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Experts from Nigeria, 4 Other West African Countries Trained on Improvement Model of Agriculture

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Experts from Nigeria, 4 Other West African Countries Trained on Improvement Model of Agriculture

By: Michael Mike

The hope of increased yield, proper food production coordination, and sharing of experience among regional actors in the field of Agriculture brightens as the AGRHYMET Regional Centre in collaboration with Partners and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, has organized a 5- day workshop for experts from English-Speaking Countries on the SARRA-H&O Model, in Abuja, Nigeria Capital.

It should be noted that the AGRHYMET Regional Centre was established in 1974 as a specialized institute of the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (abbreviated CILSS in French). This is a public inter-state institution based in Niamey, Niger with a mission to strengthen food security and increase agricultural production in member countries; it also contributes to improved natural resource management in the Sahel region, providing training and information to stakeholders and development partners in the field of agriculture.

Speaking at the workshop’s opening, the representative of AGRHYMET, Marshall Trawere, said the training was the fourth annual capacity-building programme strategically organized to improve Countries’ monitoring of the Agricultural campaign.

He said: “This workshop brings together 5 countries including Gambia, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone which are English–speaking countries.

“As you know, Sahelian Countries have been facing since 1973, an accelerated degradation of the environment and natural resources under the cumulative effects of recurrent drought desertification and human activities. This situation has led to a considerable reduction in productive potential, thus exposing the population to a precarious food situation.

“Thus, CILSS through the AGRHYMET Regional Center and with the support of technical and financial partners accompanies countries in the implementation and technical animation of the devices Early warning to provide regular and timely information essential for decision making in order to anticipate food and nutrition crisis. Among these arrangements for retaining the multidisciplinary working groups GTP), an Early warning system to identify areas and populations at risk of food and nutrition insecurity.

“As you know, national agricultural products are micro-economic, social and existential aggregates for countries and regions, for stability and food safety monitoring. This information allows our regional and national decision-makers to guide policies and strategies for self–sufficiency and food sovereignty. This is why it is very important for our national actors in charge of producing food and nutrition security information to have tools to enable them to achieve these objectives.

“This capacity-building training workshop on the SARRA-H&O model of crop yield monitoring and estimation is in line with our institution’s mission. It aims mainly at sharing experience with the national framework in the field of agricultural campaign monitoring by an agronomic model, hydrological monitoring, monitoring of water balance and crop yield forecast, and pastoral monitoring.

“This SARRA-H&O model which is a fairly dynamic agronomic model is currently at the forefront of production estimation models. It has been developed jointly by CIRAD and AGRHYMET Regional Centre for several decades. The model is being developed to take into account other crops that are important for the region, such as rain-fed rice, cowpea, groundnut, and tubers”, he said.

The AGRHYMET representative thanked the partners such as CILSS (NPFS), USAID through PRASSAR for their support of the organization.

Speaking also, Mr. Amu Anthony from the Department of National Programme on Food Security highlighted various efforts and strategic initiatives of the present administration in Nigeria aimed at ensuring national food security and called for concerted efforts in the use of modern tools and synergy among stakeholders.

In the same vein, the Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), Prof. Charles Anosike who was represented by Dr. James Adamu, emphasized the importance of the workshop and urged participants to take advantage of the skill that will be provided at the training to improve food security in their various Countries and Agencies.

Cross section of participants at the workshop commended AGRYMET and its partners for the training and promised to make judicious use of the knowledge that will be gained to create the desired positive shit in food production in their countries.

Experts from Nigeria, 4 Other West African Countries Trained on Improvement Model of Agriculture

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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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