Labarun Nijeriya (12 05 96 I)

[ogu...@skyfox.usask.ca]

Date: Sun, 12 May 1996 12:45:38 -0400
From: Beb...@aol.com
Subject: News Dump! 05-12-96!
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Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) - Nine years after his death, the embalmed body of
Obafemi Awolowo was finally buried in his Ikenne home, in the western state
of Ogun Saturday.

An astute Nigerian politician and educationist, Awolowo died May 9,1987, aged
78.

The committal and prayer service took place at the "AWO" mausoleum, at a
ceremony attended mainly by his former associates and members of his family,
including his wife Hannah.

The officiating clergy, E.A. Odunaya, urged Nigerians to reflect on "all the
good things Awo (as he was popularly known) had done for them."

His wife, Hannah, said the family chose to bury him on the nineth anniversary
of his death because of the significance of "nine" in his life.

Perhaps for his uncompromising attributes, he never realised his ambition of
becoming the president of Nigeria. But he will be remembered for his role as
a nationalist and for introducing free eduction in western Nigeria.

To immortal his name, his children and associates launched a foundation in
his name four years ago, devoted to charity and to expose his legacy in
education.

For his invaluable contributions to the country, Awolowo was honoured with
the Commander of the Nigerian Republic. Several land marks, including a
university, have been named after him.

LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) - The military administrator (governor) of Nigeria's
western state
of Osun, navy Capt. Anthony Udofia, has blamed the economic problems in some
of the country's 30 states partly on the increase in the pump price of
petrol.

Gen. Sani Abacha's military regime introduced the 240 percent price hike in
October, 1994 and later announced a 100 percent increase in the monthly
allowances paid to civil servants.

"The payment of 100 percent palliatives triggered financial difficulties in
my state...," Udofia said in a widely publisised interview Sunday with the
semi-official daily Times newspaper.

He said the measure raised the state's monthly wage bill to 70 million naira,
while internally generated revenue remained at 15 million (82.5 naira=1USD).

The situation is similar with most of the 30 states.

In addition, the administrator said the review of the national revenue
allocation formula, giving consideration to the states' "land mass and
population," also affected his state.

"...we have protested to the federal government," over the issue, he added.

Nigeria's federal revenue, mainly from oil, which accounts for some 80
percent of the nation's total foreign exchange earnings, is shared among the
states on a complicated formula.

This take into accounts, factors such as derivation, population and equality
of the states that make up the federaion.

States that contribute little or nothing to the federal coffers and do not
generate enough internally are therefore at a disadvantage.

But, despite the fact that not all the 30 states are considered viable, the
agitation for the creation of more states has continued in the country.

The committee, set up by the Abacha regime on the creation of more states,
submitted its report two weeks ago.

The government plans to create more states under its 36-month transition to
democracy programme.

LAGOS, Nigeria (PANA) - At least seven worshippers, including a pregnant
woman, were killed early Saturday in collapsed church building in Lagos.

The police said Sunday that Samuel Olufemi, pastor of the Christ Apostolic
Church, at Oshodo, north of Lagos, has been arrested.

Witnesses said the building caved in during a night vigil service under heavy
rain.

The victims, five women and two men, one of whom was said to be the pastor's
son, died instantly.

The cause of the tragedy had not been determined, but police have restricted
public movement to the scene for security reasons.

The incidence of collapsed building is not uncommon in Lagos.

Registered architects blame the situation on weak structures, erected by
people who undermine building regulations in a bid to cut cost.

ABUJA, May 11 (Reuter) - An envoy of U.N. Secretary-General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali said on Saturday he had met Nigerian military ruler General
Sani Abacha to discuss the dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria in the
oil-rich Bakassi peninsula.

``I am here on a goodwill mission and had a very good meeting with
Nigeria's leader today,'' U.N. Under Secretary-General for Special
Assignments Lakhdar Brahimi told Reuters.

``As for the substance you'll have to wait but I have been well
received,'' he added.

He said he would be in Abuja, where he arrived earlier on saturday, until
Monday and would not visit Bakassi itself.

Nigeria and Cameroon have accused each other of launching attacks with
heavy weapons in Bakassi, which each claims to be its own territory in the
oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.

The dispute threatens to suck in France, Yaounde's colonial power which
at the same time has huge investments in Nigeria.

``France is placed in a very delicate situation having very friendly
relations with both countries,'' French Ambassador to Nigeria Pierre
Garrigue-Guyonnaud told a news conference in Lagos on Friday, adding: ``We
want peace between our friends.''

He denied Nigerian press reports that French troops were in the disputed
territory fighting on the side of Cameroon.

``I want to state very clearly that no French military personnel are
present in the peninsula or in the surrounding area. We have not provided
weapons as mentioned in the press,'' Garrigue-Guyonnaud said.

France has 40 military instructors in Cameroon under a military
cooperation pact. It also has a defence pact with Cameroon, like most of its
former colonies, that compels it to fight on the side of Cameroon in the
event of war.

The two African nations have long been at odds over Bakassi, a series of
impoverished islands inhabited mainly by the Efik-speaking fishermen from
southeastern Nigeria.

Since February 1994 they have clashed repeatedly in Bakassi, where they
both have troops.

In March, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ordered the two
sides to halt hostilities pending its final decision on who owns the
peninsula.

The mission by Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, will be the
second by the U.N. to Nigeria in as many months.

He said his visit was both on Bakassi and a follow-up to April when a
U.N. mission investigated the hanging last year of nine minority rights
activists for murder, which was widely condemned internationally. Its report
has not been made public.

IBADAN, Nigeria, May 12 (Reuter) - High wire fences, rampant vegetation
and humming laboratories of home-made genetic variants give the impression of
a Jurassic Park that is only waiting for the dinosaurs.

But work at the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical
Agriculture (IITA) is for real and deadly serious. Its goal is feeding the
world's hungriest continent.

``The task in Africa becomes more difficult because while we have been
concentrating quite successfully on increased food production there is now
also this emphasis on addressing enviromental degradation as well,'' said
institute director Lukas Brader.

Images of starvation triggered by war and natural disaster hide a less
dramatic but more insidious problem of malnutrition. The African food bowl
has been shrinking for the past two decades as populations grow faster than
the plants to feed them.

Pressure on land means traditional methods of farming no longer work.
Farmers have no time to leave fields fallow, nutrients are sucked out and
pests spread more quickly.

Among IITA's notable claims is to have saved from disaster one of
Africa's most important food crops, cassava, by releasing insects to
biologically control pests, and selective breeding to improve yields.

``We reckon the value of the biological control programme across Africa
was around three billion dollars,'' Brader said.

``We cannot calculate how many more people we are feeding because of the
improved crop yields. If we think we increased harvests by 40 percent we
could be feeding 23 million people every day in Nigeria alone.''

Traditional methods are now being supplemented by the latest
high-technology.

First target is the cowpea, a legume which provides as much as 25 percent
of protein in arid parts of the continent, but is badly hit by insects.

``A farmer should crop one tonne per hectare, but if insects attack he
can only expect 10 to 20 kilos (22 to 44 pounds),'' said Togolese
biotechnician Hodeba Mignouna.

``The only way is to use biotechnological means to make the plants resist
the insects. Traditional methods are too clumsy.''

More than 15,000 varieties of cowpea seeds are stored in a secure
freezer, for the scientists to play with.

The trick would be to insert genes that confer insect resistance from
wild cowpeas into cultivated varieties.

Plants are grown from a single cell, and only in the past four months has
IITA succeeded in regenerating cowpeas.

``We have obtained a transgenic plant with reporter genes, to monitor the
transformation of a marker, and we have tested genes which work against the
insects. Our next step is to use the genes and transform the plant. Maybe
within two or three years we could have something growing in the fields,''
Mignouna said.

Transplanting the good ideas from the rarefied research atmosphere of
IITA to the fields themselves is no easy task in a continent where official
structures are often withered away, and agriculture is not a high priority.

``I can come here, and it may be useful to have the ideas, but there is
no way that in Zaire any of this can be applied, we don't have the money,''
said Masimango Ndyanabo, head of agricultural research in the chaotic Central
African country.

``We find we are increasingly working with NGOs (non-governmental
organisations) and private industry,'' Brader said.

He added: ``The people are there in the government departments, many of
them studied here, but you find that many can only give a tenth of their
budgets to operations. If only