Niger Interior Ministry yesterday said the bodies of 34 refugees, including two Nigerians, have been found in the Niger desert near the Algerian border.
Among them are 20 children,.
The ministry said in Maradi (Niger), that the refugees were abandoned by smugglers as they tried to cross the desert into neighbouring Algeria.
“The bodies were found near the border town of Assamakka.
“Two of the dead were identified as citizens of Niger and Nigeria,” it said.
It said that Niger is considered one of the main transit countries for African refugees headed toward Europe.
“Many refugees travel on to Algeria before attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Italy or Spain.
The ministry said that more than 100,000 people came through Niger on their way to the Mediterranean coast in 2015.
Associates and relations of the Ibadan political godfather, the late Chief Lamidi Adedibu converged on his residence last week for the seventh anniversary of his death.
But, the atmosphere at the expansive residence was a sharp contrast from what it used to be. Seven years after the demise of Adedibu, his disciples have deserted his family.
Those who benefited from his political clout shunned the annual celebrations.
Islamic clerics dominated the entire event. The Chief Imam of Ibadanland, Chief Imam of Ibadan land, Sheikh Abdul-Ganiyy Abubakri Agbotomokekere and other muslim scholars arrived, the late Adedibu’s Molete castle as early as 9a.m to offer a prayer for the diseased and celebrate with his family.
The late Adedibu was a political pillar in Oyo State who mingled with Islamic clerics and politicians. He installed many governors, senators and local government chairmen before his demise in 2008. His political activism for over five decades forced politicians, even the opposition parties, to reckon with him.
While calling on Adedibu’s sons and daughters to emulate the legacy left behind by their father, Agbotomokekere said Adedibu will be remembered for good.
He said Adedibu contributed to human development and ensured that the less privileged were fed in his house.
The cleric added: “Adedibu was able to contribute to human development while he alive. He helped many people, especially the less privileged. What do you want people to say about you when you die? It is left to you and I to decide. We need to do good, so as to be rewarded with good. God will reward us accordingly; therefore we need to do good.”
Speaking on the low turnout, the wife of the deceased, Alhaja Abosede Adedibu, said whatever people sow is what they will reap.
She said: “I thank God. God has always been there for me. I don’t hold grudge against anybody and I am not going to fight anybody because God has been faithful to me. I have not seen them (Adedibu’s political associates) since my husband died, but thank God I am coping. The turn out is not too bad though. As you know, it is the seven years anniversary and people still turned out to join us in the prayer. It shows how important he was while on earth. When we did the five years anniversary, the turnout was impressive, but we still thank God for His faithfulness. We must do the prayer because it is very important for him and we shall continue to do it every year, so that he can sleep well.
“The family is working hard to ensure we immortalise him because he was too important to be forgotten so soon. For successive government not to immortalise him, I want to say whatever you sow, you shall reap. I won’t say more than that.”
The first son of Adedibu, Professor Aderemi Adedibu, said he was happy to be part of the prayer. he urged people to continue to pray for the family.
He tasked the clerics to give all his siblings the prayer points they used to give his father before his demise.
“All of you clerics here present, please continue to pray for the family, most especially the immediate family. I also want to ask you to give us the kind of prayer point you used to give my dad while he was alive.”
Speaking on his political influence, Senator Olufemi Lanlehin said the death of Adedibu was responsible for the political instability in the state.
“We all missed baba. He was a hero; he was a father. He was our political oracle. It is a pity we don’t have him around at this critical time. But, we shall continue to celebrate and pray for him.”
The former Secretary to the People Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, Alhaji Basiru Akanbi, said the death of Adedibu was responsible for the dwindling fortunes of the PDP in the state, Southwest and Nigeria in general.
“Many negative things have happened to the PDP since the demise of Baba Adedibu. Baba was a legend. He was an institution. He was a gift to Oyo State. He was a pride to all of us and his family. He lived a fulfilled life and he died as a martyr.
“He was brave. He was courageous. He was always achieving results. The absence of Baba made PDP to break-up in Oyo State, in Southwest and in Nigeria as a whole. His death has made things fell apart for us. He was intelligent, rich, and nice man. He was a leader,” Akanbi noted.
With over 80 per cent of residents cooking with firewood and the governments doing little to reforest, the Sahara Desert is advancing faster than is healthy for the region. YUSUFU AMINU IDEGU reports
Well, what can we do?
That probably sums up the disposition of the bulk of the northern population who appear to have no choice but to cook with firewood. Many do not quite appreciate the fact that trees are nature’s weapon against ozone depletion and desert encroachment. But state governments are also doing pretty little to educate the people. Nor are the officials mounting a consistent tree-planting campaign to re-grow the forests and restore greenery in the communities.
As a result, the geography of the region continues to change for the worse. The forests are being wiped out.
•Wood as cooking fuel
Most poor communities in the region survive by selling firewood, but they do not plant trees to replace those cut down. Even the trees they chop down are becoming more and more difficult to find. Thus, every morning, they wake up to search for their source of livelihood.
There are several firewood depots in Jos, the Plateau State capital. In some cases, there are stores where the commodity is kept before they are sold to retailers or end-users.
A retailer at Tudun-Wada Ring-Road, Jos, Mary Jato, said, “I’m selling firewood to sustain my family; my husband has no work, so I have to do something to help myself.”
On how they source the firewood, she said:
“People bring it from a distance and sell to us, we are just buyers, we don’t know how they get the firewood but they bring it in trailer-loads and we buy from them and sell. The demand for firewood is very high in Jos because so many families cannot buy kerosene; they depend on firewood to cook their food. So that is why we are selling it.”
A widow popularly called Mama Tabitha who also sells firewood in Tudun Wada, said, “I have no money to do any business; this firewood is the only thing that I can sell and feed myself and my children with it. You can see, I don’t have the power to go to the forest and look for firewood, but there are men who bring the firewood here for us to buy.”
There are other women whose major business is to buy and sell charcoal in Jos. They have their charcoal depots also at several points in the city. There is an identified charcoal market in the city located along Tafawa Balewa Street. It is called ‘Yan Gowayi’ in Hausa, meaning, Charcoal Market. There are such markets in more than five places in Jos and Bukuru, an adjoining community.
The charcoal is a by-product of fresh wood. The fresh wood is cut in pieces, dumped into a large pit, covered with dry grass and set ablaze. In a matter of an hour, the wood turns into charcoal. These charcoal factories are very common in the North, always feeding the retail market.
The charcoal products are transported across the North to designated depots. It is in high demand among the poor who need it to cook their daily meals. One of the sellers in Jos, Mama Abok said, “During the rainy season when kerosene is very scarce, there is a high demand of charcoal. A full bag of charcoal costs between N1,000 and N2,000 depending on the period of the season.”
The suppliers of the product do bring them from Bauchi, Nasarawa and Kaduna states.
As forests in the North continue to deplete, there are no obvious government policies to stop the trend or replace the forest. There is a School of Forestry in Jos where students are trained to grow trees and reforest. They have a demonstrating tree farm along Jos-Saminaka Road. But the graduates of the school hardly get government employment to practice their training, most of them ended up taking another job aside what they were trained for.
A graduate of the school who now teaches there, Bitrus Madugu, said, “The irony about the school is that it is only government that can employ us and use us to build the environment, but they don’t employ us; they left us on our own to look for anything we can do, that is why I found myself a teacher. Some of my colleagues are revenue collectors at the local government. I think government does not take the issue of the environment that seriously.
Speaking further, he said, “If you go to the school campus you will see the kind of forest created by students there; we can create the same forest even in the desert, but it takes a lot of cost, it can be capital intensive maintaining them. If you plant trees and you don’t maintain them they will die in a short period.”
This explains why state ministry of environment in the northern states continued to fail in their efforts to fight desertification in the region. They spent huge fund plating trees each year but the tree so planted does not survive the next planting season due largely to lark of maintenance. The ministry for environment in Plateau State had abandoned the annual tree planting campaign long time ago as it has became a huge conduit pipe for corrupt government officials. They can hardly account for the three they planted five years ago. This made the idea of planting more trees baseless.
There is a continental and a global concern on the speed of desertification in West Africa. Nigeria is under threat of the desert. The most affected part of Nigeria is the Northern region. The consistent speed of desertification in northern Nigeria has robbed half of the region of its original vegetation and changed its geography entirely.
Areas referred to as the ‘Far-North’ comprising Nortwest and Northeast like Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Maiduguri, Jigawa, Yobe, Gombe, Bauchi, Kano and parts of Plateau states and parts of Kaduna State including their various communities have already lost their natural vegetation to the rampaging desertification in the north.
Desertification in Northern Nigeria can be traced to two major factors: Nature and Man-Made. The natural factor is linked to the wave of desertification blowing down northern Nigeria from the Sahel Savanna of West Africa. But the man-made factor has to do with the consumption of the features of the forest by men and women of northern Nigeria. The third factor which has natural and man-made features is that of global warming.
As it appears, both causes of desertification in the North remains uncontrollable and ungovernable to governments and northerners themselves. Government’s claim to have been encouraging afforestation and reforestation over the last 50 year has become a mere talk show. From all indication, there is no evidence of government afforestation program any where in Northern Nigeria. Some proof of afforestation can only be seen at school campuses like Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Maiduguri, etc. Outside the school premises of few schools in the north, the region is largely a semi-desert, with grasses and shrubs. It’s original forest has been consumed.
There is federal owned college in Jos called School of Forestry. It was meant to encourage the practice of forestation. The school has a demonstration farm along Jos-Saminaka road. It is difficult to tell if the school of forestry has any positive impact on the recovering the lost vegetation of the northern region.
The Northerners themselves who consumed their forest appeared careless if their natural vegetation is depleting. They keep exploring it without replacing them. Children of the region are now be told of tales of forest trees majority of which have already gone out of extinction due to handwork of their parents.
Forest, it’s contents and inhabitants are major source of economic power often obtained as main source of livelihood by majority of people of Northern Nigeria. Trees, Games, animal and birds in the forest has not only been consumed directly as raw foods, but has been traded for cash in various ways.
Medical services in public hospitals in Ogun State remained largely in the doldrums as the nationwide strike embarked upon by the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) entered its fourth day yesterday.
But there are indications that the strike may be suspended next week as the Federal Government had indicated the willingness to meet some of the doctors’ four – points demand in a meeting with the striking doctors in Abuja.
The National Secretary of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Dr Adewunmi Alayaki, said though the executive of the doctors’ body, have met with the representatives of the Federal Government on Thursday in Abuja where the government had expressed willingness to meet some of their demand.
Alayaki, however, said that does not in any way suggest that the strike would be called – off soon or not, as the decision to end the strike can only come at an emergency meeting of the NMA’s National Executive Committee (NEC).
The NMA national scribe, who was the immediate past Chairman, Ogun State chapter of the NMA, said the body would meet soon to review the situation – to appraise what the Federal Government is offering visa vis the doctors’ demand, and take a position on whether the strike is worth suspending or not.
At the state hospital, Ijaiye and the Federal Medical Centre, Idi – Aba, Abeokuta, there were no sins of patients, who sources say may have elected to go to private health centres for their medical attention.
At the Ijaye General Hospital, the Out-Patients unit, witnessed empty seats, contrary to the usual crowd of patients it routinely attend to on daily basis before the strike began.
A couple of nurses and midwives in uniforms were sighted at the hospitals attending to the few patients that probably have no choice than to stay back due to unaffordable bills of the private hospitals.
At the State Dental Clinic, Nawar-Ud-Deen, Isabo, there were no patients. Our correspondent observed that two dentists were around in the reception area. They said they were around to attend to patients who were on appointments before the strike began, while new cases would not be accommodated until the industrial action is over.
The Nation gathered that emergency cases may receive treatment, based on what one of them said would be on humanitarian grounds.
CAll it desertification or desert encroachment. It makes no difference. Residents of the Northern states of the country know that they have a major challenge on their hands. They also know that deforestation is playing a major role. They are at the mercy of a fast encroaching desert.
What started very slowly is now spreading faster that imagined as a result of negligence over the years.
Until the recent Great Green Wall Project, government, over the years, had only sung its dangers and paid lip service to checking the menace. There is no serious and committed plans aimed at curbing the trend.
Despite the increasing threat and dangers posed by environmental degradation, indiscriminate felling of trees has thrived unabated and with impunity; especially among firewood sellers; even as the scanty nature of rainfall in the north does not support the endangered lush green vegetation obtained in the southern part of the country.
Gombe, being a boundary state to some of the very hard hit states, is not an exception to desertification which is further hampered by global warming.
Therefore, illegally tree felling ought to be outlawed.
Ironically, in Gombe State, firewood business has become a money spinner for the low-income class with most families living off it.
This boom is evidenced by numerous pick-up vans and articulated vehicles loads of firewood that is a daily spectacle in Gombe metropolis. The business flourishes all year round; especially during the rainy season when demand outweighs supply.
How long this continuous illegal destruction of the forests would continue or stop is a subject of conjecture. Even a member of Gombe Firewood Sellers’ Association (name withheld) who has been in the business for about 40 years said it would be difficult to hazard a guess.
For him, the increasing tree felling thrives in the state mainly because firewood business is flourishing. He does not envisage an end to the trade in the foreseeable future unless an alternative and cheaper source of cooking energy is devised.
“The number of people that rely on firewood as their source of cooking energy, by far out-weigh those using other alternative sources. This explains the heavy dependence on forests which customarily increases with population growth,” he said.
Sources say about 850 pick-up vans of firewood are sold per month within Gombe metropolis. Each load costs between N12, 000 and N13, 000, depending on the quality of the wood. This translates to a staggering collective monthly income of over N 9 million which is quite a huge sum of money.
The people now go for as far as 100 kilometres or more into the forests to fetch firewood, unlike some years ago when they used to source the commodity within just about 40 km from Gombe metropolis.
Baba Garba who has been in the business for over 18 years corroborated this. He added that the availability of stronger vehicles makes the impact of the distance unfelt; adding: “though we must acknowledge depletion of the forests as we have to travel twice more than we used to before fetching firewood these days.”
A former Commissioner for Water Resources, Town Planning and Environment in Gombe State, Mohammad Doho called on the authorities to devise a means of harnessing the abundant sunshine and wind in the country into energy for cooking purposes. He believes that this may be more affordable for low-income earners.
Inuwa Abdullahi, a lawyer and member of the Society for the Restoration of Nature, a non-governmental organisation based in Gombe attributed the continuous deforestation activities in the state to lack of strict enforcement of laws on deforestation, adding that the available ones have never been reviewed to meet contemporary challenges.
He said: “Some of the laws date back to the 1930s. As far as the present society is concerned, they are archaic. If you go to courts today, you will not see any prosecution in respect of deforestation. In fact, as a lawyer, I cannot remember coming across a single case where somebody who fell a tree or trees illegally was prosecuted.”
Sadik Mua’zu, who claims he could not remember when he started firewood trade, said the Firewood Sellers’ Association, cannot be held liable for their daily rape on the surrounding forests because the government failed to protect the environment.
He said they pay revenues to both the local and state governments. They also pay between N100 and N500 to Forest Guards per load of firewood, depending on the size of the vehicle.
He said they are receipted all the payments, except the one at check-points specially set up for firewood conveyors.
Further justifying the legality of the actions, Garba and Mua’zu said members of their association only fetch dead woods. They shifted the allegations of cutting down fresh trees and stocking them in the forests to dry before bringing them into the town to farmers and illegal firewood sellers.
Barrister Innuwa’s NGO only realised the need for tree planting a couple of years ago. They planted a total of 5,000 trees at Dukku, Gombe and Kwami local government areas then.
They equally introduced Nature Restorers Club in some primary schools in Gombe with the aim of inculcating the love of nature in the younger ones so that they would grow into adulthood with environment-friendly disposition.
Just recently, Gombe State Governor, Dr. Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo announced the allocation of N9, 100,000 to the 40 sub-sectors in the 2014 budget, with a promise to aggressively “pursue the policy of cut-one-tree-and-plant-one tree.”
This is to reinforce the state’s commitment to key into the Great Green Wall Project of the Federal Government as a way of addressing desert encroachment.
“Considering that the general public relies on firewood for cooking, a strong campaign will also be undertaken to encourage the establishment of woodlots, raising of seedlings and making them available to the public,” he added.
WHEN you think about the desert, the image that readily comes to mind is a state of emptiness. In a love desert you would be thinking of a lost love and trying to fill in the gaps in your own way. It is at this stage that the one at the centre of an emotional storm becomes a wanderer. No matter how hard you try, it may just be difficult to get your bearing.
Even when it seems like you have gotten a substitute, you just can’t let go and your mind just keeps wandering and wandering. But you can move on when you forget the negatives and build on the positive emotions that you had in the past. Here you can scroll down memory lane recalling the sweet memories you encountered here and there to get the emotional peace that you deserve. Dreaming about it would certainly lift your spirit, taking you close to the fairy tale stories that you have heard about. Still in doubt? No need to do that to yourself. Relax and cross over a bountiful emotional harvest. The type that happens once in a while and one that brings lots of happiness. Here you would find trees and shrubs of affection growing and churning out love branches that inspire and affect others. From the trees you reap fruits that fill the hearts with tears of joy.
Alternatively, you may find yourself stranded in an emotional desert. Here all you are bound to be feeling is a state of hopelessness, helplessness and rejection. But the big question is what where you hoping to get in this emotional Sahara in the first place. It is obvious that the emotional cargo that you have decided to pitch your tent with is as stranded as you are. No matter how hard you try, you guys aren’t going to go far.
The one you desperately try to cruise with it has little or nothing to offer, and this state of dryness isn’t going to do you or anyone any good. To get a better experience, it is better for you to move out of the desert to locate someone who would provide emotional sunshine as well as take you to the next level.
In Coleridge’s Poem, “The Rime of the ancient Mariner”, the Wandering Albatross is actually referred to as ‘bird with good omen’. Here we are also told about the metaphor of ‘an albatross’ around his neck, indicating an unwanted burden causing anxiety or hindrance.
Interestingly, in the days when sailing was popular, the bird often accompanied ships for days, not merely following it but wheeling in wide circles around it without ever being observed to land on the water. It continued its flight, apparently not tired, in temptuous as well as modest weather. It is one of the largest birds in the world with the largest wingspan measuring up to about 3.5 metres. From the records, you would also find that the bird is one of the best studied species of bird in the world. The distance travelled each year is hard to measure but one banded bird was recovered travelling about 6000 km in twelve days. They spent most of their life on the wing returning to land only to court a mate and to breed.
The behaviour of the bird is also very interesting, having a range of displays from screams, whistles, grunts and bill clapping. When courting, they actually spread their wings, wave their heads as well as rap their bills together.
Interestingly, these birds’ bones from its wings are used to produce needles; tobacco pipe stems fishhooks and flutes that would ultimately churn out romantic lyrics and songs.
Of course, you would agree with yours truly that there are a number of romantic connections with this type of bird. However, if this bird is taken away to a lonely desert, so many things would happen. First it is going to lose its clear white colour at adulthood. Life without emotional water can be a nightmare and of course, life in the desert is going to be very lonely.
Instead of languishing in the desert, it is better to take emotional flight with a great pal. On the other hand, when you want to take a flight, it is better to seek emotional refuge in a love garden. Here there would be a variety of fruits to choose from and you would certainly get something you desire.
Conversely if you are in an emotional desert, all you would find are dry bones. Nothing good is ever going to come out of this kind of relationship because the environment is stiff and the dust of confusion won’t take you far. You would definitely be far from your low height and all the lullabies that you are used to won’t sound nice in this environment. To make headway, this lovebird must move out of this environment to a better environment to look and feel good.
