Category: Nigerian Tribune

The Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and other development and research institutions, has commenced a five-day national training workshop aimed at strengthening agricultural extension services and accelerating the adoption of improved technologies among Nigerian farmers.

The workshop, holding from September 7 to 11, 2026, in Dutse, Jigawa State, has brought together 100 extension master-trainers and subject-matter specialists from Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states.

Organised under the theme, ‘Empowering Extension to Scale Agricultural Innovations,’ the programme is supported by the CGIAR Scaling for Impact Programme, Jigawa Agricultural Transformation Agency (JATA), National Agricultural Growth Scheme-Agro-Pocket (NAGS-AP) Secretariat and research institutions.

The initiative is designed around a cascade training model, through which the 100 master-trainers will train frontline extension personnel and farmer organisations, with the ultimate target of reaching at least 500,000 farmers.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, JATA Director-General, Dr Saifullahi Umar, said Nigeria had numerous agricultural technologies but faced a major challenge in effectively transferring them from research institutions to farmers.

He said the country’s extension-to-farmer ratio was commonly estimated at between one extension worker to 5,000 and 10,000 farmers, adding that inadequate funding, logistics, technical capacity and digital platforms had further weakened service delivery.

According to him, the gaps contribute to late planting, inappropriate input use, crop losses, low productivity and reduced farmer incomes.

Umar said the training must go beyond classroom learning, stressing that its success would ultimately be measured by changes in farming practices, productivity, resilience and livelihoods.

He disclosed that Jigawa State had recruited and trained 1,700 extension personnel and equipped them with motorcycles to improve their mobility and reach farming communities.

The state, he added, was also establishing Agricultural Development and Farm Service Centres, while its farm mechanisation company had a fleet of 400 tractors, alongside harvesters, sprayers and other equipment.

He further said Jigawa was rehabilitating dams and deploying 6,000 solar-powered irrigation systems to expand dry-season farming.

Representing the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, the National Coordinator of NAGS-AP, Mr Ishaku Buba, said Nigeria received a $134 million loan under the African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF), implemented through NAGS-AP.

He said NAGS-AP uses ICT to distribute subsidised agricultural inputs to registered smallholder farmers cultivating crops including wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, millet, soybean and cassava.

Buba disclosed that 647,500 farmers had been registered on the NAGS-AP platform across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory since the 2023/2024 dry season, while 622,818 farmers had received subsidised input packages.

He added that 1,269 redemption centres and 641 agro-dealers had been engaged nationwide.

The workshop will cover climate-smart agriculture, soil health, improved seed systems, pest and disease management, digital agriculture, market linkages, agricultural finance and farmer-centred extension approaches.

TAAT Head of the Clearinghouse, Dr Solomon Gizaw, said investing in extension professionals was essential to translating agricultural research and technologies into practical benefits for farming communities.

He described the Dutse training as the first step in a broader capacity-building process designed to create a multiplier effect across Nigeria’s extension system.

The organisers said the programme would culminate in action plans, institutional commitments and mechanisms for monitoring the impact of the training on farmers.

The seven governorship candidates of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Nigeria’s Northwest have signed a regional development compact aimed at tackling insecurity, poverty, food insecurity, unemployment and weak human development through coordinated action across the seven states.

The Northwest ADC Governorship Candidates’ Compact 2027-2031 was adopted and signed on Wednesday by the party’s governorship candidates, including Sabo Mohammed Nakudu (Jigawa), Isa Mohammed Ashiru (Kaduna), Ibrahim Ali Amin (Kano), Ahmad Babba Kaita (Katsina), Abubakar Malami SAN (Kebbi), Manir Muhammad Dan’iya (Sokoto) and Bilyaminu Shinkafi (Zamfara).

As a commitment to the pursuit of these ideals, the governorship candidates announced the establishment of a Central Coordination Committee chaired by Rt Hon Abdussamad Dasuki;

Technical Committee chaired by Maj Gen Aminu Bande (rtd) and co-chaired by Prof. Sadiq Abubakar; and Media and Strategic Communications Committee co-chaired by Salihu Tanko Yakasai.

The document sets out a common governance framework for the candidates if elected in the 2027 elections, with commitments covering security, agriculture, education, healthcare, youth employment, infrastructure, trade, industrialisation and public accountability.

The candidates said the initiative was based on the recognition that many of the region’s most serious problems do not stop at state boundaries and therefore require coordinated solutions.

‘Seven states. One regional purpose. Governing together where together works better,’ the candidates said in the Compact.

The proposed arrangement would not replace the constitutional responsibilities of individual states. Rather, each state would retain responsibility for its budgets, procurement, civil service, education, healthcare, agriculture, land administration, internally generated revenue and infrastructure within its boundaries, while the governors would collaborate on issues where joint action could produce better results.

The Compact comes against the backdrop of a prolonged security and humanitarian crisis affecting communities across the Northwest.

The document cites more than 16,000 fatalities recorded between June 2023 and August 2026 and 1,583 kidnapping events across the region since January 2023, involving more than 10,000 reported abductees.

It also points to widespread displacement and the abandonment of productive agricultural land in parts of the region, including about 533,000 hectares reported abandoned in Zamfara and Katsina.

The candidates argue that insecurity has become closely linked to other economic and social problems, creating a cycle in which unsafe communities lead to abandoned farms, reduced food production, higher food prices, school disruption and increased vulnerability among young people.

The Compact summarises the cycle as: insecurity, empty farms, hunger, children out of school, recruitable youth and insecurity.

‘One crisis deepens every other. A regional problem demands a regional response,’ the candidates said.

The document also raises questions about the relationship between public spending and citizens’ living conditions.

It estimates that the seven Northwest states and their 186 local government areas received approximately N8.33 trillion in FAAC allocations between June 2023 and August 2026, excluding other Federal Government interventions and special transfers.

The candidates sharply criticised the performance of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led administrations currently governing the seven Northwest states.

They accused the administrations of presiding over what they described as massive and unprecedented looting of public resources, alleging that the region had little to show for the funds entrusted to its governments.

The candidates said the alleged failure was visible in the condition of public infrastructure, the security situation and the living standards of ordinary citizens.

‘The level of looting witnessed across the Northwest under the current administrations is massive and unprecedented in the region,’ the candidates said.

They further alleged that the APC-led governments had ‘little or nothing to show for their stewardship, neither in the lives of our people, physical infrastructure nor the security of lives and property.’

According to the candidates, the region’s worsening economic conditions stood in sharp contrast to what they described as the conspicuous affluence of some serving governors.

They accused current governors of spending public resources on new government houses, exotic vehicles and private-jet travel while large sections of the population struggle with poverty.

The ADC candidates said their Compact was intended to establish a different standard of public leadership.

The candidates said public resources must translate into measurable improvements in household welfare.

‘The question is no longer simply what government receives. The question is what citizens can see, access and afford as a result,’ they said.

Security is the first major pillar of the Compact, with the candidates proposing the establishment of 21 command-and-control centres, one in every senatorial district across the seven states, linked to state security structures and a proposed Northwest Regional Security Coordination Centre.

The proposed architecture would combine lawful aerial surveillance, drone-enabled vigilance, community intelligence, emergency reporting and geospatial information to improve early warning and response.

The candidates have also proposed a three-minute rapid-response activation standard for verified security alerts.

Under the plan, security information would move through a sequence of surveillance, early warning, verification, command and control and rapid response.

The candidates also propose protected agricultural corridors, where security arrangements would be coordinated with the return of farmers to high-risk production areas.

They said the ultimate objective was to restore normal economic activity rather than treat security as an isolated issue.

Security must mean more than military operations. It must mean that a farmer can reach his field, a trader can travel safely, a child can get to school and a family can live without fear, the candidates said.

Under its household protection, another element of the proposed programme, the candidates pledged to implement a N110,000 minimum wage for government workers across the seven states and said economic reforms would be accompanied by measures aimed at cushioning vulnerable households.

Under their five systems that guarantee prosperity, they listed Agriculture and Food, Education and Human Capital, Health Security, infrastructure and Integration, Youth, Enterprise and Jobs.

On infrastructure and integration, the candidates pledged to prioritise regional infrastructure (roads, rail network), independent power generation, solar power for public facilities, water systems, digital backbone and the border and logistics infrastructure which trade depends on. In the area of health security, they promised to ensure full access to the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), revitalize primary health care centers, expand midwives, telemedicine and community health insurance deployment, and establish one specialist hospital in each senatorial district (21 region wide)

On Youth, Enterprise and Jobs, the candidates pledged to coordinate access to a Regional Youth Fund, prioritize Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), establish digital hubs, formalize MSME and facilitate access to development finance. The seven governorship candidates also promised to declare emergency on education, secure full UBEC access, integrate Almajiri and Tsangaya children into formal schools, support girls’ school attendance, and build a credible system for teacher recruitment, continuous training and mopping up out-of-school children.

For Agriculture and Food, they promised to ensure more land is safely farmed, strengthening of food security through protected agricultural corridors, formalised livestock production, agro-processing, a regional grain reserve and irrigation rehabilitation.

The candidates also called for the release of formernKadina State Governor, am Mallam Nasiru El Rufai.

Poor adherence to blood pressure medication may significantly reduce its ability to prevent heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular complications, a major analysis of clinical trial data has found.

The study, involving 91,339 patients across nine randomised trials, found that people who consistently took their antihypertensive drugs had greater reductions in blood pressure and cardiovascular events than those who missed doses.

The findings are particularly important as an estimated 1.4 billion adults aged 30 to 79 worldwide live with hypertension, while about half of patients do not take their medication as prescribed.

Presenting the findings, Qianqian Yang of the University of Oxford, UK, said the analysis provided stronger evidence of the consequences of poor adherence than previous observational studies.

Researchers classified patients who took at least 80 per cent of their prescribed treatment as having high adherence, while those taking less than 80 per cent were considered to have low adherence.

Among patients with high adherence, systolic blood pressure fell by 5.2 mmHg in those receiving the antihypertensive intervention, compared with the comparator group.

For patients with low adherence, the reduction was just 3.0 mmHg.

Adherence also declined with time, even under the controlled conditions of clinical trials. The proportion of patients with high adherence dropped from 88 per cent in the first year to 79 per cent by the fifth year.

The researchers also examined major cardiovascular disease, including stroke, myocardial infarction, ischaemic heart disease and heart failure resulting in death or hospitalisation.

They found an 11 per cent reduction in major cardiovascular disease among patients with high adherence who received the intervention.

However, no significant cardiovascular benefit was seen among those with low adherence.

Yang said the findings reinforced a basic principle of treatment: medicines cannot provide their full benefits when patients do not take them as prescribed.

The researchers urged healthcare providers to make medication adherence a routine part of hypertension care and to identify barriers that prevent patients from taking their drugs regularly.

They recommended simplifying treatment regimens, using single-pill combinations to reduce medication burden and considering longer-acting medicines where appropriate.

Professor Felix Mahfoud, Chair of the European Society of Cardiology Communication Committee, said non-adherence had long been overlooked as a cause of uncontrolled hypertension.

He urged healthcare professionals to have open, non-judgemental conversations with patients about difficulties they may face in taking their medication, stressing that better adherence could help patients benefit fully from life-saving treatment.

Running an online brand requires fast responses. The digital space has definitely come to stay, prospects expect instant answers the moment they reach out to your social media pages. If you keep potential buyers waiting for hours, they simply scroll past to your competitor.

Businesses using automated messaging flows see direct response rates that can reach up to 80 percent, far outpacing traditional email marketing. Setting up an instant direct message system ensures you welcome new followers and capture fresh leads immediately without sitting glued to your phone.

In this article, Tribune Online examines the essential, step-by-step methods you need to set up automated instant DMs and convert regular followers into active customers worldwide.

Switch your profile to a professional business account

The native personal profile on platforms like Instagram does not support third-party software integration or automated greeting systems.

You must open your app settings, navigate to the account options, and switch your page to a professional business or creator account.

This switch is entirely free and unlocks Meta’s advanced business tools. It allows external customer service tools to read incoming trigger words and initiate instant responses legally without violating platform safety policies.

Connect your account to Meta Business Suite

Meta controls both Facebook and Instagram messaging ecosystems from a single desktop dashboard called Meta Business Suite. You need to log into the suite on your computer browser and link your Facebook Page with your Instagram handle.

Once linked, open the inbox tab and click on the automations menu.Here, you can toggle on instant replies that welcome any user the very first time they drop a direct message in your inbox, ensuring immediate lead capture even when your team is offline.

Integrate an approved third-party automation platform

While native tools handle basic welcome notes, advanced automation requires a Meta-approved marketing tool such as ManyChat.

Create an account on the platform and grant it permission to access your connected business profiles.Using verified software ensures your account remains safe from automated bot penalties.

These platforms let you build smart conversational trees that ask for phone numbers, deliver downloadable files, or qualify potential buyers automatically.

Set your message triggers and build conversational flows

Decide what action should trigger an automated reply. You can configure your tool to fire an instant message whenever a follower leaves a specific keyword under your post comments, sends a direct message, or replies to your live story.

Draft a friendly, conversational message that provides direct value. Keep the language natural by greeting the user by name, answering their primary inquiry, and offering a clear next step, such as visiting your website catalog or providing an email address for a discount code.

Test your automation and monitor inbox performance

Before announcing your new automated campaign to the public, use a secondary personal account to test your triggers. Send the target keyword directly to your business page and confirm that the automated response arrives within five seconds.

Review your messaging performance metrics weekly inside your dashboard. Adjust the wording whenever you notice drop-offs, ensuring your automated messages remain warm, helpful, and focused on driving sales conversions.

Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has condemned the blockade of the convoy of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, by youths in Benue.

Keyamo said the incident, regardless of the circumstances surrounding it, was unacceptable in a democratic society and that every political candidate should be allowed to move freely and campaign without intimidation.

Obi was in Benue on Tuesday as part of his activities ahead of the 2027 presidential election. He was also scheduled to visit Yelewata to sympathise with victims of the June 2025 attacks in the community.

However, his convoy reportedly encountered a roadblock mounted by youths on the Makurdi-Gboko federal highway, a few metres from the airport.

The development reportedly caused traffic congestion as the youths occupied the highway and prevented movement along the road.

Speaking after the incident, Obi appealed to security agencies to intervene and ensure that political actors could move freely across the country.

He said his convoy was blocked by individuals shouting, ‘Peter Obi go back,’ while on its way to Yelewata.

Obi said, ‘It is ridiculous. Our experience this morning is very, very worrisome. We arrived Makurdi at 9 AM, but on our way to the Yelewata community, to console and show solidarity with the family affected by the killings of over 270 persons in that community, and support them in any way I can, only to be blocked by thugs shouting, ‘Peter Obi go back! Peter Obi go back!’

‘And I was wondering: are we still in Nigeria? Because, even with the campaign I have started, I should be able to move around freely. But we didn’t want to go on and cause confusion and possibly endanger the lives of other people, so I decided to remain as civil as possible.

‘I am using this occasion to appeal to the security agencies, the IG of police, and other agencies, to please intervene and be able to call various state governors to order. I was a state governor myself. This rascality cannot be allowed.

‘We cannot go on this way. This is unacceptable.’

Reacting in a post on his official X handle, Keyamo said the circumstances behind the protest should not determine whether the incident was condemned.

He said, ‘Whether the protest was as a result of internal squabbles within the NDC (as posited by the Benue State Government) or sponsored by the APC or any other rival party, this should not be part of our democracy.

‘Some have also accused Obi of attempting to whip up fresh emotions by attempting to visit Yelwata, where the unfortunate killings happened more than a year ago, just for political reasons, hence the blockade.

‘That is still not acceptable; everyone should be allowed to move about freely and play their politics without such crude interference.’

The minister, however, used the incident to criticise what he described as partisan reporting of political confrontations involving candidates of different parties.

According to him, incidents involving APC candidates are sometimes portrayed as evidence of public rejection, while similar incidents involving opposition politicians are described as attacks by sponsored thugs or hoodlums.

‘Just check most headlines today. This is what is unacceptable,’ Keyamo said, urging the media to maintain fairness and neutrality in its coverage of political activities.

He added that politicians and their supporters should express their preferences through the ballot rather than violence.

‘The Press must extricate itself from such partisanship and be fair to all. Whoever is angry at any candidate of any political party should display the anger with the ballot paper on voting day by a simple thumbprint, not by violent acts during campaigns,’ he said.

Football stadiums remain at the heart of the game, providing the stage for players and fans during matches across the world.

From small community grounds to massive arenas, these stadiums create the atmosphere that makes football one of the most followed sports globally.

Although building and maintaining stadiums requires huge financial investment, several countries have continued to develop football infrastructure because of the sport’s popularity.

The widespread support for football in these nations has led to the construction of hundreds of stadiums dedicated to the game.

Sporting Tribune outlines five countries with the most football stadiums.

A research team of Nigerian scholars based at the University of Greater Manchester has been honoured at the 2026 International Conference on Cybersecurity, Digital Forensics and AI Applications (ICCSDFAI), held from 25 to 27 June 2026 at Istinye University’s Vadi Campus in Istanbul, Trkiye.

The team took Third Place in the Best Paper Awards for their study, ‘Evaluating Artificial Intelligence for Predicting and Interpreting Molecular Toxicity from Chemical Structures to Enhance Early Drug Screening.’

The award-winning authors are Daniel Ndifreke Samuel, Professor Celestine Iwendi, Ogunlola John Olalere, Adedeji Edward Adesola, Afeez Oluwaseun Akande and Blessing Alice Alao-Olatunji, all of the Research and Doctoral College, University of Greater Manchester, Bolton.

Teaching machines to spot a dangerous molecule

The winning paper tackles one of the most expensive problems in medicine: drugs that fail late in development because of unexpected toxicity. By the time a compound reaches clinical trials, years of work and enormous sums have already been committed and safety failures at that stage account for a significant share of losses across the pharmaceutical industry.

The team’s approach was to move that safety check to the very beginning of the pipeline, using artificial intelligence to read a molecule’s chemical structure and estimate its risk before a single laboratory experiment is run.

Working with the publicly available Tox21 dataset, specifically its nuclear receptor androgen receptor (NR-AR) endpoint, covering 1,488 compounds, the researchers converted each molecule into a digital ‘fingerprint’ capturing its structural building blocks, then trained a Random Forest classifier to distinguish toxic from non-toxic compounds.

The model achieved 96 per cent overall accuracy and a ROC-AUC of 0.7666, meaning that when presented with a toxic and a non-toxic compound at random, it correctly ranks the toxic one higher roughly 77 per cent of the time. It proved especially reliable at confidently identifying safe compounds, with precision and recall of 0.98 for the non-toxic class.

Crucially, the team went beyond prediction to interpretation. Rather than delivering a verdict from a black box, their system ranks which molecular substructures drove each decision pointing chemists towards the specific fragments associated with toxic behaviour. That transparency, the authors argue, is what makes such tools usable by regulators and medicinal chemists rather than merely impressive on paper.

The researchers were also candid about the model’s limits. Because toxic compounds are rare in the dataset, the system detects them less reliably than it rules out safe ones, which is a well-documented challenge in toxicology data.

A seasoned hand and a rising generation

The paper brings together early-career researchers and an established voice in the field. Professor Celestine Iwendi, a widely published academic in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity and a senior figure at the Research and Doctoral College, University of Greater Manchester, has mentored a growing cohort of Nigerian and international doctoral researchers in the United Kingdom.

The paper has now been published in the conference proceedings and is available in IEEE Xplore, the digital library of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which indexes the research of engineers and computer scientists worldwide. The study can be accessed at DOI: 10.1109/ICCSDFAI70505.2026.11648038.

A point of national pride

Speaking on the achievement, the team described the award as a testament to what Nigerian researchers can build together and said they hoped the recognition would encourage more young Nigerians into artificial intelligence and the health sciences, fields where the country’s own needs are pressing.

The recognition adds to a growing record of Nigerian scholars contributing at the highest levels of international AI research, at the intersection of machine learning and drug safety.

The European Union (EU) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have invested pound 108 million through the Boost Africa initiative to support entrepreneurs across Africa, leveraging the funding to attract an additional pound 400 million and create up to 15,000 jobs.

EU Ambassador to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja at a media briefing on the Boost Africa Impact Forum, themed, ‘Investing in Africa’s Next Generation of Entrepreneurs: From Investment to Impact.’

Mignot said the initiative reflected the EU’s long-term partnership with Africa under its Global Gateway strategy, which seeks to promote sustainable growth, leverage private investment, create jobs and strengthen local value chains.

He said the EU was working with its member states and development banks as ‘Team Europe’ to develop quality partnerships capable of generating sustainable economic opportunities, particularly for young people.

According to him, the significance of Boost Africa goes beyond the amount of money invested, as its ultimate objective is to create tangible improvements in the lives of people through entrepreneurship, innovation and job creation.

He said, ‘What matters most is the impact on people. And today’s event is precisely about more than investment figures: it’s about people, it’s about entrepreneurs, it’s about innovation, it’s about jobs and opportunities created when Africa’s talent is matched with the right partners and the right financing.’

Mignot described Africa’s young entrepreneurs as among the continent’s greatest assets, saying their ideas could transform economies, strengthen communities and create sustainable prosperity.

He said Boost Africa demonstrated how collaboration among the EU, EIB, African Development Bank, venture capital partners and African entrepreneurs could produce measurable results.

‘Nigeria is one of Africa’s most dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems, and we believe that supporting innovation and enterprise is essential for sustainable economic growth and job creation. So this is really the core of our partnership in Nigeria,’ he said.

The ambassador, however, urged stakeholders to look beyond the achievements recorded under Boost Africa and focus on expanding opportunities for the next generation of African entrepreneurs.

He noted that the EIB had recently launched several operations in Nigeria aimed at continuing support for entrepreneurs across the country.

Also speaking, EIB Country Relationship Manager for Nigeria, Moussa Nkoulima, said Boost Africa was not simply an investment in entrepreneurs but an investment in the entire ecosystem surrounding them.

Nkoulima said Africa had a large pool of young and talented entrepreneurs developing solutions in sectors including financial services, healthcare, the digital economy and renewable energy, but many were constrained by lack of capital, particularly at the earliest and riskiest stages of business development.

He said this financing gap was the reason Boost Africa was launched in 2016 by the EIB and African Development Bank, with support from the EU and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS).

‘If we can provide African entrepreneurs with capital, if we can provide them with expertise, with knowledge, and if we can provide them with a stronger investment ecosystem, then we can build competitive African businesses, we can help create jobs, and we can solve real development problems,’ Nkoulima said.

He explained that Boost Africa did not operate like a conventional commercial bank that provides direct loans to companies, but instead invested through venture capital funds and other financial intermediaries that identify and finance startups and micro, small and medium enterprises at early stages.

According to him, the EIB had worked with six venture capital funds under the initiative, an approach he said was designed to help develop a sustainable African venture capital market.

He described Boost Africa as a ‘smart combination of capital and capacity’, built around three major pillars: investment capital, technical assistance and ecosystem development.

Nkoulima said technical assistance was particularly important because entrepreneurs and fund managers required support in areas such as accounting, market analysis and legal structuring, while ecosystem development involved incubators, accelerators, networks, knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer.

He said the initiative had invested pound 108 million over the past decade, helping to attract an additional pound 400 million from other investors.

‘For every single euro that was invested through Boost Africa, we were able to attract additional three euros through different investors, and that catalytic effect, that leverage effect, alone is one of the most important aspects of the programme,’ he said.

Nkoulima said Boost Africa deliberately targeted the early and riskiest stages of business development where conventional financing institutions were often reluctant to provide funds.

He added that the initiative was not designed to replace private investors, but to take sufficient risks at the appropriate stage to encourage private capital to participate.

He cited Nigerian company, TradeDepot, as an example of businesses supported under the programme, noting that its technology platform had connected up to 40,000 retailers in Nigeria with their suppliers.

He said Nigeria represented an important market for Boost Africa because of its large and youthful population, vibrant startup ecosystem and strong entrepreneurial talent.

‘Many of those business entrepreneurs lack access to solid capital and early-stage capital. And in fact, at the EIB, we found that among the very first beneficiaries of the Boost Africa programme, many of them were headquartered in Nigeria,’ Nkoulima said.

He stressed that the broader objective was to help African businesses scale beyond their countries of origin and become Pan-African companies.

‘When an entrepreneur in Lagos develops a solution that can be subsequently operating in Ghana, in Côte d’Ivoire, in South Africa, in Kenya, we are beginning to see the real creation, value creation, creation of genuine Pan-African champions,’ he said.

Investment Director at Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund (CAIF), Lavanya Anand, said the pound 110 million venture capital fund, established in 2019, had invested in 15 Series A technology companies across Africa.

She said EIB was one of the fund’s anchor investors, while Boost Africa provided up to pound 1 million in technical assistance to support specific projects involving portfolio companies and the investment team.

Anand said the fund had supported companies operating in sectors ranging from healthcare and financial services to logistics and e-commerce.

She highlighted three beneficiaries of the technical assistance: Turaco, a micro-insurance technology company; GoMyCode, an edtech company; and OZE, an SME credit-scoring technology company.

According to her, Turaco had insured more than two million previously uninsured people across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Zambia, while Boost Africa support enabled leadership coaching for its chief executive officer.

She said GoMyCode received support for customer relationship management optimisation and talent management, while OZE received assistance in developing its bank partnership strategy, which helped it establish partnerships with financial institutions including Ecobank.

Anand said the fund’s impact extended beyond financial returns, with its portfolio creating 7,600 direct jobs and 272,000 indirect jobs, reaching more than 46 million people with improved financial services, training over 13,000 students and contributing to more than 3,000 lives saved.

Also speaking, Chief Strategy Officer of Beacon Power Services (BPS), Christine Adejorooluwa, said investment and technical support from the Boost Africa ecosystem had helped the energy technology company expand from working with one utility to having a presence in 12 utilities across seven African countries.

She said BPS developed technology that enables power utilities to improve visibility of their networks and data, helping them reduce outages, energy losses and revenue leakages.

Adejorooluwa said Seedstars Africa Ventures, a beneficiary of Boost Africa, invested in BPS at a critical stage when the company was transitioning from proving that its technology worked to scaling its operations.

She said the company subsequently received technical assistance in board governance, business development and public relations.

‘We recruited our Chief Commercial Officer through that engagement with Boost Africa. So, I think it’s worth highlighting because technical assistance sometimes sounds quite abstract, but in our case, it has translated to a very real and tangible capability that exists on our leadership team today,’ she said.

Adejorooluwa said Seedstars also provided strategic introductions to potential clients, partners and government stakeholders, helping BPS navigate new markets.

She said BPS had subsequently expanded across seven African countries, while an independent study commissioned through Boost Africa found that its intervention at one utility prevented approximately 78,000 megawatt-hours of lost load.

At another utility, she said, BPS had contributed to a $191 million increase in revenue through measures including identifying new customers and reducing outage hours.

‘For me, that is what investment to impact really looks like,’ Adejorooluwa said, adding that the impact of the investment went beyond BPS to utilities, households and businesses that depended on more reliable electricity.

She expressed appreciation to Seedstars, Boost Africa, the EU and EIB for their support, saying the combination of capital, technical assistance, governance support and access to networks had been critical to the company’s growth.

GRACE has several meanings, but theologically, it could be described as the free, undeserved or unmerited favour from the Almighty God. One gets the grace of God not essentially because he or she has done something extraordinary for Him – God, in His infinite mercy and love,bestows His grace on whoever He pleases. His grace always occurs serendipitously and is always amazing!

On this 2021 music video entitled ‘Grace’, produced by Sunny Pee and directed by Mj, Chuks Ukor says, ‘Grace is the advantage given to you in Christ, which is not based on merit or qualification. It’s a gift to empower you to accomplish the extraordinary and become what God has destined you to be’. Chuks Ukor is an energetic gospel singer, who has three musical albums to his credit – My Testimony, Praise Uninhibited and Sound of Praise.

The single song contained therein in this video is a sequel to his last single entitled ‘Halleluyah’, which was released in 2020. Like many other known gospel singers, Chuks is fond of winning souls for Christ through rural evangelism.

The lyric and performance music video of ‘Grace’ is divided into three interrelated sequences. The first sequence of the video, which is the longest, opens softly and develops in strength to an interesting vamp from the lead keyboardist. The second keyboardist and two guitarists concurrently follow the tune of the vamp with their instruments.

The vamp is accompanied by a sweet melody from a drum-set player at the background. Chuks Ukor as the lead vocalist, having gesticulated to control the pace of the tune, breaks into a vocal line intro that goes thus: ‘It’s all about your Grace/Thank you Jesus/Come on everybody, let’s do this together/This is my testimony’. After the intro, the five other vocalists, two females and three males, breaks into two choruses.

The first chorus goes thus: See what you have done/How you set me free/How you rescued me. The lead vocalist quickly interjects with ‘My life is blessed’, before the second chorus rents the air: My life is blessed/No more pains/I have been redeemed. From there, other choruses go thus: You have embraced me with your Grace/Now Iam on the path to victory (twice). And later to the main chorus of the song: Yawweh Yaweh/You love me so much oo/Yaweh Yaweh/Your Grace abound for me.

The second sequence of the video reveals the gospel singer in his true element with a solo: You are too mindful of me/ Yaweh/You took good care of me/Even in my darkest moment/You never, never disappoint me/ Jesus,all I see is your Grace/. After the solo, the support vocalists appear from the wings with the main chorus: Yaweh Yaweh/You love me too much oo/Yaweh Yaweh/Your Grace abound for me.

The third sequence of the video is in pop style with all the vocalists singing another verse of the song which is repeated twice with some dancing steps: I will win the battle/I will climb the mountain/I will get to the top/Because your Grace abound for me. And from there, they break into the main chorus: Yaweh Yaweh/You love me too much oo/Yaweh Yaweh/Your Grace abound for me. This chorus is repeated till it fades into the visual of the first sequence.

The high point of this video is that it is very clear with a great sound quality. The lyrics written on the screenflow directly with the renditions by the vocalists. All the musical instruments work harmoniously to produce sweet melodies as an accompaniment to the song. However, the low point of the video, which is no way diminishes the excellent performance of the entire band, is that the dancing steps of the vocalists are not well choreographed.

At a time when Nigerian music industry has been taken over by obscene tracks, songs and albums as well as their visuals, Ukor offers his music in praise and worship, which is morally and theologically different.

Ukor’s music is a blend of country, pop and Afro-highlife music found in a special genre of music, which is gospel. Grace is an evangelistic song that shows the significance of praising God and thanking Him for His grace in our lives. It draws the attention of the gospel music lover to understand and appreciate God’s grace while expecting more favours from Him.

In all, the listener does not need to listen to the song many times before falling in love with it and makes it his or her personal anthem. It is a song to be listened to again and again for entertainment and spiritual uplift.

The lyrics of the song are in a simple language with the lines flowing easily into one another.

Vice-President Kashim Shettima has said under the present administration, poverty is no longer an excuse not to go to school.

The Vice-President of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has provided crucial financial relief to the children of the poor and removed the financial barriers to higher education.

He described the Fund, a creation of the present administration as a vital social equalizer and a primary mechanism for poverty alleviation as well the advancement of education in Nigeria.

Shettima made the remarks on Wednesday when he met with the management team of the University of Abuja, led by its Vice Chancellor, Prof. Hakeem Babatunde Fawehinmi.

The Vice President noted that by ensuring tuition fees are covered and providing monthly upkeep allowances, the scheme-which targets students from less-privileged backgrounds who would otherwise be excluded from tertiary education-has ensured that poverty is no longer an excuse not to go to school.

Senator Shettima observed that Nigeria has crossed the rubicon and is firmly on the path of sustainable economic development under the Tinubu administration.

He cited the recent upgrade of Nigeria’s sovereign credit ratings and outlooks by global rating agencies, attributing the success to stronger foreign exchange reserves, higher oil production, increased federal allocation following the removal of oil subsidy, and the ongoing macroeconomic reforms undertaken by the Renewed Hope administration.

He applauded the management of the University of Abuja under the leadership of Prof. Fawehinmi, saying the Vice Chancellor has provided leadership that has surmounted the challenges that confronted the school in the past.

The University of Abuja, he observed, is now standing on a solid pedestal, as real stability has been restored in the institution, even as he pledged that the federal government will do everything within its ability to give the school the needed support.

Earlier, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja, Prof. Fawehinmi commended Vice President Shettima for supporting and spearheading the growth and developmental strides of the Tinubu administration.

The Vice Chancellor described VP Shettima as a mentor whose leadership qualities have assisted the University’s Governing Board to manage the school, even as he sought the institution’s partnership with the government to move the country forward.

‘We have always known you to be a highly cerebral and dynamic leader. We appreciate the generous strides you are making in the country. We are not surprised at your intellectual agility,’ he stated.

Prof. Fawehinmi said NELFUND, under the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Tinubu, has assisted immensely in bringing relative stability in the nation’s education sector, pointing out that students are able to go to school and are able to sustain their stay in the school.’

He stated that the management as well as the Governing Council of the University of Abuja deemed it necessary to thank the Vice President for the support he has always given to the school.

‘Our recent history in terms of leadership has not been very palatable. There have been issues to do with our checkered history, but in the last eight months when we came on board, we tried our very best to stabilise the university.’