Nigeria News
[Ifeanyi Nwoko] Boosting rice production in Nigeria
By Ifeanyi Nwoko
Experts bemoan the fact that Nigeria spends over N600 billion every year on the importation of rice and wheat, while the country has the capacity to produce the commodities to satisfy its local needs and even for export.
They particularly stress that the country has no business importing rice, as the farmers have access to 62 varieties of high-yielding rice species produced by research institutes in the country.
Dr Mark Ukwungwu , the Acting Executive Director, National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI) Badeggi, Niger, who spoke on the potential of rice production in Nigeria, said that the institute had produced 62 varieties of rice since its inception.
NCRI — the oldest research institute in the country — was originally founded by the Lagos Colonial Protectorate Administration of Gov. Alfred Moloney in 1898 and it assumed its present name via Decree 13 of 1975.
The institute has the mandate to conduct research on six crops — rice, soybeans, acha, benne seed, castor oil seed and sugar cane.
Ukwungwu explained that the high-yielding varieties of rice were developed in collaboration with other research institutes.
“What we do here basically is research; we carry out research on six crops and rice is a major one. We have done a lot in producing rice varieties.
“The institute, in collaboration with other organisations in Nigeria and beyond, has been able to develop and release 62 rice varieties in the country for the upland, lowland, mangrove and deep water areas.
“These varieties have been released and they are available; when we develop varieties like that, we make them available.
“Normally, the institute does not go directly to farmers, our limit is interaction with the Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs); that’s where our work stops,’’ he said.
However, Dr Samuel Agboire, the Head of the Research Support Services Department of NCRI, underscored the need for all stakeholders to play their roles effectively to enable the country’s farmers to utilise the numerous research findings.
“There is a role for farmers and there is a role for government to play in terms of policy; so, unless all these roles are harmonised, there would be a problem in the production chain.
“If we release varieties and there are technologies in place for these varieties to manifest fully but in instances where the farmers are not using the technologies fully, their efforts will not yield the desired results.
“For instance, you recommend the application of a particular quantity of fertiliser and the farmer is using less than that; the rice variety will not realise its full potential.
“For example, if the government comes up with a policy that favours importation, farmers would be discouraged because imported produce may be cheaper than the locally produced ones.
“So, there are so many factors that are responsible for that situation,’’ he added.
All the same, experts stress the need for the government to provide an environment that is conducive to efforts to improve rice production in the country.
Dr Maji Iswako, a plant breeder at the NCRI, said that efforts to boost rice production involved both the farmer and the environment.
“The environment is the major factor. The question that should be asked is: how far has the government gone to deliberately create that enabling environment to enable farmers to express themselves?”
He argued that farmers in rice exporting countries did not produce under conditions that were akin to those under which Nigerian farmer was operating.
“The Nigerian farmer is faced with rain-fed ecology where you cannot control water; you apply fertiliser today, rainwater washes it away tomorrow.
“Farmers don’t have the resources; some Nigerian farmers cannot even afford a bag of fertiliser for a hectare where you need about six bags; so, the government must invest in infrastructure for production,” he said.
Iswako urged the government to stop rice importation and to put in place purposeful policies that would boost rice production.
“Basically, the continuous importation of rice is a policy issue. There has to be a deliberate policy to boost rice production if rice importation must stop.
“The yield gap between research estimates and actual farmers’ yield is so wide; in a farmland where you ought to get seven tonnes of rice, hardly will you see a farmer getting even up to three tonnes.
“If the structure is not well developed, you cannot even attract more people into the system,” he added.
Sharing similar sentiments, Mr Segun Atho, the President (South-West Zone) of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), urged the government to adopt decisive measures to stop the importation and smuggling of rice into the country.
“Smugglers are seriously killing the acceptability of local rice in the market; we don’t have local rice as much as the foreign ones in the markets.
“Government needs to come out and help us to deal with the issue so as to encourage local rice growers.
“If the Federal Government can review the trade liberalisation scheme and close the borders to smuggled goods, this will aid efforts to improve the production of local rice in the country,’’ he said.
Beyond that, the CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, urged the government to invest funds, which were set aside for rice importation annually, in massive rice production.
He also said that there were several funding packages initiated by the apex bank to promote agricultural production, insisting that the low allocation of funds for agriculture in national and state budgets was not good enough.
Sanusi also noted that the absence of basic infrastructure and amenities in the rural areas had contributed to the poor living conditions of the rural dwellers.
However, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, reiterated the government’s commitment to support dry season rice cultivation.
He said that the Federal Government had put in place additional incentives for domestic milling of locally produced paddy rice.
“The challenges of local rice, which have been discouraging consumers, especially when compared to imported rice, have been overcome,’’ the minister said.
As an added incentive, Adesina said that the government would provide subsidy for rice farmers in form of free transportation of their produce to warehouses.
The minister reiterated the commitment of the Federal Government to ban rice importation by 2015.
All in all, observers urge the government to harness and streamline all its policies aimed at boosting local rice production and stemming rice importation.
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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.
Source: Citizens Platform
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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack
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