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Farmers/Herders Clash: IOM Impacts Over 30,000 Individuals in Taraba, Adamawa

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Farmers/Herders Clash: IOM Impacts Over 30,000 Individuals in Taraba, Adamawa

By: Michael Mike

Over 30,000 individuals have been positively impacted through the United Nations International Organisation for Migration (IOM)‘s project on conflict mitigation between farmers and herders in Taraba and Adamawa states.

The revelation was made by the IOM Chief of Mission Laurent De Boeck during the official inauguration of the second phase of the mission’s project steering committee meeting in Abuja.

The project is on: “Contributing to the mitigation of conflict over natural resources between farmer and herder communities in Taraba and Adamawa States, Nigeria (COMITAS Il)”, and implemented by IOM through collaboration with Search for Common Ground (SFCG), Mercy Corps and funded by the European Union (EU).

De Boeck, who was represented by Juliana Dorr, Programme Manager of IOM said, “The COMITAS II project was built on the first one, in December, 2022 it successfully contributed to improving the lives of women, men and children in Adamawa.

“This is the start of phase-two and with the programme inclusion of Taraba, the contribution by partners has reached 30,000 individuals across nine local governments.”

Adamawa State Governor, Ahmadu Fintiri, represented by the State Commissioner for Agriculture, Prof. David Jatan, said the COMITAS II project has been going on in the state since 2021.

He said: “The project has made tremendous impact on the community, particularly on issues of herders-farmers conflict; it has reduced incidents of conflicts between farmers and herders drastically.

Fintiri added that: @The peacebuilding programme of the project has brought sucor and peace among farmers and herders in Adamawa, and changed the livelihood of these communities.”

On his part, Taraba State Governor, Agbu Kefas, who was represented by his Chief of Staff, Dr. Jeji Williams, said the programme is ongoing in the state.

Kefas said: “We benefited so much and lots of women and children have improved in terms of livelihood; we are not Oliver Twist, but we will tell you there are more grey areas to be covered in the state.”

Programme Manager, Regional Team for West Africa of the EU, Eric Pitois, said the project remained important as it tackles the root causes of farmers-herders crisis in Nigeria.

He said: “This includes high competition of natural resources, climate change; we strongly encourage positive collaboration between Federal Ministries, Adamawa, Taraba and other stakeholders.

“They should work towards the noble goal for Nigerians, particularly women and children living in difficulties in some parts of the country.”

Staff Officer, Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE), National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), Dennis Oziioko, commended the meeting for being timely in tackling conflict.

He said: “There is no doubt this meeting will provide an opportunity for all our key project officials to review updates on the COMITAS II project activities, since the last meeting held in 2023 in Abuja.

“We will be able to look at progress so far made, as well as discuss the sustainability plan of the project.”

The committee is tasked with overseeing the implementation of the project, make decisions and provide strategic guidance due to demographic growth, expansion of human settlements, privatisation of land, year-round farming practices, environmental degradation, and climate change.

Farmers/Herders Clash: IOM Impacts Over 30,000 Individuals in Taraba, Adamawa

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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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