The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Thursday said that the UN’s benchmark food and commodity prices index rose sharply on average through 2021, compared with the previous year. The agency’s Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in international prices, averaged 125.7 points – a 28.1 per cent increase over 2020. FAO Senior Economist Abdolreza Abbassian explained that, normally, high prices were expected to ease as production increases to match demand. This time, however, the consistently high cost of inputs, the ongoing global pandemic and ever more volatile climatic conditions “leave little room for optimism about a return to…
Author: Newsdesk
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday renewed its call for vaccine equity and solidarity to defeat COVID-19 pandemic as the highest number of cases were reported last week across the globe. WHO Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, told journalists in Geneva at his first press briefing in 2022 that the dawn of a new year offered an opportunity to renew collective response to a shared threat. According to WHO latest weekly epidemiological report on COVID-19, published on Thursday, the number of cases increased at a global level by 71 per cent over the past seven days with some 9.5 million cases…
UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) says 55 journalists and media professionals were killed in 2021, noting that impunity against journalists is alarmingly widespread. Fifty-five journalists and media professionals were killed in 2021, according to latest UN data released on Thursday, with nearly nine in 10 killings since 2006 still unresolved. “Once again in 2021, far too many journalists paid the ultimate price to bring truth to light,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said. “Right now, the world needs independent, factual information more than ever. We must do more to ensure that those who work tirelessly to provide this can…
President Muhammadu Buhari has again reiterated the commitment of his administration to address the nation’s security challenges before he leaves office in 2023. The president gave the assurance during an interview session televised by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) on Wednesday. President Buhari expressed optimism that the security challenges facing the country could be resolved in some months. According to him, the security forces are working hard to address all the nation’s security problems, adding that more equipment and ammunition are being procured by the government to make the battle against criminals much easier across the country. “Yes, the government…
The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has unveiled a Teacher Management Information System (TMIS) to enhance the management of the teaching workforce and collection of administrative data in six states. The UNICEF Country Education Specialist, Murtala Mohammed, made this known during a one-day workshop for stakeholders on TMIS in Kano. The TMIS, is a system that supports the monitoring of teachers’ licensing, appointments, placements, transfers, evaluations, promotions, and terminations as well as provide an accurate and timely overview of the teaching workforce in the country. ”The aim of the system is to develop a scorecard in education in Kano, Katsina,…
I spent the holidays in Cotonou and the road trip from Lagos to Cotonou was very interesting. The road from Lagos to Seme border is one of the roughest roads on earth. There were massive potholes and the driver has to be skilled in the techniques of driving through sand. On the other side of the border I had a shock, the express way from Seme all the way to the Togolese border is smoot, wide and did not have a single pothole. I wondered which was the richer country, Nigeria and Benin? Okay I agree, the quality of roads…
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, a northern group, Arewa Consensus Assembly on Thursday, canvassed for the micro-zoning of the presidency to the South-Western part of the country in the interest of justice and equity. The group said that the agitation by some people that the presidency should be retained in the North will further divide the country, adding that the focus should be more on equitable distribution of power. Addressing a press conference after their meeting in Kaduna on Thursday, the chairman of the group, Daniel Shawulu said the real interest of the North is about the vast majority…
The Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG has reacted to the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB’s ban on the consumption of ‘Fulani cows’ (beef) in South-East, by calling for a total boycott of all businesses operated by the Igbo all over the North. A statement by the spokesperson of the CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman on Thursday, noted that IPOB’s order issued in a statement on Monday by one Emma Powerful, “amounts to a grave provocation and serious threat to northern commercial interests in the South East and by extension to the physical wellbeing of Northerners living as minorities among Igbo communities.…
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC have agreed to strengthen the existing partnership and synergy between the two agencies in various areas of operations, especially with regard to the fight against drug abuse and illicit drug trafficking. The commitment was the highpoint of a courtesy visit by the Commandant General of the NSCDC, Ahmed Audi to the Chairman of NDLEA, Buba Marwa at the anti-drug agency’s national headquarters in Abuja on Thursday. The NSCDC boss said he was on the visit to tap from the knowledge and experience of Marwa…
President Muhammadu Buhari has received a Special Envoy from Col. Assimi Goita, the Transitional President of Mali. Mr Femi Adesina, the president’s spokesman in a statement on Thursday in Abuja, said President Buhari promised that Nigeria would do her level best for the sister country, within the requirements of ECOWAS. The team led by Mali’s Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Col. Abdoulaye Maiga briefed President Buhari on conclusions from the National Conference on State-Rebuilding, held in Bamako between December 27 and 30, 2021. Responding to the comprehensive briefing, the president said nobody could love Mali more than Malians themselves,…