On Saturday, 25 February, Nigeria conducted an election for the position of President, which was widely regarded as the most fiercely contested in the country since 1999. On 1 March, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Tinubu, candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner and President-elect. On 29 May, the Chief Justice of Nigeria swore him in as the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces and 16th president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

While the reaction of the international community was mixed, the two major opposition parties, the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party, took their dissatisfaction to the Presidential Election Petitions Court in Abuja in petitions challenging the announced outcome of the presidential election.

Their core argument revolves around the President-Elect’s alleged failure to secure “not less than 25% of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of the States of the Federation, AND the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja,” as mandated by the constitution [capitals added]. They contend that this constitutional requirement was not met in the election.

The challenge to the 25 February presidential election results has revived a well-known constitutional dilemma around the intended meaning of the phrase “and FCT” in the aforementioned constitutional clause, as distinct from “including FCT” or “plus FCT.” While there may be disagreement on the precise interpretation, it seems generally agreed that the intention was not to exclude the FCT from the constitutional requirement.

If indeed the framers of the constitution intended “and FCT” to mean “plus FCT” or “FCT specifically,” the opposition would be justified in challenging INEC’s declaration of an APC victory. If the interpretation leans towards “including FCT,” then INEC’s result would fulfill the specific constitutional requirement, especially considering that the 1999 Constitution also acknowledges that the FCT can be treated as a state.

If the former, then this raises the fundamental question of why the framers of the 1999 Constitution would grant such a special right or privileged status to citizens of Abuja and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) that voters in other administrative units in the country do not enjoy.

To unravel the ‘and FCT’ conundrum, it is important to examine what the founding fathers of the 1999 Constitution, all military personnel, had in mind when they decided earlier, in 1976, to build a new capital city on virgin land and set it up as a special federal capital territory. This article analyses the historical context and the public policy considerations that drove the establishment of Abuja as a FCT, in order to inform the ongoing national debate and decision-making concerning the 2023 Presidential Election Petition process.

The Founding Fathers of the FCT/Abuja

Among the various reasons identified for the decision to construct Abuja, two factors stand out prominently. First, there was the notion of “national pride.” As Africa’s most populous country and one of the wealthiest, due to its abundant natural resources (further bolstered by the oil boom and petrodollars of the 1970s), Nigeria was seen by both its citizens and the international community as the “black giant” of Africa and potentially a global leader.

The military, as the founding fathers of Abuja in the mid-1970s, believed that Nigeria was destined for greatness. They aspired to build an ultramodern city that would rival Western capitals and serve as a source of national pride and symbol of modernity for black people worldwide. A new capital city in Abuja deliberately located inland and distinct from the congested and traffic-heavy urban landscape of Lagos, the military believed, would establish a modern and prestigious metropolis, simultaneously banishing the conspicuous remnants of British colonial influence in Nigeria. This reinforced the notion of a new, independent Nigeria that had firmly arrived as a legitimate member of the “Newer World.”

The second significant motivation behind the military’s choice of Abuja was the concept of an administrative framework known as the FCT. Beyond the evident fact that the FCT does not possess the typical characteristics of a Nigerian state, lacking an elected governor but instead having an appointed minister of the FCT, there is a less known yet crucial aspect of “national unity and ethnic neutrality“.

As I wrote years ago, “It is common knowledge that Nigeria is a multi-ethnic country…and that the country has been riffed by ethnic rivalry from its inception. Lagos, obviously, is a Yoruba land and with such a lop-sided ethnic mix (Yoruba, 72.2%; Igbo,15.4%; Edo, 3.17%; and Hausa, 2.05% in 1963), it was felt that the city, as capital, is inimical to the spirit of national unity, as it could never be a place where all Nigerians could lay claim to every available right, privilege and resource on an equal footing. This could only be achieved in a sort of no-man’s land where no one ethnic group predominated.”

The just concluded March gubernatorial election in Lagos confirmed this fundamental truth about the Nigerian polity. In the weeks and months leading up to that election, the prevailing discourse revolved around the question of who the “real owners” or “indigenes” of Lagos are and which individuals or groups possess a more legitimate right to influence and shape the city-state’s future political trajectory.

The Strategic Location of Abuja — An Attempt To Make it equi-polity-distant For All

Thus, the founding fathers of Abuja in the 1970s and 1980s embarked on a social re-engineering endeavour with the goal of achieving three objectives related to national unity and cohesion. First, they aimed to strategically locate Abuja at the geographical heartland of the country. By doing so, they hoped that both government and development would be brought closer to the governed. This approach aimed to ensure that citizens from all parts of the country had relatively equal access to the capital city in terms of physical distance.

Additionally, it is worth noting that one of the underlying motivations for the establishment of Abuja was a desire to address the concerns of the northern elite for conducting the nation’s affairs from a capital that was not located so far away in the perceived hostile Southern region. (See Figure 1).

Figure 1: Centrality of FCT in terms of physical distance

The Question of Who Owns Abuja and Making It A Place For All, On Equal Footing?

Second, another key objective pursued by the military proponents of Abuja was to establish a territory that would provide equal rights and opportunities to all Nigerians, devoid of any specific regional or ethnic affiliation. To achieve this strategic objective, the military regime made a series of ‘deliberate and courageous decisions’ regarding the FCT.

They carefully selected a central area in Nigeria that had a relatively low population density and limited development. This selection was crucial in creating a neutral ground where every Nigerian would be treated equally and have the same rights. In response to this, the military government claimed full ownership of the entire FCT area, granting the Federal Government complete control over the land. Unlike in any of the other 36 states of Nigeria, the Federal Government possesses 100% monopoly control over the land in the FCT.

Third, and significantly, the military decided to compensate and physically relocate all indigenous populations from within the FCT. Approximately 600 villages predominantly inhabited by farmers and potters belonging to the Gbagyi or Gwari ethnic groups, had to be swiftly resettled between 1976 and 1991. Where relocation of the indigenes proved costly, the military government simply decided to excise those parts from the FCT, as can be observed by examining the map of the FCT (Figure 2), where one can notice a distinct “V” shape at the top. This cutout represents the removal of the present-day Suleja town and its sizable indigenous population from the FCT.

Figure 2: Map of FCT with a “V” shape to the top, showing excision of the town of Suleja

These rationales influenced the territory’s design and also played a pivotal role in its development as a distinct administrative unit.

Situating FCT/Abuja Within the Political and Democratic Framework of the New Nigeria

During the civilian administration of Shehu Shagari (1979-1983), significant construction work began in Abuja. However, the bold and visionary decisions to build Abuja, along with meticulous planning and the allocation of substantial resources for its groundbreaking and full-scale implementation, were made under Generals Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo (1975-1979). It can be argued that Abuja represents one of the most remarkable and ambitious endeavours in political and social re-engineering for nation-building undertaken by the Nigerian military. Subsequent military rulers – Muhammadu Buhari (1983-1985), Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993), Sani Abacha (1993-1998), Abdulsalami Abubakar (1998-1999), and Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007) – demonstrated increased commitment in terms of political support and financial resources allocated to the project.

Considering the foregoing historical context of the capital relocation, it is reasonable to assume that the military, while formulating the Nigerian Constitution of 1999, deemed it appropriate to uphold the same principles and institutionalise in the political fabric of the country the “broad official aims for the new capital,” including among others:

“To provide for a physical symbol of national unity, and of Nigeria as a symbol of Pan Africa unity; and

To provide a physical expression of the ideal constitutional democratic government.”

They had envisioned FCT/Abuja as a place where ethnic considerations would not dictate political power and where the genuine essence of Nigerian polity could emerge unhindered.

Conclusion – FCT/Abuja As Electorate-barometer of the Nation’s True Pulse and Spirit

It is hoped that this article has provided some insight into history on the FCT/Abuja that many Nigerians may not know, along with how this relates to the constitutional issue about the 25% threshold of voters in the FCT/Abuja. To understand this debate, one must decode the reasons behind its establishment and the great lengths to which successive Nigerian military rulers (1975-2007) went to create a special identity for the territory and enshrine it in the 1999 Constitution.

It is this article’s thesis that the outcome of the February presidential election in FCT/Abuja validates the foresight of the Generals who envisioned and implemented the FCT project as a deliberately designed “neutral microcosm” of Nigeria, where ethnicity did not trump all else — a kind of legitimising “litmus test” of the ability of an aspiring candidate for the highest office in the land to appeal to and garner threshold support from diverse segments of the population.

Until such a time that Nigerian political leaders can harness our rich multi-ethnic and cultural heritage into the positive force for change that it is, an emphasis on obtaining at least 25% of the votes in FCT/Abuja as a constitutional requirement may serve as a necessary barometer for both measuring and safeguarding the nation’s true political pulse in ideals of national unity and democracy.

As the only “ethnically neutral zone” of the country, with above average income, voter education and awareness, and security atmosphere relatively free from voter intimidation and vote suppression, it logically follows that the legitimacy of any individual aspiring to lead a diverse and significant country like Nigeria should be questioned, if they fail to garner at least 25% of the electoral votes from this special territory. The voice of people in the FCT must not be taken lightly (i.e., not among the 24 ‘states’ mandated by the constitution), or without factoring in its historical context and raison d’etre. For both the generals and civilians alike, FCT symbolizes true unity, representing a shared national identity about the progressive Nigeria everyone wants.

Erasmus Morah received a PhD from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, in 1990 with a dissertation on the establishment of Nigeria’s FCT.

PT

Do you ever feel that in any organization you work for, there's usually only a handful of people doing most of the actual work? I've found this to be especially true in non-profit organizations.

Years ago, I remember being involved in the Jaycees in Hartford, CT, a volunteer service organization. There was something like 400 people on the membership rolls. But, when you looked closely, you realized that only 20 to 40 people were doing all the work.

It turns out that something called "Price's Law" offers a lens to look at this dynamic.

Price's Law states that when you take the square root of the number of employees in an organization, that tells you how many people are doing half the work. This is slightly different than Pareto's Law, which says 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. In this model, the size of the company matters.

We can use this law to help us better understand why it's harder to keep employees productive as an organization scales up.

Let me explain.

Understanding Price's Law

We can use Price's Law to help us better understand how efficient (or inefficient, as it were) an organization is.

Let's look at an example where a small business has 64 employees. The square root of 64 is 8. That means 8 people, or 12.5% of the workforce, account for 50% of its productivity. That's pretty good. We would probably recognize all these people as A players.

But now, let's look at a much bigger organization with 10,000 employees. Applying Prices Law, we learn that just 100 people are doing 50% of the work. That means that just 5% of the payroll accounts for 50% of the company's productivity. That's a scary result because so much of the work is done by so few people--your "A" players. As leaders, we need to know who they are and ensure they don't leave.

Incompetence grows exponentially

There's a corollary lesson to be learnt here: the number of employees who contribute to an organization grows linearly. In contrast, the number of non-productive and incompetent employees grows exponentially.

Put another way, the more a company grows and adds people, the less productive most new people hired become.

If you're wondering how companies like Amazon and Facebook can lay off thousands of employees at a time and still function at a high level, here is your answer.

Let's say I had a 10,000-person company. Using Price's Law, I calculated that only 100 people did half the work. That means 9,900 people are doing the other half of the work. If I let 1,000 employees go (10% of the workforce), I only lose 5% of my productivity.

That's a decent trade, but it also speaks to the issue of having so many unproductive people on the payroll. If you have ever led a large or small company, you have seen this effect first-hand.

Hire slow and fire fast

The only way to avoid this issue is by focusing even more intently on how and who you hire. You must be very careful about who you let into the organization – regardless of how many open positions you might be trying to fill.

Not spending the time to find the right and the best person for the job likely means you're simply boosting headcount with a very limited impact on productivity.

You also need to be extremely vigilant in removing employees who have proven their incompetence. You can't afford to keep them around.

The solution, in other words, is to hire slowly and fire fast.

The key, however, is that you are letting go of the people who truly aren't doing the work. Make sure you celebrate and reward your "A" players. Because without them, your productivity would be at risk.

Inc

Naira’s official and parallel rates converged on Tuesday after days of volatility sparked by the central bank’s move to allow lenders to freely determine the price of Nigeria’s currency. 

The naira strengthened 1.8% to 756.61 per dollar at the close of trade, according to the website of the FMDQ Exchange.

Meanwhile, it hovered at 757 in the unofficial market, according to Abubakar Mohammed, chief executive officer of Forward Marketing bureau de change Ltd in Lagos who compiles the parallel market data. Thus the rates practically closed the gap between them a day after the official value was 1.6% weaker than the parallel market. 

The convergence adds strength to incoming President Bola Tinubu’s economic plan, aimed at restoring fiscal stability and growth by eliminating subsidies, freeing up the currency and reducing debt. Nigeria has seen a rash of reforms since Tinubu was sworn in last month to replace Muhammadu Buhari, who pursued unorthodox policies that had resulted in an almost 60% spread between the official and parallel market rates.

The naira weakened as much as 29% on June 14 after the central bank lifted its controls and then briefly recovered, remaining volatile since then. 

“We are allowing the market itself to set a price,” Deputy Governor Kingsley Obiora said in an interview in Rabat, Morocco on Monday. 

The central bank plans to announce further measures to loosen foreign exchange controls “in the next couple of weeks” Obiora said. 

Managed Float

Still, Nigeria is not going to set the currency totally free even now, Obiora said. 

“There is no country in the world, even the US, that has a completely free float,” he said. The central bank will continue to pursue a managed float, Obiora said. 

It may be too early to determine if the naira’s exchange rate to the dollar has bottomed out, Obiora said. He pointed to analysis done by the International Monetary Fund and international banks, which correctly suggested that the naira should not be as weak as the parallel market indicated, he said.

Obiora expects that the supply of foreign exchange will eventually be unlocked once the price of the dollar reaches a level that both buyers and sellers consider “fair.” 

Tinubu’s early decisions since becoming president have caught the attention of investors after he scrapped fuel subsidies that cost $10 billion last year and removed the central bank governor who had been seen as the architect of the earlier unorthodox policies. Dollar bonds have gained and the stock market jumped to a 15-year high as a result of the changes. 

The removal of subsidies, along with the convergence of the exchange rates will drive economic growth, especially from next year when the policies start making an impact, Obiora said. 

“I completely expect us to do 5% to 6% growth next year,” he said. “Over the next four years, you may see the GDP approach something like $600 billion to $700 billion.” 

Bloomberg

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, have indicated that they would close their case at the Presidential Election Petition Court on Friday.

According to the pre-hearing report, the petitioners ought to close their case on Tuesday.

However, at the session on Tuesday, Chris Uche, petitioners’ counsel told the court that his team lost two days out of the days allotted to them. One of the lost days was a public holiday to mark Democracy Day.

He prayed the court for an extension of time by two days which the court agreed.

Earlier, Uche applied to tender documents, which he said were handed to them in court by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) pursuant to two subpoenas served on the chairman of the commission.

He tendered 14 bundles of voter’s registers for the federal capital territory (FCT) but was objected to by the respondents.

Uche also moved to tender some bundles of certified true copies (CTCs) of election results (form EC8A) before the court.

However, Haruna Tsammani, chairman of the five-member tribunal, noted that the documents were not properly arranged and marked for easy reference. 

Uche blamed INEC for the improper arrangement, claiming that the commission failed to release the materials on time and was also reluctant to release other documents requested by the petitioners.

“Getting materials from INEC is like getting weapons from opponents,” he said.

Responding, Kemi Pinheiro, INEC counsel, faulted Uche’s claim, insisting that neither the electoral commission nor its officials have any reason to withhold election materials from petitioners.

Pinheiro accused the petitioners of not paying the required fees for the certification of the documents they planned to tender.

“The petitioners have not paid for certification. We brought these documents from across the country,” he said.

After a brief stand down, parties later agreed to return on Wednesday with a well-arranged schedule of documents.

As the hearing progresses, the petitioners have called 25 out of 100 witnesses they had indicated to call.

Speaking with journalists after the court session, Uche said the petitioners could still call five more witnesses to raise the total number to 30.

He said some of the documents to be tendered in the remaining two days would take the place of the remaining 70 witnesses.

The Cable

Federal Government has said Boards of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) are exempted from the dissolution of boards and agencies.

Willie Bassey, Director, Information, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), gave the clarification in a statement on Tuesday.

“Further to the directive on the dissolution of Boards of Federal Government Parastatals, Agencies, Institutions and Government-owned companies, Secretary to the Government of the Federation has clarified that the Boards of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) are exempted from such dissolution,” the statement read.

President Bola Tinubu had on Monday approved the dissolution of the Governing Boards of Federal Government Parastatals, Agencies, Institutions, and Government-Owned companies.

This happened hours after the President sacked all service chiefs and named their replacements.

Monday’s dissolution did not affect boards, commissions and councils listed in the Third Schedule, Part 1, Section 153 (i) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.

Those exempted in the dissolution as listed in the Third Schedule, Part 1, Section 153 (i) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended are: Code of Conduct Bureau, Council of State, Federal Character Commission, Federal Civil Service Commission, Federal Judicial Service Commission, Independent National Electoral Commission, National Defence Council, National Economic Council, National Judicial Council, National Population Commission, National Security Council, Nigeria Police Council, Police Service Commission; and Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission.

Daily Trust

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine loses ‘hundreds’ of men in failed assault – Russian MoD

The Ukrainian military lost “dozens” of pieces of Western hardware and hundreds of troops in an unsuccessful attack on Russian positions in Zaporozhye Region, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday.

The previous night’s assault came as part of a far wider Ukrainian counteroffensive raging across the entire frontline from Zaporozhye to Donetsk. 

The attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s (AFU) 65th Mechanised Brigade was repelled by the troops of Russia’s 58th Combined-Arms Army and Vostok-Akhmat battalion. The Russian Defense Ministry did not say exactly how many Ukrainian troops were killed or wounded, instead placing the losses in the “hundreds.”

In a separate statement on Tuesday, the head of Russia’s State Duma Defense Committee, Andrey Kartapolov, announced that Kiev had lost 900 soldiers across the entire front to deaths and injuries in the preceding 24 hours.

According to the ministry, captured Ukrainian servicemen told Russian troops that they had been “deceived” by their commanders with promises of reinforcements and misled about the true strength of Russian forces in the area. “Otherwise,” the ministry said in a statement, “there would be no one willing to launch an offensive.”

In video footage released by the ministry, one captured Ukrainian described a situation of “complete incompetence” on the ground, in which brigades operate alongside one another with no cross-communication and commanders knowingly send Western Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles into the range of Russian anti-tank missiles.

The captured soldier claimed that his commanders have failed to remove bodies from Ukrainian lines, and that some corpses have been left to decompose since the counteroffensive began almost two weeks ago. “It’s just a nightmare,” the soldier said. “A real meat grinder.”

Ukraine’s long-promised counteroffensive began on June 5 with a failed attack on Russian positions near Donetsk. Wave after wave of attacks followed, all of which Russian forces managed to rebuff before their multi-layered warren of trenches, minefields, and fortifications could be breached. 

As of last week, Moscow put Ukrainian losses at around 7,500 men and 30% of its Western-supplied tanks and armored vehicles. Kartapolov put the losses closer to 20,000, but did not explain his sources.

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Anna Malyar, said on Tuesday that while the situation on the battlefield “is quite difficult” at the moment, Kiev’s “biggest blow” against Russian forces “is yet to come.”

** Russian forces wipe out eight Ukrainian ammo depots in past day — top brass

Russian forces destroyed eight Ukrainian ammunition depots over the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Tuesday.

During the last 24-hour period, operational/tactical and army aircraft, missile troops and artillery of the Russian groupings of forces struck 98 Ukrainian artillery units at firing positions, manpower and military equipment in 112 areas, the spokesman said.

"In the past 24 hours, eight ammunition depots were destroyed: the depots of the Ukrainian army’s 3rd tank brigade near the settlement of Dvurechnaya in the Kharkov Region, 45th artillery brigade near the town of Seversk in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Zaporozhye battlegroup, the 128th mountain assault and 65th mechanized brigades near the city of Zaporozhye and the settlements of Razumovka, Stepnoye and Novodanilovka in the Zaporozhye Region, and also those of the 106th and 122nd territorial defense brigades near the town of Ochakov in the Nikolayev Region and Tyaginka in the Kherson Region," the general reported.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia strikes Kyiv, Zelenskiy says Moscow's forces being 'destroyed'

Russia on Tuesday struck military and infrastructure targets in Ukraine's capital Kyiv and across other parts of the country, including western areas far from the front lines, Ukrainian officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised Ukraine's air defences for downing more than 30 drones and defiantly said that Ukraine's forces were destroying Russian forces in the two main theatres of the conflict, the east and south.

His commander of land forces and the deputy defence minister reported successes with a counteroffensive in both areas.

Russia's Defence Ministry said that Russian forces hit and destroyed eight ammunition warehouses across Ukraine in the prior 24 hours and repelled Ukrainian attacks in three areas.

It said Ukrainian forces had tried to attack the Russian-held eastern city of Donetsk and the southern Zaporizhzhia region, but had been repelled.

Zelenskiy's office said drones attacked the Kyiv region in several waves over more than four hours.

Also on Tuesday, Ukrainian forces struck the Russian-controlled town of Nova Kakhovka in the southern Kherson region with drones, killing a woman and wounding four civilians, local Russian-appointed authorities said.

FOCUS ON COUNTER-OFFENSIVE

The Russian attacks took place as attention has been focused on Ukrainian actions against Russia's defensive positions in the south and east - the initial stages of a counteroffensive seeking to push President Vladimir Putin's troops back from territory seized since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Kyiv says it has recaptured 113 square km (44 square miles) of land and eight settlements from Russian forces. But the latest strikes showed that Russia was capable of waging war beyond the front lines.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces "in the south and east are actively destroying the enemy, physically cleansing Ukraine.

"A defence against terror means destroying terrorists. And it is a guarantee that the state of evil will never have the opportunity to bring evil to Ukraine."

General Oleksander Syrskyi, Ukraine's commander of land forces, said on Telegram that his troops were making progress on the flanks of the shattered eastern city of Bakhmut, which fell to Russian mercenaries last month after months of fighting.

Ukrainian troops, he said, were repelling increasingly intense Russian attacks near Kupiansk in the northeast.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian forces in the south were "gradually, in small steps, but very confidently, making advances. We could even use the allegory that we are carving up every metre of land from the enemy."

Maliar said Russian forces had mined vast areas, including towns. Ukraine's military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, accused Russia of "mining" the pond used to cool reactors at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Zelenskiy's office said several commercial and administrative buildings and some private houses were damaged in the Russian drone attacks on the Kyiv area. There was no mention of any casualties in the overnight air strikes.

A "critically important facility" was struck in Lviv, far from the front lines and around 70 km (43 miles) from the border with Poland, regional governor Maksym Kozytskiy said, without giving details.

The air force said Ukrainian air defences had been in action, mostly in the Kyiv region, where more than two dozen Iranian-made Shahed drones were destroyed.

The Energy Ministry said debris from falling drones damaged power lines in the Kyiv region and also in the Mykolaiv region in the south, cutting electricity for hundreds of residents.

The air force said Russia had also targeted infrastructure in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia with Iskander and S-300 missiles. Ukraine's military said Russia had fired seven missiles at Zaporizhzhia.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

RUSSIAN MINISTER: UKRAINE WANTS TO HIT CRIMEA

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow had information that Ukraine was planning to strike Russian-controlled Crimea with longer-range U.S. and British missiles and warned Russia would retaliate if that happened.

Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea from Ukraine in 2014, but considers it to be outside the scope of its "special military operation" in eastern and southern Ukraine.

"The use of these missiles outside the zone of our special military operation would mean that the United States and Britain would be fully dragged into the conflict and would entail immediate strikes on decision-making centres in Ukraine," Shoigu told a meeting of military officials.

Shoigu also said Ukrainian armed forces had carried out 263 attacks on Russian forces' positions since June 4, referring to what Moscow regards as the start of Ukraine's counteroffensive. But it had "not accomplished its goals", he said.

Ukraine says it has recaptured eight villages.

RT/Tass/Reuters

Sudanese civilians killed and shot at as they flee Darfur city by foot

An increasing number of Sudanese civilians fleeing El Geneina, a city in Darfur hit by repeated militia attacks, have been killed or shot at as they tried to escape by foot to Chad since last week, witnesses said.

The violence in El Geneina over the past two months has been driven by militias from Arab nomadic tribes along with members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a military faction engaged in a power struggle with Sudan's army in the capital, Khartoum, witnesses and activists said.

A large number of people tried to seek protection near the army headquarters in El Geneina on June 14, but were blocked, said Ibrahim, a resident who made it to the Chadian town of Adre, about 27 km (17 miles) from El Geneina.

"All of a sudden the militias came out and sprayed people with gunfire," he said by phone, asking to use only his first name. "We got surprised by thousands of people running back. People were killed, they were trampled."

Reuters spoke to three witnesses who sustained gunshot wounds as they tried to flee El Geneina and to more than a dozen witnesses who said they had seen violence on the route from the city. It was not clear how many people had been killed in recent days.

Medical charity MSF said on Monday that some 15,000 people had fled West Darfur over the previous four days, and it said many arrivals reported seeing people shot and killed as they tried to escape El Geneina. MSF also reported rapes.

"It was a collective decision of the people of El Geneina to leave", one resident told MSF from Chad. "Most of them fled on foot heading northeast of El Geneina but many of them were killed on this route."

People decided to flee when the state governor of West Darfur was killed on June 14, hours after he accused the RSF and allied militias of "genocide" in a TV interview, said Ibrahim.

Ibrahim later found out that eight of his family members had been killed, including his grandmother, and that his mother had been beaten.

The war that erupted in April has uprooted more than 2.5 million people, according to U.N. estimates, mainly from the capital and from Darfur, which was already suffering from two decades of conflict and mass displacement. Nearly 600,000 have crossed into neighbouring countries, including more than 155,000 who have fled Darfur for Chad.

A 72-hour ceasefire, brokered by Saudi Arabia and the U.S., due to expire early on Wednesday morning, has brought a lull in fighting in Khartoum though residents report looting has spread and the army said the RSF had caused a huge fire at the intelligence headquarters late on Tuesday.

The RSF said the army was responsible for targeting the building, which is in an area near the defence ministry, army headquarters and airport that both sides claim to control.

'SYSTEMATIC' KILLING

The violence in Darfur has increased and taken on a more overtly ethnic nature, with assailants targeting non-Arab residents by their skin colour, witnesses said.

There are warning signs of a repeat of the atrocities perpetrated in Darfur after 2003, when "Janjaweed" militias from which the RSF was formed helped the government crush a rebellion by mainly non-Arab groups in Darfur.

More than 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced, according to U.N. estimates.

RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, said on Tuesday his force would investigate events in El Geneina. He accused the army of fomenting violence by arming tribes, while the army has blamed the RSF for the governor's death and other violence in the region.

Sultan Saad Bahreldin, leader of the Masalit tribe, the largest bloc of El Geneina residents, said there had been "systematic" killing in recent days.

"The road between El Geneina and Adre has a lot of bodies, no one can count them," he told Al Hadath TV.

One activist who left El Geneina on Sunday told Reuters that Arab militias and the RSF had reinforced their presence in the city since the governor's killing, adding that Arab groups controlled the route to Chad.

Eyewitnesses had reported cases of rape, murder and enforced disappearance along the route, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fears for his safety.

Competition for land has long been a driver of conflict in Darfur. Villages on the road from El Geneina to Adre used to be Masalit, but had been settled by Arab tribes since 2003, Ibrahim said.

Several witnesses from El Geneina, largely cut off from phone networks for weeks, said darker skinned non-Arabs were being targeted, especially the Masalit.

One resident who arrived in Chad on June 15, Abdel Nasser Abdullah, said his house was one of many in his neighbourhood that was stormed, and that his cousin was killed while he hid on the roof.

"They are not only looking for the Masalit but anyone Black," he said, adding that the streets of the city were strewn with bodies, including those of women and children.

Reuters

A team of researchers at the University of Cambridge have made a significant breakthrough in renewable energy and sustainable fuel production. It could ultimately eliminate the need for fossil fuels.

They have shown how carbon dioxide, whether captured from industrial exhaust or even directly from the air, can be turned into clean, renewable fuels harnessing only solar energy.

How does it work?

This innovative approach revolves around a solar-powered reactor. It was created by the researchers themselves. The reactor transforms not only captured CO2 but also plastic waste into sustainable fuels and other valuable chemicals.

Through this method, the researchers managed to convert CO2 into syngas. These are a critical precursor for sustainable liquid fuels. They also successfully transformed plastic bottles into glycolic acid, a chemical commonly found in cosmetic products.

This pioneering experiment, unlike earlier ones, utilized real-world sources of CO2. The scientists extracted CO2 from industrial exhaust and ambient air. This demonstrated the technology's ability to capture, concentrate, and convert CO2 into renewable fuel.

Eliminating the need for oil and gas with renewable energy

Advancements are necessary before the technology can be scaled up for industrial use. However, the findings, published in the journal Joule, signify an essential stride towards generating environmentally friendly fuels. This breakthrough could potentially eliminate the need for harmful oil and gas extraction.

For some time now, the research team led by Erwin Reisner in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry has been dedicated to developing sustainable, net-zero carbon fuels. They took inspiration from photosynthesis, wherein plants convert sunlight into food.

Using a similar concept, they developed 'artificial leaves' that convert CO2 and water into fuels. These are powered entirely by the sun.

However, the practical utility of this technology depends on its ability to actively capture CO2 from industrial processes or directly from the air. The technology doesn't do much good if requires pure, concentrated CO2 in a cylinder.

Overcoming technical obstacles

This is a considerable technical challenge since the air we breathe contains many different types of molecules. The technology needs to selectively convert highly diluted CO2.

Reisner stressed the ultimate objective of this research, stating, "We're not just interested in decarbonization, but de-fossilization-we need to completely eliminate fossil fuels in order to create a truly circular economy."

The technology could help reduce carbon emissions in the medium term by capturing them from industry and transforming them into something useful. However, Reisner suggests a more ambitious goal. He plans to "cut fossil fuels out of the equation entirely and capture CO2 from the air."

Drawing ideas from carbon capture and storage (CCS)-a method of capturing CO2 and storing it underground-the researchers transformed their solar-driven technology to work with flue gas or directly from the air. This conversion changes CO2 and plastics into renewable energy and fuel and chemicals using the power of the sun alone.

System captures CO2 while ignoring other gases

The researchers devised a system that traps CO2 selectively by bubbling air through an alkaline solution. Non-target gases like nitrogen and oxygen simply bubble out. This leaves behind concentrated CO2 in solution for conversion to renewable energy sources

This ingenious system has two compartments. In one, captured CO2 solution is converted into syngas. In the other, plastics are transformed into useful chemicals, all under the influence of sunlight.

According to co-first author Dr. Motiar Rahaman, the plastic component adds a crucial layer of functionality to this system.

He explains, "Capturing and using CO2 from the air makes the chemistry more difficult. But, if we add plastic waste to the system, the plastic donates electrons to the CO2. The plastic breaks down to glycolic acid... and the CO2 is converted into syngas, which is a simple fuel."

Sayan Kar, another co-first author, highlights the system's capability to convert two harmful waste products-plastic and carbon emissions-into something truly useful.

Rahaman adds, "Instead of storing CO2 underground, like in CCS, we can capture it from the air and make clean fuel from it."

This alternative process could potentially phase out the fossil fuel industry from the chain of fuel production. This would obviously help in the mitigation efforts of further climate change.

"The fact that we can effectively take CO2 from air and make something useful from it is special," said Kar, "It's satisfying to see that we can actually do it using only sunlight."

Scaling the device for renewable energy at mass scale

Currently, the team is putting their efforts into refining a bench-top demonstrator device. The goal is to enhance efficiency and practicality.

This will serve to underline the benefits of coupling direct air capture with CO2 utilization. Their hope is to forge a clear path to a zero-carbon future.

This research embodies a promising avenue in the battle against climate change. While it is still in the developmental stages, the potential implications are enormous.

Should this technology become scalable and cost-effective, it could provide a sustainable solution to two of the world's most pressing environmental issues - carbon emissions and plastic waste.

As Kar puts it, the team is not just converting CO2 into useful products, they're doing it with the sun's energy. The sun the cleanest energy source we have.

Ultimately, the goal of this research is not just to decrease carbon emissions, but to actively reverse them. If successful, it could reshape the landscape of renewable energy and bring us one step closer to a truly circular, sustainable economy.

More about the quest for renewable energy

Renewable energy has been a major focus of research and development for several years as countries around the world strive to reduce their carbon footprints, limit global warming, and become less dependent on fossil fuels.

Types of Renewable Energy

There are several types of renewable energy sources, each with its own benefits and challenges. These include solar power, wind power, hydroelectric power, tidal and wave power, geothermal power, and bioenergy. Solar and wind are the fastest-growing sectors of renewable energy.

Solar Power

Solar energy harnesses the power of the sun. Photovoltaic (PV) cells on solar panels convert sunlight directly into electricity. Concentrated solar power (CSP) systems use mirrors to focus sunlight onto a small area to generate heat, which then drives a heat engine connected to an electrical power generator.

Wind Power

Wind power uses the kinetic energy from the wind to spin turbines and generate electricity. It's a clean, cost-effective, and sustainable form of energy. However, it does face challenges such as intermittency and issues with placement, as wind farms can be considered eyesores and can impact local wildlife.

Hydroelectric Power

Hydroelectric power generates electricity by using flowing or falling water to spin a turbine connected to a generator. It's a reliable and proven technology but constructing dams for hydroelectric power plants can have significant environmental and social impacts, including changes to ecosystems and displacement of local communities.

Tidal and Wave Power

Tidal and wave power are forms of hydropower that convert the energy of tides or waves into electricity. While they have great potential, these technologies are still in the early stages of development and face challenges in terms of cost and environmental impact.

Geothermal Power

Geothermal power taps into the heat within the Earth's crust to generate electricity or heat buildings. It is a reliable and consistent source of power, but it is location-specific, and drilling for geothermal reservoirs can be expensive and challenging.

Bioenergy

Bioenergy comes from organic materials like plant and animal waste. These can be directly burned for heat or power, or converted into biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel. Bioenergy has a wide range of applications but must be carefully managed to ensure it's truly sustainable and doesn't compete with food crops or contribute to deforestation.

Storage and Grid Integration for Renewable Energy

One of the main challenges with renewable energy is that many sources are intermittent - they don't provide a constant stream of energy. Energy storage solutions, like batteries and pumped hydro storage, are essential for smoothing out these fluctuations and ensuring a consistent energy supply. Grid integration is also a significant technical challenge, as power grids need to be able to handle the variable inputs from different renewable sources.

Renewable Energy Policy and Economics

The transition to renewable energy is not just a technological challenge but also a policy and economic one. Policies like renewable portfolio standards, feed-in tariffs, and carbon pricing can incentivize the development and deployment of renewable technologies. Additionally, the cost of many forms of renewable energy has been falling, making them increasingly competitive with fossil fuels.

Future Renewable Energy Technologies

There are several promising technologies on the horizon, including advanced biofuels, floating offshore wind turbines, and solar fuels. There's also a great deal of interest in fusion power, which could provide a nearly limitless supply of clean energy if it can be made practical.

In summary, the quest for renewable energy involves a wide range of technologies and approaches, each with its own set of benefits, challenges, and potential. The goal is to create a sustainable, low-carbon energy system that can power our society without contributing to climate change.

Decentralization of Energy Production

In addition to harnessing renewable resources, there's a growing shift towards decentralization in energy systems. This means moving away from a few large power plants towards a network of smaller, distributed energy generators, which can include solar panels on homes, local wind turbines, or community bioenergy facilities. Decentralization can improve energy security, reduce transmission losses, and allow more people to participate in the energy market.

Integration of AI and IoT

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) in the energy sector is also a promising development. AI can improve the efficiency of energy usage and assist in the management of energy grids, while IoT devices can provide real-time data on energy generation and consumption, supporting smarter energy use and grid management.

Electric Vehicles and Transportation

The transportation sector is also undergoing a transformation with the rise of electric vehicles (EVs), which are powered by electricity rather than gasoline or diesel. This is a significant step towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, with advancements in vehicle-to-grid technology, EVs could even feed energy back into the grid when not in use.

Building and Industry Efficiency

Reducing the energy consumption of buildings and industry is also part of the renewable energy transition. This involves increasing energy efficiency, using sustainable building materials, and improving industrial processes. For instance, green buildings that utilize passive solar design, energy-efficient appliances, and advanced insulation can drastically reduce energy needs.

Public Awareness and Education

Lastly, public awareness and education are crucial elements in the quest for renewable energy. This involves increasing understanding about the importance of renewable energy and energy efficiency, and encouraging behaviors that support sustainability.

The journey towards a future powered by renewable energy is a multifaceted and complex one, touching on virtually every aspect of our lives, from the way we power our homes and vehicles, to the way we design our cities and economies.

It's not just a matter of swapping out fossil fuels for clean energy sources; it involves rethinking and reshaping our entire energy system towards sustainability and resilience. It's a significant challenge, but with promising advancements in technology, policy, and public awareness, it's a challenge that we're well-equipped to face.

Earth

At the enterprise level, keeping track of internal data and information has become an enormous challenge. In this VB Spotlight event, learn how new generative AI experiences are unlocking the full potential of data in enterprise environments and reducing time to knowledge.

With the increasing complexity and distributed nature of organizations – far-flung teams, remote work, and a multitude of knowledge systems, data is difficult to track down across an entire enterprise knowledge ecosystem, and workers are feeling the toll.

This knowledge access challenge “results in a loss of productivity and a frustration that we’re starting to see, leading to diminishing engagement from our employees,” says Phu Nguyen, head of digital workplace at Pure Storage during the recent VB Spotlight, “The impact of generative AI on enterprise search: A game-changer for businesses.”

He was joined by Jean-Claude Monney, a digital workplace, technology and knowledge management advisor and Eddie Zhou, founding engineer, intelligence at Glean to discuss the emergence of the evolutionary leap forward in workplace-specific search tools, powered by generative AI, that gives employees full access to the knowledge they need, and its context, anywhere in the organization.

The evolution of enterprise search

Traditional enterprise search can’t reach all the knowledge in an organization, which is spread out in multiple systems. It can mine structured knowledge, such as the data found in Jira, Confluence, intranets and sales portals, but unstructured knowledge, the information communicated through IM, Teams, Slack, and email, has been uncharted territory, difficult to corral in any helpful contextual way, Nguyen adds.

“The paradigm of knowledge management has changed significantly,” he says. “How do you have a system that can look at both structured and unstructured data and provide you with the answers that you’re ultimately looking for? Not the information that you need, but the answer that you’re looking for.”

Solutions that integrate with multiple systems and utilize generative AI can address these challenges, and help employees find the information they need to perform their jobs effectively, no matter where that knowledge resides.

“Companies are now building searches specifically for the workplace, built for internal searches that work across your internal system,” Nguyen explains. “Most importantly, they’re built on a knowledge graph that returns a search that’s more relevant to your employees. This is all very exciting for us because we think of this as part of our employee information center strategy. Previously it was just an intranet and our support portal, but now we have this workplace search that can connect information across multiple systems inside our organization.”

How organizations can leverage generative AI

There are three major ways companies can leverage generative AI, and they’re game changers, Monney says. First, he says, are the benefits that an NLP interface brings.

“Time to knowledge is a new business currency,” says Monney. “What we’ve seen with generative AI is this quantum leap in user experience. ChatGPT has democratized ways to talk to a system and get very succinct responses.”

At home, users have grown accustomed to the ease and convenience of natural language interfaces like Alexa and Siri; generative AI brings that user experience to the workplace, giving workers not just an enterprise search tool, but a digital knowledge assistant, he adds. It enables employees to find not just information but precise answers quickly, boosting productivity and efficiency, especially in complex decision-making scenarios. Generative AI also has the potential to go beyond answering individual questions and assist in more complex decision journeys, providing users with synthesized and relevant information without the need for explicit queries.

Generative AI can also automate repetitive tasks and streamline workflows — for example, chat bots that are powered by generative AI can handle customer service inquiries, product recommendations, or simply assist with booking appointments. That frees time for more complex tasks and greatly increases productivity.

Lastly, these generative AI solutions can be precisely refined for industry-specific and case-specific use. Companies can add their own corpus of knowledge to the large language models that generative AI uses, to improve relevance and the time to knowledge.

Bringing generative AI into the workplace

“To bring this technology into the workplace is not an easy thing,” Zhou cautions. It requires a knowledge model, which is composed of three pillars. The first is company knowledge and context. An off-the-shelf model or system, without being properly connected to the right knowledge and the right data, will not be functional, correct, or relevant.

“You need to build generative AI into a system that has the company knowledge and context,” he explains. “That allows for this trusted knowledge model to form out of the combination of these things. Search is one such method that can deliver this company knowledge and context, in conjunction with generative AI. But it’s one of several.”

The second pillar of the trusted knowledge model is permissioning and data governance, or being aware, as a user interfaces with a product and with a system, of what information they should and should not have access.

“We speak of knowledge in the company as if it’s free-flowing currency, but the reality is that different users and different employees in a company have access to different pieces of knowledge,” he says. “That’s objective and clear when it comes to documents. You might be part of a group alias which has access to a shared drive, but there are plenty of other things that a given person should not have access to, and in the generative setting it’s incredibly important to get this right.”

The third and final one is referenceability. As the product interface has evolved, users need to build a trust with the system, and be able to verify where the system is pulling information from.

“Without that kind of provenance, it’s hard to build trust, and it can lead to runaway factuality errors and hallucinations,” he says – especially in an enterprise system where each user is accountable for their decisions.

The emerging possibilities of generative AI

Generative AI means moving from questions into decisions Zhou says, decreasing time to knowledge. Basic enterprise search might turn up a series of documents to read, leaving the user to dig out the information they need. With augmented answer-first enterprise search, the user doesn’t ask those questions individually; instead, they can express the underlying journey, the overall decisions that need to be made, and the LLM agent brings it all together.

“This generative technology, when we pair it with search, and not just single searches, it gives us the ability to say, ‘I’m going on a business trip to X. Tell me everything I need to know,’” he says. “An LLM agent can go and figure out all the information I might need and repeatedly issue different searches, collect that information, synthesize it for me and deliver it to me.”

VentureBeat

Nigeria’s legal tender, the naira, closed at N770 per dollar at the investors and exporters (I&E) window on Monday, beginning the week on a fragile front as the recent central bank reforms take effect on the market.

The closing rate at the official window is lower than at the parallel market where Naira traded at between 760 and 765 to the dollar.

The Monday closing rate, according to FMDQ Securities Exchange Limited, represents a 16.1 percent depreciation from the N663 recorded on the last trading day (Friday).

Despite the naira’s weak performance, data on FMDQ shows that investors traded about $78 million deals on the I&E window.

The currency is yet to gain stability following changes implemented by the federal government in Nigeria’s foreign exchange (FX) market.

On June 14, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN announced the unification of all segments of the FX market, effectively floating the naira.

The policy meant that all FX windows were collapsed into the I&E window.

“This means all eligible FX transactions shall only be done via the I&E window, all other windows cease to exist,” the CBN had said.

“The I&E market functions by a willing buyer, willing seller system, where an entity with demand for FX seeks out another entity with FX to sell at an agreed price through an authorised dealer.

“In this model, rates are usually agreed by both parties.”

Following the apex bank’s directive, the naira depreciated, trading at N755 per dollar — but later appreciated to close at N664.

In an interview with Bloomberg in Morocco, Kingsley Obiora, deputy governor of the apex bank, said the CBN will further ease controls “in the next couple of weeks” to help determine a new level for the naira.

On whether the apex bank expects the official and parallel-market exchange rates to converge soon, Obiora said: “I don’t think it will take a long time.”

The Cable/NewsScroll