TEHRAN, Aug. 15 (MNA) – At least 26 members of the Nigerian security forces were killed and eight wounded in an ambush by gunmen in central Nigeria late Sunday, two military sources said.
Additionally, an air force spokesman said a helicopter rescuing the wounded crashed on Monday morning in the area, where the army is fighting criminal groups, without specifying whether the crew and passengers had survived.
The two military officers who told AFP the report asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on the incident while military authorities were not available for comment.
“We lost 23 soldiers, including three officers, and three Civilians JTF [vigilantes] in the encounter while eight soldiers were injured,” said the first source, following “a serious fight” along the Zungeru-Tegina highway.
A second officer gave the same toll and said the bandits also suffered “heavy casualties.” He also said that communication had been lost with an air force helicopter dispatched to evacuate the casualties, with 11 of the dead and seven of the injured aboard.
He said the helicopter was carrying 11 of the dead and seven of the wounded. He added that the aircraft had crashed because of gunfire from “bandits.”
A Nigerian air force spokesman confirmed that its Mi-171 helicopter while on a “casualty evacuation mission” crashed on Monday after take-off from Zungeru.
“The aircraft had departed Zungeru Primary School en route for Kaduna but was later discovered to have crashed near Chukuba Village in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State,” spokesman Edward Gabkwet said in a statement.
He said efforts were underway to rescue those aboard and that preliminary investigations had been opened into the cause of the crash.
Barely a week goes by in Africa’s most populous nation without attacks or kidnappings by criminals known as “bandits” in the northwest and center of the country.
The gangs, who have been notorious for mass school abductions, maintain camps in a vast forest straddling the states of Niger, Kaduna, Zamfara and Katsina.
Northwest and central Nigeria have for years been terrorized by bandits who raid remote villages where they kill and abduct residents for ransom, as well as burn homes after looting them.
Impunity as well as insufficient security and wider government presence has allowed the violence to fester, experts say. MNA/PR
Energy Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir opens a master valve of a well at the Paka Hills in Baringo County. [File, Standard]
The government will next year competitively select power producers that will build electricity generating plants at the Baringo-Silali geothermal fields, wich are then expected to start electricity production by 2028.
This is as Kenya eyes increased electricity production from geothermal to reduce reliance on hydro power that is prone to weather shocks s as well as displace costly thermal power plants.
The Baringo-Silali fields, which are outside the traditional geothermal fields of Olkaria, offer an opportunity to increase geothermal’s installed capacity. The fields have capacity to produce an estimated 3,000 megawatts making them an appealing alternative for the country that now needs to balance between availing power to the grid and making it affordable.
While geothermal resources in Kenya are estimated to have a potential to produce 10,000MW, the country has exploited about 950MW to date. Of this, about 800MW is generated at power plants built by Kengen while the balance is by Independent Power Producers (IPPs) Orpower that produces 150MW at its plants at Olkaria and the recently launched 35MW plant by Sosian Energy at Menengai.
At Baringo-Silali, the Geothermal Development Company (GDC) has drilled wells that can generate up to 70MW and said it will increase this to 100MW by end of this year. It will then invite power companies to build plants that will produce electricity using the geothermal steam from these wells.
GDC expects the first plant that will have an installed capacity to start feeding the power grid by 2028.
Baringo Silali has quite the potential. One of the wells drilled there set a record of sorts when steam gushing out can produce 22MW of electricity. THis is in comparison to 5MW that ordinary wells produce on average.
“Having one well discharging steam at 22MW is equivalent to drilling about four wells that discharge at 5MW. When you consider that to drill a well costs $5 million (Sh700 million), it is a huge saving. Silali is avery productive area” said Davis Chirchir, Cabinet Secretary Energy and Petroleum.
“We should be going to tender, to invite companies to convert the steam to power by next year,” said the CS, adding the IPPs that would put up power plants at the Baringo-Silali fields would selling electricity to Kenya Power at between six and seven US cents (between Sh8 and Sh10) per unit. This is the cost for the power producers and is before taxes and levies as well as pass through costs such as fuel and forex adjustments are loaded on the power bill
“When the wells are capped, the steam is fuel that is not working for us and yet it is already available. So we will be bringing in the new investments to go to the next frontier of converting the steam to power. Ketraco will also be looking at evacuation so we will be building a transmission network out of these fields.”
GDC has been derisking the fields by way of exploring and drilling wells in areas that show high potential. It did the same in Menengai and parts of Olkaria.
Since it was established about 13 years ago, GDC by bearing the high capital investment for exploring and drilling wells and then inviting other firms to put plants, it has accelerated development of geothermal. Power generation through geothermal stood at around 200MW in 1998 when GDC was formed. At the moment, about of the 950MW geothermal installed capacity is generated using steam from GDC wells.
Pail Ngugi chief executive GDC said the firm plans to develop the Baringo-Silali fields in phases, with the first phase expected to produce 300MW – 100MWe each from the three fields of Paka, Korosi and Silali.
Paka field, where most of the work has been done,is expected to start production of the first 100MW from Paka prospect by 2028.
“We are developing this project in phases and the first phase will produce 100MW. We have already drilled for the steam and what is next is power plant construction,” said Ngugi.
“We are doing a feasibility study and once this is done by early next year, we can now start seeking investors. Once we get the investors, we should have this project in place in the next three years. We are looking at 2027, latest 2028, we should be able to have power feeding the grid.”
“The cost of power from our projects is about seven US cents… if we can duplicate this cost of seven US cents over several other geothermal fields, we can actually bring the cost of power down.”
While the Energy Ministry is preparing to invite companies to place bids for building the power plants, earlier expectations were that Kengen would take over the fields derisked by GDC.
CS Chirchir said the government will take the firms that will sell electricity at the lowest price to the Kenyan consumers.
The Presidential Taskforce on Review of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) had in 2021 recommended that GDC should give Kengen the first right of refusal to the fields that it has already derisked.
This is on account of past experiences, where IPPs contracted to put up power plants at the Menengai geothermal fields have taken unnecessarily long to put up the power plants.
Three companies were selected in 2014 to put up power plants at Menengai fields and to date, only one firm has completed constructing its power plant. THe companies were to put up plants with a combined electricity generating capacity of 105MW or 35MW each.
GDC sunk the wells and built the steam gathering systems as a way to derisk the geothermal fields, making it easy for private sector players to gain entry in the country’s geothermal sector and increase power from the renewable resource.
“The taskforce found it inconceivable that Kengen did not qualify for projects tendered by GDC for stream conversion,” said the Taskforce in its report.
Chirchir noted that if Kengen could offer power at low prices, it would be given the go ahead. He however added that a competitive process would help in price discovery and the Kenyan consumer would be the ultimate beneficiary.
“But yes, if Kengen can deliver at four US cents, five US cents, we should do it. If somebody else can deliver at a better cost, why not,” he said but also explained that the company should be cautious not to be saddled with too much debt.
“Kengen is a government entity and investments will be determined by the state of its balance sheet. We do not want them to be overstretched,” he said, adding that Kengen’s room to borrow to finance such a project would be determined by how much borrowing room the government has. In certain instances, the state borrows for onlending to Kengen.
“We also borrow as a government for onlending to Kengen, to get concessional funding. If government’s headroom to borrow is in a good position, we should be able to do that and allow Kengen to take advantage of that low cost of money and get to reduce their cost of power
He also noted that Kenngen is also doing other projects including a solar power plant at the seven forks hydro power project that is expected to be among those that feed the grid at low cost. By Macharia Kamau, The Standard
King Charles 111 is to visit Kenya this autumn. The King has not travelled a lot after he became the King and now he is set to visit Kenya.
Kenya has a lot of historical connections to the UK. The late Queen Elizabeth 11 became the Queen when she was in Kenya. Prince William son of King Charles proposed to his wife Kate Middleton when both were in Kenya.
Her father King George VI died and according to the royal rules of ascending to the throne, when in the incumbent Queen or King dies, the next to the throne takes over right away wherever he or she may be.
Queen Elizabeth 11 ascended to the throne while in Kenya. UK only enjoyed her coronation. King Charles became the King when her mother died as he was next on the throne.
DAR ES SALAAM, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa on Monday urged cashew nuts growers to process the crop locally in order to add value before they sell it to international markets.
Speaking in the Newala district in the Mtwara region on his official tour of the cashew nuts growing region, Majaliwa said growers of the cash crop will remain poor if they continued selling raw cashew nuts.
"Now is the time for change. We should use this opportunity to establish cashew nuts processing plants and sell the processed nuts to the international markets," said Majaliwa.
He said a kg of processed cashew nuts was selling at 13,000 Tanzanian shillings (about 5.22 U.S. dollars) while a kg of raw cashew nuts was selling at 2,000 shillings.
Majaliwa said by processing the cashew nuts locally, growers of the crop could also benefit from extracting oil from the shells of the crop.
Tanzania produced 400,000 metric tons of cashew nuts in the 2022/2023 period, but the Cashewnuts Board of Tanzania plans to increase production of the crop to 700,000 metric tons in the 2025/2026 period. - Xinhua
Arua city based Muni University has denied reports that it will host the proposed inaugural memorial lecture for former Ugandan President Idi Amin Dada.
Early last week, a group of local leaders and stakeholders from the West Nile sub-region and those living in the diaspora announced the lecture and prayers to honour Amin's contribution to Uganda and the entire African continent.
According to the local organising committee, the memorial lecture which will be held under the theme; “The Way President Idi Amin is Remembered Should Be Re-examined Given the Negative Branding it Has.”
“Based on his social background, rise to power and work as some military personnel, President of Uganda and commander in Chief of the armed forces, Chairman OAU and his contributions to the development of Uganda, patriotism national,” reads the concept note for the memorial lecture.
The memorial lecture is scheduled to take place on Friday, September 1, 2023, at Muni University and the keynote speaker is expected to be Julius Sello Malema, the president of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party in South Africa.
Jamal Mohammad Hassan Al-Madani, ambassador of Saudi Arabia in Uganda is expected to grace the event as the guest of honour. Dr Chris Baryomunsi, the minister for National Guidance and ICT will be the chief guest according to the organizers of the event.
However, associate Professor Simon Anguma Katrini, the acting vice Chancellor of Muni University said that nobody has requested the use of the university campus for the proposed memorial lecture. He further noted that the university has no official information about the proposed event.
“As an institution, nobody has requested us to use the Muni University campus as the venue for the event...Muni University has no official information about the organisation of the event,” reads part of the statement.
When contacted, Kaps Fungaroo Hassan, the public relations officer of the central organising committee of the lecture maintained that the university management was informed through Prof Epiphany Odubuker, the deputy vice-chancellor in charge of administration and finance.
“Muni University was informed and consulted through the deputy VC for administration and finance Prof Picho and if the issue raised by the VC Prof Anguma is genuinely limited to information and consultations with the university authorities, then it is already covered," Fungaroo said.
"I am still in touch with Prof Picho and we have agreed that we shall identify and close the communication gaps through a joint meeting involving Prof Picho, Prof Anguma and all the other key stakeholders in Muni University and West Nile.”
A native of Koboko in West Nile sub-region, Amin overthrew the government of Milton Obote and became Uganda's head of state in 1971. His expulsion of Asians in 1972 brought about considerable economic decline. In 1979 his reign came to an end as Ugandan exiles and Tanzanian troops took control of the capital of Kampala, forcing Amin to flee.
He originally sought refuge in Libya, and later moved to Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death in 2003. He was buried there. By URN, The Obsever
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