₦airaland Forum

Racoon:
A Maj.Gen.that can't govern by the rule of law, appoint dead/corrupt people into government, can't exact control over his domestic family affair
? Lauretta Onochie is still guzzling expired fermented palm wine

A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has said members of the House of Representatives have thrown away a baby together with the bath water. Atiku, a former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said in a statement by his Special Advise on Media, Paul Ibe, that he was displeased with the speed with which the six-year single term proposal for president and governors was rejected by the House of Representatives.

“I am disappointed by the fact that the lawmakers have thrown away the baby with the bath water at the expense of the larger interest of the country,” he said. “In view of the challenges facing our current democratic order, especially the culture of rigging that subverts the will of the people, six-year single term would have ended such untoward practices in our electoral process ” Atiku added.

The former vice president said “the desperation for second term by the incumbents is the main reason why they go for broke and set the rule book on fire, thereby making free and fair elections impossible by legitimizing rigging at the expense of their challengers that have no access to public funds. “A situation where the incumbents deploy more public resources to their second term projects than using the funds for people’s welfare encourages massive rigging that undermines electoral integrity. “Six-year single term would remove such desperation and enable the incumbents concentrate on the job for which they were elected in the first place.

“Eight-year term of office rewards incompetence because even incumbents that have failed would use their access to public funds to return to power by fair or foul means. “I don’t agree with the logic that eight years would give elected leaders better opportunity to fulfill their campaign promises. An inherently incompetent incumbent will perform below average even if you give him/her 20 years in office or give him or her $20 billion dollars.”

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked the APC to come clean on allegations in the public space that it siphoned N40 billion taxpayers’ money from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to finance its 2019 campaigns. The party, in a statement yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said the allegation had reportedly unsettled certain persons in the Buhari Presidency.

The PDP said the development had further vindicated its position that the APC was an “extremely callous and hypocritical party, which has no iota of conscience but takes delight in depriving our citizens and pillaging resources meant for the wellbeing of our people.”

The opposition party said it was shameful that instead of being remorseful, the agents of the APC were reportedly engaging in dirty infighting over how the money was allegedly shared. But the APC National Publicity Secretary, Malam Lanre Issa-Onilu, in a swift reaction, described the alleged N90bn or N40bn FIRS 2019 election vote as “hogwash”.

“Regarding some media reports and a statement from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) alleging that a phantom N90 billion or N40 billion was released to the All Progressives Congress (APC) by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for the Party’s 2019 election political campaigns, the allegation is hogwash.

“The baseless allegations contained in the media reports and the subsequent statement by the PDP is an unintelligent and crude attempt at a smear campaign. Only the sponsors of the report believe their tales. “We call on the sponsors of the baseless allegation to resolve their confusion.

Last time it was N90 billion, now it is N40billion. We also challenge them to provide evidence from not only FIRS but any other government agency where the APC took one kobo for campaign. “The matter of dipping hands into public coffers as a matter of official policy ended with PDP. We recall that leaders of the PDP had contemplated changing the name of their party at a time because they were ashamed of their own record of sleaze.

“We however refer the PDP and co-peddlers of falsehood to the records of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) in terms of Cost of Collection accruing to FIRS and indeed the FIRS statement on the subject matter,” Issa-Onilu said in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja

The Federal Government has approved registration and commercial release of a new cowpea variety resistant to pod borers. In a statement by the Cowpea Manager of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), Issoufou Kollo Abdourhamane, the approval was granted by the National Committee on Naming, Registration and Release of Crop Varieties, chaired by Oladosu Awoyemi, at its 28th meeting which was held in Ibadan.

The new cowpea variety, SAMPEA 20-T, was developed by scientists at the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in collaboration with various partners under coordination of the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).

PBR Cowpea was earlier in the year granted environmental release approval by the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA), which confirmed the product was safe for human, livestock and the environment and paved the way for submission to the National Variety Release Committee for consideration and registration as a commercial crop in Nigeria. The newly approved SAMPEA 20-T has been bred for resistance to Maruca vitrata, a lepidoptreran insect pest that causes up to 90 percent yield loss in severe infestation cases.

This new variety is early maturing (70 – 75 days) with semi erect growth habit and photoperiod insensitive and has medium large white seeds. It is also resistant to Striga and Alectra, two notorious parasitic weeds. The decision to release the variety means that farmers will have access to the seed that will help them significantly reduce the number of sprays they currently apply to their crop from 6 to 7 times to only 2 per cropping season and as a result realise better yield in quantity and quality.

It will also contribute to addressing the national cowpea demand deficit of about 500,000 tonnes and also improve the national productivity average of 350kg/hectare. During the Multilocational Advanced Yield Trials conducted across Nigeria’s agro-ecologies, researchers found SAMPEA 20-T to have high stable grain yield across the test locations. The minimum observed grain yield increase over the conventional cowpea varieties was 20 percent and the maximum was over 200 percent. The variety can yield up to 2.9 tons of beans per hectare, and over 3.0 tons of fodder per hectare.

Prof. Mohammed Ishiyaku, the Principal Investigator for the project and Executive Director, Institute for Agricultural Research, Zaria said both the on-station and on-farm trials demonstrated the superiority of SAMPEA 20-T relative to local, recently released cowpea varieties and improved breeding lines tested. ‘SAMPEA 20-T is high yielding, early maturing and resistant to Striga and Alectra, which are major constraint to cowpea production in most producing areas in Nigeria and other dry savanna regions,’ said Prof Ishiyaku.

‘The protein and nutrients content of variety ‘SAMPEA 20-T is the same as that of other conventional varieties meaning that the Bt gene that was introduced into the variety has no negative influence on the nutritional composition of both grain and folder,’ added Prof. Ishiyaku, saying that the newly released variety does not differ in any way from already existing cowpeas (beans) other than the improvements made. Dr Denis Kyetere, Executive Director AATF, thanked the Federal Government of Nigeria for releasing the new cowpea variety saying it showed its commitment towards improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmer. ‘Cowpea farmers have had to endure difficult farming conditions that required spraying dangerous chemicals on their crop to make a profit which is risking their lives,” Said Dr Kyetere.

“We at AATF express our joy with Nigeria as it takes the lead in the deployment of necessary technologies that show promise of solving the challenges which farmers encounter on a daily basis,’ added Dr. Kyetere Dr Issoufou Kollo Abdourhamane, the AATF PBR Cowpea Manager attributed the successful registration and naming of SAMPEA 20-T to the hard work and synergy between the various project partners including researchers at the IAR “Our joint effort of over 10 years addressing one of the vital challenges faced by cowpea farmers in Africa has paid off. Cowpea farming will now become attractive even to the younger generation as it has become less cumbersome with the effective management of Maruca,’ he said.

Prof. Garba Sharubuta, the Executive Secretary, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), the apex organization supervising all agriculture research in the country welcomed the release of the new variety saying that cowpea is a major staple and vegetarian source of dietary protein in Africa.

“Its production has been stalled by severe attack of lepidopteran insect pests in both the field and storage. One of such notorious pests is the legume pod-borer, (Maruca vitrata). This pest has singularly contributed to significant cowpea yield reductions on our farmers’ farms.’ Prof. Sharubuta said that ARCN’s resolve is to make improved technologies available and accessible to farmers to enhance their yields and income and result in improved livelihoods.

‘One such economically viable, and environmentally sound solution to the problem of the legume pod borer is development of cowpea varieties that have inherent resistance to the lepidopteran pod borers,” Prof. Sharubuta added. The Acting Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), said the release marked a great and memorable day for Nigeria, Africa and the World at large.

‘We all are marching towards food sufficiency and food security for Nigeria and all of mankind. Bt Cowpea is certainly a major and strategic addition.” SAMPEA 20-T is a product of over a decade of research efforts by a partnership that brought together Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) of Australia for genetic transformation, IAR, NABDA, ARCN, Danforth Center and Bayer that provided the Cry1Ab gene to the partnership on humanitarian basis, royalty free, so that small scale farmers can access it affordably.

The project partnership was coordinated by AATF with sustained funding by USAID. The Project also received support from other stakeholders in Nigeria including the National Association of Cowpea Growers, the National Association of Nigerian Farmers and local seed companies.