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BUA Cement Plc has distributed agricultural inputs valued at over N108 million to 211 farmers from its host and resettled communities in Sokoto State under its Resettlement and Sustainable Livelihood Restoration Programme.

The initiative is targeted at farmers affected by the company’s quarry operations and is aimed at restoring livelihoods, improving agricultural productivity and supporting food production.

Speaking at the distribution ceremony, the Managing Director of BUA Cement Plc, Engr. Yusuf Binji, said the programme reflects the company’s commitment to sustainable community development and economic empowerment.

Represented by the Assistant Director of Corporate Services, Alhaji Sada Suleiman, Binji said the intervention was designed to help resettled community members rebuild their livelihoods through agriculture.

“We believe that supporting agriculture is one of the most effective ways of empowering rural households and improving their economic well-being,” he said.

According to him, the company is focused on creating sustainable opportunities for affected communities beyond compensation and resettlement.

He added that the intervention would help improve beneficiaries’ incomes while contributing to increased food production in Sokoto State and across the country.

The company’s Director of Health, Community, Safety and Environment, Engr. Ali Gumel, urged beneficiaries to make effective use of the farm inputs, noting that they had received training on their proper application.

He said the company expects the inputs to translate into higher crop yields, improved household incomes and sustainable agricultural development.

Also speaking, the Programme Manager of the Sokoto State Agricultural Development Programme (SADP), Alhaji Abubakar Danmaliki, described the initiative as an example of effective collaboration between the private and public sectors in promoting rural development.

He said the programme would support farmers in recovering from the challenges associated with resettlement while boosting agricultural output.

Danmaliki added that beneficiaries would continue to receive extension services and technical support to encourage the adoption of improved farming practices.

The company’s Social Performance Specialist, Alhaji Rabiu Maska, said the package included NPK, urea and liquid fertilisers, improved maize, sorghum, cowpea and groundnut seeds, as well as pesticides, herbicides and other farm inputs.

According to him, the intervention was tailored to meet the farming needs of the beneficiaries and improve their harvests.

Some of the beneficiaries commended BUA Cement for the support, describing it as timely in view of rising production costs.

They pledged to utilise the inputs for the intended agricultural purposes to maximise the benefits of the programme.

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The All Progressives Congress (APC) has emerged victorious in all the 24 chairmanship seats and 240 councillorship positions contested in Saturday’s local government elections in Gombe State.

Chairman of the Gombe State Independent Electoral Commission (GOSIEC), Abdullahi Garba Talasse, who announced the results on Saturday in Gombe, declared that the ruling party won in all the local government councils and Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) where elections were conducted.

Talasse described the successful conduct of elections in the newly created LCDAs as a milestone in the state’s democratic development, noting that Gombe had expanded from 11 local government councils with 114 councillors to 24 councils and LCDAs with 240 councillors.

He said the commission worked closely with the State House of Assembly to secure the legal backing required for elections to be held in the LCDAs.

“We did not struggle for the enabling law in vain. Today, we have successfully conducted elections across the 24 councils and LCDAs, which is a significant achievement for the state,” he said.

The GOSIEC chairman attributed the poor showing of opposition parties to their limited participation in the polls.

According to him, the African Congress (AC) fielded candidates in only three chairmanship contests, while the Democratic Liberation Alliance (DLA) contested in six councils.

He added that the New Nigeria People’s Movement (NRM), Youth Party (YP) and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) each sponsored candidates in three chairmanship elections.

For councillorship positions, Talasse said AC contested in eight wards, while DLA, NRM, YP and ZLP each fielded candidates in 11 wards.

“That explains why some parties recorded zero votes in several areas because they did not participate across all the councils and wards,” he said.

Talasse explained that although chairmanship results were declared at the various local government collation centres, the commission considered it necessary to present a statewide summary to journalists, observers and the public.

“From the results before the commission, APC has won all the 24 chairmanship seats and all the 240 councillorship positions,” he declared.

He commended political parties, election observers, civil society organisations, security agencies and other stakeholders for contributing to the peaceful conduct of the elections.

The GOSIEC chairman also appreciated party leaders, government officials, non-governmental organisations and other guests from across the country who monitored the exercise, describing their participation as crucial to the success of the electoral process.

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A newborn baby has been rescued from a fallen building 32 hours after the twin earthquakes that devastated a Venezuelan coastal city.

Video shared on social media Friday shows rescuers working under a floodlight atop collapsed masonry and bringing the infant out to applause late Friday in the hardest-hit city of La Guaira, north of the capital Caracas.

They carefully pass the baby, wrapped in a quilt, from person to person before cleaning the child gently with tissues, the video shows.

According to the user, Andreina Quintero, who published the video on social media, the baby was just 18 days old and was uninjured after being trapped for 32 hours.

The child’s mother was rescued an hour after the child.

In a follow-up video later on Friday, Quintero showed the mother in a hospital bed, with a medical worker telling her that the baby did not appear to have injuries.

The medic then suggests that the mother saved the baby by covering the child with her body or another object.

At least 920 people were killed by back-to-back earthquakes on Wednesday of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, and thousands more were injured or remain missing.

The United Nations estimated on Saturday that close to seven million people may have been impacted by the twin earthquakes in Venezuela, which have killed nearly 1,000 people and left tens of thousands missing.

The UN migration agency said it had examined available population and damage data and had determined that “up to 6.76 million people could be affected by the devastating earthquakes that struck Venezuela on 24th June”.

The projections, which include up to two million people in Caracas alone, “highlight the potentially vast humanitarian impact of the disaster,” the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warned in a statement.

Entire buildings have crumbled in La Guaira, located to the north of Caracas, following the devastating twin tremors.