Nigeria is expected to make history on October 1, when its caterers build and unveil the world’s largest cake. The 65,000kg cake, will be unveiled at the National Stadium, Abuja, is expected to beat the current Guinness World Records.

By midnight, October 1, a select group of Nigerian caterers and bakers will begin work on a 65ton cake. By noon, the fruit cake, decorated in green and white colours will be unveiled by President Goodluck Jonathan. Mr. Jonathan will cut the 6ft high cake and Nigerians will have the opportunity to have a share of the ‘national cake’ literally..

The cake, which will be 100ft long and 6ft high, will require the services of at least 2000 persons, and is expected to beat the records of the current world’s largest cake, a 58ton cake which was baked in 1989.

One meal one nation

The organiser of the World’s largest cake project, Victor Oluwafemi, says he has tagged the project, ‘one meal one nation’, in line with the philosophy behind the project.

“The project is a private endeavour which myself and my team thought of. We wanted to do something significant for the 50th anniversary project. We wanted something that would give every Nigerian an opportunity to partake in the celebrations. We knew that the average Nigerian would not have the opportunity to eat the cake that will be presented in the villa,” Mr. Oluwafemi said to NEXT in Abuja.

Mr. Oluwafemi’s team of three spoke enthusiastically of the measures that they are taking to ensure that the cake gets to as many Nigerians as possible. First, every state in the country will receive one ton of the cake and the small team also expects that every tribe in the country will be represented in the Abuja Stadium on October 1, and will have the opportunity to have a bite of the cake.

“This project is supposed to turn the national cake that we always talk about to reality. It will give Nigerians an actual cake to feed on,” Paul Sambo, the team’s head of Strategic business said.

Likening the project to the national pride that comes from winning a football match, the team says that the project was designed to boost the emotions of Nigerians despite the current national challenges.

“This project does not gainsay the fact that the nation has problems up till today. But we need inspiration in order to move forward as a nation. This project was designed with a leadership bias, a leader inspires his people no matter what and that is what we hope to do,” Joseph Yakwo, the third member and the operations officer of the project said.

Making the records book

If the team’s cake must to enter the Guinness World Records, Mr. Oluwafemi and his team will have to start and finish the cake within 24 hours; the team plans to do so in 8.

“We are going to bake the cake in about 8 hours. The cake is going to be baked, cooled and iced on the same day,” Mr. Yakwo said.

The team says that it has been in touch with the officials of the Guinness World Records and that a Guinness adjudicator will arrive from New York to inspect the project from start to finish.

UN's Ban Ki-Moon calls Aral Sea 'shocking disaster'

NUKUS, Uzbekistan – The drying up of the Aral Sea is one of the planet's most shocking environmental disasters, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sunday as he urged Central Asian leaders to step up efforts to solve the problem.

Once the world's fourth-largest lake, the sea has shrunk by 90 percent since the rivers that feed it were largely diverted in a Soviet project to boost cotton production in the arid region.

The shrunken sea has ruined the once-robust fishing economy and left fishing trawlers stranded in sandy wastelands, leaning over as if they dropped from the air. The sea's evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles.

Ban toured the sea by helicopter as part of a visit to the five countries of former Soviet Central Asia. His trip included a touchdown in Muynak, Uzbekistan, a town once on the shore where a pier stretches eerily over gray desert and camels stand near the hulks of stranded ships.

"On the pier, I wasn't seeing anything, I could see only a graveyard of ships," Ban told reporters after arriving in Nukus, the nearest sizable city and capital of the autonomous Karakalpak region.

"It is clearly one of the worst disasters, environmental disasters of the world. I was so shocked," he said.

The Aral Sea catastrophe is one of Ban's top concerns on his six-day trip through the region and he is calling on the countries' leaders to set aside rivalries to cooperate on repairing some of the damage.

"I urge all the leaders ... to sit down together and try to find the solutions," he said, promising United Nations support.

However, cooperation is hampered by disagreements over who has rights to scarce water and how it should be used.

In a presentation to Ban before his flyover, Uzbek officials complained that dam projects in Tajikistan will severely reduce the amount of water flowing into Uzbekistan. Impoverished Tajikistan sees the hydroelectric projects as potential key revenue earners.

Competition for water could become increasingly heated as global warming and rising populations further reduce the amount of water available per capita.

Water problems also could brew further dissatisfaction among civilians already troubled by poverty and repressive governments; some observers fear that could feed growing Islamist sentiment in the region.

Ban also is taking on the region's frequently poor human rights conditions.

That is likely to be an especially tense issue when he meets Monday with Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who has led the country since the 1991 Soviet collapse and imposed severe pressure on opposition and civil rights activists.

The meeting comes less than two weeks after the U.N. Human Rights Committee issued a report criticizing Uzbekistan, including calling for fuller investigation of the brutal suppression of a 2005 uprising in the city of Andijan. Opposition and rights groups claim that hundreds were killed, but authorities insist the reports are exaggerated and angrily reject any criticism.