The traditional ruler, Igwe Emmanuel Egwuaba, and stakeholders of Ogurugu community in Uzo Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State have promised to support as well as donate their land for the proposed naval base and its operations in the area.

The development was disclosed by the traditional ruler, alongside his people, when a joint committee set up by both the federal and the state governments paid a working visit to the community on Sunday.

The committee, led by the Deputy Governor of Enugu State, Barr. Ifeanyi Ossai, on the side of the Enugu State Government, and Rear Admiral Chijioke Onyemaobi, who represented the federal government, was welcomed by the jubilant members of the community who hosted them with fanfare.

Igwe Egwuaba while convening his people’s happiness to the government for its intervention in the community, said if and when sited, the naval base would boost the economy of the area through the attraction of investors and other social amenities such as hospital, school and market.

He further added that the community had earlier resolved to cooperate and support the government by ceding their land and ensuring that the project was successfully executed.

According to the royal father: “As you can see yourself, the entire community members came out to welcome these government officials because of the news of the naval base they are coming to site here. It is a thing to celebrate because the government has remembered us.

“All of us in Ogurugu Community have resolved to support this project, and we want to assure the government that whatever is required from us, we will make it available. We have equally told them that we have large hectares of land and we are ready to give out our land for this project.

“This project will have many positive impacts on the lives of our people and the general economy of this place. You know we are dominantly into agriculture and we produce food staples such as rice, cassava, maize, among other agricultural produce. So, this proposed base by the Nigerian Navy will open up our area and expand the economy. We can easily move our farm produce to the market through the waterways.

“Ogurugu community is made up of 9 villages and we all share the same communal land. We have agreed that whatever the government is planning here in Ogurugu we’re ready to support it. We have pledged to give our land for the project because it’s all about the development of our community.

“Let me emphasize this for the umpteenth time; we, the people of Ogurugu community in Uzo Uwani Local Local Area of Enugu State are happy with the way Governor Peter Mbah is leading us by example. He is spreading his good governance across every community.

“We are also appealing to Governor Mbah to come and invest in agriculture in Ogurugu. We have fertile land for whatever agricultural purpose the governor is planning.”

On his part, a former chairman of the local government area and stakeholder from the community, Chief James Ademu, noted that the news about the proposed project had already brought together the different villages in the community in order to ensure maximum cooperation with the government officials, saying it was a much anticipated project by the people.

He further disclosed that they had held several meetings among themselves in anticipation of the committee and arrived at a conclusion that they were ready to donate any part of the community the Nigerian Navy chooses for the project.

“This project is going to help our people, empower us economically, and we will not take it for granted,” Chief Ademu said.

Speaking earlier, Rear Admiral Onyemaobi said the committee had visited the Igwe’s palace to pay homage and also seek the support and cooperation of the people in making sure the naval base operations were actualized.

He appealed to the people to work in synergy with the military personnel who would be visiting the area from time to time by assisting them with required support and information.

Lagos has emerged as the fifth best African city with high desirability by people to live, work, and invest, according to a report by Brand Finance City Index 2023.

The survey puts Lagos at 56.7per cent behind Cape Town (South Africa), Cairo (Egypt), Johannesburg (South Africa), and Casablanca (Morocco) as the first four best African cities with 62.9, 60.7, 59.7, and 59.3 per cents respectively.

Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, also makes the chart by coming behind Nigeria, as the sixth African city with 55.1 per cent.

Cape Town, Cairo, Johannesburg, Casablanca, Lagos and Nairobi are the only six African countries that appear on the 100 world’s best cities as numbers 60, 67, 72, 76, 90, and 94 respectively on global rankings.

Meanwhile, London (England) is crowned as the world’s best city brand in the ranking scoring 84.6 per cent, while New York (the United States) and Paris (France) come as 2nd and 3rd garnering 83.0 and 79.7 per cents respectively.

“The ranking is based on a global survey of close to 15,000 members of the public conducted in April 2023 in 20 countries on all continents to measure perceptions of the world’s top 100 cities,” the report reveals.

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Mr Nyesom Wike, says the FCT Administration (FCTA) will pay N825.8 million as compensation for the construction of a second runway for Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

Wike stated this in Abuja on Tuesday, while briefing newsmen at the end of a closed-door meeting with members of the Jiwa community and other stakeholders.

He said that the amount would be paid through the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) for compensation and resettlement of the people of the community affected by the project.

He added that as part of the incentive, 12 people from the community would be employed by the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development and its agencies and 10 by FCTA.

He added that the government would also construct the Tunga Madaki bridge along with a five-kilometre road from the bridge to the community for easy movement of the people.

The minister explained that the project would be captured in the 2024 budget of the FCTA.

Wike also said that FCTA would equally provide a modern health facility to provide quality health care services for people of the community.

He said that an undertaking would be signed based on the agreement between the government and the community.

He identified the signatories as the permanent secretaries of FCTA and Ministry of aviation, the Chief of Jiwa, the Chairman, of Abuja Municipal Council and the Commissioner, of Public Complaint Commission.

“If that is done today, and tomorrow or next tomorrow the money is paid to them, contractors will no longer delay.

“So, the second runway has come to stay,” he said.

He said that the current administration was determined to ensure that the second runway was delivered.

He commended the Chief of Jiwa, Alhaji Isa Idris, for mobilising his people to attend the meeting to resolve the crises.

His counterpart, Mr Festus Keyamo, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, said that he met the issue on his table, adding that the project ought to have been delivered in July.

Keyamo said that the contractors could not be mobilised because of the issue of compensation.

Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, FCTA, Mr Olusade Adesola, said that the completion of the project requires the support of all relevant stakeholders.

Adesola commended Wike for the intervention to ensure a quick resolution of the issue.

Dr Emmanuel Meribole, Permanent Secretary, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, said that the project was approved by the Federal Executive Council in March 2022.

Meribole said that the project was awarded to four contractors in April, with CCECC Nigeria Limited as the major contractor.

He, however, said that the project was stalled because of the disagreement over compensation to the affected community members.

Earlier, the Chief of Jiwa, said that the Ministry of aviation through its consultant had earlier pegged the compensation at N2.5 million per hectare, for the 12,000 hectares allocated for the project.

Idris further said that the amount was later reviewed downward to N700,000 per hectare when FCTA took over the discussion as the rightful authority to determine how much compensation to be paid.

He said that the community took the matter to the Public Complaint Commission with a view to resolving the issue amicably.

The community leader said that his people were concerned that the N700,000 being offered per hectare would not be enough for the affected persons to acquire another land.

Nyesom Wike, minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has announced plans to reintroduce monthly sanitation, in a bid to keep Abuja clean.

Wike, who stated this after a closed-door meeting with contractors handling different projects in the FCT on Monday, said that he had already briefed President Bola Tinubu on the idea that at least two Saturdays in a month would be declared for sanitation from 7a.m. to 10 a.m.

He explained that the move would enable companies supporting the FCT with logistics to go to market, and other public places to evacuate refuse. According to him, for Abuja to be clean, everybody has to cooperate.

“We must all make sacrifices. There is nothing like we are going to suffer. You also contribute to refuse. So, if you spare three hours on a Saturday at home, to clear the refuse and bring them out for us to evacuate and dispose, then that is the little way you can help. We are appealing to you (residents) to cooperate with us so we can achieve our goals”, he said.

On streetlights, the minister said that there were some improvements: “We are not there yet, but I can assure you that everywhere in Abuja will be lit up.”

For those who have distorted the Abuja Master Plan, Wike said that the issue would soon be addressed.

He added that the FCTA was working out which areas the parks and the greens were supposed to be and those that were built on. He also said that the government would look into those who refused to develop their plots for many years.

Wike said that the President Tinubu-led administration would not continue to allow undeveloped land across the city where criminals were taking refuge.

“How can you have empty land in the city and allow people to build shanties on them because you did not develop them. Some properties were built for 20 years but not completed. Go and see what is happening there, criminals have taken over the place and as a serious government, we will not allow that.

“We want to make Abuja a safe environment, but we can’t do it alone; we require the support of every stakeholder,” the minister said.

He also said that attention would be given to satellite towns beginning with a visit to the areas to determine the needs and decide on what can be done to improve their facilities and infrastructure.

He pointed out that there was no funding to intervene in all the satellite towns at the same time but one at a time subject to the availability of funds.

“It is unfortunate that contracts were awarded in virtually all the satellite towns but where is the funding? The finding is not there,” Wike said.

He said that what was approved for FCT in the 2022 national budget was N15 billion for “not less than a trillion naira worth of contracts”, stressing the need for the ministry to prioritise its spending.

The Biden administration’s first ever auction of offshore wind development rights in the Gulf of Mexico ended with a single $5.6 million winning bid on Tuesday, reflecting meager demand for the clean energy source in a region known for its oil and gas production.

That result represented a fraction of the billions of dollars of bids secured in an offshore wind lease sale off New York and New Jersey in February 2022.

Those states have passed laws that require utilities to buy power from offshore wind projects – mandates considered critical for a technology that is estimated to produce electricity at twice the cost of a natural gas plant.

The Gulf’s lower wind speeds, soft soils and hurricanes are potential challenges to the industry. The Southeast also has low power prices that could make it harder for higher-cost offshore wind generation to compete for electricity contracts.

The sale was, nonetheless, cast by the President Joe Biden’s administration as a major milestone in his agenda to make offshore wind a cornerstone of U.S. efforts to fight fossil-fuel driven climate change.

“Today’s lease sale represents an important milestone for the Gulf of Mexico region — and for our nation — to transition to a clean energy future,” said Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Elizabeth Klein.

She said the Louisiana lease had the potential to power about 435,400 homes and create hundreds of jobs. 

According to a BOEM document, fifteen companies were qualified to bid at the sale.

They included offshore wind development arms of European energy companies Equinor (EQNR.OL), Shell (SHEL.L), RWE (RWEG.DE) and TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA), all of which are already developing U.S. offshore wind leases in other regions. Equinor and Shell also have oil and gas operations in the Gulf.

Developers had been looking beyond the grid in the Gulf, with some eyeing the sale as a possible way to fuel a green hydrogen supply chain for the region’s vast industrial corridor.

Sixty-three year olf H.J.M Seneviratne, slices through yellowed paddy stems dried out by a drought that has destroyed over 95% of his crop and is threatening crisis-hit Sri Lanka’s summer rice harvest.

The island’s economy was crushed last year by its worst financial crisis in over seven decades, caused by a severe shortage of foreign exchange reserves that triggered widespread unrest and ousted its former president.

Helped by a $2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Sri Lanka has slowly stabilised its economy since March, rebuilding its decimated reserves, moderating inflation and strengthening its currency.

But even before the country’s agriculture sector could recover from sky-rocketing prices of inputs from fertiliser to power, the rains failed.

“I’ve been a farmer for forty years but I’ve never experienced a harder time than this,” Seneviratne said, standing in the middle of a dusty field near Anamaduwa, a town in north western Sri Lanka, clutching a fistful of straw-like paddy stems with hollow rice kernels.

“We haven’t had enough rain since May. The harvest is so bad we don’t even have seed paddy for the next season.”

The southwest monsoon that farmers rely on for the Yala or summer harvest was scanty this year because of the El Nino weather pattern and the weather department estimates there will be no rains until October.

Typically, Seneviratne’s four acres yield about 4.5-6 tons of paddy for the summer harvest but this time he predicts he will get only about 150 kg. All but one of the eight water tanks, large ponds in which rainwater is collected for irrigation, in the area have dried out, destroying about 200 acres of paddy.

The paddy loss could be as much as 75,000 acres, according to Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera while other experts say full losses could be even higher as estimates are yet to be completed. Sri Lanka planted 1.3 million acres for the summer harvest, according to the Agriculture Ministry.

“We have lost at least 80,000 metric tons of paddy as per the latest data and it could be more,” said Buddhi Marambe, a professor of crop science at Sri Lanka’s Peradeniya University.

Last year, when the crop was decimated by a lack of fertiliser because of the economic crisis, the season produced 1.5 million tons of paddy.

The drought could reverse a recent trend of falling food prices, which dipped an annual 2.5% in July after rising 94% year-on-year last September.

Sri Lanka’s central bank warned last week that the dry weather coupled with higher global oil and commodity prices could also “weigh on expected growth in the near term,” as the island struggles to limit economic contraction to 2% this year after shrinking 7.8% in 2022.

Sri Lanka’s northern neighbour India is also expected to have the driest August in more than a century prompting it to restrict exports of certain categories of rice. Sri Lanka has previously imported rice from India to bridge production shortfalls.

Britain said on Tuesday it would remove some European Union rules it had retained post-Brexit that were meant to curb water pollution, to enable thousands of new homes to be built, a move environmentalists said would further spoil dirty rivers.

The EU’s “nutrient neutrality” laws were put in place to ensure that development does not pollute waterways with additional chemicals that cause plants to grow, from sources such as agricultural fertiliser and untreated sewage.

The British government said that while nutrients entering rivers was “a real problem,” the contribution made by new homes was “very small”.

Britain has for decades been grappling with an undersupply of homes. The government’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said in a statement the rule change would enable more than 100,000 homes to be built by 2030.

“Today’s announcement … also will provide an 18 billion pound boost to our economy and support tens of thousands of jobs, and we’re able to do this because previously it was a disproportionate and poorly targeted old EU ruling that blocked these homes,” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters.

The government statement quoted David Thomas, boss of Britain’s biggest housebuilder Barratt(BDEV.L), as welcoming the move, which he said would allow the company to build more homes including 2,500 that were now stalled.

The Wildlife Trusts charity criticised the decision, saying the laws were about preventing pollution rather than housing.

“Scrapping the rules that are merely trying to stop rivers becoming even more polluted will allow vested interests to make more money at the expense of our rivers and the natural environment,” The Wildlife Trusts Chief Executive Craig Bennett said.

Doug Parr, Chief Scientist at environmental group Greenpeace UK, urged the government to force water companies and housebuilders to invest in infrastructure to better handle sewage so river health is not sacrificed for the sake of building more homes.

A research briefing published by the government in May said around 340,000 new homes needed to be supplied in England each year, more than the Conservative Party’s 2019 election manifesto target of 300,000 homes per year by the mid-2020s.