society
The Frayed Thread: How Geopolitical Strife, Climate Breakdown and Food Insecurity Threaten Our Common Future
The Frayed Thread: How Geopolitical Strife, Climate Breakdown and Food Insecurity Threaten Our Common Future.
By George Omagbemi Sylvester | Published by saharaweeklyng.com
“A blistering call to concerted action after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s G20 warning — because polite complacency is now a crime against our children.
When President Cyril Ramaphosa stood before the G20 and warned that “the threats facing humanity today; from escalating geopolitical tensions, global warming, pandemics, energy and food insecurity jeopardise our collective future,” he did not offer a polite diplomatic observation: he issued an alarm bell. That sentence is not a speech flourish. It is a diagnosis, a legal brief, and a moral indictment rolled into one. The world is being rent along multiple fault lines at once and those ruptures are interacting in ways that amplify suffering, undermine institutions, and make yesterday’s crises look quaint at the G20.
Let us be clear about what we are confronting. On the food front, the United Nations flagship analysis makes plain that hunger is not a vague, distant problem to be solved by feel-good charity; it is resurging, structural, and measurable. In 2024 some 673 million people (roughly 8 percent of humanity) experienced hunger, and roughly 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure; hundreds of millions more than before the pandemic. These figures are not abstractions: they map to children stunted by malnutrition, to economies hollowed out by lost productivity, and to political tinderboxes where food scarcity feeds conflict and displacement.
Worse still, acute food crises have ballooned. Independent reporting and the Global Report on Food Crises show that nearly 300 million people faced severe, acute food crises in 2024 — a horrifying figure driven by war, economic collapse, and weather extremes. Humanitarian agencies warn that tens of millions could slide from crisis into outright famine unless funding and ceasefires arrive. This is not a distant news brief; it is a rolling catastrophe unfolding in real time in places such as Sudan, Gaza, parts of the Sahel, Yemen and beyond.
Why should a South African-hosted G20 care? Because geopolitics, climate and food are not separate spheres: they are three cogs of a single machine that, if left unchecked, will grind civilization into anarchy. Geopolitical tensions (rivalries between great powers, regional wars, proxy conflicts and the weaponisation of aid and trade) disrupt supply chains, spike prices and close off humanitarian corridors. When fertilizers, fuel and transport are priced out of reach or blocked by sanctions and conflict, harvests fail, markets panic and millions can’t afford a daily meal. The World Food Programme has repeatedly warned that funding shortfalls compounded by geopolitical choices have placed some 58 million people at the brink of an extreme hunger crisis; a direct consequence of policy choices as much as weather.
Then there is climate, the slow, remorseless amplifier. Climate scientists and planetary-boundary researchers, warning in ever more urgent tones, tell us we are perilously close to tipping points: irreversible shifts like the dieback of the Amazon, the collapse of parts of the Antarctic ice sheet, or a breakdown in major ocean currents that sustain monsoons. Those shifts do not merely raise sea levels; they rewrite the map of agriculture, collapse freshwater systems, and trigger migration on an epic scale. Leading scientists warn that transgressing multiple planetary thresholds will undermine the Earth’s life-support systems — with catastrophic consequences for food production and human security.
Add inequality and economic policy to the mix and you have a perfect storm. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and other economists have framed the present era as an “INEQUALITY EMERGENCY” a structural fragility that leaves entire populations unable to absorb shocks. Inequality sharpens the effects of famine and heatwaves because poor households cannot diversify livelihoods, access credit, or relocate. It also fuels political polarization; angry, desperate populations are tinder for demagogues and violent actors who exploit scarcity to consolidate power. The G20 itself has been urged to confront inequality as a systemic risk to global stability.
These are not problems that can be outsourced to NGOs. They are governance failures writ large: failures of diplomacy when sanctions and saber-rattling choke trade; failures of climate stewardship when fossil-fuel interests stall transitions; failures of solidarity when humanitarian funding is traded for geopolitical advantage. António Guterres and other global leaders have been blunt: hunger is being weaponized, and climate inaction is an act of intergenerational theft. That language may sting, but it must sting — EUPHEMISMS have had their day.
So what must happen? First: treat these threats as STRATEGIC; not CHARITABLE. Food systems, energy systems and climate resilience belong at the core of national security strategies. That means stockpiles for emergencies, safeguarded humanitarian corridors, and trade instruments designed to keep essential goods moving even in times of diplomatic fracture. It means debt-relief tied to investments in resilient agriculture and social protections so that poor nations aren’t forced to choose between service payments and feeding their children.
Second: elevate CLIMATE ACTION from SLOGAN to STRICT POLICY. The technological breakthroughs in renewables and storage are real; but without large-scale finance, just transition programs for fossil-fuel dependent communities, and rapid removal of market distortions that favour carbon-intensive industries, the window to limit warming to survivable bounds will slam shut. Scientists implore immediate, profound cuts in emissions and an urgent scale-up of carbon removal where necessary; not as an OPTIONAL ADD-ON but as an OBLIGATION.
Third: rebuild international cooperation mechanisms. The G20 has a unique convening power; Ramaphosa’s hosting moment must be used to forge binding, accountable pledges: emergency funding guarantees for food crises, a MULTILATERAL COMPACT to DE-ESCALATE CONFLICTS that IMPEDE food flows, and an international panel on inequality and shared prosperity modeled on proposals backed by leading economists. These are politically hard, but the alternative is to watch fragile states fail and generate waves of displacement and conflict that will ripple back to every G20 capital.
Finally: put justice at the center. Climate and food insecurity are not blind forces; they fall hardest on those who contributed least to the problem. Any credible response must include transfer of FINANCE and TECHNOLOGY to the Global South, fair trade terms for agricultural producers, and mechanisms to protect smallholder farmers from market shocks and climate volatility.
This is not an essay in despair. It is a summons. Diplomacy can quiet guns; investment can rebuild soils and power grids; policy can protect the most vulnerable. But none of that will happen if we muddle along with incrementalism and hollow talk. President Ramaphosa’s line at the G20 is more than a sentence, it is a MANDATE for URGENCY. We have the evidence, the science, and the moral case. What we lack is the political courage to act at the scale required.
If not now, when? If not together, who? The future will not forgive the generation that chose complacency while its children starved and its lands burned. The time for excuses is over; the time for systemic, cooperative action has arrived. The G20, UNICEF, FAO, WFP, scientists and civil society must stop trading EUPHEMISMS for results. We must convert ALARM into ACCOUNTABILITY and PROMISES into IMMEDIATE, MEASURABLE INTERVENTIONS. Anything less will be a betrayal of the most basic compact between governments and the people they are meant to protect.
George Omagbemi Sylvester writes from South Africa. Published by saharaweeklyng.com
*Pan African Parliament Hails Nigeria’s Laudable Milestones In Petroleum Sector Reforms
– To Adopt Model Law on Resource Management
The Pan African Parliament (PAP) has commended Nigeria for its remarkable and historic turnaround in the petroleum sector, describing the country’s upstream reforms as a benchmark for the continent.
At the conclusion of a fourteen-day special syndicate meeting of West African parliamentarians held in Johannesburg to deliberate on African resource management and the urgent need for a continental model law, PAP members declared Nigeria’s faithful implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 the practical template that other African oil-producing nations should emulate.
The meeting resolved to fast-track the drafting of a Model Law on Natural Resource Governance, with Nigeria’s transparent, predictable and investment-friendly licensing regime repeatedly cited as the central reference point.
At the centre of the continent’s admiration is Nigeria’s dramatic production rebound. Official figures confirm the country has repeatedly surpassed 1.7 million barrels per day in 2025, decisively ending a decade of stagnation caused by security challenges, operational setbacks and chronic investor hesitation.
Nigeria now stands firmly on course to achieve its long-standing target of 2.5 million barrels per day by 2026. A near-70 rig count recorded this year—the highest in almost a decade—with more than forty rigs still active, reflects the strongest upstream drilling activity in years and unmistakable evidence that global investor sentiment has turned decisively in Nigeria’s favour.
This transformation has been powered by multi-billion-dollar Final Investment Decisions, the approval of Field Development Plans worth approximately twenty billion dollars in the past ten months, and rigorous enforcement of the PIA’s “drill or drop” provisions, which have seen idle and fallow discoveries systematically recovered and prepared for immediate reallocation to serious developers.
Nigeria has also replaced irregular and opaque bid rounds with annual licensing cycles, delivering the regulatory predictability investors have long demanded.
The 2025 licensing round, opening on 1 December, is already regarded as one of the most strategically important since the PIA was enacted in 2021.
Built on the fully digital, transparent and livestreamed platform that won universal acclaim in 2024, the exercise will offer around twenty-four blocks across onshore, shallow-water and deep-offshore terrains, with a deliberate emphasis on natural gas alongside crude oil in line with Nigeria’s energy-transition commitments and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Massamba Dieng of Senegal told journalists at the close of the meeting: “What Nigeria has achieved in less than five years is nothing short of revolutionary for Africa.
“The disciplined enforcement of ‘drill or drop’, the return to annual licensing rounds conducted on a fully digital and transparent platform, and the recovery of billions of barrels in stranded assets have turned Nigeria into the continent’s most attractive upstream destination.
“We in Senegal and across West Africa intend to borrow heavily from this model as we craft our own reforms.”
Hon. Salifu Jawo, Gambian member of the Pan African Parliament, added: “Nigeria’s leadership extends beyond its borders through its chairmanship of the African Petroleum Regulators Forum under Engr. Gbenga Komolafe.
“The practical knowledge being shared through AFRIPERF is already helping smaller producers design better regulatory frameworks. The combination of political will, legislative clarity in the PIA, and courageous regulatory execution has given Africa a success story we can all replicate.
“This is why the Model Law we are drafting will be built largely on Nigeria’s experience.”
Adding further weight to Nigeria’s continental influence is its current presidency of the African Petroleum Regulators Forum (AFRIPERF), held by Engr. Gbenga Komolafe.
Parliamentarians noted that Nigeria’s bold reforms are being actively disseminated across the continent through AFRIPERF platforms, offering practical guidance to regulators seeking to attract investment and maximise resource value.
As the Pan African Parliament prepares to adopt a continent-wide Model Law on Resource Management, members unanimously agreed that Nigeria’s journey—from near-collapse to renewed vigour under the transformative framework of the Petroleum Industry Act and its exemplary leadership of AFRIPERF—will serve as the cornerstone of that historic legislation.
society
Nigeria Hosts Its First Cultural Dog Exhibition as “Paws of Heritage NDBU2025” Show Makes History
Nigeria Hosts Its First Cultural Dog Exhibition as “Paws of Heritage NDBU2025” Show Makes History
The Paws of Heritage Dog Show, organized by King’s Dog Club in collaboration with the Nigeria Dog Breeders Union (NDBU), has officially made history as Nigeria’s first-ever cultural dog exhibition, attracting widespread recognition both locally and internationally. Held in Magboro, the event brought together dog enthusiasts to celebrate the fusion of tradition, community, and canine excellence.
At this groundbreaking exhibition, dogs appeared dressed in traditional Nigerian attires, proudly representing Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and other cultural identities. Handlers also wore matching native outfits, creating a striking visual celebration of culture and companionship.
Several major awards highlighted the day’s activities. The Best in Show title was awarded to a Lhasa, recognized for its outstanding obedience and ability to follow instructions with precision. The Best in Breed accolade went to a Snowline German Shepherd, while the award for Best Culturally Dressed Dog was claimed by a Pug whose matching Yoruba agbada outfit, paired with its handler, captivated the crowd.
Another memorable moment was the presentation of the Best Young Promising Dog Breeder Award, given to a young girl named Treasure, whose passion for dogs and enthusiasm for learning impressed both judges and spectators.
The show’s atmosphere was further energized by live music performances, cultural games, interactive activities, and colorful photo sessions that made the event enjoyable for families, dog lovers, and visitors.
The exhibition also drew praise from the international canine community. Mrs. Claudia Galeotti of the ICDB Dog Show in Italy described the event as groundbreaking. In her translated message, she said:
> “How nice… It’s the first time ever that I’ve seen a photo of a Best in Show with people of colour, with clothes and backgrounds typical of their country. I find it wonderful. A step forward for humanity and a great merit for those who know how to make a difference. I’m referring to him—the President of the WDF—who deserves all my respect and is showing everyone what leadership is worth.”
Warm messages of appreciation were also received from the President of the Kennel Club Algeria, the President of the World Dog Federation, Kennel Club Colombia, the WDF African Union, and several other international kennel bodies, all applauding NDBU for advancing canine culture and organized dog exhibitions in Nigeria.
Organizers expressed gratitude to King’s Dog Club, NDBU officials, participants, and supporters who played key roles in making the event a success.
With Paws of Heritage setting a new cultural standard for dog shows in the country, the Nigerian canine community now looks forward to the NDBU National Dog Show 2026, which promises an even more remarkable experience.
A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY EMPEROR ESEMONU CHRISTIAN
Today, we joyfully commemorate the birthday of a visionary leader, His Imperial Majesty Emperor King Dr. Ugochukwu Christian Esemonu, the revered Great Emperor of Santorini Empire and Administrator of the Global Throne United Kingdom of Atlantis. It’s a moment to reflect on his extraordinary life, remarkable leadership, and the profound impact he’s had on countless lives.
Emperor EseMonu Christian is more than a title holder; he’s a beacon of hope, a symbol of acceleration, and a champion of excellence. His dedication to serving humanity, without bounds or bias, has earned him widespread respect and admiration. With a career marked by remarkable achievements and a heart full of compassion, he has touched the lives of many, empowering them to reach their full potential.
As he celebrates another milestone, we celebrate not just a leader, but a mentor, a guide, and a friend to many. His legacy continues to inspire, uplift, and transform communities, both locally and globally. We pray that the Almighty remains his strength, guiding him with wisdom and empowering him to achieve greater heights.
To His Imperial Majesty, we say: Happy Birthday! May this year bring you boundless joy, continued faithfulness, and the fulfillment of every noble desire. Here’s to many more years of leading with grace, impacting lives, and shining brightly for the people of UKA and beyond.
_Happy birthday to you, Your Majesty!
Clement Emmanuel. Media Director (UKA)
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