Wild African elephants around Kenya’s Mount Elgon appear to seek out and consume dozens of plant species in ways consistent with self‑medication, according to a new study that also reports mothers preparing plant mixtures for their calves. The research, published in Scientific Reports, identifies 35 plant species used by the elephants in specific health contexts; 25 of those are also employed in local human traditional medicine, suggesting a shared ethnoveterinary knowledge between people and animals in the region. Observations from the slopes of Elgon The study focuses on elephants on the eastern slopes of Mount Elgon, an extinct 4,321‑metre volcano…
Author: Editor
Elon Musk remains the world’s richest person by a wide margin, with a real-time net worth hovering around $920–930 billion in mid‑September 2026, according to Forbes’ tracker and multiple media reports. Jeff Bezos holds second place with an estimated fortune of roughly $360–380 billion, while Google co‑founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin occupy the next tier with wealth in the $250–280 billion range. Tech founders sweep upper ranks September 2026 rankings show technology entrepreneurs dominating the upper echelons of global wealth. Alongside Musk, Bezos, Page and Brin, names such as Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Michael Dell (Dell Technologies), Jensen Huang (semiconductors),…
…Financing the future of Nigeria’s land transport
This week, I am in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, attending a conference organised by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation on the peace and security landscape in West Africa. The region has been in political turmoil for the past decade, signalling a deterioration of the growing crisis that has affected the zone for decades due to structural problems related to widespread poverty, food insecurity, the climate crisis and insurgency generated by violent extremist jihadi groups. The current phase of the crisis is linked mainly to the rapid collapse of the democratic model that has evolved in the post-1990 era on the impulsion of…
…Where the next investment opportunities lie in Nigeria’s land transport ecosystem
Uganda has assured farmers and traders, especially those dealing in coffee and cocoa, not to lose heart over crop-yield losses caused by the current widespread drought and subsequent downward fluctuations in global prices, describing the situation as temporary and likely to improve soon. The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), while expressing sympathy for farmers and traders over the losses, assured them that the current price fluctuations should not be interpreted as a disappearance of demand for coffee or cocoa. “It is largely a response to changing expectations in global supply and inventories. Coffee and cocoa are internationally…
For Babatunde Ridwanullahi Abiodun, the journey back home was more than a routine trip. It left the 100-level Electrical and Electronics Engineering student at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS), with troubling questions. The most disturbing pattern he encountered was passengers being forced to push vehicles trapped in muddy water. According to him, the journey went well until they reached parts of Kebbi State. When the car got stuck in the mud, passengers were forced to push and pull the vehicle. Yet that was only the beginning of their ordeal. “At about 7:15 a.m., our vehicle got stuck in the mud.…
“What really happened during the 2026 Osun gubernatorial election, and what are the implications for the 2027 national elections?” was posed as the closing sentence of the first part of this piece last week. Before then, it is important to understand the context and complexity of the Osun gubernatorial election as a rare scene happening in Nigeria’s political space – a lesson for 2027. The context makes the outcome more interesting. Adeleke was originally elected governor on the PDP platform but left the party amid its prolonged leadership crisis and joined Accord in November 2025. Before his arrival, Accord was…
Here we are once more, on the verge of electing our representatives for the eighth time in our current democratic journey. This journey, or the Fourth Republic, has outlasted the first three, and we are now in the eighth cycle of campaigns, manifesto presentations, and promises. These are the preludes to the elections. Contestants will come to us wearing various faces – religious, tribal, ethnic, regional, and even that of empathy. While those faces are mostly not shown publicly, what we mostly hear from them are promises of what would enhance our lives and well-being. In the Second Republic, some…
There are two types of countries in the world today. Countries openly resisting, combating with, dealing with or undermining the United States. The second type are countries keeping as long a distance as possible from the United States because the country has become very toxic. Nigeria is in a special category. We are actively soliciting close ties and collaboration with the Americans. We have taken the option of succumbing to American imperialism at a historical moment when that crumbling hegemon is declining, indeed collapsing before our very eyes. We are becoming close friends with a country that recently acted as…