General News
FG Mulls ‘Operation Feed Yourself’ to Tackle Hunger
Federal government is considering an ‘Operation Feed Yourself’ initiative to encourage the establishment of urban farms and small home gardens across the country.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo explained that the initiative, to be undertaken in collaboration with states under the auspices of the National Economic Council and the National Council on Nutrition, was part of efforts to address malnutrition and related challenges.
The plan for this initiative is one of three major plans arising from the UN-backed Food Systems Dialogues, to advance the fight against malnutrition, the Vice President stated at a high-level meeting on nutrition on Monday.
Other plans, he added, were providing support to farmers across the country, especially by providing useful weather and soil pattern information that would improve farming yields, as well as encouraging state governments to ensure prompt release of budget for nutrition and related activities.
“There are practical steps that can be taken by the states and Federal Government in the next 12 months,” Professor Osinbajo told the meeting.
“I think that some of the suggestions are important, especially those that have come from the UN Food System Dialogue.”
Boost Food Security
He listed the different stages as the establishment of agribusiness investment hubs or farm settlements, the establishment of urban farms and homestead gardens by individuals and schools, the adoption of weather information to support farming, leveraging the support of the UN agencies and other partners for nutrition activities, and the call on MDAs and states to release funding for nutrition activities.
“States and the FGN will promote what the convener has described as ‘Operation Feed Yourself’. This is more of the establishment of urban farms and homestead gardens,” the Vice President stated.
“This is simply something that we think should be a mass appeal to citizens in the states, and the encouragement we can give them so that individuals and schools develop their own farms or homestead gardens.
“This obviously not only helps individuals and families, but the excess can be sold to others and generally improve food security. The establishment of agribusiness investment hubs or farm settlements or farm estates or any variety of those kinds of integrated farming arrangements will improve food and nutrition security.
“What we are recommending is the sort of model that Oyo State has or any of the variety that states have. That sort is obviously recommended because of the way that it is structured and the obviously good result that they have been getting.”
A file photo of a food trader at a market in Akure, the Ondo State capital. Sodiq Adelakun/Channels Television
Nutrition Budget
Speaking specifically about the funding of nutrition and related activities by MDAs and states, Professor Osinbajo said a point of importance had been made, even at the National Economic Council meetings.
“It is one of the action points as defined in the food transformation pathways which we already have issued and we are hoping that these budget releases will be specifically directed at the action points defined in the transformation pathways because these are ways by which we have identified that we can gain maximum traction in food security,” he explained.
“We urge the states to budget adequately for nutrition. Each MDA and state should adopt the national priority list, make budgetary provisions for those who haven’t concluded their 2022 annual budgets. I think there is still time to make adequate budgetary provision for nutrition in the 2022 budgets.”
Professor Osinbajo urged the state governments to adopt partnerships that can be effective in scaling up nutrition and related activities.
He said “it is also clear that we can leverage on the support of the UN agencies and other partners like the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Bank, as well as our development partners, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Aliko Dangote Foundation.
“The Aliko Dangote Foundation was able to show what they have been doing, especially with de-risking facilities that could be used by farmers in the various localities all over the country.”
The meeting was attended by Mrs Amina Mohammed, United Nations deputy secretary-general, state governors, and representatives of development partners, among others.
Mrs Mohammed, who acknowledged the leadership of Nigeria to the UN agenda 2030 and the Africa Union agenda 2063, believes the solution to many of the challenges associated with malnutrition lie in Nigeria’s recent commitment through the Food Systems Summit process.
“I will like to pay tribute to the leadership of the Vice President, Professor Osinbajo, and to the efforts of the Mrs Olusola Idowu, as the national convener of the virtual engagement by His Excellency at the pre-summit and clear, focused, ambitious national pathways that were published ahead of the Food Systems Summit in September,” she said.
“At the summit itself, His Excellency, the President made decisive and inspiring commitments, and all these efforts of the emerging pathways, Nigeria has demonstrated a holistic approach to the food systems transformation which really underpins that transformation that it is about climate, it is about nutrition and about an inclusive economy.”
On his part, Dr Kayode Fayemi, chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, said despite dwindling financial resources, the states would continue to push on the frontier of improvement in nutritional issues.
Nigeria is experiencing a complex cybersecurity landscape where reported fraud incidents have decreased by nearly 46 percent over the past four years, yet financial losses from cybercrime are on the rise, according to Check Point Software.
This trend is attributed to sophisticated schemes developed by cybercriminals who are increasingly targeting the nation’s rapidly digitizing economy, with further coverage provided by Dark Reading.
Nigeria’s digital transformation has made it a prime target for cybercriminals.
In June 2026, organizations in the country faced an average of 4,361 attempted attacks weekly, ranking it second in Africa for cyber threats.
While the volume of detected threats fluctuates, it consistently remains elevated, often double the global average.
The Nigerian government is developing a new cybersecurity framework, expected later this year, which will mandate incident reporting, set minimum cybersecurity investment levels, and foster public-private collaboration.
Despite a decrease in the number of reported fraud incidents, financial losses have escalated, with digital payment fraud reaching ₦25.85 billion (US$18.7 million) in 2025.
Insider threats, including SIM swap fraud and account compromise, are significant contributors to these losses. Many organizations, particularly smaller businesses, lack adequate training and resources, making them more vulnerable.
The country’s cybersecurity maturity is ranked at a moderate level, and effective enforcement of existing regulations, such as the Data Protection Act, will be crucial to combatting the growing financial impact of cyberattacks.
TotalEnergies, together with its partners Hydra Storage Holding and Reatile Renewables, inaugurates Hydra project, the largest hybrid renewable energy project in Africa, located in South Africa’s Northern Cape province.
The project combines a 216 MW solar photovoltaic plant with a 500 MWh battery energy storage system, marking a significant contribution to the country’s Just Energy Transition program that aims to decarbonise the economy thanks to renewable energy sources.
The facility will supply 75 MW of dispatchable renewable electricity to the national grid continuously between 5:00 a.m. and 9:30 p.m., under a 20-year power purchase agreement signed with Eskom. This represents more than 400 GWh of electricity per year, equivalent to the consumption of approximately 200,000 South African households.
“We are delighted, together with our partners Reatile Renewables and Hydra Storage Holding, to bring the Hydra project into operation. It enables us to supply dispatchable renewable power to the South African grid, thereby strengthening the country’s energy security while decarbonising its electricity generation.
This project reinforces our renewable production capacity in South Africa, the continent’s largest power market in terms of electricity consumption”, said Magali Pailhé, Managing Director of TotalEnergies Southern Africa.
Hydra project has been developed by a consortium composed of TotalEnergies (35%), Hydra Storage Holding (35%) and Reatile Renewables (30%). It is part of the South Africa’s Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme launched by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy.
General News
BOI Pledges to Drive Nigeria’s Cocoa and Dairy Sectors with 70% of its €85m EIB Facility
Bank of Industry (BOI) has secured a €60 million credit facility from the European Investment Bank to fund Nigeria’s cocoa and dairy value addition drive, with a focus on processing, ingredients and chocolate manufacturing.
Dr. Olasupo Olusi, Managing Director/CEO of BOI, disclosed this on Tuesday, during the Africa Cocoa Summit convened in Abuja by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment with the aim of transitioning Africa from exporting raw beans to local processing and branding.
Also known as the Cocoa Value Addition Summit with the theme: ‘From Bean to Brand,’ it was attended by leaders and stakeholders from Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon who signed the Abuja Declaration to establish the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance (CVAA).
According to Olusi, the €60 million forms part of the €85 million EIB–BOI facility, backed by the European Union under the Global Gateway initiative, and designed specifically to strengthen these critical sectors in Nigeria.
“This agreement reinforces the Bank of Industry’s commitment to unlocking long-term, affordable finance for priority sectors that drive inclusive growth. Approximately 70% of the €85 million financing facility will be channeled to Nigeria’s cocoa and dairy sectors, which BOI considers among the industries with the greatest potential to create jobs and retain foreign exchange earnings.”
“We are particularly focused on cocoa value chains, which provide livelihoods for thousands of Nigerians. Through this initiative, we aim to enhance productivity, value addition, and market linkages that will directly improve the incomes of farmers and processors,” he said.
The BOI MD said that the bank would prioritise lending to processors, cooperatives, and MSMEs that add value locally, rather than only to traders exporting raw beans, adding that the era of celebrating volume of raw exports must end, as Nigeria loses billions by shipping beans and importing finished chocolate. According to him, the goal is to create factories around cocoa communities so that value, jobs, and taxes remain in Nigeria.
However, Olusi noted that financing alone is not enough, and as such, BOI will complement the loans with technical assistance on compliance, climate standards, and access to the EU market. BOI, he said, will also support farmers and processors to meet the EU Deforestation Regulation and other international environmental and social standards.
Citing BOI’s track record, Olusi said the bank disbursed over ₦164 billion in 2025 to more than 3,500 agro and food-processing businesses. The support financed factories, mills, packhouses, and cold chains, and linked nearly 48,000 smallholder farmers into industrial value chains.
He said the new financing would target the entire ecosystem, from nurseries and farmer cooperatives to grinding plants, ingredient factories, packaging lines, and chocolate manufacturers.
Speaking also at the summit, President Bola Tinubu called for a decisive shift from Africa’s long-standing dependence on exporting raw cocoa beans, urging producing countries to prioritise value addition and capture a larger share of the global chocolate industry’s wealth.
The President who was represented by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, noted that although Africa accounts for about 70 per cent of global cocoa production, the continent retains only six cents of every dollar generated by the global chocolate industry.
He stressed that Nigeria was committed to processing more of its cocoa locally, expanding chocolate manufacturing, building indigenous brands and competing more effectively in international markets, rather than continuing to export raw cocoa beans.
According to the President, cocoa value addition remains a key component of the Renewed Hope Agenda and the country’s broader industrialisation strategy, and disclosed that investors are developing a 70,000-tonne cocoa processing facility in Shagamu, Ogun State, while Nigeria’s cocoa grinding capacity has already surpassed 120,000 tonnes annually.
Earlier, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, said the summit aligns with the Federal Government’s ambition of building a one-trillion-dollar economy by 2030.
She observed that despite Nigeria’s significant contribution to global cocoa production, the country continues to earn only a small fraction of the value created across the cocoa value chain.
According to Oduwole, the Federal Government is promoting greater value addition through manufacturing incentives, investment promotion and stronger collaboration among relevant institutions.
She added that the government would also deepen market access by leveraging existing trade partnerships and opportunities under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), while encouraging investors to take advantage of regional and global value chains to unlock the sector’s full economic potential.
Also speaking, the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owan Enoh, described the summit as another milestone in implementing Nigeria’s Industrial Policy, and announced plans for the establishment of the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance, bringing together Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon, countries that collectively account for about 75 percent of global cocoa production.
According to Enoh, the alliance is designed to strengthen regional cooperation, promote local processing, and enable producing countries to capture greater value from the global cocoa market.
“We are not here to disrupt existing partnerships but to expand them,” he said.
Enoh urged African cocoa-producing nations to move beyond exporting raw beans and instead focus on developing branded cocoa products capable of competing successfully in global markets.
On his part, the Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Ransford Abbey, urged African cocoa-producing countries to deepen domestic processing.
“I am here to support the effort and commit to a joint effort towards increasing value for our hardworking cocoa farmers and our respective economies,” Abbey said.
He said Africa produced about 75 per cent of the world’s cocoa but earned less than 10 per cent of the global chocolate industry’s wealth.
“This system cannot continue. We must shift the paradigm from exporting raw poverty to creating refined wealth right here on the African continent,” he said, adding that stronger regional collaboration, investment and technology transfer will help African countries capture greater value from the global cocoa economy.
The Head of Cooperation of the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Mr. Massimo De Luca, reiterated the importance of value addition in the cocoa value chain. While expressing the support of the EU, he called on governments of the various countries to ensure they play their part in ensuring that proper framework necessary for the success of the initiative was established and clarified.
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