NSCDC Warns Contractors Over Damage to Fibre Optic Cables in Abuja

By: Michael Mike

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has issued a strong warning to construction companies and contractors operating in the Federal Capital Territory, cautioning them to stop damaging underground fibre-optic cables during excavation works or face prosecution.

The warning was issued by the FCT Commandant of the Corps, Olusola Odumosu, who expressed concern over the growing cases of fibre-optic cable destruction across Abuja due to negligence and poor planning by construction firms.

Odumosu said the increasing damage to the communication infrastructure has led to repeated disruption of internet services, banking operations, telecommunications networks and other critical government and commercial activities.

According to him, the destruction of fibre-optic cables constitutes a serious national security risk and undermines economic activities in the country.

He explained that under the Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure Order 2024, telecommunications infrastructure, including fibre-optic cables, has been classified as Critical National Information Infrastructure, making any deliberate or negligent damage a punishable offence.

The Commandant noted that the Corps derives its powers from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps Act 2003 (as amended in 2007), which empowers it to protect national assets, maintain round-the-clock surveillance on critical infrastructure and prosecute offenders involved in vandalism and sabotage.

He added that the law authorises the Corps to arrest, detain and investigate individuals or organisations responsible for damaging public utilities such as communication cables, power transmission lines, pipelines and other strategic facilities.

Odumosu disclosed that in line with directives from the Office of the National Security Adviser, contractors must verify the presence of underground utilities before commencing excavation or drilling in the FCT.

He directed all construction firms to liaise with telecommunication service providers, the NSCDC and relevant authorities before carrying out digging or drilling activities, stressing that ignorance of the presence of fibre-optic cables will not be accepted as a defence.

The NSCDC boss further warned that the Corps would not tolerate vandalism or interference with critical national assets such as power installations, oil and gas pipelines, rail infrastructure, water facilities, communication masts and government buildings.

He said offenders—whether individuals, companies or government contractors—would face prosecution under existing laws, including the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015 and other relevant legislation protecting national infrastructure.

Odumosu assured residents that the NSCDC remains committed to safeguarding critical national assets across the capital territory and urged contractors to strictly comply with verification procedures before undertaking civil works.

He also called on members of the public, professional bodies and project managers to report suspicious excavation activities or vandalism of public infrastructure to the nearest NSCDC formation for prompt response.

The Commandant reiterated the Corps’ zero-tolerance for vandalism, urging organisations and stakeholders to collaborate with the agency to protect public utilities and ensure sustainable economic growth.

NSCDC Warns Contractors Over Damage to Fibre Optic Cables in Abuja

FG, World Bank Move to Restore Degraded Northern Landscapes with Nine Catchment Plans

By: Michael Mike

The Federal Government, in partnership with the World Bank, has commenced the appraisal and validation of nine Strategic Catchment Management Plans (SCMPs) aimed at tackling desertification, land degradation and water scarcity across Northern Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory.

The initiative is being implemented under the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes Project (ACReSAL), a climate resilience programme led by the Federal Ministry of Environment with support from the World Bank.

The validation workshop, holding in Abuja, is bringing together federal and state agencies, technical experts, and community representatives to review the plans and ensure they are inclusive, practical and capable of improving livelihoods while restoring degraded landscapes.

Speaking at the event, Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, warned that environmental degradation in Northern Nigeria has reached alarming levels, threatening food security and the stability of rural communities.

According to him, millions of people in the 19 northern states and the FCT are already facing harsh environmental realities such as advancing deserts, irregular rainfall patterns, shrinking water bodies and declining farmland productivity.

“These are not abstract problems. They threaten the food on our tables, the income of our farmers and herders, and the stability of our communities,” the minister said.

Lawal explained that the ACReSAL project represents Nigeria’s strategic response to the growing environmental crisis, with the Federal Ministry of Environment working closely with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to restore degraded landscapes and promote sustainable management of natural resources.

He noted that the Strategic Catchment Management Plans form the backbone of the intervention, providing a coordinated roadmap for identifying priority environmental hotspots, mobilising resources and aligning actions across multiple sectors.

Representing the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Joseph Terlumun Utsev, the Director of Hydrology, Abohwo Ngozi, said the workshop would review the final nine catchment management plans developed under the ACReSAL framework.

She stressed that the plans are essential for improving integrated water and land management while addressing the growing environmental challenges facing communities across Northern Nigeria.

Ngozi warned that desert encroachment, degraded farmlands and unpredictable rainfall patterns are already threatening agricultural productivity and the livelihoods of millions of farmers and pastoralists.

National Coordinator of ACReSAL, Abdulhamid Umar, represented by Shettima Adams, said the nine plans are designed to guide targeted interventions in semi-arid landscapes to ensure sustainable water and land management.

He listed the catchments covered by the plans as Malenda, Oshin-Oyi, Gurara-Gbako, Aloma-Konshisha, Benue-Mada, Sarkin-Pawa-Kaduna, Zungur-Gongola, Gaji-Lamurde and Hawul-Kilange.

According to him, the catchment areas cut across several states including Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara, as well as the FCT.

Umar explained that the plans were developed through extensive consultations with local communities and stakeholders, ensuring that they capture real environmental challenges such as deforestation, soil erosion, shrinking water sources and overgrazing.

FG, World Bank Move to Restore Degraded Northern Landscapes with Nine Catchment Plans

Why Nigerians Do Not Trust NBMA’s Regulation of GMOs

By Nnimmo Bassey and Joyce Brown

The deployment of products of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) continues to raise concerns and resistance, not only in Nigeria but across the world among consumers, researchers, public health experts, food sovereignty campaigners and others. Nigeria’s National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) however, has continued to take on a defensive front on the matter rather than acknowledging and addressing critical concerns that are quite fundamental and evident. This we believe comes from a mindset that assumes science and technology especially such as is approved by some foreign entities cannot be flawed and that Nigeria or Africa cannot make a headway in agriculture without without deploying biotechnology.

A recent article in The Guardian titled Nigeria Is Not Experimenting With GMOs, It Is Regulating Them, presents genetically engineered crops as a fait accompli and the NBMA as adequately defending Nigeria’s biosafety. The article almost reads like an NBMA public relations piece. The fact we must not forget is that the agency is saddled with the mandate to ensure that the practice of, and products from modern biotechnology do not harm human, animals, or plants health or the environment and they have said in the past that they are not set up to stop the deployment of GMOs but to regulate them. This begs for an interrogation of what regulation actually means. Shouldn’t regulation mean that GMOs should be banned altogether if they pose significant risks to humans and the environment? The the Precautionary Principle, a key principle of the Cartagena Protocol to which Nigeria is signatory, specifically advises caution and a halt in adoption of GMOs where there are threats to human and environmental safety.

One of the fundamental questions that the Nigerian government through the NBMA is yet to respond to is “ where are the results of LONG TERM and INDEPENDENT/PEER REVIEWED risk assessment including feeding tests conducted that informs the safety of the four officially approved products for commercial planting in Nigeria and the 10 or more others approved for food, feed and processing? This is unarguably the surest way to build trust in the regulatory architecture, but such information is not on the website of the NBMA as of 6 March 2026. We cannot but say the country is experimenting with GMOs using Nigerians as test subjects with our soils/environment as the laboratory. This is clearly not the way to defend biosafety.

The loudest argument about the need for GMOs in Nigeria is that there is no other way to feed a burgeoning population. The fact that these artificial crops do not have a yield advantage over natural varieties when cultivated under similar conditions is simply overlooked. The overriding impetus for the broadcasting of the GMOs in Nigeria is the economic benefits the speculators and manufacturers of the seeds would reap, riding on their power and control over policy formulation and implementation. Profit at what cost? Or is it true as an official of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) stated at a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives in December 2024 that “it is better to eat and die than not to eat and die”? Meaning that because Nigeria’s population is huge, we should keep deploying GMOs irrespective of the quality of the food and the long-term impacts whether social, health or environmental, as long as food is available.

But we must dig deeper even on the economic front. The cotton farmers who have planted GMOs for the longest time in Nigeria noted in 2024 that the GM Cotton (Bt Cotton) after 3 odd years of planting has not outperformed the conventional variety. They lamented that their soil was instead being degraded. This is possibly a result of the release of the CRY1Ab toxins (from Bacillus thuringiensis) in the Bt Cotton into the soils. Again, what cost are we willing to pay just to be in the league of countries deploying so-called cutting edge modern biotechnology in agriculture?

A second fundamental question that remains unanswered is who controls the GM seed market? This gives rise to several other questions: Who owns the intellectual property rights over the genetically modified seeds? Here’s the catch: GMOs can and will contaminate our local varieties through cross pollination and other processes. What safeguards has the NBMA put in place to prevent gene transfer and contamination of Nigeria’s local seed varieties? Or are we content with depending solely on the intentional seed companies for seeds and for our subsistence in the long run?

A number of other countries have put in place total or partial bans on GMOs based on this risk of genetic contamination. In 2024, Mexico placed an indefinite ban on genetically engineered corn. The courts said from the evidence before it, genetically engineered corn posed “the risk of imminent harm to the environment.” Furthermore, they will “suspend all activities involving the planting of transgenic corn in the country and end the granting of permission for experimental and pilot commercial plantings.” This ruling provided a protection for the 20,000 varieties of corn grown in Mexico and Central America. What are we doing to protect Nigeria’s genetic resources from GMOs contamination? Mexico is the centre of origin of maize and this reality places responsibility on her to protect natural maize varieties from the corruption of transgenic varieties. Nigeria is the centre of origin of beans/cowpea, and yet our farms and markets are open to insecticidal GMO beans.

On this note we encourage the government at all levels to invest in the setting up of seed banks to ensure the preservation of local and high performing indigenous seed varieties.

Nigerians reserve the right to choose their food. GMOs approved for commercial cultivation and sale are not labeled. Although we do not believe labelling will be effective considering our socio-economic context, the absence of labelling signals a disregard for the rights of consumers and an avoidance of responsibility on the part of the producers GMOs. Releasing GMOs into the market without labels is against the spirit and intent of the biosafety law in Nigeria. This explains why the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Act lacks provision on strict liability.

Many Nigerians are consuming imported processed foods bought from supermarkets without any idea that they are made from the genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The manner in which these items are imported into the country needs to be interrogated. Although the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) has said illegal importation of GMOs into the country is being checked, these products are abundant in our market shelves (over 50 different brands including cereals, vegetable oils, spices, ice-cream, cake mixes etc) as revealed by a survey which Health of Mother Earth Foundation carried out across 10 Nigerian cities in 2018, 2019 and 2023.

We reinforce the call for a ban on GMOs in Nigeria. As recommended by the House of Representatives in 2024, no new GMOs should be approved in Nigeria pending a proper interrogation of the processes of approvals so far. We add that such an interrogation must include long term impacts on human and environmental health. The output of this exercise should be critically reviewed by independent scientists and other food system stakeholders.

Nigeria’s approach to tackling food insecurity should be such that address the root causes of the problem. We cannot overlook the poor budgetary allocation to agriculture or the heightened insecurity that keeps farmers out of farms or the lack of basic infrastructure or the poor extension service etc and claim to be addressing food insecurity.

It is time to transition back to agroecology -which simply means farming in line with nature and in the light of our socio-cultural, economic and ecological context. Farming that ensures that science recognises local knowledge and that it serves the interest of the people. We must promote and protect farming that assures food security but much better food sovereignty by ensuring shorter value chains/better access to food, improved livelihoods for smallholder farmers and a protection of the rights of peoples.

GMOs only attempt to address the symptoms of major underlying food system issues while increasing profit for their proponents. The price to pay in terms of ecological damage, loss of biodiversity, health and economic implications far outweigh any fickle advantages they may seem to have. It is time to decolonize our food systems.

People over profits!

Nnimmo Bassey is an Environmental Activist, Author/Poet and Executive Director at Health of Mother Earth Foundation

Joyce Brown is a Public Health Scientist, Food Sovereignty Campaigner, and Director of Programmes at Health of Mother Earth Foundation

Why Nigerians Do Not Trust NBMA’s Regulation of GMOs