The animal kingdom is full of wonders, from fascinating survival tricks to behaviors that mirror human intelligence. Behind every creature lies a story of adaptation, mystery, or pure brilliance that can leave us in awe.
Whether it’s an ocean dweller, a forest giant, or a tiny bird, these animals prove just how extraordinary nature can be.
Here are five mind-blowing animal facts you probably didn’t know:
1. Octopus Escape Artists: Octopuses can change colour to blend seamlessly into their surroundings and squeeze through impossibly small spaces, making them masters of escape.
2. Elephant Memory: With memories that span decades, elephants can recognize faces, recall locations, and even hold grudges against those who wronged them.
3. Hummingbird Speed: These tiny marvels flap their wings up to 80 times per second, giving them the rare ability to hover in midair and even fly backward.
4. Crocodile Tears: Crocodiles cry while eating—not out of sadness, but as a way to expel excess salt from their bodies through their tear ducts.
5. Dolphin Names: Dolphins communicate with unique whistles that function like personal names, and they are among the few animals capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors.
Fasola Agribusiness Industrial Hub, the first of the integrated agribusiness industrial hubs that Governor Makinde approved for Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA) to build across the state, is almost completed. It is located on 1,100 hectares of land in Oyo West Local government, along Oyo Iseyin Road.
HISTORY
The hub was originally established in 1946 by the British colonialists because of the vast potential the area has for the agricultural sector, especially livestock and poultry. It was further developed under the old western region dairy farming during the era of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Fasola livestock farm was known all over Nigeria and beyond as a center of excellence for livestock research, breeding, and production.
Through the effort of the leaders during this period the N’Dama, a breed of cattle that has a body resistant to the common cattle disease in Nigeria as at then, called Trypanosomiasis (a cow killer disease transmitted by bites of tsetse flies) was introduced.
The N’Dama cattle were easily adapted to the ranching system at Fasola farm and other subordinate set-up ranches such as Odeda, Oniseere, Iwo Oloba, and Ikorodu. An average N’Dama cattle when slaughtered for commercial use weighs around 500kg, compared to local cattle with the biggest average of 150 to 250kg.
The government then introduced the cattle breed offerings for the consumption of the people of the southwestern states. It was from Grandparent stock to Parent stock and then used to breed commercial stock.
How Fasola farm collapsed
This great initiative however went down the drain during the military regime and was left moribund by successive civilian governments.
With the advent of the military government, the agricultural sector became areas with little attention, Fasola inclusive, the Cattle Ranching was established the livestock center had little or no attention, and the production of commercial stock cattle stopped. Both grandparent and parent stock were needed for government officials’ social occasions, while all the machinery for breeding was carted away.
None of the successive civilian governments showed interest in reviving the Fasola livestock farm. The farm turned from being moribund to becoming forest and thus introduced Fulani herders to southwestern states with an open grazing approach to livestock rearing.
Revived Fasola Farm And The Newly Introduced Livestock Transformation Center
Presently at Fasola Agribusiness iIndustrialHub, private investors have invested heavily in Animal husbandry, like the old Western region project, but with a modern technological drive. The new cattle breed initiative in Fasola Agribusiness Industrial Hub when fully in operation will not only supply cattle for commercial purposes but also produce quality processed milk in large quantities.
Dairy companies such as Friesland Campinna Wamco the producer of Peak and cCrownMilk, E4 Farms and Food Limited, and Milkin Barn Limited are presently breeding thousands of cattle in their various ranches at Fasola livestock transformation center, the goal is to obtain a new generation of cattle that will produce the desired products more efficiently under future farm economic and social circumstances than the present generation of cattle in the region.
A farm dairy manager, a Kenyan who works with Friesland Campinna Wamco spoke with newsmen about the new development at the hub, he stated how the company has been able to import cow semen from Kenya, which is being used to inseminate local cows.
He said that the Fasola farm is a rich farmland which, if put to use optimally, the people of Oyo state and neighboring states do not need to depend on other zones for agricultural produce.
Speaking further, ” he noted that Every breeding cow at Fasola is targeted to produce a maximum of 60 liters per day compared to the production of local cows, which is a maximum of 2 liters for processing and consumption.
“At present, the first generation of cows at Fasola farm has been producing 10 to 15 liters of milk, while, through insemination, the hub[AA(1] is preparing the cows for the second generation where each female cow will be producing up to 20 to 30 liters per day.
“Soon, we will have a situation whereby a cow can produce like 15, 30, even 60 liters per day. Cows of F1, meaning First Generation, can give you up to 10 to 15 liters. If you inseminate with AI, the total you can get is 20 to 25 liters. But if it is the Fourth Generation, you can have about 30 liters per day. You don’t need 30 cows to give you 60 liters but two cows can give you 60 liters.
The hub is also been used as a practical training ground for farmers on modern livestock rearing, artificial insemination, and pasture development for animals. Over 100 local livestock farmers and animal husbandry officers were been trained for free by the consortium group of experts from the Netherlands, the USA, and Brazil, on pasture production, modern artificial insemination, and livestock rearing and management, these will be a continuous program that Fasola livestock transformation center will offer livestock farmers in Oyo state.
Through the state-assigned project, Livestock Productivity and Resilient Support Project(LPRES) supported by the World Bank fund, over 1,000 livestock farmers will be strengthened through the Fasola Livestock Center
During the World Bank and National team of the LPRES that comprised 18 States visit to Fasola, the LPRES WB team leader noted that with what he saw, Oyo State is ahead of the project and has developed a livestock transformation center at Fasola that will change for good the history of livestock in Nigeria, he commended the visionary leadership of the governor of the state in bringing such a facility back to life for the benefit of farmers.
The administration of Governor Seyi Makinde has brought back the old memories of Fasola Farm. The aims and objectives of the state in agribusiness have come to life. The government has transformed the under-utilized and moribund Fasola farm into a modern Agribusiness Hub, creating an enabling environment for agribusinesses to thrive by supporting infrastructure development and policy formulation. All residents of Oyo state should be proud of the rebirth of Awolowo’s Legacy in a modern way.
Denizens of our animal kingdom are of diverse kinds. There are those who suckle in the main on patronage pleasures of powers that be, and now they are thoroughly disconcerted over the fluidity of things. The lion king has been away for some while and it is up in the air when he would be back. And prolonged absence has a way of weakening allegiance in the quicksand of opportunism – didn’t ancient wisdom teach that out of sight was out of mind? Thus they have faltered in the rites of passage at the power Rock. Now they cast anxious glances on the horizon for portents of a vengeful roar by the lion king, who was recently touted to contemplate a lashback from his long hibernation.
You could see through some other denizens in the palace courts groping for which altar is secure to worship at: the altar of defiant loyalty to the absent lion king and outright insouciance to proxy authority, or the altar of concessional allegiance to surrogate power – even if only for this intermission that the lion king is away on hibernation. After all, the lioness lately growled a blatant warning that jackals and hyenas in the kingdom should prepare to be sent packing when the lion king shortly returns. She was construed to be alluding to freebooters angling for vantage foothold in the flurry of intrigues surrounding the throne, amidst lingering uncertainty occasioned by the long absence of the lion king.
But there also denizens far removed from the palace courts, who are simply but thoroughly distressed by the persisting pendency relentlessly imploding our coerced commonwealth at its feeble joints. This pendency, by the day, increasingly attenuates the obliged mutual toleration by co-habitants of the kingdom, which now is erupting into freewheeling hate discourse threatening our collective wellbeing.
The metaphors adapted here were lately served up from the palace courts as the new parlance of our national conversation. We had thought the hotheaded separatist obsessively pursuing the once lost cause of Biafra secession (Nnamdi Kanu) badly fouled up the air when he labelled Nigeria a cannibal zoo. We felt his imagery was way too toxic, and in league with the horrific experience of 1994 Rwandan genocide where majority Hutus were incited to a last push against minority Tutsis who were at the time labelled ‘cockroaches.’ Now we may just as well eat the humble pie and admit our indignation at Kanu was presumptuous. Because in the last few days, we have had the ‘distinguished’ imprimatur of a senator of the Federal Republic to see rabid jackals and hyenas inhabiting this domain of the lion king. And for good measure, we have had the royal seal of the irrepressible lioness of the kingdom to ratchet up threats against those hyenas and jackals in anticipation of touted imminent return of the lion king. Welcome to our animal kingdom!
This is one kingdom where hate speech thrives even in the hallowed corridors of power, never mind that there is a subsisting national advocacy to rein it in for the safety of our commonwealth. And it is moot that the nihilistic streak involved is a universal tendency. Forget now their United States of today under the Donald Trump presidency, there was a time in that country when it seemed that graceful speech in the face of hate speech was one of the lofty attributes of civilised conduct of power. Recall, for instance, that amidst the diatribes which attended the country’s 2016 presidential electioneering, former First Lady Michelle Obama, while on the hustings for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, famously canvassed the ethic: ‘When they go low, we go high.’ You could well say the unstated ethic of national conversation in our own kingdom is: ‘When they go low, we plunge to the nadir!’
To be sure, ours is an animal kingdom, not even an ‘animal farm’ as in the republican allegory of events leading up to the 1917 Russian Revolution and the despotism that followed, which you would find in the all-time classic, Animal Farm, authored by English novelist and critic, George Orwell. Unlike in Orwell’s animal farm where there was a semblance of communal sovereignty, at least until the hegemony of Napoleon crystalised, what we have with us is a kingdom. And like in any typical kingdom, it is the lion king and his power clan of strongmen who hold utter sway over effectively powerless subjects.
Of course, you may have thought, like some of us who have our noses up in the clouds, that this is an electoral democracy, and hence that sovereignty flows from the people who elect the power clan to office to serve them. And you were right, but apparently only theoretically so, going by the recent metaphoric admonitions of the senator and the lioness of the kingdom. The effect of those metaphors is to nudge us to the reality of where sovereignty in the animal kingdom truly lies.
Let’s here call off this sardonic game of stretching the animal kingdom metaphor and cut to the cheese: hate speech abounds in the Nigerian polity – but more distressingly so in recent weeks, even at the highest stratum of power. That development made paltry the plague among ordinary citizens over which there has been an outcry hitherto.
Senator Shehu Sani (Kaduna Central) obviously exercised his literary gifts and right to free speech when he made the July 6 post on his Facebook page about the absent lion king and the scheming by hyenas and jackals in the kingdom owing to that absence. And so did First Lady Aisha Buhari in her rejoinder post on July 10 where she said the hyenas and the jackals would shortly be sent out of the kingdom, as God answered the prayers of the weaker animals. But it should be obvious as well that both personages trafficked in hate speech to the extreme. The imageries used explicitly wedged Nigerians into hostile camps; and the message by First Lady Aisha, in particular, injected more venom rather than relieve the tone of national conversation that had been heavily weighted with negativity in recent weeks. And by the way, was it coincidence or consequence that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo scurried off for an unscheduled visit to President Muhammadu Buhari in London on the heels of the First Lady’s post?
It is trite that, ideally, the privilege of power must come with the consciousness of responsibility for role modeling. Our leaders need to bear this in my in every conversation.
Emerging as the best graduating student in Animal Science at the Department of Animal Production of the University of Technology, Minna (FUTMinna), will henceforth become more competitive. Reason: one of the teachers in the department, Prof Abdulmojeed Tunji Ijaiya, has pledged a N500,000 endowment for whoever clinches the trophy.
The award, which was pledged in honor of Ijaiya’s late mother, Alhaja Amunat Ajala, would take effect from the 2017/2018 academic session.
Ijaiya, a professor of Animal Production, announced the goody while delivering the 46th inaugural lecture of the university at the Caverton lecture theatre in Gidan Kwano.
He described the gesture as part of his contribution towards encouraging the best student in the department for his or her hardwork, while challenging others to aspire higher.
In his lecture entitled: ‘Waste to Wealth: Micro livestock production as a catalyst for food (protein) security,’ Ijaiya stressed the need to have livestock approach to livestock production and involve small livestock producers and expose them to up to date research findings and extension services to enhance micro-livestocks production.
Ijaiya also explained how various cheaper diets can be used in exchanging feeds for livestock without any effect on their performance.
The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, has called on the Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association to intensify vaccines production to curb Avian Influenza and other animal diseases in the country.
He made the call when the association’s executives visited him in his office in Abuja.
Lokpobiri said for the government to achieve a sustainable food security, more funding was required to support commercial vaccine production.
He said: “For us to achieve the objective, we need more funding. If the Veterinary Council of Nigeria and your association intensify efforts in vaccines production, we will be able to control or combat the spread of Avian Influenza and other deadly diseases.”
The minister commended the collaboration between the Veterinary Council and the Veterinary Medical Association, assuring that the ministry would complement their efforts by providing standard abattoirs,cattle grazing and other problems.
He promised to direct the Director, Legal Department in the ministry to work with the association in reviewing relevant laws that would enhance their operations.
Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association President, Dr. Edgar Amos Sunday, who led the delegation, noted that the group had contributed to the development of the agricultural sector, especially in the containment of livestock and zoonotic diseases, curbing of cattle rustling and herdsmen/farmers clashes.
He highlighted the need to review laws hindering veterinary service delivery and livestock development.
“This should aim to repeal obsolete sections and insert new ones to suit contemporary realities,” he added.
The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has estimated the total value of live animal trade between the northern and southern parts of the country to be at between N850-N950 billion yearly.
According to its latest figures, the total value of the Northeast-Lagos cattle trade market alone is estimated at N324 billion yearly. This does not include the North-South East cattle trade or the trade in small ruminants (sheep and goats).
To sustain this volume of trade, NIRSAL yesterday commenced the operational transporation of cattle from Zamfara State to Lagos by rail with the first 15 wagons of 500 cattle that left Gusau, Zamfara State.
The journey will take 48 hours and will see more cattle being transported from the North to the South under more comfortable conditions, the final stop is at Oko-Oba in Lagos.
This initiative is under the National Farm to Market Scheme to enable a low cost and efficient transport link between agricultural producers and consumers across the country.
The scheme is projected to reduce the cost of transporting cattle from the north to the south by over 20 per cent, minimise injury and cattle death in transit and also preserve 100 per cent of their value so that livestock breeders can get good price for their produce at the destination markets.
Under the scheme, NIRSAL, in line with its mandate to de-risk and incentivise investment into verified impactful projects across the agricultural value chain, will provide bank guarantees for the financing of critical requirements involved in the movement of the cattle including logistics and equipment.
Connect Rail Services Ltd, a bulk freight and logistics service provider, is the first technical partner on this aspect of the scheme.
NIRSAL is also making efforts to operationalise other elements of the scheme such as the movement of perishable agric produce such as tomatoes, dairy products and vegetables in refrigerated containers.
NIRSAL Managing Director, Mr. Abdulhameed Aliyu said the event signaled the beginning of the Livestock Transportation Component of NIRSAL Farm to Market Scheme which aims to link livestock breeders in the north to markets in the south in a safe, cost effective and profitable manner using the rail system.
He said: “What we have witnessed today is the culmination of rigorous and consistent effort to demonstrate that agric in Nigeria can be innovative and business oriented. The transportation component launched today is only the first part.”
For poultry and animal production to be viable, they must be research-driven, an expert, Dr Olugbenga Ogunwole has said.
Ogunwole of the Department of Animal Science, University of Ibadan, spoke during a a workshop by the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) in Ibadan.
The poultry sector, he said, is one of the sustainable and decent employers of labour in Nigeria, and has a predictable and high return on investment across the value chain of breeding, production, feeding production and supply chains.
Ogunwole, however, said challenges of the poultry production sector, such as vagaries of weather, poor elasticity of production, high cost of poultry feeds and vaccination, poor production efficiency, sub-standard inputs and activities of quacks parading themselves as professionals, among others, had encumbered the growth of the sector and hence the economy.
On how the sector could boost the economy, especially in hard times, Ogunwole said affordable labour, high demand for eggs, poults and increasing demand for cheaper sources of protein as the population increases and urban dwellers surges were factors energising the poultry industry to contribute to the local production, processing and utilisation of the products.
As the way forward, he suggested a strategy to make the industry competitive – effective linkage with research institutes and new technologies like the one between the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israeli poultry farmers.
Speaking on the theme, ‘Enhancing Nigerian economy through poultry,’Oyo State P oultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) Chairman, Mr Olabanji Akanji, said poultry has great potential for revamping the economy if given the needed attention by stakeholders.
“While we covet and plead for massive government support for the industry, we cannot but keep investing in the industry in our own little way as individuals for all these have effects on the nation’s economy.
Olam International Limited has announced that its grains platform plans to expand into animal feed and related businesses in Nigeria.
According to its Head, Corporate and Government Relations, Ade Adefeko, the expansion involves investments in setting up poultry and fish feed mills as well as hatcheries to produce day-old-chicks. “These investments are consistent with Olam’s strategy to selectively invest in prioritised platforms, which includes the grains platform,” he said.
He further highlighted that “the global animal feed industry is a large and growing part of the agri-commodity complex with attractive returns and a strong growth outlook, particularly in emerging markets’’.
He said after a detailed study of the sector, the company has chosen Nigeria as its preferred entry market as it ranks favourably on the country selection criteria, which include meat consumption per capita, degree of fragmentation, extent of vertical integration and of commercial feed penetration, scalability potential as well as supply and demand factors impacting the feed raw material trade.
On the firm’s focus on the Nigerian market, he said: “In Nigeria, increasing urbanisation and a change in consumer preference towards more protein-rich diets is driving a strong demand for poultry and aquaculture products and the commercial feed market is expected to grow at over 10 per cent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) over the next five years.”
The investment is expected to build on Olam’s existing strengths in origination, which in the words of Adefeko “include extracting raw material cost efficiencies, sharing of port infrastructure, sourcing arbitrage, trading, ocean freight and risk management. The company has deep expertise and execution capabilities in Nigeria where it has been successful in executing cost-competitive projects, both brown field and green field, and operating them at world class efficiency levels. For example, Olam has a profitable and growing wheat milling business.”
Olam will leverage its local procurement network to source a majority of other inputs required for producing poultry and fish feed. This will reduce import dependence, benefit local farming communities and generate youth employment, which are key priorities for the Nigerian economy today.
There is optimism that the investment will also contribute to the development of the Nigerian poultry and aquaculture sectors by providing competitively priced inputs and technical support to local poultry and fish farmers, thereby improving productivity and returns for the sector.
The Federal Government will set up about 200 animal artificial insemination centres across the country, Agriculture and Rural Development Minster Chief Audu Ogbeh has said.
Ogbeh spoke when he received a delegation of officials from Ireland, led by the Minister of Agriculture, Food, Marine and Defence, Mr. Simon Coveney, in his office in Abuja.
Ogbeh, who decried the production or less than one litre of milk daily by cattle in the country, said 37 per cent of children are malnourished, according to the United Nations international Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
He noted that the administration would collaborate with developed countries, particularly, the Irish government to move the agricultural sector forward.
He said various initiatives and technical programmes would be introduced to attract youths into the sector, noting that the sector had hitherto been left to the older generation.
Ogbeh said the ministry would engage in massive irrigation system in the north to grow feeders to feed the cattle and prevent their migration.
He praised the delegation of Irish officials for their visit and their determination to foster better partnership with Nigeria.
He said the nation was ready to partner with the Irish government in capacity building, livestock production as well as expansion of palm oil and sugar industries, among others.
Ogbeh said the ministry would open up further discussions with the delegation to share ideas and knowledge on how to move the agricultural sector forward.
Coveney said the purpose of their visit was to build on the relationship between the two countries to boost trade and investments in agriculture.
He said Ireland is good in food technology and development of indigenous capacity in agriculture.
He said the Irish government was ready to share its 50 years’ experiences in agriculture with Nigeria. He said his country has many youths in the agriculture, adding that this would be replicated in Nigeria.
Coveney said Ireland produces about 40 per cent of infant formula globally.
The Ireland Minister praised the focus of the Buhari administration on the diversification of the economy to agriculture, saying about 43 Irish firms were in the country. He said food firms from Ireland would link up with the country to create jobs, wealth and add value to food production.
He invited officials of the ministry to Ireland for knowledge sharing which would be needed to develop the sector.
A middle-aged nursing mother died yesterday in an accident on the Ibadan-Abeokuta Expressway. Her eight-month old baby survived the incident.
It was gathered that a Toyota Sienna, with registration number Lagos BFG 113 DE, was travelling from Abuja to Abeokuta, Ogun State, when it landed in a ditch.
The deceased was among the seven passengers on board when the accident occurred at Eleso village at 12.15am yesterday.
A stray goat allegedly caused the accident.
The victim, identified as Mrs Jumoke Sodiq, was travelling for the Sallah celebration.
A police officer from the Traffic Section of the Apata Police Station, Ben Onoja, said the vehicle loaded its passengers from Abuja and was headed for Abeokuta, Ogun State.
According to some of the survivors, the driver was speeding when a goat suddenly crossed the road.
“In an attempt to avoid hitting the goat, the driver swerved and skipped off the road.
“The vehicle somersaulted several times before it ended in a ditch. We were shouting, unable to open the doors, until a Good Samaritan broke the windscreen. Many other people joined later to rescue us,” a survivor, Mrs Sadiat said.
An eyewitness, Lanre Amoo, narrated how the baby and her mother were discovered an hour after other passengers were rescued.
He said: “Many of us thought all the passengers have been rescued.
“It was more than one hour later when one of the passengers raised the alarm that there was still one more passenger in the car.
“So, immediately we rushed back into the bush and saw the woman’s leg trapped. We started lifting her out.
“But, we were surprised when her baby suddenly fell from her hand. We took the baby and brought the woman out. She was in a coma when we brought her out.
“There was no one at that hour to take her to the hospital, which is far away. We called the Apata Police Station for help, but the officer, Mr Sunday, said there was no fuel in their vehicle .
“We later discovered that the woman had died. The baby is still with us here; we are making effort to reach her relatives.”
The woman’s remains have been taken to the Adeoyo State Hospital. The baby is still with the police.
