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Massive Marches to Hold Across Africa to Promote Borderless on the Continent

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Massive Marches to Hold Across Africa to Promote Borderless on the Continent

By: Michael Mike

Africans Rising movement is spearheading a campaign on Borderless Africa with massive marches organized in countries across the continent to promote the ideology.

A statement at the weekend said: Preparations are on top gear to hold the Borderless Africa Convening from the 23rd – 25th May, 2024 in Lusaka, Zambia. The convening is a 3 day hybrid conference that will bring together all campaigners and stakeholders across the continent and diaspora who work in diverse ways towards the realization of a Borderless Africa.

According to the statement, the hybrid gathering will also give an opportunity for Africans everywhere to participate, engage and share their contributions.

The three days will majorly feature discussions and strategies pertaining to ratification and enforcement of the AU Protocol on the Free Movement of People, the benefits of abolishing visas in Africa and will end with a mammoth march as a continental call for free movement of Africans in Africa, one currency and one passport, the statement revealed.

The statement said: “In the same vein, there will be continent-wide Marches for Borderless Africa organized by Africans on May 25th (African Liberation Day) across several countries in Africa and other territories across the world to urge more countries to ratify the African Union’s Protocol on Free Movement and bring visibility to the Borderless Africa Campaign.

“This will be one of the many activities organized that week starting from 20th to 26th May as a continuation of last year’s annual mobilization to continue to push the vision of an Africa where Africans can move around their own continent without the current border restrictions in place under a broad theme of “A Borderless Africa for All Africans”.

“In addition to the theme, other activities will be organized under any of these two sub-themes:

“Pan-African Solidarity with African Countries Affected by Conflicts; Climate and Environmental Justice , Gender Justice, and Economic Justice.”

Borderless Africa is a decentralised, people-owned campaign with an aim to push for the free movement of Africa people and goods in Africa. The overall goal of this campaign is to achieve an Africa where Africans can move around our own continent without the current border restrictions in place, for better trade, job creation, solidarity and economic development.

The campaign pushes for the ratification and implementation of the African Union Protocol on Free Movement of Persons in all African countries. Despite the progress made in regional integration initiatives, there remains an urgent need to eliminate borders that stifle growth and impede the movement of people and goods.

The African Union adopted a Protocol on Free Movement of Persons in 2018. As of 2023, only four (4) countries had ratified the protocol while it requires 15 ratifications to come into force. The AfCFTA has been widely recognized as a significant step towards fostering economic integration and boosting intra-Africa trade.

However, progress is slow. With the large membership that Africans Rising has, we are able to mobilize to promote the realisation of the initiative.

Activities such as the People’s Petition, marches, concerts, football matches among others have been some of the activities organized as part of the campaign. More than 20,000 signatures have been collected through collaborative efforts by members of Africans Rising in 30 African countries and the diaspora.

Massive Marches to Hold Across Africa to Promote Borderless on the Continent

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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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NIMC Insists All Its Verification Services, Functional, Accessible

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NIMC Insists All Its Verification Services, Functional, Accessible
.. Says Police Service Commission Not Denied Access

By: Michael Mike

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has said all its verification service platforms are functional and accessible to all partners including all security agencies.

The Commission, in a statement on Thursday by its spokesman, Dr. Kayode Adegoke said it is aware of the purported ”inability of the Police Service Commission (PSC) to access the NIMC verification server,” insisting that the “information is not only misleading but also inaccurate.”

Adegoke said: “To set the record straight, the NIMC granted verification access to all Nigerian Police formations for the verification of the National Identification Number (NIN). The NPF, PSC and other security agencies have been enjoying uninterrupted verification services for over five years.

“NIMC has provided top-notch verification services for recruitment into the Nigeria Police Force, as conducted by the PSC and at no time have there been any complaints or issues regarding NIN Verification by the NPF or PSC.”

Adegoke, in the statement, claimed that: “The Commission has a robust and harmonious working relationship with the Nigerian Police Force and the Police Service Commission. The Information Communications and Technology (ICT) department of the Nigeria Police Force is actively managing the long-standing verification and integration service between the NIMC and all Nigeria Police formations. NIMC will continue to provide flawless verification services for the purpose of recruitment, security mapping, cybercrime control, and any other security matters.”

He explained that: “The framework by which NIMC provides services to the security agencies was recently restructured for standardization and effective implementation, following consultation with the Office of the National Security Adviser, and NPF has confirmed the verification services have continued to be available. We therefore believe that any service interruption experienced by PSC may be due to internal matters.”

He promised that: “NIMC is committed to providing excellent verification services to the PSC, NPF and all its partners but the terms and conditions inherent must be adhered to for uninterrupted flow of service.”

NIMC Insists All Its Verification Services, Functional, Accessible

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