Author: The Nation

By Frank Ikpefan, Abuja

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday cautioned the management of Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) to stop building estates for the super rich with funds deducted from poor workers’ salaries.

The Congress warned the FMBN to avoid a situation whereby poor homeless workers would be forced to park into expensive houses it was building for rich men in highbrow areas, many of which it said remained unoccupied.

President of the NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba gave the warning at a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of an estate on an expanse of land acquired in Karshi, Nasarawa State, by the Public Complaints Commission branch of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria.

The NLC president said: “There are so many houses in Abuja today that are unoccupied. These are houses that were built with workers money, deducted from their meagre salaries, and yet the workers cannot afford them.

“We have told them that a time will come when they won’t need to invite people to occupy those houses because poverty will soon push us to park our loads into any empty house we see, built with deductions from our salaries.

“There is an estate built by the FMBN along the Abuja-Kaduna Road which they could not sell because they are expensive, people went there and occupied the buildings. We are getting there gradually.

“When you go round the city, just look for buildings built with workers money that are left unoccupied.

“Yes, we are getting to that point when 90 per cent of the people would be below the poverty line and the FMBN is building for the super rich who are just 10 per cent. Housing schemes must be for the 90 per cent.

“Governments in the past were building houses for workers and would later sell the apartments to them at affordable prices.

“That is the type of system that we want now. We should practice a system that takes care of everyone including the vulnerable.

“Although government said it is doing something about it but we believe whatever they are doing is not enough.

“We have enormous resources in this country that could take care of the need of everybody.

“One of the necessities of life is accommodation. It is so important because every worker wants to be a tenant but a home owner.

“One thing that consumes the income of a worker is rent. If you save your rent for 35 years, it can build a house for you.”

He however said the NLC was partnering with the FMBN to build affordable houses in all states of the federation so that workers could have roofs upon their heads.

He said: “Because we are stakeholders. We are social partners with the FMBN, I have set up a committee who are meeting with the Managing Director of the FMBN and his other officials to try to look at how workers could benefit from what they are contributing.

“The money does not belong to the FMBN. It belongs to the workers because the funds are deducted from their salaries.”

The Chief Commissioner, Public Complaints Commission, Chille Igbawua, and top officials of PASAN said the Karshi estate project will help cushion the effect of accommodation problems of the PCC staff.

Farmers need to imbibe good agronomic practices to improve maize productivity and help tackle any supply gap in a staple food as important as maize.

Experts, who spoke at the Third Nigeria Maize Conference in Abuja, called for concerted efforts by all stakeholders to increase maize productivity and availability of maize for the Nigerian consumers.

They, meanwhile, commended Bayer Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Bayer AG, Germany for for its efforts to increase productivity in the Maize sub-sector through its “Much More Maize” toolkit targeted at increasing maize yield for farmers across the country.

Market Development Regional Manager, Bayer Crop Science in Sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. David Wangila isaid Bayer’s integrated maize portfolio and hybrid seeds enhances productivity.

According to him, the hybrid seeds had the yield potential of up to 10.9 tons per hectare and were also tolerant to striga, leaf diseases, Maize Lethal Necrosis (MLN) and the maize streak virus.

Agronomic Operations Manager, East, West and Central Africa, Field Solutions for Bayer, Mr. Joseph Kibaki added that whilst their seeds were tolerant to some of the viruses, it was also important to ensure proper seed treatment to protect the potential of valuable seeds.

He pointed out how seed treatment could target some relevant pests and highlighted the importance of managing insect pests before they destroyed the maize yields.

He also noted the need for weed control to ensure the weeds were not competing with the maize crop for scarce resources.

Kibaki stated that with proper implementation of the Much More Maize portfolio and good agronomic practises, farmers could see results in as little as four weeks with appreciable growth of their maize crops along with an increase in profitability.

Director General, National Agricultural Seed Council, Dr. Olusegun Ojo also emphasized the importance of seeds in the agricultural revolution of a nation.

He said that the development, production, and dissemination of quality seeds of maize amongst others is central to providing adequate response to the many growing threats to food production from climate change, increasing drought, pest and decreasing gains in productivity.

“The growth of this sector would be hampered without a proper structured seed system to support the industry,” Ojo said.

He added that he was pleased with Bayer’s theme for this year’s edition of the Nigeria Maize Conference which was tagged “Much More Maize” as indeed, “Much More Maize” was needed to feed the needs of increasing global population.

Country Sales Manager, Bayer Nigeria Limited., Mr. Tope Banjo thanked the participants at the conference and expressed hope that through good agronomic practises and proper usage of the Bayer’s Much More Maize toolkit, farmers across Nigeria would be able to increase their crop yield which in turn would translate to greater profitability and put Nigeria on the right path towards increasing food supply in the nation.

President, Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN), Alhaji Bello Abubakar Annur outlined the challenges facing the industry and the efforts of the Maize Association of Nigeria to tackle and overcome these challenges.

He noted that maize production declined in 2020 from 12.6 million tons produced in 2019 to 12.4 million tons due to rainfall deficit and low-level cultivation of improved and drought tolerant maize varieties.

According to him, the challenges facing maize productivity and the inadequate supply of certified seeds in Nigeria acted as a catalyst that spurred the birth of the Nigeria Maize Conference by Bayer Nigeria.

He highlighted some of the achievements of the Maize Association of Nigeria in tackling the challenges facing maize production including the facilitation of access to mechanization, capacity building of its members on good agronomic practises and the empowerment of more than one million farmers through the CBN Anchor Borrowers programme.

By Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja

The Federal Government will soon begin the distribution of the four million free electricity prepaid metres promised by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

This was made known to State House Correspondents yesterday by the Minister of Power, Mamman Saleh, after the week’s virtual Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

It would be recalled that the CBN had promised to augment the Federal Government’s distribution of free prepaid metres with additional four million pieces.

However, fielding questions during the post-FEC briefing, Minister said the government was almost getting through with the distribution of its initial one million meters to Nigerians, which he tagged the phase zero, and would soon commence the distribution of the four million, which he tagged phase one.

Saleh also said there had been an improvement in power generation, explaining that the country is now generate as much as 5,000 megawatts from the initial 3,000 megawatts.

Speaking about the distribution of the prepaid metres, Saleh said “it’s ongoing, we are almost rounding off. We’re have almost finished with phase zero, we are now going into phase one of the distribution of the metres, that is the remaining four million the Central Bank promised augment with.

“The first set is one million, we’re about to finish with that, but you know, it’s not the target, one million is very negligible compared to the demand of Nigerians”, he said.

Asked whether there was any improvement in power generation, he said, “we are improving, it (power generation) has improved, you can see, I don’t have to tell you.

“We are moving from 3000 megawatts, today we are generating up up to 5000 megawatts or over that, so it is a great improvement”, he said.

The minister said that government was making sure that supply was stable and also working towards ensuring that it upgrades the supply “from say 4000 megawatts to 5000 to 6000 to 7000 megawatts and so on.

“So, the more we replace some obsolete and outdated equipment, the more we improve the supply of electricity.”

Asked whether he agreed with the report that over 70 per cent of Nigerians who have electricity supply have less than 12 hours a day, he said, “It all depends. You know we have graded the supply based on the metering.

“Unless the metres are sufficient, we will not know which and where to push 24 hours supplies because there are some people who are ready for 24 hours and there are those who are not ready for 24 hours supply of light.

“So, we have graded according to that priorities and like we have been saying, I will keep telling Nigerians that this tariff issue, those who are not getting 24 hours are not equally charged like those who are getting 24 hours. So, there is a difference. Until you have a metre, then you’ll know what you consume at the end of the day”, he said.

By Lucas Ajanaku

The Lagos State government yesterday warned telecom operators in the state against illegal digging of land for laying of optic fibre cable (OFC). It urged them to key into the on-going fibre-laying project the state is handling across the 20 local government areas and the local council development areas in the state.

The Commissioner for Science and Technology Mr. Hakeem Popoola Fahm, who gave the warning at the 2021 Ministerial Press Briefing in Alausa, Ikeja, to mark the second anniversary of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s administration, also said under the Lagos State Science Research and Innovation Council (LASRIC), the government has funded over 50 research, innovation and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) projects in the last one year.

Fahm said Lagos implemented a 3,000 km of Fibre Metro Network connection in 2020 and additional 3,000km in 2021 across the state as part of the comprehensive Smart City Programme that Is designed to provide a 24-hour driven economy.

He urged the private sector, especially the telecoms operators to key into the project, plug into the ducts system, “and avoid illegal land digging.”

He warned that the Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA) will monitor that and ensure that fibre project is also done neatly across the state. “Other companies can latch on in order to expand their network,” he said.

Fahm said the implementation of Lagos State Smart City project is to enable governance, connectivity and environmental security, saying that the use of technology would make reporting of security incidents easy to reach, and promote access to major stakeholders in the government

The Commissioner reiterated that the project will also incorporate smart technologies into transport infrastructure surveillance and security, healthcare services, education, government services and making Lagos to be technological development through the provision of affordable internet access, hence it will close the gap between the people and the Government.

Speaking on security that informed the installation of CCTV cameras, the Commissioner said: “Safeguarding Lagos has gone beyond the ordinary. We have built new data rooms, install more cameras and effectively deploy technology in our operations, especially as regards to security and traffic management.”

Fahm said upon completion, the project will advance state economy by becoming a 24/hr driven commercial centre, which would allow companies to operate in a safe, secure and smart environment that would create more jobs and increase gross domestic product (GDP) of the state.

The commissioner described the Lagos Smart-City project as a transformation being achieved through technology in order to enhance the ease doing business, adding that it involved stationing of security cameras around the state.

Fahm explained that the state is using technology to facilitate integrated policies and services that allow access to a range of public services, and also improve standards of living through online service delivery.

He said: “This comes in various forms such as tax submission and registration of businesses, reducing the administrative burden on the public and private sectors and improving transparency. E-governance effectively deployed can have significant impact on poverty reduction and increase the efficiency of public institutions.”

He called on Lagosians to ensure they register for the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA).

Giving more insight into the LASRAA project, the General Manager, Mrs. Ibilola Kasumu, said there is a pre-registration portal, which residents of the states can log in, fill in their details. “However, participants, after submitting their details online, would still need to visit the centres for biometric capturing, among others.”

Kasumu, who informed that the law establishing LASRAA came into effect on June 27, 2011, said about five million Lagos residents have been registered thus far, “but going forward, there will aggressive campaign from now. We have opened 33 centres for registrations with the hope to increase it to 60 soonest.”

Speaking on science students’ innovation and ideas, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Innovation and Technology, Mr. Tunbosun Alake said the state sponsored participation at the 2021 774 Young Nigerian Scientist Presidential Award (774-YONSPA) among Secondary school students.

‘This is to boost interest of students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics [STEM Education] and to encourage and involve young children in bringing up projects and programmes that can resolve challenges in the state such as Infrastructure, environment, waste management, and many others’, he said.

Alake said the second edition of the ‘Art of Technology 2.0, with  ‘Smart Data, Smarter Lagos’ as theme, brought together the best of tech minds from across the globe physically and virtually between December 3 and 4, 2020, with conversation that centred on the fundamental role data plays in connecting the city with its citizens.

He said the state unveiled the Startup Lagos at the conference, which is an initiative meant to empower Lagosians and urged ITpreneurs and others to take advantage of the opportunities the State is offering to help businesses and entrepreneurs.