Another Chibok schoolgirl, turned herself over to the Nigerian military in Gwoza town of Borno State on Saturday.

She is the second Chibok schoolgirl to be received by the Borno State Government within two weeks.

A statement from the state government said Hassana Adamu was later received by the state governor, Babagana Zulum, who was in Gwoza town on an official trip.

Isa Gusau, a spokesperson of the governor, announced this in the statement.

“The schoolgirl, Hassana Adamu, alongside her two children, was handed over to Governor Zulum by the Commander, 26 Task Force Brigade, Brigadier General DR Dantani,” Gusau said.

“Zulum was in Gwoza from there he moved to Bama, undertaking humanitarian activities. He had just returned from northern Borno where he spent five days for humanitarian interventions.”

Hassana was one of over 200 schoolgirls abducted at the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, on April 14, 2014, by Boko Haram insurgents.

That was after the man Pogu, identified as her husband, a suspected member of Boko Haram, surrendered to Nigerian soldiers in Bama, 49kilometres from Gwoza town.

Kayode Ibrahim, Oyo State Controller of Works, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, says the ministry is making frantic efforts at ensuring timely rehabilitation of Ibadan-Ife-Ilesa dual carriage way.

He added that the Federal Executive Council had, in 2019, approved the reconstruction of the dual carriage way by Kopek Construction Company at the cost of N79 billion, and the contractor was preparing pre-cast elements to be used for the work.

“We are hopeful that with good funding, the full rehabilitation work would be completed within the stipulated time,” he said.

According to him, while the contractor is waiting to be fully mobilised, a serious washout is threatening to cut off the road at a section around Celica area in Ibadan.

“So the contractor went to that spot to put a new culvert and fill the embarkment, thereby halting the washout. The failed portion has now been put back to shape.

“You can now drive smoothly on that section of the road. But, the truth is that because the project is a full rehabilitation, you cannot be laying asphalt on that spot alone.

“Asphalt laying has to be done on the entire section so that it will not look like a patched work,” he explained.

Ibrahim admonished motorists, particularly owners and operators of articulated vehicles, to always ensure that their vehicles were in good working condition before embarking on any trip.

Report says the admonition was sequel to the accident which occurred at the rehabilitated spot around Celica area of Ibadan on Monday, involving an articulated truck and a taxi cab, and which claimed five lives.

The controller refuted the claim that deplorable condition of the section of the road was responsible for the accident.

He said that the failed portion had since been fixed and that the point where the accident occurred was smooth and motorable.

Ibrahim explained that reports from the Federal Road Safety Corps showed that the accident was as a result of dangerous driving.

“We heard that the driver of the truck lost control due to break failure and rammed into a cab, with both ending up in a ditch,” he added.

The controller, however, sympathised with the families of those who lost their lives in the accident.

The Federal Government is set to receive and process applications for the granting of plant variety protection rights to agric investors.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono, and the Director-General, National Agricultural Seeds Council, NASC, Olusegun Ojo, announced that this was part of moves by the government to implement the Plant Variety Protection, PVP Act 2021.

Speaking on the occasion of the unveiling of the PVP Act 2021, which was organised by the NASC and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group in Abuja.

Ojo said in implementing the recently assented Act, the Nigerian Government, through the NASC, would be granting PVP rights to investors in Nigeria.

He said, “The NASC has already started doing what is necessary to ensure that we do not only have the PVP law, but we implement it for the impacts to be delivered to the farmers and the entire Nigerians.

“NASC has commenced actions to set up a functional PVP office to receive and process applications for the granting of a Plant Variety Protection rights in Nigeria from anywhere in the world.”

The Chief Executive Officer, NESG, Laoye Jaiyeola, who was represented by an official of the group, Gloria Ekpo, said the implementation of the Act would help position Nigeria to feed its growing population and attract foreign investments into the seed sub-sector.

He added, “Indeed, hunger has been on the rise for several years in Nigeria and with the effects of the pandemic, affordability, availability and accessibility to nutritious foods is increasingly becoming difficult for 52 million food insecure Nigerians.

“It is our believe that plant breeders and farmers can offer solutions to these challenges of food insecurity. But, in order to succeed, they need the right tools.

“This requires us to re-orient food systems so that the plant breeders and farmers are given opportunities to thrive, and to be fairly rewarded for the work they do.”

This came as the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced that it distributed cassava planting materials and trained over 300 farmers in Edo and Katsina states.

The Director, Federal Department of Agriculture, FMARD, Karima Babaginda, said the cassava planting materials that were distributed had the attributes of early maturity, pest and disease resistant and were high yielding.

She said the federal Government’s efforts in promoting cassava production, processing and marketing activities was aimed at sustaining the country’s position as the largest producer of cassava in the world.