has been reconciled back to their family.”

Although, he expected that the number ought to have been reduced but reverse is the case and that alone show that people are still practicing infanticide.

“The amazing things is that, 64 communities around FCT are still practicing infanticide, the good thing is, from the time when we started the number has come down to about 60. So, that means four community have stopped the practice. But it also means that one way or the other, they still bring children here and people are still practicing this ungodly act.”

The founder of Vine Heritage Home Founded, Mr Steven Olusola who complained about some of the challenges faced, said: “What we had in mind before was that as those communities are changing their mind concerning the killing of twins we will be integrating children back to their community but we discovered that some community who have been killing children in silence are now ready to hand them over to us and the number keep on increasing.

“So he appeal to the Government to continue in their efforts in making sure that the practice of infanticide should be totally abolished In FCT. So we need to sustain our advocacy and the awareness that no child should be killed because of the circumstances of their birth.”

ActionAid Calls for Stop in Infanticide

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Airstrike Hits ISWAP Enclave in Tumbuma Baba, scores Nutrialised

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Airstrike Hits ISWAP Enclave in Tumbuma Baba, scores Nutrialised

By: Zagazola Makama

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF), under the Air Component of Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK), conducted a successful Air Interdiction (AI) mission at a terrorists’ hideout in the Southern Tumbuns general area in the Lake Chad of Borno, killing scores of the terrorists.

Intelligent sources told Zagazola Makama that the precision air strike, which took place at about 2100 hours on 5 May 2025, targeted a major terrorists’ concentration camp located in the Tumbuma Baba axis of Lake Chad.

The sources said that the offensive was in continuation of a decisive Operation KALACHEN WUTA II, aimed at denying terrorists the freedom to execute large-scale attacks during the Eid el-Kabir period.

The sources said that Intelligence and Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) reports confirmed that several terrorists were neutralised during the strike, and key logistics under heavy foliage were destroyed.

The sources said that the strikes followed credible intelligence on planned coordinated attacks by the insurgents before, during, and after the Eid festivities. The mission was meticulously planned and executed to forestall such threats and sustain pressure on terrorist elements operating in the Lake Chad fringes.

“We observed significant secondary explosions, indicating the presence of arms and fuel storage. Multiple terrorists were seen fleeing the area, while several others were eliminated during the strike,” the source said.

The sources said efforts are ongoing to gather further feedback, as well as to assess the operational impact of the interdiction.

He added that preliminary signs suggest a high level of disarray and panic within the terrorists’ ranks, with reports of attempted regrouping under surveillance.

Airstrike Hits ISWAP Enclave in Tumbuma Baba, scores Nutrialised

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Nigerian Air Force Neutralises Terrorists in Successful Air Interdiction at Maisani

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Nigerian Air Force Neutralises Terrorists in Successful Air Interdiction at Maisani

By: Zagazola Makama

The Nigerian Air Component of Operation Hadin Kai have executed a coordinated strike on a major terrorist enclave located at Maisani in the Timbuktu Triangle general area of Borno State, killing several ISWAP terrorists.

Intelligence sources told Zagazola Makama that the air interdiction mission conducted on May 4, 2025, at approximately 1800 hours, was informed by credible intelligence and sustained surveillance, targeted terrorists’ structures cleverly concealed and camouflaged under thick shrubs in the area.

The sources said that using advanced platforms, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) conducted a focused Air Interdiction (AI) mission, resulting in the destruction of the identified enemy hideouts and the neutralisation of an unconfirmed number of insurgent fighters.

According to the sources, Post-strike Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) obtained from our Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms confirmed that the airstrike achieved its intended objectives, dealing a significant blow to terrorists.

Nigerian Air Force Neutralises Terrorists in Successful Air Interdiction at Maisani

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Nigeria Looks to World Bank to Tackle Challenges of National Capital Accounting

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Nigeria Looks to World Bank to Tackle Challenges of National Capital Accounting

By: Michael Mike

As the world marks the 2025 Environment Day, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has appealed to the World Bank for support on capacity building, data and in addressing the challenges poised by Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) in the country.

Head of Department, National Accounts Energy and Environment at the NBS, Dr. Baba Madu made the appeal at the 2025 Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) Conference on Thursday in Abuja with support from the World Bank in. collaboration with the NBS and the Federal Ministry of Environment.

Madu while noting that the NCA was a new area Nigeria must exploit to further boost the nation’s economy, said for Nigeria to grow and be at par with other developed nations, there was need to account for her natural resources.

He said: “NCA has been tasked with the crucial role of integrating natural capital into economic measurement. It is impossible to measure the economy accurately without accounting for natural resources. Issues such as environmental degradation, afforestation, desertification, and climate change all directly impact productivity.

“Productivity in turn, influences output—one of the core components of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These environmental factors must be reflected across all economic activity sectors to present a more accurate picture of national output.”

While stating that Nigeria currently has data on NCA in Nigeria, the NBS official however raised concerns over the huge data gap from relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the environment sector.

He said: “We are not doing badly but we need to improve on what we are doing. In terms of data sources, I can tell you there’s a big gap because these are new areas needed to be exploited.”

Programme Leader on Sustainable Development at the World Bank, Vina Vutukuru, said there was need to jointly
explore the vital role of national accounting in national development plans and to brainstorm on how Nigeria could institutionalize it.

He said: “Establishing the national capital accounting as part of the national account system will allow us to measure the economic value of ecosystem services such as clean air, water and biodiversity which are essential for our well-being and economic prosperity.”

Vutukuru commended Nigeria for having “very bold ambitions” as far as responding to climate change was concerned saying, “That shows the commitment of the policy makers here towards the issue of climate.

“But I think to back up that aspiration and the aggressive goals that Nigeria has set for itself, the foundational thing for those goals to materialize those objectives to come true is a very strong natural account system.”

Head of Media, National Council on Climate Change Secretariat (NCCCS), Chioma Azie who represented her Director General, Dr. Nkiruka Maduekwe at the event, described Nigeria as a very ambitious country, stressing that natural resources was instrumental to achieving all the objective of climate action.

She said: “Technology, policy reforms, behavioral changes has a role to play but natural resources is very key because they’re underpinning the mitigation and adaptation for climate action.

“If you look at Nigeria’s NDC, the NCA is an avenue to provide raw materials that we could use to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies.

“If you look at what we have done in terms of this NDC in 2020.which is the second leg of the NDC, we identified a lot of mitigation activities within this mentioned sectors of ours. In agricultural sector we talked about smart agriculture. What is smart agriculture without natural resources?

“We talked about biomass, what is biomass without natural resources? We also spoke about land use changes and that is natural resources, we talk about natural solutions and we talked about also afforestation, reafforestation. Those are mitigation potentials of our NDC. So, we cannot achieve our NDC without SEEA.

“What you cannot be able to account for is recorded as if it is not done so if we know what is existing in terms of the reservoirs we have for natural resources, it can inform the scope of the mitigation activities we’re going to be imputing in the NDC 3.0,” she said.

Nigeria Looks to World Bank to Tackle Challenges of National Capital Accounting

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