Before locking horns with reigning African champions Algeria, players and coaches of the three-time Africa Cup of Nations winners were subjected to the assessment, nevertheless, all medical tests returned negative.

On Monday, Gernot Rohr’s team will have to ascertain their state of health once again before taking on the Carthage Eagles.

The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) had denied claims in some sections of the media that four of the Super Eagles in camp had contracted the virus before Friday’s fixture with Algeria at the Jacques Lemans Arena.

“Please discountenance any reports that some of our players tested positive to Covid-19 ahead of tomorrow’s friendly game against Algeria. It is a blatant falsehood,” NFF wrote in a statement.

“The writer of the story, who was not part of the press conference earlier today, totally misrepresented what coach [Gernot] Rohr said that since the outbreak of the pandemic, four of our players had tested positive but were all now fully recovered from the virus and back in action.”

Ramy Bensebaini’s sixth-minute strike handed the Djamel Belmadi’s Desert Foxes a slim 1-0 triumph over Nigeria in Friday’s international friendly.

They would be hoping to return to winning ways against Mondher Kebaier’s team that silenced Sudan 3-0 in Rades thanks to goals from Saif-Eddine Khaoui, Wahbi Khazri and Anis Ben Slimane.

 

The recent rice farming activities in Kano have been seen as a record-breaking achievement in the history of Nigeria, as far as that sector is concerned.

As one of the staple foods in Nigeria, the consumption of rice is said to have increased to 4.7 per cent, almost four times the global consumption growth.

This triggered a revolution in the sector; hence the increase in rice milling in Kano.

From 2015 to 2020, no fewer than 230 micro, small, medium and large rice mills have emerged. A lot of the existing ones have also been upgrading their capacities.

In places like Kura, Gezawa, Bunkure, Garun Malam and Tudun Wada local government areas of the state, it is common to see a cluster of small-scale rice millers doing business.

New mega rice mills with thousands of metric tons per month capacity are also on the increase. The recent one has a 160-ton-per-day capacity. It is the first mega rice mill owned by a woman in Kano State.

In the past seven years, the Nigerian government, in collaboration with the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), boosted the production of rice by according it high priority. In 2017, production got to 3.7million tons.

It was reported that rice milling revolution in Kano started in 2014 when 70,000 farmers were mapped out to benefit from the year’s dry season farming programme in the state’s agricultural scheme. It was in conjunction with the then Federal Ministry of Agriculture’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA).

It is also believed that the achievement recorded in the production of rice in Kano is a result of various agricultural policies introduced by the Federal Government. For example, the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP), through various associations, as well as the ATA, encouraged many people to venture into agriculture, especially dry season rice farming. This resulted in an increase in the number of rice farmers in the state as demand increased.