Friday, December 2, 2016
Video - Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka gives up US residency after Trump's victory
Nigerian Nobel Laureate, author and playwright Wole Soyinka has thrown away his green card in protest against Donald Trump's presidency. The Nigerian vowed to do so if Trump won the U.S. presidential polls. The 82-year-old scholar was the first African to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. He's been living in America for for more than 20 years. Soyinka maintains Trump's presidency is a sign it's the right time for him to leave.
400,000 children in Nigeria at risk of starvation
Fati Adamu has not seen three of her six children nor her husband since Boko Haram fighters attacked her hometown in northeast Nigeria in a hail of gunfire.
Two years on, she is among thousands of refugees at the Bakassi camp in Maiduguri, the city worst hit by a seven-year-old conflict that has forced more than two million people to flee their homes.
The United Nations says 400,000 children are now at risk from a famine in the northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe - 75,000 of whom could die from hunger within the next few months.
A push against the fighters by the Nigerian army and soldiers from neighbouring countries has enabled troops to enter remote parts of the northeast in the last few months, revealing tens of thousands on the brink of starvation - and countless families torn apart.
"I don't know if they are dead or alive," Adamu, 35, said of her missing relatives.
There is a renewed threat of Boko Haram attacks. The start of the dry season has seen a surge in suicide bombings, some of which have targeted refugee camps, including one at Bakassi in October that killed five people.
The World Food Programme said it provides food aid to 450,000 people in Borno and Yobe. About 200,000 of them receive $54 each month to buy food, soon to rise to $73.
At least 15 camps, mostly on the outskirts of Maiduguru, the Borno state capital, are home to thousands of people unable to return home and surviving on food rations.
At one known as New Prison, women and children visibly outnumber men, many of whom were killed by Boko Haram or are missing.
One man - Bukaralhaji Bukar, 45, who has eight children from his two wives - said the food he buys with the monthly stipend finishes within two weeks.
"We are suffering. It is not enough," said Bukar, who begs on the street to make money.
In the centre of Maiduguri, life seems to be returning to normal. Food markets are bustling but soldiers in pick-up trucks clutching rifles are reminders of the need for vigilance.
Malnourished children
In a ward in Molai district near the Bakassi camp, the air is filled with the sound of crying babies and the gurgle of those who lack the energy to cry. Some, whose skin clings tightly to their bones, are silent - too weary to even raise their heads.
"Many of them are malnourished, which is already bad enough, but they also develop things like malaria which further worsens their illnesses because they cannot eat and start vomiting," said Dr Iasac Bot, who works at the unit overseen by the charity Save the Children.
Children have conditions ranging from diarrhoea and pneumonia to bacterial infections and skin infections.
Hauwa Malu, 20, fled with her husband and their two-week-old daughter, Miriam, from her village in Jere after Boko Haram fighters burned the farming community to the ground and took their cattle.
Miriam, now aged 10 months, has suffered from fevers, a persistent cough, and is malnourished. Her mother said they have been left without a home or livelihood.
Tim Vaessen of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said a failure to restore their ability to farm would in the long term mean displaced people would depend on expensive food aid.
"They would remain in these camps, they would become easy targets for other armed groups and they might have to migrate again - even up to Europe," he said.
Two years on, she is among thousands of refugees at the Bakassi camp in Maiduguri, the city worst hit by a seven-year-old conflict that has forced more than two million people to flee their homes.
The United Nations says 400,000 children are now at risk from a famine in the northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe - 75,000 of whom could die from hunger within the next few months.
A push against the fighters by the Nigerian army and soldiers from neighbouring countries has enabled troops to enter remote parts of the northeast in the last few months, revealing tens of thousands on the brink of starvation - and countless families torn apart.
"I don't know if they are dead or alive," Adamu, 35, said of her missing relatives.
There is a renewed threat of Boko Haram attacks. The start of the dry season has seen a surge in suicide bombings, some of which have targeted refugee camps, including one at Bakassi in October that killed five people.
The World Food Programme said it provides food aid to 450,000 people in Borno and Yobe. About 200,000 of them receive $54 each month to buy food, soon to rise to $73.
At least 15 camps, mostly on the outskirts of Maiduguru, the Borno state capital, are home to thousands of people unable to return home and surviving on food rations.
At one known as New Prison, women and children visibly outnumber men, many of whom were killed by Boko Haram or are missing.
One man - Bukaralhaji Bukar, 45, who has eight children from his two wives - said the food he buys with the monthly stipend finishes within two weeks.
"We are suffering. It is not enough," said Bukar, who begs on the street to make money.
In the centre of Maiduguri, life seems to be returning to normal. Food markets are bustling but soldiers in pick-up trucks clutching rifles are reminders of the need for vigilance.
Malnourished children
In a ward in Molai district near the Bakassi camp, the air is filled with the sound of crying babies and the gurgle of those who lack the energy to cry. Some, whose skin clings tightly to their bones, are silent - too weary to even raise their heads.
"Many of them are malnourished, which is already bad enough, but they also develop things like malaria which further worsens their illnesses because they cannot eat and start vomiting," said Dr Iasac Bot, who works at the unit overseen by the charity Save the Children.
Children have conditions ranging from diarrhoea and pneumonia to bacterial infections and skin infections.
Hauwa Malu, 20, fled with her husband and their two-week-old daughter, Miriam, from her village in Jere after Boko Haram fighters burned the farming community to the ground and took their cattle.
Miriam, now aged 10 months, has suffered from fevers, a persistent cough, and is malnourished. Her mother said they have been left without a home or livelihood.
Tim Vaessen of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said a failure to restore their ability to farm would in the long term mean displaced people would depend on expensive food aid.
"They would remain in these camps, they would become easy targets for other armed groups and they might have to migrate again - even up to Europe," he said.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Video - 39 million people living with hypertension in Nigeria
According to Nigeria’s census numbers, rapid population growth from 160-million people in 2010 to 180-million people in 2016 has also seen prevalence in cases of hypertension - a cardiovascular disease. According to the World Health Organization, 75- percent of the world's hypertensive population will be in developing countries.
Nigeria to start exporting rice in 2017
The Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN) on Tuesday said it’s Anchor Borrowers Programme for the promotion of Agriculture had set the country to begin exportation of rice by 2017. The Anchor Borrowers Programme of the CBN and the Presidential Committee on Rice Production launched in July had jointly set the target.
The Acting Director of Corporate Communications of the apex bank, Mr Isaac Okorafor, said this in Yenagoa at a sensitisation workshop for farmers. The theme of the workshop is entitled: “Promoting Stability and Economic Development’’.
The Acting Director of Corporate Communications of the apex bank, Mr Isaac Okorafor, said this in Yenagoa at a sensitisation workshop for farmers. The theme of the workshop is entitled: “Promoting Stability and Economic Development’’.
According to him, farmers in Kebbi, Jigawa, Ebonyi, Sokoto and Cross River states, among others, have already keyed into the programme, resulting in massive rice cultivation. He said the country would achieve self-sustenance in rice production if the momentum was sustained, adding that the country should commence exportation of locally produced rice by 2017.
Okorafor said Kebbi State had already harvested one million tons of rice, adding that Ebonyi’s harvest had outstripped the earmarked production for the year. “The development is encouraging and by the end of 2017, we will not only meet our national demand which is between six and seven million tons but have surplus to export.
“We must rid ourselves of eating foreign rice that has been stored for over nine years in Thailand, Vietnam and India. Nigerian rice is fresh and healthier. “We should eat Nigerian rice provided for by the CBN Anchor Programme; 50 Kg of local rice is now N8, 000 in Ebonyi.
Already, the Abia Government has ordered rice from Ebonyi for Christmas,’’ he said. He further said: “What we have done with this programme so far is to create jobs through farming, especially for the unemployed youths. “Nigerian youths must wake up, dust themselves up and join this worthy campaign. “Remember that the status of our farmers is now better due to the support they are receiving as a result of government’s policy.
“Our currency is weak because we engaged in needless importation of all kinds of food stuffs, including tooth picks; the government is determined to stop this.’’
The Branch Controller, CBN, Yenagoa, Mr. Oke Nwajah, said the state was blessed with rich wet soil that supported rice cultivation. He therefore, urged the farmers to take pride in farming, adding that the Anchor Borrowers Programme was an intervention to reduce their burden.
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