NAIJAFEED

Friday, May 28, 2021

Nigeria needs to fix the issues in its dairy value chain

Nigeria spends $2.5bn importing dairy milk annually, to cover for the nearly 60% shortfall in primary production.

While the issues derive their root from a historically outdated model for the breeding and raising of cattle, they are also a result of willful ignorance and lack of technical knowledge on the value chain for this sector, which has a ripple effect across the board.

Milk is the third most consumed food item in Nigeria, however, in 2020 alone, the country imported $534m worth of refined sugar from Spain, Brazil, France and India, and $2.5bn worth of dairy milk from the Netherlands, UK, US, Australia, and others, to power its value chain for everything from evaporated milk, pasteurised milk, to yoghurt, cheese, chocolate, and more.
What is the problem with the dairy sector in Nigeria?

Why are we unable to solve the problem of milk and all its attendant derivatives, which to a large extent contributed to the $10bn the Netherlands earned exporting milk around the world in 2020?

Nigeria has 13 major breeds of cattle, and of them, the White Fulani breed has the most dairy of them all. What has happened is a situation where, because of the outdated mode of handling these cows, there has been no effort to adopt modern global best practices for cross-breeding and calving of these cows through artificial insemination (a process where semen is used from a cattle with a higher production output to fertilise the eggs of a lower producing cow, for the purpose of producing a new line that’s disease resistant, adjusted to the weather, and feeds available in that region of rearing).

What does the country need?

Nigeria requires a comprehensive ranching development plan that focuses the task of primary production on two levers:

Cooperatives who are properly trained in improved methods and global best practices;

Commercial companies that are able to invest in the kind of capital required for building a ranch that addresses all the issues in the supply value chain.

There is also a need for quality veterinary care from professional doctors familiar with cattle specifically, a properly designed irrigation model built into the metal fabrication compartments of the ranch pen, a weaning hose used for automatic extraction of milk from the udder of the dairy cattle, a storage tank that can store the milk at a particular temperature that prevents fermentation and building of bacteria in the liquid before it’s taken by reefer vans to the milk collection centres, and radio frequency identification (RfID) tags built into the monitor braces to track everything from distance covered to amount of feed consumed.
Most importantly, there is a need for a vertically integrated model for developing a feed lot for maize, which remains the best and most nutritious source of feed for cattle globally.

Why are we not addressing these issues?

Until 2018, government policy did now allow for backward integration through import substitution. In doing so, it would have made the subsidies the EU pays to its farmers, and the tariff it pays to Nigeria under the WTO tariff rules for importing dairy milk, unsustainable compared to developing this full vertical in Nigeria. What we have had has always been the lazy man’s approach of importing primary products for processing to meeting the food demands of Nigeria.
Bottom line

I see a stream of opportunities for African entrepreneurs who are bold enough to invest between $500,000 and $1m in the development of key areas of the value chain, and this is because dairy milk can be processed into a variety of things.

One of the curses that have collapsed our food security in Africa is the fallacy that you have to be involved only in primary production for you to take advantage of the supply chain.

And even at this level that holds only 25% of the whole value, we have failed to do the needful. The introduction of tractors, boom sprayers, harvesters and the like will improve turnaround time and enable to better practise precision agriculture.

I’m hoping we pay attention in Africa and I’m hoping we understand that development is not being able to afford imports. It’s more about the ability to substitute local demand and price exports for more value than the imports.

By Kelvin Ayebaefie Emmanuel

The Africa Report

What Abubakar Shekau’s reported death means for Nigeria security

On May 19, Abubakar Shekau, longtime leader of Nigeria’s Boko Haram armed group, was reported dead – again.

While details remain murky, local media reports citing intelligence sources claimed Shekau detonated his suicide vest when rival fighters of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) tried to capture him in his hideout in Sambisa forest in northeastern Nigeria.

Shekau has been reported killed or seriously wounded several times in recent years, including in official statements released by Nigeria’s military – only to resurface in online videos weeks later to ridicule such declarations. This time, the Nigerian army has said it is investigating the reports and has yet to issue a definitive statement.

Still, the reports have been met with mixed reactions and raised questions about the security implications in the country.

“What a Shekau death means is the Islamic State [ISWAP] is set to come out as the dominant player in the other side of the conflict, which of course means more problems for the Nigerian military,” Confidence MacHarry, geopolitical security analyst at Lagos-based SMB Intelligence, told Aljazeera.

For more than a decade, the Nigerian army has struggled to contain Boko Haram’s violent attacks in northeastern Nigeria, in a worsening conflict that has also spilled over into neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger. More than 30,000 people are estimated to have been killed and some 3 million forced from their homes.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was first elected in 2015 on the back of a promise to tackle insecurity in the northeastern region within two years. In his first year in office, the military, with assistance from regional troops, pushed the fighters back and retook key towns, and Buhari famously declared that Boko Haram has been “technically” defeated.

However, the armed group and its offshoots continued staging attacks, while the military’s campaigns were undermined by a number of factors, including corruption and inadequate equipment as well as funding and workforce shortages.

More recently, the army has lost a string of towns in the northeast and Lake Chad region and drawn sharp criticism over its failure to crush the fighters.

If Shekau has indeed been killed and ISWAP fighters are responsible, some analysts say it will further reduce Nigerians’ confidence in the country’s military to rout the fighters and end the conflict.

“The first implication [of Shekau’s killing at the hands of ISWAP] for national security is a larger interpretation about the capacity of the Nigerian state,” Freedom Onuoha, a counterterrorism expert and senior lecturer at the University of Nigeria, told Al Jazeera.

“It also shows that the people’s lack of confidence in the capacity of the national security forces to rein in criminal actors would decline further,” he said.

“That’s a major loss from a national security point of view.”

Who is Abubakar Shekau?

In the 2000s, Shekau was the deputy of Muhammed Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram. In fiery speeches, Yusuf criticised government corruption and what he believed was the incomplete implementation of Islamic law in northeast Nigeria – Boko Haram translates to “Western education is forbidden”.

During clashes in 2009 between the followers of the religious group and security forces, Yusuf was arrested and shot in police custody. Shekau then took the reins of the ragtag prayer group and led his followers to launch attacks across the northeast region.

From the start, Shekau gained notoriety for his brutality.

He sent children and women on suicide missions, often targeting crowded markets and mosques. His fighters looted, kidnapped and killed civilians without mercy. In 2014, Boko Haram’s abduction of 276 schoolgirls in the northeastern town of Chibok shocked the world and drew widespread condemnation. More than 100 of the schoolgirls are still missing.

In 2015, Shekau – albeit reluctantly – pledged allegiance to ISIL (ISIS) and the group took up the name of ISWAP. But the following year, some of his followers, uncomfortable with his leadership style, splintered from Shekau’s forces.

Led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, a son of the Boko Haram founder Yusuf, they gained ISIL’s recognition and retained the ISWAP name, while Shekau remained in charge of a faction that reassumed the armed group’s original name, Jama’tu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, or JAS.

ISWAP, whose main target is the Nigerian military, has grown in influence and power in recent years, with an estimated 3,500-5,000 fighters overshadowing the 1,500-2,000 in the Shekau-led faction, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

The two groups have been embroiled in a protracted feud over a number of ideological differences, with hundreds of their members reported dead in previous rounds of fighting.

“It [ISWAP] has notched military successes and made inroads among Muslim civilians by treating them better than its parent organisation and by filling gaps in governance and service delivery,” ICG said in a 2019 report.

“By filling gaps in governance and service delivery, it has cultivated a level of support among local civilians that Boko Haram never enjoyed and has turned neglected communities in the area and islands in Lake Chad into a source of economic support,” it added, noting that the group digs wells, polices cattle rustling and provides a modicum of healthcare in the communities it controls, where “its taxation is generally accepted by civilians”.

If Shekau has been killed this time, some experts said they expect some of his fighters to join forces with ISWAP to form a formidable force against the Nigerian military.

“What we’re going to see is the reabsorption of some of Shekau’s terror network in the northeast inherited by the new ISWAP leadership,” Confidence said. “ISWAP will to some extent inherit Shekau’s fighters because many of them are dependent on financial assistance and a central leadership to survive,” he added.

However, Dickson Osajie, an international security expert, disagreed.

“It won’t be 100 percent defection,” Osajie said. “The fighters who have pledged allegiance to Shekau would want to regroup and take revenge for Shekau’s death, causing more crisis.”

With the fight against armed groups far from over, regardless of whether Shekau is still alive, Onuoha said it is time for the army to change its strategy.

“The military needs to reconfigure as a matter of urgency the overall intelligence gathering-sharing architecture,” he said. “They need to look at strategic communication, working with other agencies to deal with issues like the financing systems of terror groups like ISWAP.”

In the past, security analysts monitoring the insecurity in the northeast have often criticised the military’s defensive approach. And for Osajie, an ex-military, the army must act swiftly to take advantage of the situation surrounding Shekau’s fate.

“In security management, you don’t give the enemy opportunity to plan,” he said. “Sadly, one issue with Nigeria is they are giving the enemy time to plan. Instead, the military should carry out an offensive attack against the remnants of Boko Haram in Sambisa forest because their morale is currently down,” he told Al Jazeera.

By Festus Iyorah

Al Jazeera

Nigerian rescuers find dozens of bodies after boat tragedy

Nigerian rescue workers pulled more than three dozen bodies from the water on Thursday after an overcrowded riverboat sank leaving more than 150 people missing and feared drowned.

Survivors and officials said only 20 people were rescued on Wednesday when the wooden boat ferrying passengers to a market b roke apart and sank as it travelled between central Niger state and Wara in northwest Kebbi state.

“Nine more bodies have been recovered. So far 45 bodies have been found. The search continues for more bodies,” Abubakar Shehu, a local official supervising the rescue operation, told AFP news agency.

Riverboat tragedies are common on Nigerian waterways mostly due to overcrowding, weather and lack of maintenance, but Wednesday’s toll would be one of the deadliest in recent years.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday called the mishap “devastating” after the country’s inland waterways authority said only 20 people had been rescued and another 156 were still missing.

Ali Ibrahim Garba, wearing an orange life jacket standing near wooden boats on the river bank, said rescuers were still searching for missing people after saving as many as they could.

“Right now we are in search of three people, one male and two females,” he told AFP.

NIWA agency local manager Yusuf Birma told reporters on Wednesday the boat was overcrowded with about 180 people and went down an hour into its journey.

Local district administrator Abdullahi Buhari Wara said the boat was also loaded with bags of sand from a gold mine.

NIWA has banned nighttime sailing on the rivers to stop accidents and says overloading ships is a criminal offence, but skippers and crews often ignore the regulations.

Early in May, 30 people drowned when an overloaded boat capsized in Niger state.

The boat carrying 100 local traders also split into two during a storm as they were returning from a local market.

The Niger, West Africa’s main river travelling through Guinea to Nigeria’s Niger Delta, is a key local trade route for some of the countries.

Al Jazeera

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Startup teaches young Nigerians to code on smartphones

Samuel Anyaele regularly tells his students that everything they need to write a software code can be found on their mobile phones.

He writes HTML codes on his phone, which are displayed on a monitor in a tiny classroom in Lagos, Nigeria’s megacity. His students look up at the big screen and down at the smaller one in their hands.

“We are effectively giving them a tool to work whether they have a PC (personal computer) or not,” said Anyaele, who runs three-month courses.

Coding skills are seen by many young Nigerians as a way to earn money from clients based anywhere in the world. Job opportunities are scarce in Nigeria, a country of 200 million inhabitants where two-thirds of people aged 15 to 34 are either unemployed or under-employed.

Anyaele, who runs free classes for beginners and charges $210 for courses aimed at professionals, works for one of many Lagos companies offering to teach aspiring software developers. The most widely known is Andela, a software training company, that has received funding from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s foundation.

“If you don’t find jobs locally, there are international jobs,” said Joseph Agunbiade, founder of Univelcity, which also provides training.

Last year’s $200 million acquisition of Nigerian fintech firm Paystack by Silicon Valley giant Stripe, and the $1 billion valuation of local payments company Flutterwave, have shown what is possible.

Chinonso Okafor, 20, one of Anyaele’s students who is now building websites for clients, said using his phone means he can continue working after his laptop runs down when the electricity cuts out.

But some people struggle to see phones as anything more than an entertainment device, said Anyaele, who identified that perception as a mental block that many fail to overcome.

“They’re assuming it’s something childish, or something that isn’t professional,” he said.

By Angela Ukomadu

Reuters

Friday, May 21, 2021

HBO explores Nigerian human rights in “The Legend of the Underground”

HBO is set to debut The Legend of the Underground, a 90-minute feature doc that examines systemic discrimination in Nigeria.

In 2013, Nigeria enacted the anti-LGBTQ law, the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill (SSMPA), and in the years since, it has been used to harass, imprison, extort and commit violence against anyone seen as not conforming to Nigerian societal and cultural norms.

In August of 2018, 57 men who attended a party in Lagos, Nigeria were rounded up by police, arrested and forced in front of news cameras. One of the men, James, defiantly spoke out against the government while still in handcuffs.

Meanwhile in New York, Micheal Ighodaro is part of the Nigerian diaspora and an LGBTQ rights and HIV prevention advocate. As he works in advocacy for the people and communities he left behind, James and his circle of friends struggle with the option to seek security abroad, or to stay and fight a discriminatory system.

The Legend of the Underground is directed by Nneka Onuorah and Giselle Bailey, and executive produced by Mike Jackson, John Legend, Ty Stiklorius and Austyn Biggers of Get Lifted Film Co. For HBO the senior producer is Sara Rodriguez; with executive producers Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller.

By Kim Izzo

REALSCREEN