A MEETING OF GENERATIONS: BURATAI HONOURS HERO, MAJ GEN MAGORO, AT ACF 25TH ANNIVERSARY

Kaduna, Nigeria – November 22, 2025 —

The 25th Anniversary celebration of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), held from November 20 to 22 in Kaduna, provided a memorable platform for unity, reflection, and the celebration of Northern heritage. One of the most symbolic moments of the event was the emotional reunion between two distinguished military icons whose service spans different eras of Nigeria’s history.

Former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusufu Buratai (Rtd), CFR, met and paid glowing tribute to one of his lifelong heroes, the highly respected Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Magoro (Rtd).

For General Buratai, the encounter was especially meaningful. He described General Magoro as “a general par excellence, an astute and dignified statesman, and a true national hero.” He noted that Magoro’s exemplary service—both in the military and in national leadership—has been a major source of inspiration throughout his own career.

Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Magoro (Rtd) is an iconic figure in Nigeria’s military and political history. A decorated war veteran, he played pivotal command roles during the Nigerian Civil War, earning recognition for his bravery and tactical brilliance. Beyond his military achievements, he also served as Minister of Internal Affairs and later as a Senator in the Second Assembly. He is the esteemed Mutawallen Kebbi, a title that reflects his honour, integrity, and deep-rooted influence within his community.

The ACF’s silver jubilee offered a fitting setting for this historic meeting, as both generals exchanged warm pleasantries and rekindled the spirit of brotherhood and professional camaraderie that binds those who have served the nation at the highest levels.

The encounter between Buratai and Magoro stands as a testament to the ACF’s enduring role as a unifying platform where Northern leaders converge to reflect, engage, and preserve the legacies that continue to shape Nigeria’s 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.