General
Meta Builds AI Model to Translate 200 Languages
By Adedapo Adesanya
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has built an open-source No Language Left Behind’ NLLB-200, a single AI model that is the first to translate about 200 languages, including 55 African languages.
Meta is using the modelling techniques and learnings from the project to improve and extend translations on Facebook, Instagram, and Wikipedia.
In an effort to develop high-quality machine translation capabilities for most of the world’s low-resource languages, the single AI model was designed with a focus on African languages. They are challenging from a machine translation perspective.
AI models require lots and lots of data to help them learn, and there’s not a lot of human-translated training data for these languages. For example, there are more than 20 million people who speak and write in Luganda but examples of this written language are extremely difficult to find on the internet.
Meta noted that it worked with professional translators for each of these languages to develop a reliable benchmark which can automatically assess translation quality for many low-resource languages.
“We also work with professional translators to do human evaluation too, meaning people who speak the languages natively evaluate what the AI produced. The reality is that a handful of languages dominate the web, so only a fraction of the world can access content and contribute to the web in their own language.
“We want to change this by creating more inclusive machine translations systems – ones that unlock access to the web for the more than 4B people around the world that are currently excluded because they do not speak one of the few languages content is available in,” it said in a statement.
The CEO of Meta, Mr Mark Zuckerberg, in a post on his Facebook profile said – “It’s impressive how much AI is improving all of our services. We just open-sourced an AI model we built that can translate across 200 different languages — many of which aren’t supported by current translation systems.
“We call this project No Language Left Behind, and the AI modelling techniques we used are helping make high-quality translations for languages spoken by billions of people around the world.
“To give a sense of the scale, the 200-language model has over 50 billion parameters, and we trained it using our new Research SuperCluster, which is one of the world’s fastest AI supercomputers.
“The advances here will enable more than 25 billion translations every day across our apps. Communicating across languages is one superpower that AI provides, but as we keep advancing our AI work it’s improving everything we do — from showing the most interesting content on Facebook and Instagram, to recommending more relevant ads, to keeping our services safe for everyone.”
On her part, Ms Balkissa Ide Siddo, Public Policy Director for Africa said, “Africa is a continent with very high linguistic diversity, and language barriers exist day to day. We are pleased to announce that 55 African languages will be included in this machine translation research, making it a major breakthrough for our continent.
“In the future, imagine visiting your favourite Facebook group, coming across a post in Igbo or Luganda, and being able to understand it in your own language with just a click of a button – that’s where we hope research like this leads us. Highly accurate translations in more languages could also help to spot harmful content and misinformation, protect election integrity, and curb instances of online sexual exploitation and human trafficking.”
While commenting on accessibility and inclusion in the pursuit of building an equitable metaverse, Ide Siddo added “At Meta, we are working today to ensure that as many people as possible will be able to access the new educational, social and economic opportunities that the next evolution of the internet will bring to future technology and an everyday living experience tomorrow.”
To confirm that the translations are high quality, Meta also created a new evaluation dataset, FLORES-200 and measured NLLB-200’s performance in each language. Results revealed that NLLB-200 exceeds the previous state of the art by an average of 44 per cent.
Meta is also open-sourcing the NLLB-200 model and publishing a slew of research tools to enable other researchers to extend this work to more languages and build more inclusive technologies. Meta AI is also providing up to $200,000 of grants to non-profit organizations for real-world applications for NLLB-200.
Partnership with Wikipedia
There are versions of Wikipedia in more than 300 languages, but most have far fewer articles than the 6+ million available in English.
Following Meta’s partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that hosts Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects, modelling techniques and learnings from the NLLB research are now also being applied to translation systems used by Wikipedia editors.
Using the Wikimedia Foundation’s Content Translation Tool, articles can now be easily translated in more than 20 low-resource languages (those that don’t have extensive datasets to train AI systems), including 10 that previously were not supported by any machine translation tools on the platform.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A former member of the House of Representatives, Mr Onamusi Onadeko, has been sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment with an option of a fine of N50,000.
The former lawmaker, who represented Ogun East Federal Constituency in the National Assembly from 1999 to 2003, was sentenced by Justice Chizoba Oji of the Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja on Thursday, July 30, 2026.
He was found guilty on count 11 and convicted for making inconsistent statements but discharged and acquitted on counts 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
Mr Onadeko’s journey to the court started in 2017, when he was charged by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for his alleged involvement in the award and execution of a N68.7 million contract.
The politician, according to a statement from the ICPC, was accused of using his private companies, Stanton Engineering Limited and Haines and Baines Limited, to execute several constituency projects while working as a Senior Legislative Aide to late Senator Buruji Kashamu, who represented Ogun East Senatorial District between 2015 and 2019.
The commission, had in the course of the eight years trial told the court that several contracts like buying of ambulance vehicles, supply of hospital equipment and drugs for Primary Health Centres, as well as construction of classrooms for some selected schools in six communities of Ogun East Senatorial District, were awarded to both Stanton Engineering Limited and Haines and Baines, where the convict doubles as a Managing Director and nominal Director, respectively, an action that violates Sections 12 and 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.
ICPC also accused Mr Onadeko of making an inconsistent statement that contradicted the one previously made to the Commissioner for Oaths, where he stated that he is a Director of Haines and Baines Limited in an affidavit dated June 30, 20216, but subsequently wrote another statement while under investigation on May 5, 2017, that he is not a shareholder or Director of Haines and Baines Limited.
This action violates Section 25(1)(b) of the ICPC Act and, upon conviction, is liable to a fine not exceeding N100,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both such fine and imprisonment.
However, Mr Onadeko, through his counsel, Mr Wahab Olatoyebi, argued in the course of the trial that his client was not a public officer as his appointment at that material time was on a short-term basis and non-pensionable, hence he, (Onadeko) did not fall within the category of those that could be tried under Sections 12 and 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000 which criminalize and punish abuse of office by public officers.
But this argument was rejected by Justice Oji, who stressed that based on the defendant’s letter of appointment as well as the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Federal Government of Nigeria v. Farouk Lawan, legislative aides are public officers and therefore could be prosecuted under the relevant provisions of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Governor of Oyo State, Mr Seyi Makinde, has inaugurated a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to investigate the abduction of students and teachers from Esinele and Yawota communities in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State.
The governor formally inaugurated the commission at the Executive Council Chamber of the Governor’s Office, Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan.
Speaking at the event, Governor Makinde said that although the successful rescue of the victims brought relief to the state, it did not provide complete closure.
He explained that the decision to set up an independent commission was not intended to undermine the efforts of security agencies but to ensure that every question surrounding the incident is thoroughly addressed and lessons are learnt to prevent a recurrence.
He charged members of the commission to conduct a thorough, impartial, and evidence-based investigation, assuring them of the state government’s full support. He also called on individuals and relevant institutions to cooperate fully with the panel.
Speaking on behalf of the commission, its chairman, Professor Mojeed Owoade, pledged that members would carry out the assignment with integrity, professionalism, and fairness. He added that the panel would seek an extension if necessary to complete its work.
Governor Makinde gave the commission four weeks to submit its report.
Earlier this month, the pupils and teachers abducted in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State regained their freedom after 56 days in captivity.
According to the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga, eight of the kidnappers had been arrested, but the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 23 sentenced three suspects in the abduction to life imprisonment.
According to the court, the sentencing of Mr Abdulrazak Umar, known under the alias Abu Khalifa/Abu Khalid; Mr Yunusa Musa, alias Yunusa Bin Musa; and Mr Shamsu Adamu Sani, alias Abu Itisar, will start from the date of their arrest.
Before their sentencing by Justice Salim Ibrahim, counsel for the defendants pleaded with the court to sentence them on liberal terms, adding that they were first-time offenders and had pleaded guilty.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Two Chinese, Mr Zhang Hong Lin and Mr Gao Pei Hai, have been convicted and sentenced by Justice Akintayo Aluko of the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, for conspiracy and the illegal mining of solid minerals.
They were both found guilty on all five counts levelled against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and sentenced each to five years’ imprisonment on each count, with an option of a N50 million fine covering all five counts.
The court also ordered the forfeiture of the mineral resources recovered from them to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The defendants were arraigned on a five-count charge bordering on conspiracy and the unlawful possession of mineral resources intended for export without lawful authority.
“That you, Zhang Hong Lin, Gao Pei Hai, and Gao Pei Yu (currently at large), sometime in 2025 in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this court, conspired among yourselves, with the intent to defraud the Federal Government of Nigeria of revenue accruing therefrom, and without the permission of the appropriate authority, engaged in the exportation of mica products, copper-bearing, and lithium-bearing mineral resources out of Nigeria, thereby committing an offence contrary to Section 1(8)(a) of the Miscellaneous Offences Act, 1983, and punishable under Section 8 of the same Act,” one of the charges read.
The defendants pleaded guilty when the charges were read to them, with the prosecution counsel, H.U. Kofarnaisa, calling the investigating officer, Matthew Orogwu, who reviewed the facts of the case and tendered documentary evidence before the court.
After presenting the evidence, Kofarnaisa urged the court to convict and sentence the defendants in line with the charges.
